For the One In the Sky
from the Visual Music series
by Negin Ehtesabian
Three pieces 154 in 141 cm, each visualizing one religious song music, based on personal coding on music notes:
1. “Kaddish” Song, Jewish prayer
2. A part of the “Hymn to the Holy Name” (A Catholic prayer in the choir)
3. ”Rabbana” Dua (A Muslim religious pray, especially during the Ramadhan month, solo singing in Iranian Dastgah/ the musical model system)
media: Digital
Visual Music series is a research-based series of works combining visual art and music, to specifically investigate the unconscious experiences between the visual and the audio.
Chromesthesia is when sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape, and movement. In music, for instance, there is an experimental effect of the colors in addition to the normal auditory sensations. Using color codes and computers, I am attempting to bring this Chromesthetic experience into a digital format.
This project started by looking at a carpet design map. A small fragment looked like a computer pixel when it was down and the larger whole was unable to be seen. Considering that carpet weavers themselves use the designer's code to make each knot, bit by bit, they are only seeing a fragment and not the whole. I was fascinated by what this experience is and where there are other sensory experiences happening. What does the fragment offer that is not part of the whole?
I am working on my own sets of cartography based on a code map and then drawing versions of them.
I had an idea for a project of visualizing music for the past ten years and now suddenly these two ideas came together. I wonder how I can translate these pixels to music and the other way around. I wonder what the difference between digital and emotional maps are. My research involves looking at other visual music projects that have been done before, including the color codes of music notes, Chromesthesia, color organs, and the various ways artists have responded to this.
**2021, September, Has been shown on
Critical Abstraction New Media Art show, University of Wyoming/ USA