Play a Kandinsky

Google Arts & Culture

Centre Pompidou

‘Play a Kandinsky’ invites you to hear what Vassily Kandinsky might have heard when painting "Yellow-Red-Blue" in 1925 by bringing to life his theories and writings on his synesthesia & Abstract Art.

 

In a collaboration between sound artists Antoine Bertin and NSDOS, and Google Magenta's machine learning model Transformer, the sounds you hear are inspired by Kandinsky's extensive writing on the sounds he associated with colors & shapes.

 

There are four chapters to the experience:

 

1) Explore Kandinsky's theories on color and sound and the relationship between shapes;

2) Hear the composed version of the painting created with help from machine learning;

3) Discover the emotions Kandinsky associated with color and shape and 'play the painting';

4) You can create and share your own musical mix of the painting, highlighting your chosen emotions as inspired by Kandinsky.

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Try it here.