Graphic scores: A collaboration between print and music

Print has always been used to disseminate information as well as to create artistic representations and reproductions. Increasingly it is used by artists as a medium that enables us to cross once well-established media boundaries rather than as a specialist medium in its own right. Equally, prints have always been the product of collaborative working relationships as well as the creations of a solitary artist. I propose an exhibition that investigates the working relationship between graphic notation and music: an exhibition of graphic scores for improvisational music.

Graphic scores represent music using visual images outside the realm of traditional music notation. Their use in contemporary context was developed in the 1950s and they have continued to be an effective way for experimental musicians to convey musical ideas where standard musical notation is inappropriate. While many graphic scores are visually interesting, few claim to be works of art in their own right. I am working with Raymond MacDonald, a well-known Scottish jazz saxophonist and composer, to create a series of original prints and animations that function equally as visual art and musical score.

There will be 20 images, approximately 30cm x 42cm, designed to fit on a conventional music stand. They can be hung in a grid, or spaced in a line, depending on the space allotted.

The prints are digital but use the hand-drawn line as a matrix for blocks of color to articulate sound. The grid-like structures suggest order, but, close scrutiny reveals constant variation, suggestive of the negotiated relationship we hope to achieve between composition and improvisation in the music.

We would like to take advantage of your kind invitation to present our work outside of a conventional letter style approach and perform to the scores during the conference. A performance to take place in the exhibition space.