First published in
Cornelia Lund, Holger Lund (eds.). Audio.Visual—On Visual Music and Related Media. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2009, pp. 180–190.
Quote as
Holger Lund. “Visual Music in the Context of Multimedia Parties,” in: Cornelia Lund, Holger Lund (eds.). Lund Audiovisual Writings, 2017, http://www.lundaudiovisualwritings.org/multimedia-parties
Abstract
Taking its cue from the Exploring Party project curated by Cornelia Lund and Holger Lund in 2007, this essay examines visual music in the context of the multimedia party. The project explored the history of the party as an experimental artistic format, focusing in particular on music visualization, especially in a live context. The main reference for the theme of party as art was Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) from 1966, a show gathering together the pop-cultural trends of its time. It featured music performances, multiple slide and film projections, a multicolored light show, dancers, performative acts, spectators as moving projection screens, and light agents equipped with flashlights. The result was a new kind of hybrid event positioned somewhere between art and a party. Taking Warhol’s EPI as a starting point, the text shows how the Exploring Party project translated this concept of party as art into a contemporary context.
