Connection With Visual Art

Eero Saarinen’s Architectural Aptitude Test

In my album of 12 solo piano pieces ("Rifts"), the only rule was that each piece would be in the Lydian mode--one for each key. It's "home" chord (Key of C):

Here is an example of a similar set of simple rules applied to visual art, combining the rectilinear and curvilinear, and using a set of 12 colors. (Similar to the creativity tests they would give young architects). 

The results are very simple and almost child-like, but in some ways, it is also like a Pollock drip painting, which also has a few simple rules, yet it is the aesthetic opposite.

What does this have to do with music? Almost nothing, but the use of metaphor (Rifts, a breaking apart or using the metaphor of tectonic plates) allowed for something new to emerge (like mountains are pushed up at the edges of colliding plates).

The "algorithm": Divide a square, then assign the color of an adjacent part, then rearrange randomly.

Step 1: Select 12 colors

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Step 2: Slice each square randomly, then assign the color of an adjacent part (e.g. take green from square 1, and apply it to a part of square 2, take green from square 2 and apply it to a part of square 3, and so on).

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Step 3: Randomly rearrange and rotate each square into a new work, or create another rule for transformation.

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Step 4: Digitally transform the piece in some way ("Dark Strokes" effect in Photoshop, then rotate -90)

Step 5: Duplicate the image and rotate 180 degrees and set to Screen mode.

Step 6: Duplicate the image and rotate 180 degrees and set to Overlay mode.