Color Organs

7 Light Kinetics

The lines of development presented above continued after World War II. In the 1950s, Frank Malina, Nino Calos, Abraham Palatnik, Nicolas Schöffer, and others began producing works that in Europe and the United States established a field of autonomous light kinetics completely dissociated from music and which prevails to this day.[12]

In the tradition of Alexander László, color organs continued — and continue — to be developed that no longer link each key to a color, but above all depict moving colored forms. These include, for example, the instruments created by Natalia Sidler and Jack Ox.[13]

The light shows presented at rock concerts in the 1950s and 1960s, which continue as part of often spectacular stage shows, were influenced by early colored-light projections. This tradition also lives on in the VJ acts and audiovisual live performances spawned by the club culture, which even though they are mostly digital productions, take up certain aesthetic features of bygone epochs.[14]

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