Time As A Helix of Semiprecious Stones

Time As A Helix of Semiprecious Stones
Composition for Kandinsky

Kandinsky saw houses and churches decorated with such shimmering colours that he said "...upon entering them I had the impression that I was moving into a painting." Music was also a critical influence on his painting... In Kandinsky’s work, some characteristics are obvious while others are more discrete and veiled; they reveal themselves only progressively to those who make the effort to spend time and look into his work.

"Time As A Helix" continues my experiments with RGB color beginning with CHROMA in December and "Prime Radiant" for Misprint Thursday's "Visualizing Theorem" show at UTSA in April. I am fascinated at the computer's ability to make infinite shadings and tonals of color combined with translucency/reflection/transparency; a plastic fantastic palette.

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I decided to reference the work of Mondrian in the quasi-Mondrian Grid Generator - an homage to his Composition 10 and Broadway Boogie Woogie - because Mondrian's work was an inspiration to the early "pointillist/punctualist" compositions of Stockhausen and Boulez, to me one of the main roots of modern "ambient" soundscape/music. The loops in this composition all vary across 1/4-to-1/2-second timings, so the gradual drifting of the emphasis beats takes approximately 30 minutes or so before they end up back in sync (more or less; because of the nature of network lag/packet delay, the loops may never resync exactly, which is fun).


Kandinsky's "upward moving triangle" from Concerning the Spiritual In Art also makes an appearance in this piece. Like his work, Time attempts to transmit an emotional and subjective mood to the viewer through color and movement. The slow shifts and rotations of parts of the color-cloud provide more time variables to accompany and complement the soundscape.

The outlying cubes are the ghosts of Mondrian's rectangles and squares, the colors escaping from his 2d grid into the 3d surround of Kandinsky's "interior mood".


The title is adapted from the Samuel R Delany story, "Time Considered As A Helix of Semi-precious Stones," a title which always has invoked for me a mystical, philosophic mood quite apart from the story itself; a kind-of abstract mantra guaranteed to put me in a reflective mood.


To me, one of the feelings in 'Time' is that of... walking in a city in the rain

SLurl: Time As A Helix Of Semiprecious Stones
@ UWA 3D Challenge

Flickr photo set