Both Belson and Whitnys were the Youngblood in the area of new “synesthetic cinema”. Thus, there exists obvious characteristic of new “synesthetic cinema” in their artworks. They left behind conventional and outmoded concepts as narrative drama but fused new technology in their works. Whitneys used contemporary technology to push visual music into new cosmic dimensions. At the same time, Belson used both old and new technology, including standard animation, optical printing, lasers, and liquid crystals to achieve a similar goal. Also, they desired and paid more effort to eliminate the representational imagery and any association with the real world. Whitney tried to reduce the image down to its most fundamental stats —— the lights while Belson also wanted his audience to turn their focus from screen to the music. But they had a different selection of images. Unlike the Whitneys, whose small atomic globules seem to spotlight new technology, Belson never used an image that bespoke its origin, he wanted the image that straight out of his minds.
They have the same basic conceptual basis lying behind their works, that is achieving high harmony between image and audios, eliminating the realistic meanings and ideas of images and creating a more experiential, musicogenic works. Their emphasis on high harmony is extremely strong. They not only pursue the consist ideas and emotions between images and audio but even chase the results of extremely tight music-to-image relationship, just as what explained by Belson, “you don’t know if you are seeing it or hearing it.” Both Belson and Whitnys have significant meanings and high positions in the visual music area. The images started to operate directly on the audience optic nerves and the distance between the viewer and the art object became closer. The new concepts and new machines created by them started to apply widely and inspire more artists to turn to alternative forms of spirituality while simultaneously embracing mind-expanding drugs and innovative technology.
Both the Vortex concerts and lights show were one of the experiments in the area of visual music and influenced by Whitneys and Belson. Music drove everything. High art and popular culture, abstraction and representation, the scientific and spiritual, the electronic and natural all fused together and express by music. The Vortex concerts and lights show popularized in many areas and there appeared a large number of artists work on practicing and developing the new concept.