Reading Kandinsky
Collaborative project with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in the 2nd semester (academic year 2024)
by Lena Gattinger & Mascha Lebedew
Reading Kandinsky is an audiovisual live visualization developed in collaboration with a composer from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The aim of the project was to create a visual interpretation of a contemporary orchestral piece and to control and project this visualization live during its premiere performance.
Each group of instruments was assigned a distinct graphical symbol that represented its character and sound. Using a launchpad, these symbols could be manually activated during the performance. Once a symbol was triggered, randomly placed repetitions of it appeared and began to spread organically across the projection surface. This process created a layered and evolving composition that responded directly to the structure of the music.
The placement of the symbols was determined by the pitch of the corresponding instrument group. Higher-pitched sounds were visualized in the upper part of the canvas, while lower tones appeared near the bottom. A horizontal level line ran through the center of the screen and responded in real time to the volume of the music, creating a direct visual link between sound and image. The system was developed using vvvv gamma and presented during the live premiere through large-scale projection in the concert hall.