John Whitney

John Whitney, Sr. died September 22, 1995 in Los Angeles, California, ending a remarkable career that linked music to experimental film and later to computer imaging. John Hales Whitney was born April 8, 1917 in Pasadena, California; he attended Pomona College, Claremont University before spending a year in Paris from 1937 to 1938. While in Paris, he studied Schoenberg's Twelve Tone techniques with Rene Liebowitz and worked on the animation of abstract designs.



In 1986, John Whitney joined with Jerry Reed to develop a program combining computer graphics and music composing. From 1986-1992, the Whitney-Reed RDTD (Radius-Differential Theta Differential) composing program was refined. The product of this work was the invention of a music/graphic instrument that produces a direct matching of "tonal action with graphic action." Whitney said, "I believe that visual design belongs with musical design."

He stated that with the development of computer technology, computers can now create and store images and music in infinite combinations and sequences to experience Complementarity and bring about a richer communication. Whitney believed that strong emotion flows from the combination of Music and Visual elements. "I've struggled to define my vision. The union of color and tone is a very special gift of computer technologies." He said that he would look to future artists to develop the communication further. His paper, discussing a major new audio-visual art medium, was published in the Computer Music Journal, Vol. 18/3, Fall, 1994.By the 1970s, Whitney had abandoned his analogue computer in favour of faster, digital processes.

The pinnacle of his digital films is his 1975 work Arabesque, characterized by  blooming colour-forms. His work during the 1980s and 1990s, benefited from faster computers and his invention of an audio-visual composition program called the Whitney-Reed RDTD (Radius-Differential Theta Differential). Works from this period such as Moondrum (1989 - 1995) used self-composed music and often explored mystical or Native-Americans themes.