MOVEMENT SONIFICATION - II
// Kurenniemi explaining how it works. Stills from DIMI-O BALLET showcase, watch it bellow In the early 70's he created an electronic instrument, a video organ, called DIMI-O. It was an electronic organ, a 32-step sequencer memory unit. It had a video screen where the notes were visualised as a score in a optical interface, and from which the player could play and manipulate the notes sequences in the memory . Through some control bottoms he could loop the sequence, stretch it, reverse, duplicate it, speed up/down, … The instrument could be played with a keyboard as notes input or via a video camera. The picture captured by the camera was converted into black and white, and then used as signal to control de notes in the memory unit.
// Dancer triggering sounds. Stills from DIMI-O BALLET showcase, watch it bellow
// DIMI-O funtional diagram Kurenniemi imagined and listed some uses for DIMI-O, like : - a studio instrument, to read graphic music, and record sounds through the video input. - as a live instrument to perform with orchestras - as an instrument for dance/ballet performances where the body movements would manipulate the music; - in experimental films, where the pictures would be transformed into music *[Source] OJANEN, Mikki, SOUMINEN, Jari, KALLIO, Titti, LASSFOLK, Kay. (2007)."Design Principles and User Interfaces of Erkki Kurenniemi’s Electronic Musical Instruments of the 1960’s and 1970’s", in "Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME07)" New York, NY, USA. DIMI BALLET (1971) was a performance made to demonstrate the use of this instrument with video input. This video documentation is part of the DVD "The Dawn of DIMI" (by Mika Taanila ), it contains the documentary film about Erkki Kurennimemi "Future Is Not What Is Used To Be" (by Mika Taanila ) and some extra tracks like the DIMI-Ballet, six experimental films and some "Basic II" computer Animations.
// The "DIMI-Ballet" video. First Kurenniemi explains how the instrument works, then at 2:30 the performer start to dance an generating sound sequences. In 2002, the Avanto Festival in Helsinki, payed an homage to Kurenniemi and among other activities they reconstructed the performance DEAL (1971) and performed live dance with a DIMI-O video synthetizer.
// DEAL intermedia performance , Helsinki 2002, (Ilona Jäntti, Topi Tateishi, Mikko Ojanen) More info about Erkki Kurenniemi here and here