The Visual Music Film
Aimee Mollaghan
ISBN: 9781137492821
DOI: 10.1057/9781137492821
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The Visual Music Film
Aimee Mollaghan
10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2015-10-27
The Visual Music Film
10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2015-10-27
Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture
Series Editor: K.J. Donnelly, University of Southampton, UK
Advisory Board: Philip Brophy, Australia, Michel Chion, University of Paris
III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, France, Sean Cubitt, Goldsmiths, University of London,
UK, Claudia Gorbman, University of Washington Tacoma, USA, Lev Manovich,
Graduate Centre, CUNY, USA and Elisabeth Weis, Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA.
The aesthetic union of sound and image has become a cultural dominant. A junc-
tion for aesthetics, technology and theorisation, film’s relationship with music
remains the crucial nexus point of two of the most popular arts and richest cul-
tural industries. Arguably, the most interesting area of culture is the interface of
audio and video aspects, and that film is the flagship cultural industry remains
the fount and crucible of both industrial developments and critical ideas.
Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture has an agenda-setting aspiration.
By acknowledging that radical technological changes allow for rethinking exist-
ing relationships, as well as existing histories and the efficacy of conventional
theories, it provides a platform for innovative scholarship pertaining to the
audio-visual. While film is the keystone of the audio-visual continuum, the series
aims to address blind spots such as video game sound, soundscapes and sound
ecology, sound psychology, art installations, sound art, mobile telephony and
stealth remote viewing cultures.
Titles include:
Anna Katharina Windisch and Claus Tieber (editors)
THE SOUNDS OF SILENT FILMS
New Perspectives on History, Theory and Practice
Danijela Kulezic-Wilson
THE MUSICALITY OF NARRATIVE FILM
Aimee Mollaghan
THE VISUAL MUSIC FILM
Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–42975–9 hardcover
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–42976–6 paperback
(outside North America only)
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us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and
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10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
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The Visual Music Film
Aimee Mollaghan
Lecturer in Media, Film and Television at Edge Hill University, UK
10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
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© Aimee Mollaghan 2015
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978–1–137–49281–4
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10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Questions of Attribution and Contribution: What
Constitutes a Visual Music Film? 9
2 The Formal Absolute in the Visual Music Film 35
3 The Spiritual Absolute in the Visual Music Film 67
4 Experimentation and Technological Innovation 97
5 Conceptions of Harmony in the Work of John Whitney 140
Conclusion 173
Notes 177
Bibliography 196
Index 210
vii
10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
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Figures and Tables
Figures
3.1 Jordan Belson, image from Allures (1961). © Center for
Visual Music 89
3.2 Jordan Belson, image from Samadhi (1967). © Center for
Visual Music 91
4.1 Images from the film Kreise (1933–34) by Oskar
Fischinger. © Center for Visual Music 102
4.2 Images used in Fischinger’s Ornament Sound experiments,
ca. 1932, which he photographed onto the optical track.
© Center for Visual Music 121
Tables
4.1 Visual motifs from Kreise, by Oskar Fischinger (1933–34) 103
5.1 Example of binary code 164
viii
10.1057/9781137492821 - The Visual Music Film, Aimee Mollaghan
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