Coalescence

Coalescence, a new piece from the potentially forth coming as yet untitled EP by Heir to Chronos is available as a FREE download on Soundcloud for a limited time.

This is an ambient drone composition. Aside from the pulsating low end part, which was created with a softsynth, the rest of the composition is derived from the processed and treated samples of the hum of a utilities box located about a half block from my apartment building.

I wanted to write up an essay about the subject matter, and have made a few attempts at doing so, but it simply wasn't coming together the way I would like. In short, this piece is about how apparently discrete things--singularities or wholes, if you will--are illusory and instead coalesce into a unified picture which presents itself to us as reality. Put differently, it is about the illusion of separation and alienation that individualized self identification creates when, in fact, these symptoms are derivative of an illusory distinctness from a fractured whole.

This notion of the illusion of distinct parts in relation to a cohesive whole is present in the constructed artwork, which is a well known illustration called Kanizsa's Triangle, and is a derivative of studies in Gestalt Therapy. The idea here being that the appearance of the triangle is directly dependent on the coalescence of the other individual parts in the picture to form an apparent--but also an equally illusory--whole.

Singularities are inaccessible to direct analysis, perception, or knowledge, and only in relation can any seeming singularity come to be known. Such relations are always bidirectional in so far as some of the singularity reveals aspects of itself to us through our interaction with it, and we, as singularities, reveal some of ourselves to that which we observe. It is only through coalescence that any sort of possible experiential references are possible.

Fielding a Far-off Force is now up on Soundcloud and will be available as a FREE download for a limited time.

Fielding a Far-off Force - An Artist Statement

Fielding a Far-off Force is about making contact with the Other.

This "Other" could be anything, really: a new idea, a different culture, a god form, an angel, an entity, an alien--whatever it is that we've made a connection with, it is something that lies outside our normal range of experiencing, interpreting, and being.

Making contact with the Other is generally not a "pleasant" experience: creating a space for the mutual manifestation of something foreign to ourselves typically involves what Rudolf Otto called the mysertium tremendum. This is a feeling of both awe and fear, of attraction and repulsion--a paradoxical state deriving from the collision, meeting, and connection of our smaller self with something that is greater, different, wholly Other.

The audio piece itself seeks to create a sense of this through its wave like manifestations of foreign sounds. "Spooky" or "odd" noises pulse towards and around us, grabbing our attention, washing over us, creating that space where something Other can come to be revealed, or, rather, can reveal itself to us as we open ourselves up to it, show ourselves to it as it shows itself to us. Some of the sounds can be irritating, grating, annoying, yet, these same sounds can suddenly seem soothing, calming, relieving: a sonic attempt to represent that feeling of the mysterium tremendum.

The video that accompanies the piece is also an attempt to represent the process of coming in contact with the Other. At first we see some glimmer of a thing, perhaps something far-off, through a grainy haze of our habitual interpretations. Have we noticed it first and drew its attention or did it notice us, and draw ours? The video tries to convey a sense of ambiguity here: is it one, the other, both?

Whatever the case, this Other begins to communicate with us. Flashing information to us in shapes that we can recognize, yet not readily interpret. Communications with the Other are not likely to come with ready made interpretations. The images this Other pushes on us are mysterious, foreign, unknown, yet not unknowable.

As the video progresses the images get stacked one upon the other--coming at us faster and with greater intensity. As well, the far-off force begins to get closer. Are we moving towards it, is it moving towards us, or are we moving towards One and Other? Again, there is intentional ambiguity here. Whatever the case, we find ourselves in a space--in a field--that is opening up to both our self and this Other in order to allow contact and communication, mutual recognition and response.

In the end the Other has come so close that it practically envelopes us. It has attempted to share with us something of itself while we have, perhaps, allowed it into our own being: a mutual exchange of informative manifestation.

And then, it is gone.

Will it return? Shall we again experience the Other? Perhaps, perhaps not, but the experience has left us changed somehow, different, maybe as something greater than before.