From Shapes in the Moment to Shapes in Time: Pioneers in Musical Organization of the Visual

The exploration of “concrete”, non-instrumental sound sources in music in the 20th century has led to new insights into the importance of experiential “space” in music. At the same time — somewhat ironically — the application of musical thought to image has encouraged visual abstraction. Both this shift to “concrete” materials in music and the shift to “abstract” materials in visual arts have highlighted important principles for audio-visual creation. This essay considers briefly a handful of thinkers and artists who have explicitly brought a musically-informed thinking to developing time-based abstraction in visual arts, and have, in the process, revealed a concern common to both domains: the sculpting of experiential shapes out of time.