Lumia are dynamic, improvisable, real-time visual works analogous to music pieces

Fred Collopy coined or popularised the term ‘lumia’ for time-based visual compositions created by visual artists — pieces like songs, dynamic, based on combinations of simple elements, capable of expressing emotion, and created in real time. Lumia differ from cinema in being non-narrative and from VJing in being compositionally driven. They share with music the property of being performed anew each time, with improvisational variants possible. The lumia tradition (Wilfred’s Clavilux, Dockum’s Mobilcolor) is the direct ancestor of live generative visuals and provides a theoretical frame: visuals as music, not cinema.

Examples

Thomas Wilfred’s Clavilux performances (1920s) projecting moving abstract colour; Golan Levin’s painterly audiovisual interfaces as contemporary lumia.

Assessment

In what ways does treating live visuals as ‘lumia’ (time-based visual music) change the design goals compared to treating them as film clips?