COLLABORATIONS between composers and visual artists are always interesting and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin has a particular history of fostering such collaborations. The 1993 exhibition, See-through Art, organised by the Sculptors' Society of Ireland and shown in the Hugh Lane Gallery included specially commissioned works by composers Donal Hurley, Frank Corcoran, Stephen Gardner and John Ryan. In 1997, Ian Wilson was commissioned to write music to accompany an installation called The Art of Navigation.

The Gallery's latest project is the exhibition, Tidal Erotics, featuring the sculpture and drawings of artist Vivienne Roche and the music of composer John Buckley. This is the result of an eighteen-month collaboration, but the seeds of their association go back some ten years and include the collaborative work, Airflow, a sculpture and accompanying piece for solo flute, which they produced in 1998.

The thematic focus for Tidal Erotics is the relationship between the sea and human emotions. Roche, who lives in Cork, began with a series of drawings inspired by visits to a nearby beach and developed her ideas into a series of small bronze sculptures, cast from seaweed encased in wax, and a series of graphic drawings on tracing paper. John Buckley's composition was specially commissioned by the Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art.

While music and sculpture may appear at first to have very little in common, Buckley and Roche discovered many common aspects: scale, form, structure and shape all have similar meanings and functions in both art forms, and the artists have attempted to combine these elements to create a new form.

The exhibition is viewed in a suite of four rooms, with the staircase which leads up to them forming a type of introduction and conclusion. Each room has a descriptive title: Soundings, Tidal Erotics, The Amen of Calm Waters and Everdrifting. The analogy between musical form and the layout of the exhibition is obvious and intentional.

John Buckley's music (for flute, horn, piano, percussion and cello) is played on six different sound systems controlled by sensors which ensure that each visitor's experience is different. In one room, music is generated when a person enters or leaves; in another, a single track is played which alternates with a period of silence. Elsewhere, the music plays when someone stands near a piece of sculpture, and so on. 'I like the idea of giving the visitor control over the music, in that they determine how much they hear', says Buckley. 'When someone visits a gallery, they have control over how much or how little they engage with the exhibits. With music, you generally do not have any choice over how much you hear.' While no visitor will hear all of the music, they can take it away with them on the CD which forms part of the exhibition catalogue.

So what is it like for a composer to work so closely with another art form? Speaking the day before the opening, John Buckley was enthusiastic. 'Working with sculpture has been absolutely fascinating. It is extraordinary that there are so many common features between the two disciplines. The structure of music and sculpture is so closely related. If I mention form to Vivienne, she immediately thinks of form in similar terms to how I think of it for music'. Roche was just as positive about the experience and commented that working with music caused her to examine more closely how she worked herself. Each found the mechanics of the other's trade interesting. For Buckley, visiting the foundry where the sculptures were made was a new experience. 'Sculpture has not changed in hundreds of years while composing music has become completely transformed through the use of technology', he said. Similarly, it was a new experience for Roche to be present at the recording sessions.

This fascinating exhibition runs at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin until 6 June. There will be a concert of Buckley's chamber music on the final day and after that Tidal Erotics tours to the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, the Galway Art Centre and the Sligo Model Arts Centre. There are also plans for it to tour internationally, so if it comes your way, don't miss it!

Tidal Erotics takes place from 14 April to 6 June at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Charlemont House, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1. Details: 01-874 1903.