Norman McLaren's hand-drawn sounds

video upload by Robotussin Vintage Synths

"Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren developed a technique of painting onto the optical soundtrack area of the film negatives of his animations.

The shapes would then make drones and buzzes when played through a special type of projector. He used the technique to create experimental soundtracks to his animations.

It's similar to Daphne Oram's technique of turning shapes into sound – though hers, which she called Oramics, was more complex, with dedicated machines that read shapes on the entire area of the 35mm film, rather than just the little strip that contains the soundtrack.

You can see the results in the third video above, an extract from McLaren's film 'Dots', which employs the technique.

McLaren – born in Scotland in 1914 – worked for the British Post Office's film unit until around 1939, when he moved to New York, then to Canada in 1941, where he produced animations for the National Film Board, before setting up an animation studio at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the Ontario College of Art.

There he produced around 70 films, much of it highly experimental and strange. He died in 1987 aged 72."

This also reminds me of the Optigan.

Norman McLaren is mentioned in this book: Vector Synthesis: a Media Archaeological Investigation into Sound-Modulated Light

Vector Synthesis: a Media Archaeological Investigation into Sound-Modulated Light

You might remember some of Derek Holzer's aka macumbista's vector oscilloscope videos, including a couple from Hainbach featuring the Vextrex, previously posted here.

Derek wrote in to let us know he has a new book coming out, currently seeking funding on Kickstarter here. Click through for additional details and demos.

"Vector Synthesis: a Media Archaeological Investigation into Sound-Modulated Light is a computational art project inspired by theories of media archaeology, by the history of computer and video art, and by the use of discarded and obsolete technologies such as the Cathode Ray Tube monitor. This text explores the military and techno-scientific legacies at the birth of modern computing, and charts attempts by artists of the subsequent two decades to decouple these tools from their destructive origins. Using this history as a basis, I then describe a media archaeological, real time performance system using audio synthesis and vector graphics techniques to investigate direct relationships between sound and image using analog CRT displays. Key to this system is a didactic, open source approach which encourages reuse and modification by other artists. The conclusion of the book reflects on how the project and the research surrounding it has contributed to the larger experimental audiovisual arts community through events such as the Vector Hack Festival.

Example videos from the project can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/macumbista

Artists discussed include Mary Ellen Bute, Ben Laposky, Lyn Lye, Norman McLaren, Desmond Paul Henry, James Whitney, John Whitney Sr., Dan Sandin, Steina Vasulka, Woody Vasulka, Larry Cuba, Bill Etra, Mitchell Waite, Rosa Menkman, Cracked Ray Tube, Andrew Duff, Benton C. Bainbridge, Philip Baljeu, Jonas Bers, Robin Fox, Robert Henke, Ivan Marušić Klif, Jerobeam Fenderson, Hansi Raber, Ted Davis, Roland Lioni, Bernhard Rasinger, and the Kikimore group.

I wrote this book over the period of 2017-2019 as part of my MA thesis in Sound in New Media at Aalto University in Helsinki. It is 122 pages long, has 21 illustrations, links to several video examples online, and was fabulously designed by Claire Matthews.

I'm launching this Kickstarter because so many of you expressed interest in having a printed copy of this work. The proceeds of this Kickstarter (after covering the printing costs) will be used to get copies of this to people who have assisted in its creation, and just as importantly to organizations who deserve one -- places like Signal Culture in Owego NY; Cirkulacija 2, Ljudmila, and Project Atol in Ljubljana; the Radio Belgrade Electronic Studio in Serbia; the Media Arts and Technology Department at the University of California Santa Barbara CA; or the Media Archaeology Lab in Boulder CO, who either have directly contributed to the development of this project over the years, or whose missions correspond strongly with my own. My aim is to print and distribute 100 copies, or more if there is additional interest. Your support of this publishing project will help make that possible.

REVIEW

'The aesthetics of the Vector Synthesis project are timely and capturing: when our world has become as politically and environmentally problematic as it is, with the whole Enlightenment project under threat, art somehow has to express this, and Holzer does this by applying the aesthetics of the glitch, the broken, the old and dirty, but with the belief that there within we find meaningful contemporary expression. This is an aesthetic that questions the techno-progressive ideology, the perfect technological society of the future, and admits that our universalising narratives of simulation, control, truth and identity have become problematic.' Thor Magnusson, Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Sussex, UK, author of "Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic, and Signal Inscriptions" (2019, Bloomsbury)."

On Kickstarter here.