Celebration of Learning Project: Kandinsky Visualizer

Student: Adam Merki
Project: Kandinsky Visualizer
Course: CMAP 8010: Creative Media Practice
Faculty Sponsor: Lutz Koepnick, German, Russian & East European Studies

Inspired by Kandinsky’s writings concerning synesthesia in On the Spiritual in Art (1911), the “Kandinsky Visualizer” seeks to bring to life Kandinsky’s theories concerning the experience of sound and color. Utilizing Cycling ‘74’s software Max 7, the visualizer produces is a series of concentric circles in a form akin to the painting Squares with Concentric Circles (Farbstudie – Quadrate und konzentrische Ringe, 1913). The object or program functions by separating the incoming frequency into a series of ranges, similar to a graphic equalizer on a stereo.

Using the incoming ranges, peaks in volume are calculated which thereby determine the brightness of the perceived color. Although the project has yet to actualize the entirety of Kandinsky’s theories surrounding color, which include variation in shape and the motion of colors in a three-dimensional sense, the overall objective is to heighten the viewers awareness of their aural environment through visual stimulus.