Liquid Visuals: Late Modernism and Analogue Live Visuals (1950-1985)

This chapter covers the period of the mid-to-late 20th century in which various artists and movements began to genuinely realise the performed image, though primarily through analogue means. The chapter demonstrates the key audio-visual inventions, forms and artists of the mid-20th century. These include both the music and video synthesizer and the later advent of the music video, video synthesis and nascent digital audio-visual technologies. Covering key movements from early electronic music, to Fluxus, to pop art, to liquid light shows, to electronic art, to expanded cinema, and finally to multimedia performance and the first VJ, this chapter outlines the incredible variety of Live Visuals practice in this era.