ORPHICS 1992-2000

SONATINE 1992-1994

This composition, based on Maurice Ravel's Sonatine, marks a new direction. It is the first work that translates a musical composition into its visual counterpart, not with arbitrarily set free-form or mathematical themes, but according to predefined rules for the reading of musical scores. By establishing a biunivocal correspondence of units in time to units in space, the action unfolds by maintaining a space rather than by following a trajectory.

Six frames from "Orphics: Sonatine", Digital Video, 5'00", 1994
Music: "Sonatine" by Maurice Ravel
Piano: Aleksander Rojc

NOCTURNE 1994-1995

The new development in this composition based on Erik Satie's "Premier Nocturne", are the "flying banners", color entities, which respond to color gravity,to the tonal attraction of the underlying color field, with which they eventually merge in the appropriate tonality and at the required speed.

Six frames from "Orphics: Nocturne", Digital Video, 4'40", 1995
Music: "Premier Nocturne" by Erik Satie
Piano: Ida Trebicka

5ieme GNOSSIENNE, a synopsis. 1995-1996

This composition comes closest to an actual one-to-one interpretation of a muiscal score. It shows Erik Satie's "5ieme Gnossienne". As the composition progresses in color-space-time, each frame closely portrays the sound-structure of a particular measure in time.

Six frames from "Orphics: 5ieme Gnossienne", Digital Video, 4'00", 1996 Music: "5ieme GNOSSIENNE" by Erik Satie Piano: Aleksander Rojc

ORPHICS 6.1 1996-1998

Orphics 6.1 visually portrais Bartok's "VIII Bagatelle" in space/time. The new development in Orphics 6.1 are color-space Metamorphoses, which through topological space and color modulations, almost literally portray the old adage that identifies music with liquid architecture.

Six frames from "Orphics 6.1", Digital Video, 2'45", 1998 Music: "VIII Bagatelle" by Bela Bartok Piano: Aleksander Rojc

ORPHICS 6.2 1998-2000

This is the last composition in the Orphics 6 series. It shows Claude Debussy's "La Fille Aux Cheveux de Lin" structured with form and color in space and time. At this point, Zajec feels that a debt has been paid to musical composition in trying to learn from the precepts of the well tempered Klavier. He now thinks that, except for color structuring, there is nothing in aural experience that could give us a clue about how to deal with time-variant positional order in vision.

Six frames from "Orphics 6.2", Digital Video, 4'30", 2000 Music: "La Fille Aux Cheveux de Lin" by Claude Debussy
Piano: Aleksander Rojc

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