Pen Point Percussion
Norman McLaren, 1950
The text and video excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d’Atlantis, musique électroacoustique et cinéma archéologie et histoire d’un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.
The most original domain in which Norman McLaren’s research was carried out is without doubt that of optical synthesis, obtained by means of two different processes, as a “genuine musician of light”, to use Abel Gance’s expression: “because in his work the visual sensation (the light of the image) becomes musical sensation (the light of the sound)”.
The first technical process he uses is explained in Pen Point Percussion – A la pointe de la plume – (1950), a didactic film conceived retrospectively as an introduction to Dots and Loops (1939-1940), laying the foundations of “sound painting ”.