Music video and the filmic manifestation of Visual Music are often handled as two different forms of the visualisation of music. In order to separate the one from the other, relevant criteria of the music video and of Visual Music can be opposed: in music video the principle of causality is respected, i.e. the makers of music are visible. In Visual Music the dispensation with such a principle of causality is instead fundamental: in entirely different ways visual elements can join the music or can be coupled with it, but usually the maker of the music is not depicted in the visuals. But this is where the clarity of the separation ends quite quickly because Visual Music as a genre is quiet open, e.g. towards Video Art, Expanded Cinema, dance film, animation, games - and towards the music video, too.
The relation between Visual Music and music video is marked by interconnections which can be also pursued historically. The presetation will examine this relation more closely from a scientific-curatorial viewpoint with the help of selected examples.