'Computer Music Paintings' - Kim Cascone

'Computer Music Paintings'
[a series of four paintings by Kim Cascone]

Artist Statement:
This series of visuals came about while I was designing cover art for 'The Crystalline Address (Sub Rosa 2002),' a CD I produced with Robin Rimbaud (a.k.a. Scanner). Around this time I was also working on a lecture concerning the lack of 'gestural theater' in music performed on laptop computers. Not surprisingly, the focus of reviewing gesture in the arts (particularly music) was a major motivation in the creation of this work.

In order to help set the mood for these design/writing sessions I had immersed myself completely in computer music from the 1960's and 1970's. Consequently, these images took on the stark, cold, inhuman and synthetic qualities of machine art. Much of the computer music of that era explored these qualities while describing the brave new landscape of machine music.

I attempt to operate on various levels in these pieces: gestural descriptions displacing the intended content in a work, the movements of a laptop musicians' mouse during a laptop performance, the data flow in my Max/MSP patches, the imagery of information architecture, and animation paths. All of these abstractions are descriptions of a type of movement involved in computer music. These paintings are merely descriptions of movement and because they are cast in form, they become the creation.

Painting titles:
1- 'VOSIM (The Crystalline Address)'
2- 'Chowning FM'
3- 'Modulation Index'
4- 'Interpolation Noise'

Painting Specs:
4 paintings 24" x 24" each
Studio canvas with Hewlett-Packard inks

***Galleries interested in showing this new work please contact:
[email protected]