Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

Abstract

This article explores the audiovisual installations of Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, focusing on the works he calls “polytopes.” The term <i>polytope</i> captures the complexity of the spatial designs and multiple spaces of these unusual light-and-sound works, which have often used thousands of lights and hundreds of loudspeakers. Xenakis’s polytopes are examined in their aesthetic and cultural context; the discussion of this original form of avant-garde art includes a survey of its forms, functions and reception.