Technology and the Composer

Technology is as it's being applied today in music and other forms of art has created a new niche in media and musical development. As an example, the newest album from the Black Eyed peas was all mixed using the iPad. This creates a way to make music all from your room at home, without hiring professional studio work etc. In section II Brun talks about technology and that it is the "science and the art of applying knowledge to the desire of problem solving," which one can conclude that this day in age, that technology serves as a messenger to delivering different forms of musical compositions to homes across the world. As said before, The Black Eyed Peas and other artists use technology either to distort their voices or to create beats that mesh with their vocals. The majority of music videos are made using technology and effects of the current day. The emergence of the user ,as it refers to the article, has grown to be an industry standard to mix musical rhythms and compositions with the technology of today's age. If not, we would still have the boring old music videos and mono sound we had in the old days.

A Relevant Historical Read

I entitled my blog "A Relevant Historical Read" because of one line in the piece the states, " The time has come for the technologist to see that composers are not merely music makers, or art makers, who think that there products have to measure up to an established standard of culture and who are eager to call them merchandise and sell them". This article was written in the 70's and the concept still applies today. It is a very important thought for any artist and emerging technology, especially in this day and age where technology is king. We as VJ's, DJ's, artist and so forth, can all be linked together through technology and embrace Brun's idea of the broaden composers title.

I think its incredible how even though this article was written over 40 years ago, reads like it was written yesterday. Possibly because technology has not stop advancing since the time it was written. Regardless of the brief mention of vacuum tubes and transistors, the article focuses on not the tech or composer but them being beneficial to one another. And even I on occasion have lost track of this idea.

I had no idea was a Teleharmonium was so I did a little research and found that its basically a giant electronic keyboard.


The Teleharmonium weighed 7 tons and the instrument was noted for its ability to reproduce the sounds of common orchestral woodwind instruments such as the flute, bassoon, clarinet, and also the cello.

Idealsitic Thought Experiment

Herbert Brun's paper, "Technology and the Composer", presented at the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in 1970, reads as a manifesto for a new system of communication and societal evolution. Herbert Brun defines Technology as "being the science and art of applying knowledge to the desire for problem solving(Section II, paragraph 4)". He defines "composer" as a creator of all forms of the arts, and expounds upon this idea to imbue both the composer and technologist as the creators of new systems of thought, which he refers to often as a language throughout the paper.

Herbert Brun admonishes the current state of our society, claiming that "industrialists" and "politicians" control the means of our technical and cultural phylogeny, using a polluted system of thought and communication to reproduce itself.

In Section III, Brun basically goes on to propose that centers, run by composers and technologists in as many locations around the world as possible, be set up to invent a new system, or systems, that together with the aid of artificial intelligence, would augment humanity's ability to create an ideal society.

I am not surprised that with the ending of his presentation on an abstract thought experiment, without the accompaniment of some more concrete steps with which to create these centers of thought, that the UNESCO assembly basically declared the proposal as incomprehensible. Herbert Brun's statements about the broken down systems of thought that most of society perpetuates itself through is very tell-tale and the idea of harnessing technology to help us better organize and create a more truthful, real and practical (Section III, paragraph 18) society is an interesting idea.

The Magic Lantern and some ideas possibly generated from the article

Hey guys, my name's Nick. I'm a sophomore English major. What I'm hoping to do is find some way to get my foot in the door for writing and possibly designing videogames or even something in film. So, I'm grabbing at every digital arts elective I can get to understand at least a tad of what everyone's doing in those fields. Plus, I enjoy classes that focus more on original creation than delving as hard into "the classics" as most liberal arts fiction classes do.

Ranting aside, the magic lantern was quite a shocking discovery for me. I had no idea that image capture and projection went back all the way to the 1600's. With such an advanced device in it's time, it's no wonder its first use was to create the first Halloween Horror Nights (essentially) and their year round equivalents (I have to call Pat out on this, and just say that here's an example where a new form of media did not begin with quasi-pornography *troll face* (whew, needed Courage Wolf for that ;D). The technology was so new and beyond the imaginations of the people at that time, that one of the first guys to do presentations with it, Johann Georg Schropfer, went insane, believing he actually had conjured demons that were following him. Sounds like it would be fun to use for the midterm project, but why make yourself crazy? haha.

As for the paper, the thing that struck me most was his observation that video projection is "nontemporal art without actually compromising the temporal dimension." While a performance art, it is not out of the hands of the viewer or artist and solely controlled by time. Through video editing, time bends to the will and one can view the performance in any way they choose, any segment at any time. I now have some inkling as to what kinds of things I may include in my project, but still do not have a full idea, I'd like to have a better grasp at what's available to me. It seems that time will bend to my will, but not the technology...yet.

Video Projection: The Emergence of Fusion

Hello everyone, first of all, I would like to introduce myself to you guys : )

My name is Shuang Li and I'm from People's Republic of China. I'm now a graduate student of

UFL, pursuing for the Master degree of Digital Arts and Science in DWI. You can call me Andy as well.

I am a music fanatic and my most-interested part of arts is Music Production, Sound Design, Soundtrack, etc. I produce music with Cubase/Nuendo System. I think I can do sound stuff in the team. It would be appreciated if some of you like music and let's just discuss about the collective field. This is the website on which I upload some of my music work demos: http://site.douban.com/andyleemusic Please feel free to click and try.

There is a genre of music called fusion and the Video Projection to me is more like a "Fusion".

In the fields of music, fusion is normally regarded as the combination of two or more different genres. Reading the article "The Emergence of Video Projection", I come to know more about the V-Projection.

The article introduces the origin of video projection and its development. Projection mentioned isn't showed as modern monitor-based video art but linked more intimately to the ancient art forms of painting and typical video projections. It starts from the projected presentation. The booming of science and technologies makes the projection more and more multi-cultural. It develops with the pace of contemporary arts, being applied to many fields nowadays, such as live music, theater, dancing performance, etc. Some outstanding artists helped improve the projection tech. Viola and Hill, as the propeller, created some incredible works to stimulate our sense.

Projection has deep roots in the core medium. It tells a story by integrating photos, videos, music and some other media together. As the article said, "Like photography, projected video is full of legible information taken from the material world." When producing projection, we collect information from the real world we share by digital devices and input them into the computer. After a innovative production, just imagine how the digital projection on the multi-dimension screen will be. Accompanied with rhythmic flashing light and 5.1 dolby surround sound, audiences just stand in the center of the projected presentation space and feel other than watch. That would be fascinating.

This is a work produced by the technique: 3D Projection Mapping. 3D projection is any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane.

This is another one, which is defined as music-visualization.

Looking forward to do some stuff with you guys.

C U then.

Shuang Li

Video Projection: The Evolution

Hi class, my name is Jay and I'm a third year, marketing major. My plan is to make it into the video game industry as a marketing field rep. Thus, I figure taking these digital arts classes will help me understand the industry better and how the people work in it. First impression of this class is that it seems complicated, but I'm going to trust Pat that if I can understand this first part, everything else will be smooth sailing, which brings me to discuss our first article reading.

First of all, I never knew video projection was considered an art form. I just thought of it as a way to make screens really big for large crowd-viewing purposes. I like how video projection contrasts with traditional art forms such as 2D displays on a canvas. The fact that the beauty of video projection lies in what you see and that it continually changes to tell a story as opposed to analyzing a still image. It's a lot more thrilling to say the least. However, video projection can also be very abstract as Gary Hill demonstrated through his piece, Tall Ships. I'd like to call it moving art just because it seems fitting. Today, art has branched out so far and I feel as if traditional art has lost its prominence, but video projection seems like a promising field in this generation.

It's funny how video projection started centuries ago with the Magic Lantern, and how it was basically used to troll people. The wikipedia article even states that Johann Georg Schröpfer tricked people by depicting spirits of revolutionary figures with the magic lantern mounted on a trolley. Maybe this is where the term, "trolling," comes from. Anyhow, it's just amazing how they came up with this device back in the 17th century and how it has progressed since then. Here is a picture:

Introduction, Magic lanterns and the Emergence of Video Projection

Hi guys,

I'm Wes Rodriguez, a senior Telecommunication production major, who's interests are in photography and film. I really look forward to becoming a Director of Photography for motion picture or television in the future. I'm using this class to explore a different niche in digital media and presentation through projection. Hopefully I'll take these skills with me in my future career.
The Magic Lantern is one of the earliest types of projectors developed in the 17th century. The lantern has a concave mirror in front of a light source that gathers light and projects it through a slide with an image scanned onto it, much like what you see with digital cameras today.



The Emergence of Video Projection talks about how video projection has evolved since its early stages of film projection and how many businesses have adopted video projection into their presentations and locations. A very interesting article that elaborates on the artistic element of projection and how projection differs from photography and film in terms of consciousness. It brings up a valid point because when I see visually stunning display of images interlaced with music, I'm taken to a different place in your mind. As an example, listening to ambient trance music gives some people relaxation and triggers happiness and soothing emotions. The visual artistic projection then allows the listener to go through a "passage of time." A way to leave one's current state of mind and feel the music. It's the beauty of video projection that you can define your own artistic passage and share it in a way others can enjoy.