Iconoclasm in Visual Music: Abstraction vs. Representation in Art

Iconoclasm in Visual Music

Emmanouil Kanellos

Abstract

Since the earliest experimental films through to today's wide-ranging use of moving-image platforms, visual music has been largely understood as equivalent to abstract animation. This is partly because non-figurative imagery dominates the majority of musical visualisation. This article examines how the absence of figuration and representation in visual music can reopen the long-standing debate between abstraction and representation — a discussion that has surfaced in other art forms and movements throughout history.

Introduction

Visual music is an audio-visual art form that synchronises moving abstract images with music or sound. This approach to moving-image works predates Modernism, but it was during the Modernist period that the field grew significantly. It continues to expand in diverse expressive directions in our contemporary digital age.

Although the focus here is visual music, the discussion begins with an overview of several historical abstraction-representation dialectics in art — particularly moments when representation was rejected due to ideological, political, or spiritual convictions. By doing so, the article reveals how non-representation has shaped artistic creation across centuries and concentrates on how this dynamic plays out in visual music, both past and present.

The debate between abstraction and representation in the visual arts is deeply entrenched and has provoked some of the most significant conflicts in art history. Notable examples include the two Iconoclasm periods in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries; the Nazi regime's labelling of Modern art as 'Degenerate Art'; and the violent protests across Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Pakistan in 2006 following cartoons depicting Muhammad.

Rejection of representation

Representation and non-representation in art is not a simple matter confined to the opinions of artists, critics, or audiences. More often, it extends far beyond that, connecting closely with belief systems, politics, and ideologies. In Christian art, a pivotal event occurred during the Byzantine Empire known as Iconoclasm: a conflict between those who supported representation and figuration (iconolaters) and those who opposed it (iconoclasts). The iconoclasts argued that icons led to idolatry, while the iconolaters maintained they venerated icons rather than worshipped them (Gómez and Parcell, 1999: 48). After prolonged struggle, the iconolaters prevailed at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 CE. The council's decision permitted representational images, but only in the form of two-dimensional mosaics, icons, and frescos (Asselt et al., 2007: 52); three-dimensional sculptures were banned because they were associated with idolatry and the real (Bakker, 2009: 64). By contrast, Western Catholic Christians enjoyed the freedom of three-dimensional representation and figuration. The differences between these two branches of Christian art remain evident to this day.

In Islam, aniconism is the prohibition of figurative images depicting the Divine, who is considered beyond description and representation (Ali, 1999: 15). Animals and humans are permitted as themes in figurative art except in places of worship, because of the fear that such imagery could lead to idolatry. A recent example of aniconism in Islam is the film The Message (1976), where director Moustapha Akkad, mindful of Islamic audiences, chose not to show Muhammad visually, even though his role is central to the plot (Francaviglia and Rosenstone, 2007: 57).

There are instances in recent history where representation took the form of satire intended to offend or criticise Islam, which in turn led to disastrous conflicts. The infamous cartoons titled The Face of Muhammad by Kurt Westergaard, published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005, sparked international outrage, resulting in attacks on Western embassies worldwide and the deaths of more than 200 people, according to the New York Times (Cohen, 2012). In response to the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, the Iranian daily Hamshari announced an international Holocaust-cartoon competition. Two hundred selected cartoons from among 1,100 entries were exhibited in Tehran (Falk, 2008). Figurative imagery, used in this context, has the power to provoke international political and religious confrontation even in modern history.

Representation has also been rejected for political reasons. During the Cold War, the United States used abstract art as propaganda against Communism and socialist realism (Saunders, 2001). The CIA secretly supported Abstract Expressionism to promote the intellectual freedom and cultural richness of American democracy. Ironically, most Americans did not appreciate abstraction (Saunders, 2001). In 1947, President Truman remarked: 'If that's art, I'm Hottentot' (Gamboni, 1997: 145).

Abstraction has also been rejected by authoritarian regimes. In the first half of the twentieth century, representation in art led to new bloodshed, but this time the aggressor supported figuration. Under the Nazi regime in Germany, artists were strictly forbidden to practice virtually any movement of modern art, since these creative expressions were moving away from traditional and classical approaches to representation and figuration. At the same time, in the Soviet Union — Nazi Germany's rival — Joseph Stalin also promoted realistic art. Socialist realism became state policy, even though Russian pioneer artists had expanded or founded modernistic modes of expression — such as Suprematism, Constructivism, and Abstraction — during the first half of the twentieth century. The popular subjects of Socialist Realism were idealised depictions of citizens, workers, peasants, and state leaders. Non-representational artists were labelled formalists and were persecuted.

Rejection of representation in visual music

These instances of rejecting representation demonstrate that different political, ideological, and spiritual beliefs attach specific concepts to either representation or abstraction. Representation is linked with 'the real', fleshliness, meaningfulness, immersion, tradition, and the senses. Abstraction, by contrast, represents freedom of expression, experimentation, emotion, spirituality, innovation, independence, openness of mind, and art itself. Some of these concepts have carried over into visual music.

William Moritz (1988) passionately explains why abstraction is preferred by visual music filmmakers like Oskar Fischinger:

Non-objective animation is without a doubt the purest and most difficult form of animation. Anyone can learn to 'Muybridge' the illusion of representational life, but inventing interesting forms, shapes and colours, creating new, imaginative and expressive motions – 'the absolute creation: the true creation' as Fischinger termed it – requires the highest mental and spiritual faculties, as well as the most sensitive talents of hand (Moritz, 1988: 1).

Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art, expressed admiration for how music achieved expression without being merely representational. Music serves as a medium for expressing the artist's inner world, in contrast to painting, which traditionally represented the outer world. Abstract painters influenced by music sought to create vibrant, rhythmical paintings without reference to the physical world. Music gave birth to abstract painting.

Early visual music animations resemble animated abstract paintings. The images used to represent sound in visual music are abstract; they are meaningless, non-narrative, and non-representational (Stevens, 2009; Brougher et al., 2005). The imagery draws from the pure shapes of abstract painting (Penz, 2003) — circles, triangles, freehand drawn lines, among others. Stevens provides a detailed definition of visual music:

Visual Music, also called abstract animation, is imagery that is structured and presented in such way that it is seen to change over time in much the same way as music is heard. It is normally comprised of a series of still or moving images. These images have no narrative nor are they representational. The images of visual music can be linked to absolute music that has no meaning (Stevens, 2009: 125).

In visual music, each sound is translated into an image, producing a synesthetic effect. Abstract shapes or colours correspond to musical notes, and the animation or timing corresponds to the rhythm (James, 2005). Thus the entire composition of colours, lights, shapes, and motion becomes a visual representation of the musical melody. There is no proven scientific correlation between image and sound, but emotional responses arise from certain images and musical notes. Even though the imagery is created based on a musical piece or score, the earliest films were indeed silent ventures. These works used visual imagery as a nod toward its musical equivalent (Furniss, 1998; James, 2005). Nevertheless, the vast majority of visual music artworks are audio-visual.

It is clear that during Modernism a close relationship between music and abstraction developed: music gave birth to abstract painting, and abstraction became the dominant element in visual music. This is evident in the works of three major visual music filmmakers: Oskar Fischinger, Viking Eggeling, and Norman McLaren. In Fischinger's Radio Dynamics (1942), plain colour parallel bars move symmetrically from the centre to the edges of the composition (James, 2005). An observer can see the bars moving rhythmically but cannot make any visual connection to the real world. Colours are traditionally pure, such as plain red and plain blue. In Symphonie Diagonale (1924) by Eggeling, straight and curvy animated lines form a number of diagonal abstract compositions. The lines are illuminated and white on a black background. The arrangement is mostly parallel, though some lines intersect to create angles or shapes. The lines are animated rhythmically.

Another example is Begone Dull Care (1949) by Norman McLaren, an animation of abstract shapes painted and scratched directly onto the film strip. The images are colourful for most of the piece except one black-and-white section. This abstract animation is a visual representation of jazz music composed by Oscar Peterson. In later visual music compositions, colour gradients and three-dimensional abstract shapes also appear.

Contemporary audio-visual art and technology: Towards reality

Before focusing on the present state of visual music regarding representation, it is useful to discuss current trends in contemporary audio-visual art and the impact of technology. Technology has shaped contemporary lifestyle, culture, perception, communication, and interaction. It has also profoundly influenced art and its production. The examples are numerous; in many cases the medium becomes more than a tool and becomes essential to art forms such as electroacoustic music, photography, video art, interactive art, intermedia art, installation art, and digital art.

In 2000, Bolter and Grusin identified and analysed two principal paradigms that digital media refashioned from earlier media: hypermediacy and transparent immediacy. Hypermediacy involves fascination with the medium itself; the design, layout, and images remind viewers that they are looking at a medium rather than through one. Bolter and Grusin suggest this logic resembles modernist art. According to Greenberg (1973: 68): 'Modernism used art to call attention to art.' Thus the limitations of the medium (such as painting) must be acknowledged as positive factors. In hypermediacy, 'the artist strives to make the viewer acknowledge the medium as a medium and to delight in that acknowledgment' (Bolter; Grusin, 2000: 41). Transparent immediacy, by contrast, is the attempt to achieve immersion through the medium. Viewers are no longer aware of the medium but instead directly engage with its content. This strategy refashions figurative and representational art forms that aim to represent, imitate, or recreate reality. Bolter and Grusin argue Bazin's assumption that photography and cinema fulfil the artist's obsession with realism through the idea that computer graphics represent the latest expression of the desire for immediacy. Transparent immediacy appears in virtual reality, photorealistic 3D graphics, the World Wide Web, digital arts, and film, among others. Lev Manovich agrees in Abstraction and Complexity:

In thinking about the effects of computerization on abstraction and figuration, it is much easier to address the second term than the first. While 'realistic' perspective images of the world are as common today as they were throughout the twentieth century, photography, film, video, drawing and painting are no longer the only ways to generate them (Manovich, 2004: 3).

Manovich also acknowledges that 3D computer graphics are becoming more widespread:

Today for instance practically all of computer games rely on real-time 3D computer images - and so are numerous feature films, TV shows, animated features, instructional video, architectural presentations, medical imaging, military simulators, and so on (Manovich, 2004: 3).

By 2013, these ideas are enhanced with additional technological innovations such as augmented reality for androids, Google Glass, Oculus Rift, the revival of stereoscopic 3D in film, television, and video games; 360-degree panoramic pictures; Google Maps street view in 360 degrees; 360-degree videos; holograms; 3D projection mapping; robotics; and 4D film.

Abstraction in contemporary visual music

The impact of technology on the arts and the refashioning of realism through digital media technology suggest a correlation or interdependence between two separate fields in creating artworks and media that lean toward representation. Following this line of thought, it is interesting to explore how these trends and debates affect the shifting role of representation within visual music and whether abstraction will continue to be the predominant approach. One way to investigate this is to examine digital visual music showcases.

There are countless works — from well-known artists to amateurs — uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. Identifying every existing piece would be nearly impossible. However, by looking at specific works published in books or uploaded to websites dedicated to visual music research, one can gain a fairly substantial view of the field. In the book Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound (2000) by Matt Woolman, the interplay between sound and sight through digital technologies is examined. The volume collects works ranging from digital visual music to graphic design, typography, and print. The final chapter, titled 'Atmosphere', explores how virtual environments can visualise sound. The interactive projects and digital visual music works featured there are all abstract to some degree.

The exhibition catalogue Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900 (Brougher et al., 2005) accompanied an art exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Smithsonian Institution, displaying 92 works by 40 artists from 1900 to 2004. The pieces, spanning various media from painting to computer graphics, were all abstract. Websites that host collections of historical and contemporary visual music — such as centerforvisualmusic.org, visualmusicarchive.org, and rhythmiclight.com — make it clear that non-representational images dominate visual music in interactive media, video art, and installations.

Maura McDonnell (2010), in her essay 'Visual Music - A Composition of the Things Themselves', writes about the visual elements that constitute visual music. Figurative elements or 'real objects' constitute only a small section within the visual 'grammar' of visual music and are composed in an abstract context. For instance, in Kapuscinski's Juicy (2009), representational objects such as fruits are used and arranged to correspond with specific musical notes. These fruit images appear out of context — removed from their physical environment and placed in an abstract, minimalistic setting. The correspondence between chosen fruits and specific sounds is fictional: if one heard the music without the visuals, one would probably not think of the fruit or imagine anything close to what is shown, because no such analogy exists in the empirical world. Only the simultaneous hearing of musical notes and appearance of the fruits creates this illogical association. Any kind of non-representational imagery — or representational imagery used out of context — would produce a similarly abstract effect. This idea is supported by Ox and Keefer's observation in On Curating Recent Digital Abstract Visual Music: 'the majority of visual music work to date has been abstract' (2006: 1). Artists tend to favour abstraction over representation because the former grants them freedom to express the mental world and incorporate spirituality into their work (Moritz, 1988). The association of abstraction with freedom, expression of an inner world, and spirituality echoes the longstanding representation-abstraction debate in art history.

The end of Iconoclasm?

In summary, the rejection of representation has its roots in spiritual, ideological, and political foundations that extend far back in history. Across Byzantium, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Islamic cultures, the prohibition or endorsement of figurative imagery has repeatedly been tied to authority, belief, and identity. Visual music, born from the same wellspring of Modernist abstraction, has largely maintained its allegiance to non-representational imagery, regarding it as purer and more spiritually expressive. Yet, as technology pushes toward ever more convincing realism and immersive representation, the question arises whether visual music will continue to hold abstraction as its core principle or embrace a new synthesis — perhaps ending the iconoclasm that has defined its visual language for over a century. The history of these conflicts suggests that such debates never truly disappear; they are merely refashioned for a new era.

Abstraction carried deep aesthetic implications. Artists turned to abstract and non-representational forms as a spiritual practice, redirecting attention from the corporeal toward the transcendent—from the physical plane to the spiritual realm. Much later, critics of abstraction condemned it as degenerate art because it challenged their ruling ideology. At the same time, abstraction served as a vehicle for political propaganda, showcasing the creative freedom artists enjoyed under certain political systems.

In visual music, abstraction was initially enlisted to mirror the abstract character of music itself. Yet music has broadened considerably since modernism; real-world sounds, field recordings, electroacoustic material, and even silence are now all viable ingredients for musical compositions. Although digital technologies today often favor realism and representation, this trend has not measurably reshaped visual music—if anything, abstraction has hardened into a tradition within the field. Nonetheless, digital innovation has made some inroads into representation within visual music. Artists such as Sylvia Pengilly, Baerbel Neubauer, and Scott Draves have used 3D graphics as visual-music material. These 3D works may be abstract in form, but they commonly simulate human visual perception—volume, perspective, shadow, refraction, reflection, depth of field—amounting to a phenomenological investigation.

The development of immersive visual-music environments marks a further tentative step toward realism. For instance, the United Visual Artists’ installation Speed of Light (2010) synchronized beams of light with sound, projecting them within the physical space to generate abstract holographic impressions.

A contemporary technique known as 3D projection mapping merges physical space with 3D motion graphics, creating convincing illusions of animated building interiors and exteriors. Although this technique is usually audio-visual, it does not qualify clearly as visual music because sound often functions merely as a soundtrack or as sound effects for the animation. In the music industry, 3D holographic characters now perform on stage—most notably Hatsune Miku in Japan and Gorillaz in Britain—but here again the 3D figurative imagery operates as a visualization of the singers and band members, not a visualization of the music itself.

As we have seen, digital technologies affect music performance, music videos, musical material, and audio-visual arts more broadly, pushing toward realism and immersion. Visual music is evolving from a state in which nearly all works were purely abstract toward one in which representation and abstraction coexist. Might this portend the end of iconoclasm in visual music?

Figuration in Christian art is tied not only to the question of whether images lead to idolatry but also to the theological dispute between the Monophysites and the Dyotheletes. Benjamin Jokisch, writing in Islamic Imperial Law: Harun-Al-Rashid's Codification Project (2007), notes that the Monophysites—who held that Christ possessed only one divine nature—never theorized systematically about images. The Dyotheletes, who believed Christ had both a human will and a divine will, did everything they could to venerate images. Cartoons can be seen as a form of art (Bramlett, 2012).

To the Nazis, modern art was a Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy (West, 1988) used for political and propagandistic ends: injecting foreign cultures into German society and eroding Germans’ racial consciousness (Grosshans, 1983). Addressing the “Degenerate Art” exhibition in July 1937, Hitler articulated his revulsion toward modern art and his insistence that the artist must reference the physical world: “I have observed among the pictures submitted here, quite a few paintings which make one actually come to the conclusion that the eye shows things differently to certain human beings than the way they really are … I want to forbid these pitiful misfortunates who quite obviously suffer from an eye disease, to try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in, or even to wish to present them as ‘Art’” (cited in Harris, 2005: 161).

Visual music belongs to the broader field of audio-visual art practice and theory. The ElectroAcoustic Resource Site defines it as “an area of audio-visual creation that is concerned with technological, metaphorical, analogical and imaginative mappings between visual images and music (and vice versa)” (www.ears.dmu.ac.uk, 2013).

3D computer graphics are primarily employed to simulate believable virtual environments. Manovich addresses this point (2004).

References

Ali, Wijdan (1999). The Arab Contribution to Islamic Art: From the Seventh to the Fifteenth Centuries. Cairo: The American University in Cairo.

Asselt, W. J. Van, Geest, Paul, Van and Müller, Daniella (2007). Iconoclasm and Iconoclash: Struggle for Religious Identity. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Bakker, Freek L. (2009). The Challenge of the Silver Screen: An Analysis of the Cinematic Portraits of Jesus, Rama, Buddha and Muhammad. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Bolter, David and Grusin, Richard (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bramlett, Frank (2012). Linguistics and the Study of Comics. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brubaker, Leslie and Haldon, John (2011). Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c680-850 A History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Brougher, Kerry, Strick, Jeremy, Wiseman, Ari and Zilcer, Judy (2005). Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music since 1900. London: Thames & Hudson.

Chipp, B. Herschel (1968). Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. California: University of California Press.

Ears.dmu.ac.uk (2013). Index: Visual Music (Genres and Categories [G&C]). [online] Available at: http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/spip.php?rubrique1402 [Accessed 9 Oct 2013].

Falk, Anver (2008). Anti-Semitism: A History and Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Hatred. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Furniss, Maureen (1998). Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics. California: School of Film and Television, Chapman University.

Freedman, Leonard (2009). The Offensive Art: Political Satire and Its Censorship around the World from Beerbohm to Borat. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Gamboni, Dario (1997). The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books Ltd.

Gómez, Alberto, P. Parcell, Stephen (1999). Chora 3: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture. Montreal: McGill-Queen University Press.

Greenberg, Clement (1973). “Modernist Painting.” In Gregory Battcock (ed.) The New Art: A Critical Anthology. New York: E. P. Dutton, pp.66-77.

Grosshans, Henry (1983). Hitler and the Artists. New York: Holmes & Meyer.

Harris, Jonathan (2005). Writing Back to Modern Art: After Greenberg, Fried and Clark. Oxon: Routledge.

James, David E. (2005). The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Joan L. Clinefelter (2005). Artists for the Reich: Culture and Race from Weimar to Nazi Germany. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Francaviglia, Richard V and Rosenstone, Robert A (2007). Lights, Camera, History: Portraying the Past in Film. Texas: A&M University Press.

Jokisch, Benjamin (2007). Islamic Imperial Law: Harun-Al-Rashid's Codification Project. Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter.

Larsson, Göran (2011). Muslims and the New Media: Historical and Contemporary Debates. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Nelson, Robert S. and Shiff, Richard (2003). Critical Terms for Art History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Manovich, Lev (2004). Abstraction and Complexity. [online] Available at: http://www.manovich.net/articles.php [Accessed 8 August 2013].

McDonnell, Maura (2010). Visual Music – A Composition of the Things Themselves. Sounding Out 5 Conference, Bournemouth University, UK.

Moritz, William (1988). Some Observations on Non-Objective and Non-Linear Animation. [online] Available at: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/library/ObservNonObj.htm [Accessed 15 September 2013].

Ox, Jack and Keefer, Cindy (2006). On Curating Recent Digital Abstract Visual Music. New York Digital Salon, Abstract Visual Music Project.

Peter Adam (1992). Art of the Third Reich. First Edition. New York: Harry N Abrams.

Saunders, Frances Stonor (2001). The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York and London: The New Press.

Stevens, Meghan (2009). Music and Image in Concert. Sydney: Music and Media.

The New York Times (2013). Danish Cartoon Controversy. [ONLINE] Available at: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/d/danish_cartoon_controversy/index.html [Accessed 1 August 2013].

West, Shearer (1988). The Visual Arts in Germany 1890-1937: Utopia and Despair. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Woolman, Matt (2000). Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound. London: Thames & Hudson.

Zalambas, Sherree Owens (1990). A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture, Art and Music. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press.

Emmanouil Kanellos is a Ph.D. researcher at London Metropolitan University, exploring figuration, diegesis, and immersion in contemporary visual music. He is a senior lecturer in the Design Futures department at the University of Greenwich and a freelance technical director at Seven Shuffles creative agency, as well as a video artist specializing in 3D animation and motion graphics.