The first Visual Music Marathon broke new ground in Boston last month. The program presented 120 films, of which 64 films were selected from over 300 submissions. Invited artists and selected historic films rounded out the 12-hour marathon.

The first ever Visual Music Marathon took place in Boston, on April 28, 2007. It was part of the Boston Cyberarts Festival which took place April 20-May 6, at museums, galleries, universities and public spaces in and around the Boston area. The Visual Music Marathon itself was held in the Raytheon Amphitheatre of Northeastern University. It consisted of a 12-hour-long program divided into 12 one-hour segments, with no break in between -- indeed, a real marathon!

There were 120 films in total. Sixty-four films were selected from more than 300 submissions from 34 countries, to which were added works from invited artists, an excellent section of historic films (Richter, Bute, Fischinger, McLaren, Hirsh, Breer, Whitney and Lye), one program curated by Bruce Wands of the School of Visual Arts and New York Digital Salon, another program curated by Larry Cuba of the iota Center, and one section of live video performances.

The festival was centered on the concept of "visual music," which was defined as follows in the guidelines: "Visual music: Fine art animation, video or film in which the visual elements are informed by musical processes."

The guidelines went on to say, "Works submitted for screening should illustrate in some form the concept or use of visual music. Abstract/non-representational ('fine art' or 'experimental') works with original music are especially encouraged. Works under 10 minutes in duration are preferred (all entries must be under 30 minutes in length)."

Dennis H. Miller.

The person behind this marathon is Dennis H. Miller, a professor in the department of music at Northeastern University (by the way, and most relevant to the quality of this/his marathon, Miller creates exquisite animation, such as White Noise, music included, visible on his website (www.dennismiller.neu.edu). This festival was clearly a labor of love, love for the medium and genuine respect for its creators, but more on that later.

Those of us who were in Boston, attend "regular" festivals and submit our "non-narrative/abstract/experimental animation" pieces to them did not really know what to expect from VMM. We are indeed so used to being ushered through the back door in a token "non-narrative/abstract animation" niche, or drowned in a sea of "entertainment," that it was quite difficult to imagine what a festival made "only" of -- and for -- our kind of work, would be -- and feel -- like. (There are however honest efforts at opening the doors of major festivals to this type of work, as for example in Malcolm Turner's Melbourne International Animation Festival, Chris Robinson's OIAF are also progressively opening its doors to this type of work, so things are slowly improving, but only slowly.)

Miller's White Noise is poetically charged, and might make artists try 3D. © Dennis H. Miller.

In this article, I will also present the impressions of some of the key figures I met during the Marathon, as well as a large selection of excerpts from many of the excellent films that were presented in Boston. I am now convinced that it takes several such comments and excerpts to hint at the momentum of that exceptional festival, and convey a bit of the quality and energy that were made so clearly visible during the Marathon.

But let's go back to describing VMM First pleasant surprise -- the festival brochure is gorgeous, each film is listed with a representative still, some words ("our" words to boot!) to present it and there is enough available information to make navigating of the roster a breeze. The brochure's focus is placed squarely on the works themselves, on the festival, and neither is used as an excuse to peddle anything else.