Article from the Norwegian publication “Programbladet” , 21 – 27 April, Nr. 17, 1968
Visual music:
Rolf Aamot calls his work “Relief”, in which music, dance, costumes and light is integrated. He is calling it a “nonfigurative figurative” form, with human as center focus. (Television – Sunday 9:50pm)
The composition consists of the following elements: Film, soundtracks, dance, light and costume.
The film is a pure visual music recording, and it is making the foundation for the rest of the composition: The soundtrack, consisting of electronic music by Bjørn Fongaard, and the choreography by Edith Roger which is based on the visual music. Finally there is the costume as an important part, as a tonal element, and the light is adapting all parts into a unity.
——Can You explain a bit about how the film was made?
——The film is a tonal-instrument -recording, cinematically arranged.
I have constructed the instrument – the first in a series of instruments I would like to make. What is made on the instrument is transformed by filtering, tone combinations etc. This Process can in principle be compared with the lab process when electronic music is made.
The film is in the studio partly an independent unity – it is shown on its own on screen – and it is partly creating a décor and background for the choreography. The movement of this décor-element is closely following the movement of the dance in interplay. The soundtrack is a part of this unity, and the light is transforming everything in transit. During the recording these tonal elements is merging with the costumes, which are an element of its own.
——Does the different elements resound together in an internal relation in the same way as the notes in chord?
——The intention is for the different elements to resound together in the same way as for instance the different elements in the performance of an Opera. But with the difference that in this case we are based on a common artistic foundation. The tonal elements can be developed in sound and light in the same way, this can be adapted to include body language and light. This is not a place where several art forms meet, as in the performance of an Opera. We have a common language of picture, sound and movement as a foundation.
——What is Your purpose with this composition?
——In an integrated artistic foundation, to get a nonfigurative figurative form. We are based on a common foundation where association-value or the literary is without any value. It is not an external theater, not a literary theater, but a pure visual theater.
——The term “nonfigurative figurative” seems undeniably a bit self-contradictory?
——My intention is to lead people into a visual world where the person though expression visually creating in space, purely in terms of color areas and tone relationships.
——Does this have a purpose apart from the purely aesthetic?
——Any arts and craft object has its own value. The shapes have in itself a human expression. By using pure lines and nuance and body language, which is solely movement, you will get closer to the singular humane rather than using literary or compromised-solutions in a way you find in the theater all the time. On a purely artistic foundation we get a visual theater performance that is solely dependent on its own values, and the distance in reaching the audience will become shorter – even if they at first react in a negative way. It is not possible to have any disturbing associations because there is nothing to associate with – at least from my point of view.
——Could there not be less elements, based on the same intentions?
——This is correct. My first visual music composition, shown in television a year ago, was solely a combination between visual music and electronic music. Buy progressing, by using other means of expression such as – theater, ballet – we are introducing body language into tone relationships. The humane form is expressing the pure abstract. In this way we get further contact with the audience – the subject matter gets stronger humane expression. We get human against human – not only picture against human. A picture where time is added as an artistic element gives us a direct effect of what the picture want to express. Imagine music’s and film’s way of engaging, exactly because time is an important element in the expression of these art forms. It is though light- and sound-impressions in motion that we comprehend ourselves and the world around us. Sound and light is the most direct media we have in relation to expressing the humane. Light has for thousands of years been used as a musical medium. By using the light we can create an art form mediated though the modern mass-media, particularly television, that will give the artist a new way of reaching a greater audience in a way that will certainly engage.
To reach this objective there will be a need to develop several visual instruments, mechanical and electronic. These instruments can be used alone, as an intermediary of pure visual expression – visual music – but also as a part of equipment used in a performance of a composition, where a synthesis of sound and light is created: Audio -visual concerts. In such collaboration both sound- and visual music will each be an independent art form, but will even so form an artistic unity. One of the purposes of the visual music is to establish collaboration between the different art forms, in which every art form keeps its independence.
Visual music:
Rolf Aamot calls his work “Relief”, in which music, dance, costumes and light is integrated. He is calling it a “nonfigurative figurative” form, with human as center focus. (Television – Sunday 9:50pm)
The composition consists of the following elements: Film, soundtracks, dance, light and costume.
The film is a pure visual music recording, and it is making the foundation for the rest of the composition: The soundtrack, consisting of electronic music by Bjørn Fongaard, and the choreography by Edith Roger which is based on the visual music. Finally there is the costume as an important part, as a tonal element, and the light is adapting all parts into a unity.
——Can You explain a bit about how the film was made?
——The film is a tonal-instrument -recording, cinematically arranged.
I have constructed the instrument – the first in a series of instruments I would like to make. What is made on the instrument is transformed by filtering, tone combinations etc. This Process can in principle be compared with the lab process when electronic music is made.
The film is in the studio partly an independent unity – it is shown on its own on screen – and it is partly creating a décor and background for the choreography. The movement of this décor-element is closely following the movement of the dance in interplay. The soundtrack is a part of this unity, and the light is transforming everything in transit. During the recording these tonal elements is merging with the costumes, which are an element of its own.
——Does the different elements resound together in an internal relation in the same way as the notes in chord?
——The intention is for the different elements to resound together in the same way as for instance the different elements in the performance of an Opera. But with the difference that in this case we are based on a common artistic foundation. The tonal elements can be developed in sound and light in the same way, this can be adapted to include body language and light. This is not a place where several art forms meet, as in the performance of an Opera. We have a common language of picture, sound and movement as a foundation.
——What is Your purpose with this composition?
——In an integrated artistic foundation, to get a nonfigurative figurative form. We are based on a common foundation where association-value or the literary is without any value. It is not an external theater, not a literary theater, but a pure visual theater.
——The term “nonfigurative figurative” seems undeniably a bit self-contradictory?
——My intention is to lead people into a visual world where the person though expression visually creating in space, purely in terms of color areas and tone relationships.
——Does this have a purpose apart from the purely aesthetic?
——Any arts and craft object has its own value. The shapes have in itself a human expression. By using pure lines and nuance and body language, which is solely movement, you will get closer to the singular humane rather than using literary or compromised-solutions in a way you find in the theater all the time. On a purely artistic foundation we get a visual theater performance that is solely dependent on its own values, and the distance in reaching the audience will become shorter – even if they at first react in a negative way. It is not possible to have any disturbing associations because there is nothing to associate with – at least from my point of view.
——Could there not be less elements, based on the same intentions?
——This is correct. My first visual music composition, shown in television a year ago, was solely a combination between visual music and electronic music. Buy progressing, by using other means of expression such as – theater, ballet – we are introducing body language into tone relationships. The humane form is expressing the pure abstract. In this way we get further contact with the audience – the subject matter gets stronger humane expression. We get human against human – not only picture against human. A picture where time is added as an artistic element gives us a direct effect of what the picture want to express. Imagine music’s and film’s way of engaging, exactly because time is an important element in the expression of these art forms. It is though light- and sound-impressions in motion that we comprehend ourselves and the world around us. Sound and light is the most direct media we have in relation to expressing the humane. Light has for thousands of years been used as a musical medium. By using the light we can create an art form mediated though the modern mass-media, particularly television, that will give the artist a new way of reaching a greater audience in a way that will certainly engage.
To reach this objective there will be a need to develop several visual instruments, mechanical and electronic. These instruments can be used alone, as an intermediary of pure visual expression – visual music – but also as a part of equipment used in a performance of a composition, where a synthesis of sound and light is created: Audio -visual concerts. In such collaboration both sound- and visual music will each be an independent art form, but will even so form an artistic unity. One of the purposes of the visual music is to establish collaboration between the different art forms, in which every art form keeps its independence.