Some VMM works mix source techniques and computer processes exquisitely like tides (experimental video photography: Matt Costanza, music: Abby Aresty, dance choreography: Missy Pfohl Smith, 2006). © Matt Costanza.

Our approach has been to pretty much forget about film festivals and concentrate on art museums and cinematheques. However, once our KINETICA programs were out there, we found many festivals were also interested in presenting them. I think the VMM is one more example (albeit a particularly significant one) of the ever-expanding recognition and acceptance of vm as an art form separate and distinct from "animation." Wouldn't it be better to acknowledge this rising tide of interest than to position VMM as an anomaly of some kind? Anyway, just my two cents...

I'll add that VMM was not "just" a program of all abstract/experimental/visual music pieces, it was a marathon, and conceived as such. But Larry's point is very important, there are venues and efforts "out there" that are trying to give visual music and the "animation as art" efforts the place they deserve.

It is also through VMM that I discovered the iota Center, and its essential mission. William Moritz (who died in 2004, amongst many activities, also wrote about one of my heroines, Mary Ellen Bute, right here at AWN) must/would be delighted.

One thing in particular grabbed me in Larry's discourse, it is his fight against this pathetic "obsolescence" so ever present, imposed in fact, this ridiculous two-year shelf-life the films submitted to festivals have to conform to! Imagine going to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, or the Met in NYC, and stare at a Rembrandt or a Vermeer (gorgeous ones in both places) and "dismiss" them because they were made more than two years ago! (Mind you, in reference to the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Cézanne, but also Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and all, I once heard a "person, a librarian no less, refer to them as "Dead White Europeans.")

Graveshift by Arie Stavchansky (music: Per Bloland, 2004) is an example of a novel hybrid created from many techniques and sources. © Arie Stavchansky.

Hell, my dear friend Martine Chartrand (Black Soul, 2001) creates on average two minutes of animation per year of steady work (painting on glass), to have her magnificent work measured with the standards of the fast ("cultural") food industry just does not make any sense. And there is more, Miller reminded me of that ludicrous demand some festivals sometimes place on our work: "Could you make it shorter?"!!! Shades of Amadeus' "Too many notes!"

Next, here's what McDonnell wrote about her experience at VMM:
The Visual Music Marathon provided the opportunity to bring together in one event, contemporary music and image artistic works that are being composed in order to be presented as moving image with music and/or music with moving image.

The sheer diversity of practice that is possible in this newly awakening art form of visual music was demonstrated most clearly in the Visual Music Marathon. It was nothing short of amazing to see such a variety of approaches. An interesting aspect for me, of seeing 120 quality artistic works one after the other was being able to see that diverse practice all at once and see how although diverse, the works all fitted very well under the term of "visual music," even if many of the artists who submitted work would see there work belonging to other genres. What could also be seen in such a mammoth sitting were the points of commonality amongst the works shown and indeed, the continuing lineage they had with historical abstract animation and film.

It didn't seem to matter how the films were made or what manner in which the music was used -- was the film created first and music composed second, was the music the source of inspiration for the structure of the film, were software and external processes used to generate imagery and sound -- none of this mattered (indeed it is of course very important to each individual artist how and why they create their work). Software, sound designers, filmmakers, animators, music composers, multi-disciplinary artists -- all their artistic work was welcome at this event. The point of commonality in every work presented was the impetus in the art work -- the energy that was directed to connecting the visual with music processes.

An interesting note for me is the prevalence of a marriage between electroacoustic music/computer music and abstract animation filmmaking imagery that was apparent in many of the works at the event. Has electroacoustic music found an outlet for visualizing its abstract sound? Through working with electroacoustic music has abstract animation and film found a way to articulate its language? These were questions I was left with after this amazing visual music event. Dennis Miller did an excellent job in his programming of the event and in bringing to one sitting, the most amazing and beautiful films/animations and music.