Seventh New York Digital Salon || The Dichromaccord: Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ

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The Dichromaccord: Reinventing the Elusive Color OrganAuthor(s): Daniel ConradSource: Leonardo, Vol. 32, No. 5, Seventh New York Digital Salon (1999), pp. 393-398Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576823 .

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The Dichromaccord Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ

Daniel Conrad

Abstract

The author describes principles for a kinetic chro-

matic art form and illustrates examples of the

medium as realized with the Dichromaccord, a

color organ he created. The chromatic approach,

extrapolated from the color studies of Josef

Albers, uses the interaction between projected color and the afterimage of preceding colors as

the source of motivating tension in color

sequences and cadences.

or over 250 years artists and inventors have tried to create

instruments for the visual sense that parallel the effect of musical

instruments on the auditory sense. This is a history of inspired artists and inventors who envisioned a missing art form and

poured their vitality into the creation of instruments to materialize

it. A summary of this history was compiled in 1963 by Faber Bir-

ren [1], and another was written by Kenneth Peacock in 1991 [2]. Even so, in the 1990s we still do not find parents taking Johnny to

his Clavilux lesson on Saturday mornings.

Background The earliest recorded effort to build a color instrument was

made by Father Louis Bertrand Castel, a French Jesuit and a

respected mathematician who died in 1757. Birren reports that "in

1720 he published his La Musique en Couleur, where he wrote,

'Can anyone imagine anything in the arts that would surpass the

visible rendering of sound, which would enable the eyes to partake of all the pleasures which music gives to the ears?' The English

promptly made him a Fellow of the Royal Society" [3]. Every artist

of light since has probably shared part of Castel's passion. He

adopted Isaac Newton's correspondence between spectrum colors

and the musical scale, and in 1735 he built a model of an instru-

ment that would illuminate 144 different colored papers as the

keyboard was operated. There "seems to be little evidence that the

model of Castel's instrument performed according to his expecta- tions" [4]. Nonetheless Castel's work and his writings helped stim-

ulate interest in color instruments in Europe for the next century.

I do not intend to recount the history of color organs, but it is

worth mentioning the grand "Colour-Organ" invented and built

in the 1890s by Alexander Wallace Rimington, an English art pro- fessor. This large instrument was intended for a joint symphony of

music and color. It used color filters and lamps requiring up to a

total of 150 amperes of current, and it produced "abstract forms

that flowed into each other on a screen" [5].

Rimington's Colour-Organ probably inspired Alexander Scri-

abin to include a part for projected light in his 1911 color sym-

phony Prometheus [6]. Scriabin's concept of color work was largely based on a pitch-to-color correspondence. From the time of Castel

through the 1920s, light artists consistently devised such systems, in which each note of the musical scale was associated with a color, but the systems were often quite different from each other.

The Clavilux was created in the 1920s by Thomas Wilfred,

perhaps the most influential builder of color organs. Wilfred's later

devices produced dramatic sweeping colored shapes that evolved

on a rear-projection screen. In the 1960s, the decade of his death, I

was deeply impressed when I discovered a composition of his that

was installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

A picture of Wilfred sitting at the console of his Clavilux in

1922 is captioned by Peacock, "Moving geometric shapes were

projected onto a screen as the performer controlled the color

intensity of various light sources. An elaborate arrangement of

prisms could be twisted or inclined in any plane" [7]. Wilfred cre-

ated many color-organs. The one I saw in New York was Lumia

Suite (opus 158). The emergence of new technologies has brought about a

remarkable change in light art over the last half century. The abili-

ty to process photographic images electronically, generate visual

material digitally, and fill the sky with pulsing lasers has created a

phantasmagoria. Dichroic color filters in robotic light units and

giant video projections of everything imaginable accompany top- ticket rock concerts. In this environment of bright lights and

impossible images, my objective has been to cut through the fan-

tastic to create a kinetic color art form that derives its power from

subtle but potent perceptual interaction.

Daniel Conrad, 408 Winston Ave., Baltimore, MD 21212, U.S.A.

E-mail: [email protected].

LEONARDO, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 393-398, 1999 393 ? 1999 Daniel Conrad, received 13 March 1999



Fig. 1. Dichromaccord screen diagram

showing two color areas: the spot and the

surround.

Reinventing a Chromatic Instrument

Father Castel had a visionary desire to

create a "visible rendering of sound." What I have sought is a way to "play" color for its

own sake, not as a reinterpretation of

sound.

The instrument I now call the Dichro-

maccord did not evolve from previous col- or organs. I built it in direct response to the

teachings of Josef Albers in his book Inter-

action of Color [8]. While at college in the

1960s I reviewed Albers' famous book

(with hand-printed silk screen plates). I

discovered that a variety of color interac-

tions could be attributed to two perceptual

phenomena of color vision: lateral inhibi-

tion (which results in various forms of

simultaneous contrast) and afterimage (which results in successive contrast) [9]. Both responses originate within the perceptual system of the observer. Thus the artist

using pure color can interact directly with the nervous system of the viewer. The chal-

lenge for the artist is to select parameters for a color display apparatus and then determine whether they provide enough freedom to make expressive performance possible.

In his introduction Albers writes: "In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continual-

ly" [10]. Albers provides exercises intended to sensitize artists to the distortions of perception that occur when colors are viewed under different conditions. Several of these

exercises involve illusions of color shifting, in which hue and value are perceived dif-

ferently on different backgrounds. A patch of orange, for example, surrounded by a

light shade of cyan appears to shift toward

a darker and more reddish shade of orange. The same orange patch on a dark indigo

background is pushed toward a lighter, more yellow shade. In each case, the orange color is pushed toward the complement of

the surrounding hue, which results in a

perception of heightened contrast between

adjacent colors. This type of chromatic

deception, called simultaneous contrast, is

caused by the neural mechanism called lat-

eral inhibition.

Afterimages are complementary colors

that appear when a color stimulus is

removed. When colors are viewed in tem-

poral sequence, rather than juxtaposed in

space, afterimages heighten the contrast of the change as the complementary afterim-

age on the retina mixes additively with the new color. For example, if a magenta area

is replaced by a blue area, the green after-

image of the magenta mixes additively with

the blue so cyan is perceived. Cyan has

greater contrast with magenta than the actual blue. As the green afterimage fades, a neural inhibition of the blue starts to build

up, anticipating interaction with the next color change.

Because an afterimage is a real, albeit

internal, artifact of a previously viewed col-

or, one color can "push" another if they are

juxtaposed in time just as it does when they are juxtaposed in space. The afterimage of one image can be used as a constructive

part of a subsequent image. To study time-

sequenced colors, I used three slide projec- tors with dimmers to superimpose and

sequence images of bold forms and saturat- ed colors. In 1971, inspired and informed

by these experiments, I designed and built a kinetic chromatic instrument, the first Dichromaccord.

The name "Dichromaccord" means "two colors together." Colored lights illuminate a rear projection screen so a solid field of one color surrounds a spot area of another color, similar to the design of spot- and-surround color shifting illusions. Fig- ure 1 shows the screen design. The colored

lights are arranged and controlled so that the performer can change the spot and sur-

round colors almost at will. The viewer

does not have to look from one image to

another because the color changes occur on

the screen.

The apparatus uses a rear projection screen about nine feet high and seven feet

wide. Six spot lamps, each with a different

color filter, are aimed coincidentally on the

screen to project a two-foot diameter spot of color in the middle area. Lamps with fil-

ters are arranged to illuminate the field

with six different colors. Each spot bulb is

controlled by a dimmer, and six more dim-

mers are used to control the surround

bulbs. The six filter colors used on the vari-

ous lamps constitute the "palette" of the

instrument. By manipulating the twelve

dimmers on the control console, a performer can easily adjust the spot area and/or the surrounding area to any of the

palette colors or any of their additive combinations. The six filter colors I use are

magenta, red, yellow, green, cyan, and blue. Using secondary colors as well as

additive primaries gives a sense of unmixed

saturation at more points on the color

wheel. It also allows a finer treatment of color mixes.

A small dot projected at the center of the spot color area on the screen serves as a focal point. To participate fully in the performance, the viewer fixes his vision on the

dot so the chromatic display on the screen is transferred to fixed areas on his retina.

The image produced by the Dichromac-

cord is designed not to move or change shape. In order to focus on the potentiality of color to constitute a medium, I have

accepted the limitation of immobility and avoided the mechanical intricacies of producing variations of form. Computer-controlled video offers the possibility of color

change and shape change combined, but I have found the immediacy and richness of

the analog Dichromaccord very satisfactory. After creating the Dichromaccord in

Fig. 2. Opposite: A series of color changes that can be viewed on a Dichromaccord. To view the sequences, cut out the viewing window on page 397. Place the card over a block of colors so similar colors appear at the top and bottom of the window and the "spot" appears in the center. Pull the card to the right to see the changes.

394 Daniel Conrad, Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ

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Daniel Conrad, Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ 395



1971, I performed locally in San Francisco

and then in Baltimore for about a decade, and then I put the instrument away. In

1997 I "rediscovered" it. The instrument I

use now has been completely rebuilt, and I

perform during a regular weekly time spot at a small movie theater in Baltimore.

Chromatic Syntax The changes of color played on the

Dichromaccord screen spring from the performer's ability to visualize and execute

interactive sequences of color combina-

tions. Performance remains highly improvisational even after years of playing, but

underlying patterns have evolved to help

categorize and select options for progress-

ing at any point in a composition. I have

decided to refer to these patterns as a

"chromatic syntax." In the following dis-

cussion I have also chosen the terms

"explicit color" and "implicit color" to dif-

ferentiate between the colors of the stimuli

and the colors resulting from the neural

reflexes to stimuli.

The performer must consider two levels

of development at every moment during

performance: the evolution of the explicit colors displayed on the screen and the

development of the implicit colors produced by afterimages. A sequence of explicit colors played by a performer may seem to

an observer to have arbitrary order and tim-

ing. But when the performer consciously

plays explicit colors in relationship to the

implicit colors of afterimage, the sequenc-

ing is perceived as deliberate. The structur-

ing of color sequences to achieve this end

constitutes the syntax of color performance. While I am performing, my sense of

chromatic syntax provides a preconception of how each color change will affect the

tone or mood that has been created. When I lose mindfulness of explicit and implicit color evolution, the roots of chromatic syntax, I often feel that passage seem ill-timed or inappropriate. A sense of chromatic syntax seems to help the performance.

Moving freely among the rich colors

projected by acetate filters and sampling the "flavors" of the color combinations dis-

played in the spot and the surround areas can be as evocative as a musical melody. The enlivening element, the harmony if

you will, is the incorporation of color

changes that stimulate afterimages. For

example, when a color is quickly replaced

by its complement, the implicit and explicit colors are identical, producing a moment

of extreme color saturation. Alternatively, when a color is quickly replaced by its

near-complement, the implicit color dis-

torts the explicit color. As the afterimage

dissipates, the performer may choose to

fade the explicit color toward the distorted

perception (a sense of resolution occurs as

illusion is replaced by reality), or he can

fade the explicit color away and move on to

other material. Cycles of afterimage forma-

tion and resolution build rhythms of antic-

ipation, hesitation, movement, and

fulfillment. This variety of phrasing, the

inherently beautiful flow of color

sequences, and the massage-like effect of

color changes on the retina combine to

make color performance an exhilarating experience.

Figure 2 renders a series of color

changes that can be performed on a

Dichromaccord. To view the sequences, the reader needs to prepare a 3 x 5-inch index card by cutting a rectangular window

in the center (or cut out the viewing win-

dow, Fig. 3 on the facing page). When the

card is held with the long side horizontal, the window should be /2 inch wide and 13%

inch tall. Place the card over a block of col-

ors so similar colors appear at the top and

bottom of the window, and the "spot" col-

or appears in the center. Then pull the card

to the right to see the changes. The five blocks represent a continuous

set of color changes. Twenty positions have

been numbered at equal intervals for refer-

ence. The descriptions below indicate how

the chromatic syntax plays out in each set

of changes.

Block 1-4: The passage starts with a red

spot on a blue field (1). The red spot drops out quickly, leaving a solid blue field with the cyan afterimage of red where the spot was (2). Moving the surround toward

magenta increases the figure-ground contrast (3). The implied motion of the spot toward green and the surround toward red is continued to position 4.

Block 5-8: The red surround is sus- tained to build an afterimage while the

green spot gently fades to cyan (5). The

surround fades rapidly to cyan so the

explicit color of the screen is solid cyan, but the surround is ultrasaturated because

of the cyan afterimage of red. By fading to

blue, the spot actualizes its difference from

the surround (6). While the spot remains

blue, the surround moves to blue, seeming-

ly enveloping it (7) and continues to the

other side of blue, emerging as magenta (8).

Block 9-12: From position 9 to position 10, the spot and surround colors

diverge until they are complementary.

Moving into 11, both the spot and the sur-

round change rapidly to yellow, so that

both areas are distorted by the implicit col-

ors. The fading afterimages are resolved by

explicit colors of red and green that replace the fading implicit colors (12).

Block 13-16: The surround fades

through green, cyan, and blue to magenta while the spot fades slowly to yellow (13-

15). The color sequence is articulated by

dropping out the yellow spot, leaving a

blue afterimage (16). The implicit blue is

allowed to float while the field changes to

cyan.

Block 17-20: The blue spot fading in

on the cyan surround (17) has an air of

mystery which is enhanced by weaving the

spot and surround back and forth through cyan, magenta, and blue (18-19). The mys-

tery resolves to red on green (20), a combi-

nation strongly stated in position 12. The

performer could repeat the sequence from

13, or move on to other progressions.

Varying the speed of color change alters

the visual impression of a chromatic

sequence. From my own observations I

conclude that changing colors interact with the biological rate of afterimage buildup and breakdown. Long slow changes, in the

range of 10 to 30 seconds, interact with

well-developed afterimages. Faster changes of one to 10 seconds truncate the process of afterimage formation and keep forcing the retina to change its response. Very fast

changes, up to about 6 of a second, begin to produce stroboscopic effects.

When considering principles to guide




the organization of temporal chromatic

compositions, one is tempted to turn to

elements from music. Albers warns his

readers about this approach: "Although a

comparison of composed colors with com-

posed tones is very challenging, it should

be mentioned that, while it can be helpful, it is often misleading" [11]. This warning is

supported by the fact that the physics of wave harmonics, an essential feature of

music, is absent from color relationships [12]. The warning is also supported by the fact that the biology of perceptual latency, or afterimage, is virtually absent in audible sound. It is worth noting that afterimage replaces the missing dimension of wave harmonics in visual perception to serve as the motivating dimension in chromatic

syntax. Synesthetic individuals, who experience

a distinct sense of color in response to musical sounds, have supported a close cor- relation between pitch and color. A notable

example was Scriabin, whose synesthesia was attested to by a psychologist [13]. I do not think that the synesthetic experience provides a foundation for a color medium because a medium cannot be based on unusual personal perceptions. Synesthetic individuals, however, could turn out to be master players of color instruments.

Chromatic syntax is based entirely on

properties of normal color perception, so

Fig. 3. To look at the color sequences on

page 395, cut out the box below, and then cut out the center box for viewing.

the resulting art form can be shared equally by most viewers.

Performing with Music Music has always been an important

part of my color performances, but I have not defined or systematized a relationship between music and color. Color performance can induce a sense of mood, ambi-

ence, movement, rhythm, associative emotions, and changes in body chemistry. Music does the same sorts of things in its

way, so the two can act in parallel as coor-

dinated, but independent, media. By performing color with many live and recorded

musicians, I continue to improve my sense of a synchronous esthetic.

A difficulty with combining color and music is the inherently contrasting rhythmic qualities of each medium. Music tends to favor short, regular rhythmic cycles, whereas color performance draws its timing from the buildup and breakdown of after-

images. Sometimes people mimic musical

rhythms by flashing of light, but in the con- text of chromatic syntax, flashing light is a

strobe, which interacts aggressively with the

afterimage mechanism. Strobing is part of the chromatic vocabulary, but its effect does not necessarily parallel the effect of auditory rhythms. A rhythmic beat is a constant and comfortable companion in music, but flash-

ing light easily becomes irritating and even

sickening to the viewer. The color performer, aware of this, uses the effect advis-

edly, even when the accompanying music is

very rhythmic.

I find that the rhythms of chromatic

syntax tend to roll and undulate with a

flowing meter, in contrast to the time-

counting rhythms that seem natural to music. Musicians who enjoy free improvisa- tion are able move into a flow that parallels that of the Dichromaccord. With music that emphasizes a drone, the color performance can become melodic. The most chal-

lenging, but perhaps the most interesting effort so far has been performing ragas with a North Indian classical musician, empha- sizing the slower improvisational section called the alap. This music can weave an ethereal tapestry by evoking subtle relation-

ships between tones, which parallels what I

aspire to do with colors.

Conclusion Emulating Josef Albers, I have attempt-

ed to approach kinetic color in a way that avoids systems that are arbitrary, personal, or borrowed. By focusing on the essential nature of the medium, and the perceptual mechanisms it engages, I have modeled an art form that organizes and motivates itself. The performer, free from contrived con-

straints, continually discovers the potential and the potency of the color medium.

The Dichromaccord is a simple instru-

ment, but it reveals a previously unexplored approach to color and light performance. I have found performing effectively on the instrument to be very challenging, but with

increasing mastery, I have continued to find the experience highly rewarding.

Daniel Conrad, Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ 397



Acknowledgment I am very grateful to George Figgs, the owner of the Orpheum Cinema in Baltimore, a small, independent movie theater that uses a rear-projection screen. For over two years, he has provided space for half-hour color performances almost every Saturday before the first evening movie show. This has been an invaluable opportunity to work with the Dichro- maccord and with various musicians who have con- tributed greaty to the performances.

References and Notes 1. Faber Birren, Color: A Survey in Words and Pic- tures (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1963). 2. Kenneth Peacock, "Famous Early Color Organs," Experimental Musical Instruments 7, No. 2, pp. 1, 17-20 (1991); and, "Famous Twentieth-Cen- tury Color Instruments," Experimental Musical Instruments 7, No. 3, 16-20 (1991). Also previously published as "Instruments to Perform Color-Music: Two Centuries of Technological Instrumentation," Leonardo 21, No. 4, 397-406 (1988). Instruments described in this article incude Castel's clavecin ocu- laire (1734); Kastner's Pyrophone (c.1870); Bish- op's device for "painting music" (1877); Rimington's Colour-Organ (1893); Millar's Chro- mola, created for a production of Scriabin's Prometheus in 1915; Hallock-Greenwalt's Sarabet (1919); Laszlo's Sonchromatoscope (1925); and Wilfred's Clavilux (1922). 3. Birren [1] p. 124.

4. Peacock [2] p. 18.

5. Birren [1] p. 125.

6. Peacock [2] p. 20.

7. Peacock [2] p. 19.

8. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975). The original edition, published in 1963, is a collector's item. The edition cited is a paperback that includes the original text and reproductions of some plates. Albers was not the first to observe simultaneous and successive contrast. Michael Eugene Chevreul described these effects in 1893 in his book Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours. He appears to have coined the term "simultaneous contrast," and his writings had some influence on the Impression- ists. Written observations of the mutually reinforc- ing effect of contrasting colors go back to Leon Battista Alberti in 1436 and Leonardo da Vinci.

Two recently published books on color and color history are: Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher, Color (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), and Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, eds., Colour: Art and Science, Darwin College Lectures (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). 9. Explanations of afterimage and lateral inhibition can be found in various biological references. Fol- lowing is a simplified summary of information in Rosenzweig, Leiman, and Breedlove, Biological Psy- chology (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1996) pp. 146, 256-257, 357-359: When a receptor neuron in the retina is exposed to a color stimulus, the neuron's sensitivity to that color immediately begins to be reduced, or inhibited, making the neuron rela- tively more sensitive to the complement of the stimulus color. This inhibition results in afterimage when the stimulus is removed. There are also side- ways connections between receptor neurons, caus-

ing each neuron to inhibit its neighbors. When adjacent color areas impinge on the retina, the inhibitory response in one area spreads laterally and influences neural reception in the adjacent area. The result is enhancement of both hue and value contrast at the boundary between juxtaposed color areas.

10. Albers [8] p. 1.

11. Albers [8] p. 39.

12. The audible range of frequencies, from about 20 Hz to about 20,000 Hz, comprises a little less than ten octaves. Within this range, many multioctave harmonic relationships can exist. Visible light spans a range of about 430THz (red) to about 750THz (violet), not even one octave. A difference frequency, or beat frequency, perhaps the most fundamen- tal harmonic feature of music, cannot be perceived without a range of perception greater than one octave.

13. Birren [1] p. 123.

Daniel Conrad was graduated from

Amherst College in 1968 and received his MFA from the Hoffberger School of Paint-

ing at the Maryland Institute College of Art

in 1981. He currently teaches physics and other scientific subjects at the Baltimore

Polytechnic Institute. He can be contacted

at [email protected].




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Seventh New York Digital Salon || The Dichromaccord: Reinventing the Elusive Color Organ