Now that the holidays have arrived, I’ve time to play around in my studio. I’ve recently begun work on a new animation project entitled The Music of the Spheres. If this title sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a very old concept dating back to ancient Greece and the mathematician Pythagoras. Known also as musica universalis, it’s “a philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies – the Sun, Moon, and planets – as a form of music. The theory, originating in ancient Greece, […] was later developed by 16th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler.” (from Wikipedia). Kepler discovered that the planets were exhibiting all of the ratios found in music, including octaves. They were, by their movements, mathematically expressing both major and minor musical scales.

The soundtrack is a gorgeous piece of music created by contemporary British experimental composer Suzie Shrubb entitled a tintinnabulation of cosmic scintillation. This piece is, quite literally, the music of the spheres. Here’s an excerpt from Shrubb’s statement: “The pitches in this piece correspond to those produced by pulsars from the 47 tucanae globular cluster situated in the region of the tucana constellation, approximately 16,000 light years from earth.” Needless to say, I was thrilled when Shrubb was excited about my film proposal and agreed to license her music as it’s simply perfect.

My plan is to shoot paper-based images on my lightbox using Dragonframe (a frame capture software) in the (probably vain) attempt to animate using light. The short clip seen above is a proof-of-concept test with the soundtrack. The title card disc is black card cut using my Silhouette Cameo 4 paper cutting machine, and the areas of colour are pieces of coloured acetate. I had mentioned in the recent past that I planned to return to my “stained glass style” used in my earlier drawings on Mylar, and this title card is one example of this re-engagement with my older work. 

The star field was also created with cut paper, shot on my light box. I tried an entirely digital version of the star field in After Effects (which took minutes, rather than hours, to create), but I simply didn’t like the result. If an asset is not a tangible object at some point in the creative process, I lose all interest in it. Not certain if it’s apparent at this scale, but the stars do pulse at a regular, 1 second interval. I also plan to create frame-by-frame animation which will be printed on vellum and shot on the light box.