[Music]
you might be looking at this and
thinking about what you see but it’s
actually possible to look at this and
instead think about what you hear think
about music some of its building blocks
are rhythm which is just when notes
happen over time with silent spaces in
between it has harmony which is when two
or more notes at different pitches are
played together at the same time to
produce a certain psychological effect
or mood it has form which is how the
chunks and sections of music are
arranged over time and all those
building blocks together create a
composition nothing back to painting
this and visual arts also have rhythm
but that’s visual rhythm which can be
created with marks like this
and here we have spaces in between paint
marks instead of silence in between
musical notes
it also has harmony but that’s color
harmony which is the placement of two or
more colors together to produce a
certain psychological effect or mood
like this
and here I changed the mood with this
contrasting harmony between blue and
orange this image also has forms and
shapes that occupy chunks and sections
of the image and all these elements
together create a composition also when
musicians add different chords or
Tambor’s or textures to music we say
that we’re adding color to the music and
it creates another tone or mood just
like if I added another color to this
painting
boom
so for example those could be my conga
drums adding color to this music
another common music term is staccato
which is a series of very short notes
usually played very quickly and with
just short silences in between and we
can actually see how the same effect can
be created in painting like this
and you can actually see staccato
and you can hear the sounds of the marks
being made as I make them like this we
can also say that this painting is
syncopated syncopation is the emphasis
of silences between musical notes but
again here we have spaces in between
paint marks so we can actually see
staccato and see syncopation but it’s
crazy because this is something that’s
only supposed to exist in the world of
sound but we can actually see it we can
see into the world of sound arts
something else compelling is that
legendary musician Miles Davis used to
look at Kandinsky paintings like these
and he would compare their balance and
juxtaposition of lines and shapes to the
balance and juxtaposition of chords and
sounds in music and he said if artists
like Kandinsky can do stuff like that
with images I can do the same thing with
sounds and he said a painting is music
that you can see and music is a painting
that you can hear and the key with that
is whether it’s with music or painting
or any other kind of art form all those
building blocks have an impression on us
and they evoke a deeper understanding
and insight into whoever or whatever
created them and regardless of which
building blocks are being used or not in
any given work rhythm is the one that’s
always there and still communicates on
its own for example in this
black-and-white painting even without
color harmony or very much form or
composition we can still see that the
rhythm of the marks is aggressive and we
know that the artist carried out
aggressive gestures to create this image
and we can sense an intense energy
coming from within the artist and out
through this work just through visual
rhythm and you can look at this painting
and say that it’s probably not a happy
one just by sensing its rhythm now think
about filmmaking which is a very
powerful combination of music and sounds
and visuals but with the added element
of motion and of course motion itself is
rhythmic and drama is created through
that rhythm and timing in film so think
about when you’re watching a movie and
you see two characters having a
conversation first you see one person on
the screen talking and then it switches
and you see another person on the screen
talk and then it switches and you see
the other person it keeps going back and
forth the precise timing of when to make
that switch is called a beat and again
in music a beat is used for rhythm and
usually percussion but in this case it’s
used to signal and signify a key moment
in the story for example when a
character realizes something or the
exact moment that a character has a
reaction or when there’s a pause so here
in film rhythm is used to communicate
something subtle and intuitive and even
the writing of the storyline has rhythm
because really a story is just things
happening over time and if you think
back to music the rhythm is just when
the notes happen over time and both have
their own culminations and buildups and
different tension and release and also
in writing you have actual rhythmic
structures such as I am back pentameter
which you can find in Shakespeare plays
and sonnets and that’s called meter
which is also another music term and you
also have the writers voice which is the
way that any particular writer puts
together phrases and words and syllables
almost as if they were shapes and lines
to create a certain psychological effect
and a finished piece of writing is also
called a composition and that’s all in
writing but it’s just like in music and
we can continue to detect how rhythm is
used across other artistic disciplines
for example
architecture
and various design
and of course dance which is all motion
and where rhythm is used to very
directly communicate and express so much
through rhythmic gestures we identify
with the creator of those rhythms in a
deeper way that cannot just be explained
in words and that’s part of the purpose
of the art because if you can just
explain it to somebody then why make the
art right attitudes feelings emotions
thoughts and energy combined into
something unique in the artists mind
that gets transferred through the work
but everything has rhythm not just arts
it’s the way that we move walk talk
breathe think blink everything every
little thing that happens has rhythm
Miles Davis also mentioned the music in
the rhythmic culmination of punches in
boxing in the timing of punchlines in
comedy and the build-up of footsteps
leading up to shooting a basketball that
has tension and release he said rhythm
is all around us
even if you stumble you might want to
play that
so these connections and insights
through rhythm within the arts can
actually be applied to everything else
and as an artist I wondered what would
happen if I did take everything around
me and turn it into as Miles would say
music that you can see so I created
drawings and paintings based on the
sounds and movements that specific
people around me made and in other words
the compositions that they created just
by being alive this one is based on time
that I spent with Miles Davis’s last
drummer Ricky well man who was a friend
and became the owner of the only prints
of this and it was one of the very first
in this exploration this is based on my
uncle who taught me how to play music
I took this a step further and while
thinking about the rhythm of everything
around me I started to think about the
rhythm of how I perceived everything and
I started to focus on how the rhythm of
perception could tell me something about
the nature of perception itself so I
created a video projection for the venue
at the TED 2016 conference which was
themed dream and in that context I could
explore and work with perception and
consciousness in this way and the video
was about the fragmented stages of
dreaming and the rhythm of how sounds
and visuals interacted in a dream so I
could go from doing paintings like this
to making videos like this and
activating them with more motion and
explicit rhythm
so I started to get closer and closer to
how rhythm can open insight into
anything and we can see how this spreads
into other areas of how we understand
the world for example music is
mathematical and math can also be
translated into very beautiful patterns
that are also very rhythmic also in
physics at CERN one of the one of the
world leading physics labs they have a
residency where arts and physics are
meant to inspire each other and at the
lab they have some of the biggest
machines ever built where they smash
particles together to discover new
particles and new physics and there was
a project called discern where real-time
data from those collisions was turned
directly into music and I was so
fascinated by what was going on at CERN
that I decided to visit and it was my
first stop in Switzerland and this is
what I saw this is a cloud chamber which
reveals the trails of actual particles
as they come from space through the
atmosphere and through this chamber and
they pass through our bodies they pass
through objects and straight through the
earth almost totally unaffected and
guess what I noticed first their rhythm
and I wanted to identify with them even
more in that intuitive and artistic way
and get that same kind of sense for it
so I created a virtual reality
simulation of those particles not at the
exact same speeds because some of them
are impossible to replicate but at least
proportional enough so that it had a
similar rhythmic and visual composition
and it had the same rhythmic impression
on us when we put on the headset in this
documentation what you see on the back
wall is what the person wearing the
headset actually sees experiences and
moves through
so it’s an immersive engagement with the
rhythmic system and identity of these
particles
so next time you see artwork think about
what you hear and next time you hear
music think about what you see and by
tapping into how every little thing
within and around us is like artwork and
music tap into its rhythm to identify
with it and connect with it in a deeper
way than you ever have before thank you
[Applause]
you
you might be looking at this and
thinking about what you see but it’s
actually possible to look at this and
instead think about what you hear think
about music some of its building blocks
are rhythm which is just when notes
happen over time with silent spaces in
between it has harmony which is when two
or more notes at different pitches are
played together at the same time to
produce a certain psychological effect
or mood it has form which is how the
chunks and sections of music are
arranged over time and all those
building blocks together create a
composition nothing back to painting
this and visual arts also have rhythm
but that’s visual rhythm which can be
created with marks like this
and here we have spaces in between paint
marks instead of silence in between
musical notes
it also has harmony but that’s color
harmony which is the placement of two or
more colors together to produce a
certain psychological effect or mood
like this
and here I changed the mood with this
contrasting harmony between blue and
orange this image also has forms and
shapes that occupy chunks and sections
of the image and all these elements
together create a composition also when
musicians add different chords or
Tambor’s or textures to music we say
that we’re adding color to the music and
it creates another tone or mood just
like if I added another color to this
painting
boom
so for example those could be my conga
drums adding color to this music
another common music term is staccato
which is a series of very short notes
usually played very quickly and with
just short silences in between and we
can actually see how the same effect can
be created in painting like this
and you can actually see staccato
and you can hear the sounds of the marks
being made as I make them like this we
can also say that this painting is
syncopated syncopation is the emphasis
of silences between musical notes but
again here we have spaces in between
paint marks so we can actually see
staccato and see syncopation but it’s
crazy because this is something that’s
only supposed to exist in the world of
sound but we can actually see it we can
see into the world of sound arts
something else compelling is that
legendary musician Miles Davis used to
look at Kandinsky paintings like these
and he would compare their balance and
juxtaposition of lines and shapes to the
balance and juxtaposition of chords and
sounds in music and he said if artists
like Kandinsky can do stuff like that
with images I can do the same thing with
sounds and he said a painting is music
that you can see and music is a painting
that you can hear and the key with that
is whether it’s with music or painting
or any other kind of art form all those
building blocks have an impression on us
and they evoke a deeper understanding
and insight into whoever or whatever
created them and regardless of which
building blocks are being used or not in
any given work rhythm is the one that’s
always there and still communicates on
its own for example in this
black-and-white painting even without
color harmony or very much form or
composition we can still see that the
rhythm of the marks is aggressive and we
know that the artist carried out
aggressive gestures to create this image
and we can sense an intense energy
coming from within the artist and out
through this work just through visual
rhythm and you can look at this painting
and say that it’s probably not a happy
one just by sensing its rhythm now think
about filmmaking which is a very
powerful combination of music and sounds
and visuals but with the added element
of motion and of course motion itself is
rhythmic and drama is created through
that rhythm and timing in film so think
about when you’re watching a movie and
you see two characters having a
conversation first you see one person on
the screen talking and then it switches
and you see another person on the screen
talk and then it switches and you see
the other person it keeps going back and
forth the precise timing of when to make
that switch is called a beat and again
in music a beat is used for rhythm and
usually percussion but in this case it’s
used to signal and signify a key moment
in the story for example when a
character realizes something or the
exact moment that a character has a
reaction or when there’s a pause so here
in film rhythm is used to communicate
something subtle and intuitive and even
the writing of the storyline has rhythm
because really a story is just things
happening over time and if you think
back to music the rhythm is just when
the notes happen over time and both have
their own culminations and buildups and
different tension and release and also
in writing you have actual rhythmic
structures such as I am back pentameter
which you can find in Shakespeare plays
and sonnets and that’s called meter
which is also another music term and you
also have the writers voice which is the
way that any particular writer puts
together phrases and words and syllables
almost as if they were shapes and lines
to create a certain psychological effect
and a finished piece of writing is also
called a composition and that’s all in
writing but it’s just like in music and
we can continue to detect how rhythm is
used across other artistic disciplines
for example
architecture
and various design
and of course dance which is all motion
and where rhythm is used to very
directly communicate and express so much
through rhythmic gestures we identify
with the creator of those rhythms in a
deeper way that cannot just be explained
in words and that’s part of the purpose
of the art because if you can just
explain it to somebody then why make the
art right attitudes feelings emotions
thoughts and energy combined into
something unique in the artists mind
that gets transferred through the work
but everything has rhythm not just arts
it’s the way that we move walk talk
breathe think blink everything every
little thing that happens has rhythm
Miles Davis also mentioned the music in
the rhythmic culmination of punches in
boxing in the timing of punchlines in
comedy and the build-up of footsteps
leading up to shooting a basketball that
has tension and release he said rhythm
is all around us
even if you stumble you might want to
play that
so these connections and insights
through rhythm within the arts can
actually be applied to everything else
and as an artist I wondered what would
happen if I did take everything around
me and turn it into as Miles would say
music that you can see so I created
drawings and paintings based on the
sounds and movements that specific
people around me made and in other words
the compositions that they created just
by being alive this one is based on time
that I spent with Miles Davis’s last
drummer Ricky well man who was a friend
and became the owner of the only prints
of this and it was one of the very first
in this exploration this is based on my
uncle who taught me how to play music
I took this a step further and while
thinking about the rhythm of everything
around me I started to think about the
rhythm of how I perceived everything and
I started to focus on how the rhythm of
perception could tell me something about
the nature of perception itself so I
created a video projection for the venue
at the TED 2016 conference which was
themed dream and in that context I could
explore and work with perception and
consciousness in this way and the video
was about the fragmented stages of
dreaming and the rhythm of how sounds
and visuals interacted in a dream so I
could go from doing paintings like this
to making videos like this and
activating them with more motion and
explicit rhythm
so I started to get closer and closer to
how rhythm can open insight into
anything and we can see how this spreads
into other areas of how we understand
the world for example music is
mathematical and math can also be
translated into very beautiful patterns
that are also very rhythmic also in
physics at CERN one of the one of the
world leading physics labs they have a
residency where arts and physics are
meant to inspire each other and at the
lab they have some of the biggest
machines ever built where they smash
particles together to discover new
particles and new physics and there was
a project called discern where real-time
data from those collisions was turned
directly into music and I was so
fascinated by what was going on at CERN
that I decided to visit and it was my
first stop in Switzerland and this is
what I saw this is a cloud chamber which
reveals the trails of actual particles
as they come from space through the
atmosphere and through this chamber and
they pass through our bodies they pass
through objects and straight through the
earth almost totally unaffected and
guess what I noticed first their rhythm
and I wanted to identify with them even
more in that intuitive and artistic way
and get that same kind of sense for it
so I created a virtual reality
simulation of those particles not at the
exact same speeds because some of them
are impossible to replicate but at least
proportional enough so that it had a
similar rhythmic and visual composition
and it had the same rhythmic impression
on us when we put on the headset in this
documentation what you see on the back
wall is what the person wearing the
headset actually sees experiences and
moves through
so it’s an immersive engagement with the
rhythmic system and identity of these
particles
so next time you see artwork think about
what you hear and next time you hear
music think about what you see and by
tapping into how every little thing
within and around us is like artwork and
music tap into its rhythm to identify
with it and connect with it in a deeper
way than you ever have before thank you
[Applause]
you
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