58 Xenakis's Contribution to the First Multimedia Installation

Iannis Xenakis, composer, mathematician, engineer and architect, born into a Greek family residing in Romania (b.1922, Brăila — d.2001, Paris), skillfully combined his knowledge of various fields, which led to a novel artistic creation where arts and mathematics are blended together. Starting from mathematical calculus Xenakis achieved important architectural and compositional creations among which impressive multimedia events are included. Xenakis's contribution to the achievement of the first multimedia project, the Philips Pavilion and Poème Èlectronique, was truly remarkable as it consisted of building the architectonic structure on one hand and composing a section in the audio part on the other hand, for both of which mathematical calculus was used.