Orphics: Sonatine

Orphics:Sonatine

This is an experimental work showing the second movement of Maurice Ravel's Sonatine structured with color in space and time.

Sonatine is the first composition that translates a musical work into its visual counterpart, not with an arbitrarily set theme, but according to predefined rules. As the music unfolds, each frame closely portrays in space and time, the sound organization of a particular musical measure.

Within this spatial framework, the passage of time is shown trough changes in color relations rather than through objects changing positions. The color relations are founded on the interval given by the four unique primaries (RGBY), and on a system of scales having individual color gamuts.

Ravel's Sonatine has been used as a testing ground. Existing musical works will be used until a platform is established for autonomous Orphics compositions.

Brochure from the XVth International Video and Electronic Arts Festival, Locarno, Switzerland, 1995
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Sonatine, 1992, NTSC, Umatic 3/4" videotape, Programmed by the author using Pascal with Premiere, on a Mac II computer with a Truevision NuVista graphics card, Music: Sonatine by Maurice Ravel, Piano: Aleksander Rojc