The Visual Music of Jordan Belson
The pioneer in visual music, Jordan Belson creates lush vibrant experiences through his films.
As a pioneer of so-called “visual music,” Belson collaborated in 1957 with the composer Henry Jacobs in the legendary Vortex Concerts held at the Morrison Planetarium Dome, which brought together electronic music and abstract shapes. The duo projected light emissions that formed original, geometric figures, pulsing perfectly in tune with the electronic music.
Belson’s visual music is a combination of experimental animation and avant-garde media that tells stories through song and kaleidoscopic images. Recently, his work was added to the Library of Congress collection because of its “cultural, historical and aesthetic significance.”
Though part of his work can be seen online, Benson signed a petition for his work not to be uploaded due to the low resolution that could never do justice to his work. However, we can get an idea of what “visual music” means when we see these clips.
The stories in these “visual music” clips make for vibrant experiences, and the first ever created, that stimulate the lushest narrative hallucinations.
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