How to Play a Kandinsky: behind the scenes
What if you could hear color?
The pioneer of Abstract Art, Vassily Kandinsky, heard sound in colors and shapes.
In collaboration with Centre Pompidou, ‘Play a Kandinsky’ is a machine learning experiment that invites you to explore what Kandinsky might have heard when painting “Yellow-Red-Blue” in 1925, a well known masterpiece that highlights his color theories.
Head to https://g.co/play-a-kandinsky to to experience what a ‘Kandinsky’ sounds like and create your own mix of sounds and emotions!
*Delve deeper*
Kandinsky had the gift of synesthesia, a neurological condition that enabled him to associate colours with sounds. So when he created an artwork, two senses worked systematically together: hearing and sight.
Colors and shapes translated into sounds, harmonies, vibrations and emotions.
To unlock the “Sound” of a Kandinsky we teamed up with experimental music artists Antoine Bertin and NSDOS.
Together we analyzed Kandinsky’s personal notes and writings – outlining his synesthetic experience – and applied machine learning to create a tool that interactively simulates what Kandinsky may have heard when he painted his masterwork “Yellow Red Blue” in 1925.
*How it works*
There are four chapters to the experience:
1) Explore Kandinsky’s theories on color and sound and the relationship between shapes,
2) Hear the composed version of the painting created with help from machine learning,
3) Discover the emotions Kandinsky associated with color and shape and ‘play the painting’.
4) You can create and share your own musical mix of the painting, highlighting your chosen emotions as inspired by Kandinsky.
This is part of Sounds Like Kandinsky (https://g.co/Kandinsky) where you can uncover rare personal pictures and archival materials – some previously undisclosed to the general public – and discover an unprecedented emotive and educational access into the artist’s legacy.
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