Jonathan Sparks

Helix

Interactive light sculpture visualizing the organization of musical notes.

https://vimeo.com/jonathansparks

Classes
Video Sculpture


Helix is an interactive light sculpture that visually represents how musical notes are organized.

The form of the sculpture is derived from combining two ways of thinking about music. The first being as note names in a scale, progressing cyclically from A to G and starting over again back at A. The second is as frequencies or pitches, increasing linearly from low to high. Combining the graphical representations of these two views, the circle and the line, a three dimensional shape called a helix is created with each rung progressing both around and up.

Users interact with the sculpture through a synced keyboard, lighting up corresponding rungs of the sculpture with colors according to Isaac Newton's theory of color and music.

This arrangement allows viewers to easily see how different notes relate to one another while enjoying a visual accompaniment to their performance.