Gedicht van Vuur: PROMETHEUS. Een Muziek en Kleurcompositie van Alexander Skrjabin, 1911

Scrjabin was one of those rare syn-esthetic people whose minds generated associative images when hearing music. On the score of his 1911 symphony Prometheus, Poem of Fire Opus 60 he noted many visual characteristics alongside the music notation. This symphony with its additional remarks on visualisation was not only given a continuous visual image track for a television screening, but was performed live as well, with real-time images, by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, led by V. Gergiev. The ground breaking television programme, a NPS (Dutch Television) production by visual artist Peter Struycken, was aired in Holland in 1999. Technical assistance was provided by Ir. D. Dekkers, a computer electronics engineer.

Peter Struycken considers Prometheus his most advanced computer generated work of art to date. Based upon this production experience he has subsequently created another software ‘machine’ which generates half an hour’s programme of new images every day. (Kees Kaldenbach)