Proposal 21 March 2013
Paul Greedy and Tom Ellard
We intend to build an updated version of Wilfred’s Clavilux light music instrument. The Clavilux was one of many attempts made throughout the 20thC to create an equivalent to a sonic musical instrument. Implicit in the idea is that there is a correspondence between frequencies of sound and of light and that light can be scored according to musical rules. This remains an elusive goal.
The proposed device combines analogue and digital processes. The colour signal starts as a computer generated source. It is processed by analogue reflections and refractions, as was the case in the original instrument. This makes best use of available technologies and is a coherent advance on the original.
The user controls the digital light source via an easily learned interface, most likely a touch pad. Wilfred designed the Clavilux to fulfil the colour theories of Theosophy, a religious group to which many artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Schoenberg belonged. Wilfred’s invention was a late manifestation of Theosophical thought, and our machine keeps this idea central.
Practically this means a control interface that is easy to use and is designed to present this philosophy – equating certain colours with certain moods and ideals. That may not exactly correspond with Wilfred’s designs but is true to the importance of the instrument and a large part of colour music as a whole.
At this stage we intend there to be a free standing cabinet about the size of a cupboard. There will be a computer and a video projector aimed at a mechanical optical mechanism. The computer software will provide light as scored according to Theosophical ideas, guided by the user. The optics will manipulate the light into an image formed on a screen on the face of the machine. It’s more like a television than a projector – it’s intimate, personal and at odds with the current tendency to large-scale architectural video works.
The proposed division of labour at this point is for Paul to source a suitable cabinet and for Tom to start on the interface.
