To a musician it is frozen music, to a scientist fractal geometry, and to a Christian it can be the gateway to spiritual ecstasy. There is not one experience of Gothic, but many: a dance of the spirit, a walk through a light enchanted forest, an auditorium that seems to change shape as the music develops new themes. Gothic architecture has been so uniquely successful and persistent because every time we enter its realm it performs a new spectacle.

Frozen Music is a film about experiencing architecture.

I always wanted to understand why and how Gothic architecture has such a strong impact on our senses. It employs a universal language which works on an instinctive level.

When we enter these spaces ‘we forget about ourselves’ as the organist of York Minster puts it. Especially the combination of music and cathedral seems to transport those who have faith to higher realms of being and those who don’t into an astonishing aesthetic experience.

My film explores some of the geometric similarities between Gothic and certain types of music. J.S. Bach for example studied the geometry of Gothic cathedrals before composing some of his works. Gothic architecture and Bach’s music both are constructed around fractal principles. This means that there is symmetry across scale. The same structures are repeated within themselves. For example, there are pointed arches which contain pointed arches and the ideal Gothic building is derived from a single basic formula. This is possible by applying the same basic formula over and over again to make up any of the complex shapes but keep them all related to one fundamental measure. This is very similar to how the Mandelbrot set is created.

We respond to the sense of infinity of structures which have a deeper order than mere left-right, top-bottom symmetry. One of the explanations is that fractal geometry mirrors nature or rather uses nature’s own laws. When fractal geometry was discovered people found they could actually reproduce a fern on the computer with a single formula. Even our own body functions are based on fractal principles.

In other words when we step through the front door we not only feel at home with the environment but we are also inclined to believe in an extension of what we see. As with the Mandelbrot set we feel that the structure extends beyond what we see at a given moment. There is, of course, only so much finer and finer detail you can cut into stone but by using this geometry we accept the statement by the builders that these buildings in theory continue into infinity. The walls are broken up with windows, the surface is hardly ever of solid appearance. Once we step through the main door we almost forget this building has an outside. Wells Cathedral, for example, one of the locations in the film, was intended to be a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem. It was meant to be an echo of the past but also a manifestation of the future. It was supposed to give a glimpse of the times to come.

The challenge was to translate this experience into a film which would recreate some of the effects for the viewer...

Frozen Music won the Camera Award at the 2nd European Film Festival in London, 1997.