This project began by asking: in what ways can visual music be used to perceive rhythm? As the research progressed, additional questions surfaced, such as how is rhythm embedded within our visually-dominated experiences, how is the visual encoded with sound, and what are ways visual rhythms can be used for composition.

The building and prototyping process was key to exploring these questions, and in doing so, the final question of what are ways in which composition can be intertwined with performance and experimental notation guided the completion of this Thesis.

What is rhythm?
In the first presentation of this Thesis concept (September 22, 2010), rhythm was defined as, “movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat, accent, or differing conditions.” This definition was a combination of common wisdom, institutionalized knowledge, and my personal relationship with the term. Keywords from this initial definition that were carried through this project were “movement,” “process/procedure,” and “recurrence.”

A term that is missing from this definition is “perception.” Whether it is the light reflecting off a city wall, the sound of the breeze blowing through a tree, or the computer on the table top, the world that surrounds us is constantly giving off some form of rhythmic pulse. Unintelligible vibrations, such as radio transmissions and infrared light, is where technology can be exploited to map those frequencies to a space where they can be perceived.

Concepts such as the Gestalt principles and the multiplicity of speech cadence, the notion that we are perpetually in the process of attempting to perceive and create meaning out the rhythms that surround us, is paramount to this project.