Where it Began (Harmony)

Click the still above to be taken to the video.

Seeing that I’m probably infringing on some copyrights with the audio in this clip above, I’ll probably keep this entry up for a couple of weeks. However, if I’m to talk about Limerence, show you what it’s about and where it came from, I really have to start with this video.

Growing up, I was almost as musical as I was visual. I’d played piano, trombone, sang in a boy choir, even composed a piece of music for our high school band. I fantasized about writing film scores, but by the time college rolled around, my drawing and painting abilities won out. I went to art school.

1997-2001 was an amazing time to be studying video and animation. Today, we take it for granted that computers can help us visualize anything, but back then, those new possibilities caused an explosion of creativity in filmmaking. Amelie, Fight Club, Run Lola Run- some of my favorite movies came from that time when filmmakers started using computers not just to replicate reality but as an expressive extension of it. Our class experienced the technological leap from analog to digital first hand, and the changes it brought lit up my brain with the possibilities of bringing my musical and visual interests together.

I saw so many similarities between the two worlds of design and music. They even mirror each other in terminology: Musicians talk about the “darkness” or “brightness” of a sound, its “roundness”. Melodies can have a “shape” or “line”. In art, we strive for “dynamic” or “rhythmic” compositions, or complain that a color is “too loud” or “muted”. Through its tendency to be understood through almost mathematical proportion, color seems to create an especially natural analogy to music. Indeed, color schemes are often organized into chord-like triads, and when their proportions are especially appealing, they are said to be “harmonious”.

This college project planted the seeds for Limerence 20 years ago. Being a melancholy student, I’d been listening to Elliott Smith a ton at the time, and Pretty Mary K grabbed me with its crystal-clear harmonies. I just had to try to capture those powerful chords and their sense of tension and release in color. Setting up the drama of that final, unexpected chord change was especially tempting, and I still get a chill when the color scheme unexpectedly reverses.

Unlike this video, the pieces in the Limerence series won’t contain any music or sound. Learning how to create the sense of musicality through purely visual compositions has been a lifelong challenge, one I’ll still probably be working towards when Limerence is done. As minimal as it is, I find this piece quite pure and beautiful, and it established many of the visual theories I’m leaning on today.