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VISUAL MUSIC
From Abstract Film
to THE Digital AGE
Visual Music is an artistic movement that explores the connection between sound and image. It emerged in the early 20th century, when experimental filmmakers began to treat moving images as visual equivalents of musical composition. Artists such as Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye, and Norman McLaren created abstract films where rhythm, form, and color replaced narrative. Their goal was to translate musical structure into motion and light.
Fischinger’s An Optical Poem (1938) and Bute’s Tarantella (1940) are considered key works of this period. Their experiments influenced Walt Disney, who invited Fischinger to contribute to Fantasia (1940), a film that brought the principles of Visual Music to a broader audience.
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WALT DISNEY - Fantasia - 1940
JOHN WHITNEY - Experiments in Motion Graphics - 1968
MARIE ELLEN BUTTE - Tarantella - 1940
OSKAR FISCHINGER - An Optical Poem - 1938
After the 1940s, the movement evolved through artists like John Whitney, who applied mathematical and digital tools to compose with motion. Later generations continued exploring this relationship through video, computer graphics, and sound synthesis, keeping Visual Music active across new media.
Fabi Cruz’s work extends this lineage into the digital and interactive era. Using animation, augmented reality, and interactive sound objects, she continues the tradition of composing with both sound and color. Guided by her chromesthetic perception, she translates music and language into geometric motion, creating works that invite viewers to experience sound visually and physically. Her projects—such as Sound Alphabet, Sound Architectures, and Sound Canvases—carry forward the early Visual Music experiments into contemporary technologies, turning them into multisensory experiences.
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