A musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book “Digital Harmony”, rendered in actionscript, perl, & flash. The music box has the bars for a 48-note chromatic scale - The pattern causes chords, ascending and descending runs and melodies to be heard as each “dot” passes the zero-point line.

From the developer’s blog:

This weekend I’ve been playing, once again, with the ideas of experimental film pioneer John Whitney, using both graphics and audio. While Whitney was interested in turning musical ideas into motion graphics, I’m doing the inverse — turning one of his key animation ideas back into music.

Whitney made a number of films based around the simple idea of harmonic relationships. Above is a visual example of one his ideas that I implemented in Flash.

And this is a particularly influential snippet from John Whitney’s “Digital Harmony”:

An early intuition about how to control total dynamics led me to activate all graphic elements through a motion function that advances each element differentially. For example, if one element were set to move at a given rate, the next element might be moved at two times that rate. Then the third would move at three times that rate and so on. Each element would move at a different rate and in a different direction within the field of action. So long as all elements obey a rule of direction and rate, and none drifts aimlessly or randomly, then pattern configurations form and reform. This is harmonic resonance, and it echoes musical harmony, stated in explicit terms. I tried this procedure in several films, and was gratified by the consistency of the confirmation it demonstrated.

As antithetical as pure math seems to the spirit of music, I just can’t help but be entranced by their strangely entertwined relationship.