Every generation, it seems, must re-discover and re-define the art of color-music for itself. And rarely does there appear to be awareness that previous activity has occurred.
Kenneth Peacock
A timeline is a useful way to organize information about an area so often taken to be all about the new. In addition to providing support for an item’s presence on the timeline, many of the entries in the additional information section contain links to original materials. Please let me know of events or material that should be added.
Additional information
| 1704 | Newton | Isaac Newton, Opticks, Prop. VI Prob. II. |
| 1725 | Castel | Maarten Franssen; Hankins, 1994; Peacock 1988, pp. 399-401; Graves 1951, p. 411; Wagler 1974, p. 162; Popper 1968, p 156. |
| 1789 | Darwin | Erasmus Darwin, The Botanical Garden Part II The Loves of Plants, Interlude III, p. 140; Peacock 1988, p. 401. |
| 1834 | Cole | Cole’s diary entry; Noble 1964, p. 140-141. |
| 1844 | Jameson | Peacock 1988, p. 401′ Popper 1968, p. 157. |
| 1869-73 | Kastner | Peacock 1988, p. 397; Popper 1968, p. 157. |
| 1877 | Bishop | Peacock 1988, p. 401; Popper 1968, p. 157. |
| 1893 | Rimington | Peacock 1988, pp. 401-2; Kushner 1990, p. 105; Popper 1968, p. 157. |
| 1894 | Lind | Kargon 2011, p. 1. |
| 1903 | Michelson | Hankins, 1994, p. 155. Wagler 1974, p. 162; Birren 1961, p. 165. |
| 1906 | “Visual music” | John E. Bowlt 1986, p. 171; James M. Baker 2002, p. 71. |
| 1909 | Kandinsky | Holtzman 1994, p. 72. |
| 1909 | Shoenberg | Gerstner 1986, p. 165. |
| 1912-13 | Survage | Putnam 1929, pp. 112-129; Russett and Starr 1988, p. 35; MOMA’s Colored Rhythm: 59 Studies for the film. |
| 1912 | Hector | Peacock 1988, p. 403; State Library of New South Wales’ Alexander Burnett Hector page. |
| 1915 | Scriabin | Graves 1951 p. 411; Gerstner 1986, p. 165; Peacock 1985, pp. 402-3; James M. Baker, 2002, pp. 61-95. |
| 1916 | Russell | Kushner 1990, pp. 105-109. |
| 1920 | Rossine | Gerstner 1986, p. 165. |
| 1921 | Greenewalt | Amy Alexander’s Mary Hallock Greenewalt Visibility Project; Peacock 1988, p. 404. |
| 1921 | Ruttmann | Russett and Starr 1988, p.40; Duchting 1997, p. 40. |
| 1921 | Richter | deGuthmann 1974, p. 8; Holtzman 1994, p. 188; Von Hofacker in Foster [ed.] 1998, p. 256; Moritz “Restoring the aesthetics of early abstract films”. |
| 1922 | Rossine | Rossine’s Optiphonic Piano; Gerstner 1986, p. 165. |
| 1922 | Wilfred | Claire Voon’s Hyperallergic article; Malina 1974, p. 64; Pelligrino 1983, pp. 5-6; Peacock 1988, pp. 404-405. |
| 1923 | Hirshfeld-Mack | Peacock 1988, p.404; Duchting 1997, p. 40. |
| 1924 | Eggeling | Graves 1951, p. 413; Holtzman 1994, p. 188. |
| 1924 | Macdonald-Wright | Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1924; South, 2001, pp.30-35. |
| 1930 | Fischinger | Russett and Starr 1988, p.57; Center for Visual Music’s Oskar Fischinger site. |
| 1930 | Moholy-Nagy | Moholy-Nagy 1970, p. 148; Harvard Museum Gallery Text. |
| 1934 | Greenewalt | See 1921 Greenewalt (above). |
| 1934-35 | Bute | Center for Visual Music’s Mary Ellen Bute site. |
| 1939-40 | Whitneys | Whitney 1980, p. 225 |
| 1946 | Smith | The Harry Smith archives; Bill Mortz’s 2001 talk at the Getty’s Harry Smith Symposium; Igliori 1996, p. 30. |
| 1952 | Asimov | Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire, chapter 17. |
| 1953 | Pask | Pask, “A comment, a case history and a plan,” also in Reichardt 1971, pp. 76-99; Usman Haque’s description. |
| 1955 | Fischinger | U.S. Patent # 2,707,103; CVM’s Lumigraph page. |
| 1955 | Bass | Christian Annyas’ Saul Bass Title Sequences page. |
| 1957 | Belson | Center for Visual Music’s Jordan Belson Bibliography; Youngblood 1970, pp. 157-177; Igliori 1986, p. 269; Cindy Keefer’s SF Museum of Art post. |
| 1958 | Philips | Philips design; Pellegrino 1983, p. 12; Gerstner 1988, p. 167. |
| 1968 | Leonardo | Leonardo/ISAST |
| 1968 | Trumbull | Youngblood 1970, pp. 151-156. |
| 1969 | Macdonald-Wright | South 2001, p. 143. There is information about the CVM restoration of the filmstrips and their use in performance on their VMFilms page. |
| 1969 | WGBH | The video is available on vimeopro; James Nadeau’s MIT Comparative Media Studies Master’s Thesis; Girondo’s Lists of Films; Youngblood 1970, p. 306. |
| 1970 | Gerstner | Gerstner 1986, pp. 124-162. |
| 1973 | Cohen | Kurzweil CyberArt’s History of AARON; Holtzman 1994, pp. 179-188. |
| 1974-79 | Spiegel | Spiegel’s Retiary Ramblings and Graphical Groove: Memorium for a Visual Music System. |
| 1980 | Whitney | Whitney, Digital Harmony, 1980; Paul Prudence’s Dataisnature post. |
| 1982 | Kandinsky | Amanda Brown’s Guggenheim Archives entry; Gerstner 1986, p. 166. |
| 1984 | Stadnik | George Stadnik’s Photon Guitar page; George’s photonlightguitars site. |
| 1985 | Malinowski | Stephen’s Music Animation Machine site; the MAM Timeline. |
| 1990 | Evans | Evans 1990; Holtzman 1994, pp. 189-90. |
| 1998 | Twist | Basil Twist site. |
| 1999 | Cohen | US Coast Card’s Bindu Visualization of Music page. |
| 1999 | Cunningham | Open Ended Group’s Biped page. |
| 2000 | Collopy | |
| 2000 | iota | Program notes. |
| 2003 | Rekveld | Joost Rekveld’s Sonic Light 2003 page. |
| 2004 | Collopy | Hue to pitch correspondences page; Mattis, p. 215; Collopy, 2009, pp. 63-65. |
| 2004 | Pompidou | Sons & Lumieres, Centre Pompidou, 2004. |
| 2005 | Hirshhorn | Visual Music, Brougher, et al., 2005; the films are described on the CVM VMFilms page. |
| 2009-18 | Hyde | Seeing Sound site. |
| 2012 | Fischinger | CVM’s Raumlichtkunst site. |
| 2013 | Turrell | Jillian Steinhauer’s Hyperallergic review Visions of Light at the Guggenheim. |
| 2018 | CVM | Center for Visual Music Symposium site. |