If you’ll allow me to reuse an aside I made in that thread which is more apropros here:
Fireworks and lava lamps are two of the few common forms of non-representational dynamic visual stimulation.
Visual stimulation: It is based on what it looks like rather than sound, kinesthetics, mental concepts or imaginings. I hesitate to call them art but they’re at least entertainment.
Non-representational: They are based on shapes and colors but does not actually depict anything. In this way, they’re like abstract art.
Dynamic: Unlike most abstract visual art, they move.
I remember someone mentioning in an art thread about abstract art that classical music is usually non-representational yet a lot of people enjoy it. Even in non-classical music, the melody and accompaniment are usually non-representational and the lyrics are often chosen more for the way they sound than for their representational content. So most people have no problem with abstract audio art, it’s usually abstract visual art that leaves them cold.
Then I thought that seeing visual art that doesn’t move is a lot like listening to audio art that doesn’t change chords or that keeps playing the same few notes.
I watched this: - YouTube and thought that even if all the representational video content were replaced with non-representational video content and the audio were taken out, it would still be stimulating.
Could abstract visual art be more potentially popular than is commonly thought? Could the reason it’s not that actually popular is because most abstract visual artists limit themselves to static rather than dynamic art? If Mondrian were alive today and made the same kind of art, undertaking the same artistic project but by using animation/computer graphics, would it be more widely appreciated?
Well, it’s dynamic in your head. The Mondriaan is a pretty strong HHermann grid.
FWIW, as far as abstract art goes, Mondriaan is one of the better ones. Malevich, less so. Not sure what abstract audio art means. On one end, we have the minimalist 4’33". On the other, free jazz type stuff. Both leave me cold.
I don’t know if you’re necessarily on to anything for everyone. But, fractals are inherently cool, though, and don’t explicitly move except by one’s perspective.
I should have been more precise. I use “abstract” to mean “non-representational”. For example, an abstract visual art piece may be made of squares and triangles. It does not represent anything other than those. On the other hand, a painting of an elephant is representational.
Representational audio art might be a poetry reading or the lyrics of a song or the sound of an elephant. Abstract audio art encompasses pretty much all music made with musical instruments.
They don’t represent anything. The enjoyment people get comes from the interplay of the notes. Much like the enjoyment/awe of lava lamps, fireworks and fractal videos comes from the interplay of texture, form, size, space, shape, color, tone and line.
I’m not well versed in contemporary digital art, but two well known “dynamic abstract visual artists” from modern art’s heyday are Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Stan Brakhage, who worked in film. See Lightplay and Mothlight, respectively. They are, as far as I know, not popular, nor as popular as some “static” modern artists from their time period.
So that’s one data point saying modern art’s popularity doesn’t depend on movement. Maybe if Mothlight were queued to the iTunes visualizer…
Ah. We are more visual creatures, so are more tuned to deviations from what we feel is right with images. I am not sure that the two can be compared otherwise. Some people may enjoy abstract art (one could also make the case that they are pretending to). But often with instrumental music, we may just “know” that it sounds nice or is jarring, even without dissonance. Things like minor chords can make it more “depressing,” but most non-musicians cannot articulate why.
And as far as lava lamps, I “like” them but I don’t spend a long time looking at them (maybe that would change with substances, I don’t know). They are background noise. Although perhaps that would change if they were novel, just like you go to museums for pictures, but don’t spend much time thinking of the pictures on your walls.
It’s the sound of something which actually exists. That sound could be used to represent that object, especially if it were functioning properly. The funny/enjoyable part of the video is that it sounds like (depending on your tastes) pleasant abstract sound i.e.: hip hop.
We get the reverse effect when we recognize faces in clouds; we go from abstract to representational.
I undersand that the language I use is clunky but I haven’t found a simple and precise way to express what I mean. Audio and video can be used to represent something. It need not be something which actually exists e.g.: if it had the audio or video of a unicorn or a ghost, it would still be representational. An entity can exist physically like my computer does. Or it can exist as an interaction like Internet does. Or it can exist in a reference-based way like Santa Clause does.
So what would one call a painting that only has lines, blobs and geometrical shapes in it? That’s what I mean by abstract.
French Toast:
I can see why they’re not popular. They look like bad acid trips with little/no color. Also, a fair amount of what they show is recognizable as glass bubbles, steel pipes, leaves. If those video arrangements were somehow translated into sound, they would be cacophonous.
Lurkinghorror:
“We are more visual creatures”
Agreed.
“so are more tuned to deviations from what we feel is right with images.”
Sure. But it should also mean that we are more stimulated when we perceive something which is right with an image.
“Things like minor chords can make it more “depressing,” but most non-musicians cannot articulate why.”
The same can be said of video. Blue and black are liable to get people in a tranquil or somber mood. Red makes people livelier.
There’s plenty of kinetic abstract art. The most famous are the mobiles of Alexander Calder (who also did stabiles, like The Great Sail at MIT), but I’ve seen plenty of moving sculptures and installations at museums and galleries.
George Rhoades has a series of mechanical kinetic sculptures
