The Fear of Silence

In the documentary "Lumia" by the 13Bit Productions, we see some of Wilfred's Lumia works. When supposedly silent art was always accompanied by the film's theme music, it recalls the fear of silence that I have experienced in colour music literatures.

Thomas Wilfred performed his Clavilux along with classical music in several occasions, more so in his earlier career as a light artist. He then profoundly declared the birth of Lumia and decided to relocate himself into more isolation even leaving the music behind in his practice.

The brutal scrutiny in colour music criticisms is evidently shown in various review articles from many of early 20th century music publications and it is hard to imagine that Wilfred's declaration was indeed the winner's statement.

Why wasn't the Wilfred's Lumia work presented in silence in the documentary? The fear of silence reflects the fear of confronting music in colour music. The vague testimonies of musicality by people's reaction to Lumia are rather performances to reaffirm their educated assumption in colour music which they seem to believe that colour music begins and ends with music.

Whereas, I believe as I wrote in my previous post, colour music begins and ends with colours. It is not about colour for a concert but colours in concert.

The transition from 'colour for a concert' to 'colours in concert' is the current drive behind my practice. However, I too often fear the silence.

The First Post: Colour Organ Performs

The performativity of colour organs desires in the Hegelian notion of social recognition: the identity of colour music. The genesis of colour music was arguably only brought up by the first generation of colour organs, which never held a supplementary but primary role to this particular art form. The display of colour in a concert setting was never limited to the idea of music visualisation but rather a metaphorical expression of colour dialogue between the music, art and our individual colour perceptions in concert.

The much familiar notion of musicality generally dominates the discourse on kineticism, and the poetic use of the term 'music' in colour music often mislead us to believe that the idea of music in this particular context is the framework for the final outcome.

This blog is dedicated to collate different movements of colour organ designs and to show how they have performed to move forward the field of colour music to present, and future.