Electro-Sonic Painting

Electro-Sonic Painting is an electronic musical form of painting or mark making in which Brown literally paints or draws with his creative sound producing art-instruments while singing and playing with other musicians. His process is performed with specialized sound-producing paint brushes, tools, and surfaces. The pigments Brown uses are phosphorescent and sometimes electroconductive. 

These Electro-Sonic Painting works are from Brown’s time-based performances in galleries, museums, and music venues. Since these works are created with acrylic phosphorescent paints on acrylic glass, they are non-permanent and will age in UV light. Due to the nature of his work Brown produces photographic artifacts on other materials for archival preservation.

Electro-Sonic Painting process 

1. Brown creates sounds and writes music using traditional and non-traditional instruments including using his musical paint brush as a lead instrument.

Marcus Brown playing his musical Paintbrush, Photo credit Laura Sirkin-Brown

2.  After producing sounds and writing music, Brown programs his surfaces and brushes to produce sound with his actions, movement, and touch during the process of painting. His brush is a musical instrument which can be played by painting. 

3.  During his Electro-Sonic painting performances Brown sings soulful vocals and raps. By using his musical brush and song, Brown creates a work of aural visual art like a jazz musician performs a musical piece with improvisation between the mark making, technology and rhythms.   

4.  After painting an image on glass using ultraviolet colored acrylic paint, Brown presents his Electro-sonic painting works in an interactive mixed reality format. Viewers and listeners can interact with moving augmented reality (AR) layers and music from the painting process using their smartphones or smart devices.

Interactive performances

In some performances Brown asks the audience to use their smartphones or smart devices to experience augmented reality layers of paint or view multiple performers who are not actually in the space. Brown calls this process Augmentforma the process of performing in real time using visual art processes, music, and augmented reality.