What is priorityspace?
PrioritySpace is my exploration into music visualisation. The basic concepts that underpin the style of visualisation I am developing are articulated through this site. PrioritySpace is also the project I am developing to bring my work to the broader public through festivals and schools by means of a portable dome theater.
My most recent work Discovery-Familiarisation-Recognition demonstrate many (unfortunately not all, give me 1 year on full funding!) of these concepts, which are divided into three categories:
Pitch Notation: which explores the translation of standard music notation into a 3 dimensional dynamic environment.
Acoustic Identity: which aims to map the actual acoustic qualities of individual instruments and express these qualities as distinctly identifiable visual entities.
Structural Components: addresses the larger issue of structure. Aspects of key structure, harmonic relationships and thematic phrasing are explored through the use of 3 dimensional path architecture.
And these are just the bare bones of it all. As my own work, and this site, evolves over time I will go into greater detail about various aspects. There are a huge range of visual issues to deal with which are related to the finer detail of musical expression, such as phrasing and articulation; the choreography of musical expression;
:how a musical/visual element moves through space
:the relationship between different types of instruments
:the question of a narrative representation of different melodic themes in a work. Should there be any emotional interpretation at all?
:Given enough structural detail can a visually emotional narrative emerge from the musical structure alone, as it does aurally?
The purpose of this work is to develop a visual experience that places the role of music at its center, reflects and supports the musical content and not turn it into aural accompaniment. By doing so I hope to create amazing musical landscapes which new audiences will be drawn to explore. At the same time much of the hidden structure behind great musical works can be revealed and allow the listening/viewing audience to further appreciate the genius behind the great composers.
Having said this, priorityspace is also a vehicle for the expression of my own composition and digital art. As much as I am curious to engage the above principles to the classical repertoire they are just as valid for any genre of music. The boundary between a purist academic approach and a more subjective and specifically narrative one is already being blurred and my next work certainly will engage both.