Introduction
The junction between sound and moving images is increasingly being explored by artists, engineers, technologists or creative people, in various different environments such as clubs, art institutions, labs, education institutions or even everyday things like video games or music videos. Many developers are focusing their efforts in the art of combining all kinds of moving images (video, animation, games etc...) with audio, but just a few achieve what can be considered as an absolute fusion between both disciplines. This project intends to give light to at least some of the factors that make this junction possible, and will use the knowledge acquired to design and implement a computer application which generates dynamic representations of music in real time. The project does not intend to faithfully represent sound, it is not an audio analysis tool, rather a creative tool that enables the user to experiment with audio and video in real time with no post production involved, as well as helping the expansion of this massively increasing field that lacks of sufficient sources of information (Makela, M. 2006) . Preliminary research has shown that this field has been explored by many over the years starting from Vassily Kandinsky and covering a vast range of artists such as Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Nam June Paik or Rioichy Kurokawa to name a few and also the fact that the research lines started by them are influencing the appearance of new forms of the so called augmented reality, which for instance can be seen in smart phones based games, or new forms of interface for music making purposes to name a few examples.
The project will try to understand the history of this movement, mainly focusing in the techniques and theories formulated over time, and will also analyze current trends , and some of the suitable tools for this kind of activity, needless is to say that these days computers are more powerful than ever, and very much so to the point that linking video and audio within the same work environment is more doable than ever, so multimedia programming environments such as Pure Data or Max/Msp/Jitter are perfectly capable of doing this kind of task. In the technical side of things, this project implies learning about advanced audio analysis methods, MIDI messaging and computer graphics programming with the aim of achieving an application that instantly reacts to music creating visual stimulus that can be rapidly associated with the music being heard. MIDI will be a key part, providing the system with a suitable control method for real time junction with music, and computer graphics will provide the platform to achieve its artistic goal.
Due to its highly technical nature, this project should be considered as a part of a BSc, having a practical weighting of at least 25% formed by the actual creation of the application where the scientific method is essential. Advanced mathematical knowledge will be needed to obtain the desired visual results plus the investigation in both audio and MIDI sides of things to acquire a powerful method for synchronization.