Exposition
Watching Music (2015)
Anja BronsAbout this exposition
Name: Anja Brons
Main Subject: Bassoon
Research Coach: Wouter Verschuren
Title of Research: Watching Music
Research Question:
How can the kinetic paintings of Norman Perryman lead to a deeper experience of classical music?
Summary of Results:
Norman Perryman paints with liquid paint on glass plates that lay on several overhead projectors. The painting is projected on a large screen behind the musicians, in live classical concerts. Because the watercolours are flowing and the paintbrush is moving, it is called “kinetic” painting, which means “moving”. This artist developed the art form of kinetic painting on music for almost forty years, and performed with famous orchestra's, conductors and musicians all over the world. The late violinist Yehudi Menuhin called him “a musician, who makes music with his brush”. His aim is to enhance the music with his kinetic painting.
When I saw for the first time a live performance of him, together with a clarinettist, I was very surprised about the way that visual arts and music were brought together, and how that led me to a deeper experience of the music. Although not everyone will have this same experience (some others will experience the painting as detracting), I wanted to research how it can be that his kinetic painting is able to enhance the experience of music for some people, including for me.
To come to an understanding of this, I studied the historical context of the combination of visual art and music, and I pointed out the role of synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in another sensory. In this case it means that some people automatically see colours when they hear music. Perryman is using this phenomenon in some way in his paintings.
An interview with Norman Perryman in his atelier in Amsterdam helped me to come to an understanding of the methods that he is using to paint with classical music. The reason that the kinetic painting is able to lead to a deeper experience can be because of some correspondences between classical music and Perryman's kinetic painting. For example: He intentionally uses an analogue art form, to let it correspond with the purity of the acoustic sound in classical music. Another resemblance is that Perryman does not improvise on the music, but he prepares his compositions carefully; like a classical piece is composed and not improvised, or like a choreography is designed, with an interplay and counterpoint between the musical lines.
To approach the subject from different angles (beside the context, my own experiences and the intentions of Perryman) I gathered some remarkable experiences that other people had with the kinetic painting of Perryman: some interviews with musicians that cooperated with him, some reviews of performances in the newspapers, and some responses that Perryman received after the concerts.
Biography:
Anja Brons was born in the Netherlands, in 1989. She started to play bassoon when she was 9 years old, and at the age of 19 she started to study bassoon at the conservatory in Groningen, in the prepatory year. In this same time she started a study at the Art Academy in Groningen, but after one year she decided to quit there, to be able to focus on the music study. She is still searching for ways to combine her passion for both music and visual arts. In this research these two art forms come together.
| type | research exposition |
|---|---|
| keywords | Norman Perryman, kinetic painting, synaesthesia, visual music |
| date | 01/01/2015 |
| published | 02/06/2015 |
| last modified | 02/06/2015 |
| status | limited publication |
| license | All rights reserved |
| url | https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/63729/63730 |
| published in | KC Research Portal |
| portal issue | 3. Internal publication |
Copyrights
| name | Research Watching Music |
|---|---|
| copyright | Anja Brons |
| license | All rights reserved |
| usages |
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