collection and dissolution: wholeness, the creative process, and the limitations of text

8/14/2019 Collection and Dissolution: Wholeness, the creative process, and the limitations of text

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COLLECTION AND DISSOLUTION

Wholeness, the creative process, and the limitations of text

BARRIE JAMES SUTCLIFFE

Thesis for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts with Specialization in Digital Media

Report No. 2009:017

ISSN: 1651-4769

University of Gothenburg

Department of Applied Information Technology and Valand School of Fine Arts

Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2009


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COLLECTION AND DISSOLUTION

Wholeness, the creative process, and the limitations of text


Summary

An exposition and contextualization of the authors art practice framed by an investigation

into the insights afforded by quantum physics and the cognitive sciences as applied to

the creative process.

This is presented expressively and non-linearly in various styles of writing. Ranging from

scholarly text to casual diary writing to concrete poetry, comments are presented on the

advantages, disadvantages, and limits of the use of text as exposition of artwork and

creative processes in general. Importance is also placed on the graphic presentationof such text. It is suggested that different styles of writing display different levels of

efciency for communicating certain types of information. It follows that some styles of

writing are simply inappropriate for some messages.

The text aims to discuss the context of the art practice rather than the results of it.

Discussing the meaning of the present works is irrelevant, hence a true meaning is

never disclosed.

Keywords

consciousness, creativity, David Bohm, information, installation art,

neuroscience, noise music, poetry, quantum, sound art

University of Gothenburg

Department of Applied Information Technology and Valand School of Fine Arts

Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2009


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COLLECTION

AND

DISSOLUTION


2009


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Fluent

I would love to liveLike a river ows.Carried by the surprise

O its own unolding.

John ODonohue


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Table of Contents

Introduction 5

Book One:Preparing to Move 23

Book Two:

Moving 51

Book Three:The Small within the Great 67

Book Four:

You are Dissolved 77

References and Figures 86


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Introduction- or -

Anticipation of Results

and Preparation ofFormula.

These questions are not in order.

We should reject the idea that the mind is somethinginside o us that is basically matter o just a calculatingmachine. There are dierent reasons to reject this. But oneis, simply put: there is nothing inside us that thinks andeels and is conscious. Consciousness is not something thathappens in us. It is something we do. Alva No


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How to read this book:

The order contained herein isnot precise order.

Some things are in order, somethings are not.

This is not linear. It should notbe read rom ront to back.

The goal is to conuse withinlimitsto provide some butnot all. This is independence.


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a) The art practice this text reers to is:

about how we consciously perceive the world

about how that inormation we perceive is ormedabout the import o the intent we use to consciously perceiveabout the import and veracity o the inormation itsel.

b) Most especially, context is important:

The artworks context is reected through the observers context.

The resulting perception is the context o the whole observer in theworld.

c) Thereore, the artwork provides one context to think about anothercontext. The text provides a orum within which the reader canlearn more about the connections that are suggested within theartwork and how these issues personally relate to the reader. The

text will attempt to describe the context within which the artworkswere made.

1.


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a) My name is Barrie James Sutclie. I draw lines.b) Why is this process important to me? A large part o my concern withconsciousness relates to my own experience with mental illness. This revolves aroundimpressions o a diminished or heightened sense o consciousness, and the sensationo having a compromised sel-awareness. Precisely, this engenders an act o socialperormance: the perormance o a conscious person embodied in the social world oother conscious people. This is the genesis and personal importance o the artwork.

These texts accompany the artwork. They will not serve asan explanation to it. They will serve as additional materialassistant to it. They will serve suggestions to the readerabout general impressions, and act as an opportunity or thereader to draw lines. They will not serve to make one singleor precise point about the artworks in question.

2.

3.

Thus in the example of the ship guided by radio waves, one may say

that these waves carry information about what is in the environment

of the ship and that this information enters into the movements

of the ship through its being taken up in the mechanism of the

automatic pilot. Similarly we explain the interference properties

by saying that the quantum field contains information ... and that

this information is taken up in the movements of [a] particle. In

effect we have in this way introduced ... a concept that we shallcall active information. The basic idea of active information is

that a form having very little energy enters into and directs a much

greater energy.

Bohm & Hiley 32-35


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The presence o people

desire to be in a particular spacedesire to be with something in a spacedesire to be with someone in a space

4.

5.

Transcoding:Data transerred through dierent media.

A process o analogies:While certain things are not transerred,certain other things are. The generalimpression remains, and the importantinormation survives through noise.

motion, sound, and made sculpturalinstrumentsradio, transmission, distortion, readymade objects

contrast, tension, harmony

6.

their embodiment inthe space whether itis desired or not

}


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The act of perception occurs in the perceived aswell as the perceiver

(Consciousness and the Implicate Order, slide No. 17)

What is crucial here is that we are calling

attention to the literal meaning of the word,

i.e. to in-form, which is actively to put forminto something or to imbue something with form.

... As a simple example of what we mean, consider

a radio wave whose form carries a signal. The

sound energy we hear in the radio does not come

directly from the radio wave itself which is

too weak to be detected by our senses. It comes

from the power plug or batteries which provide

an essentially unformed energy that can be given

form (i.e. in-formed) by the pattern carried

by the radio wave. This process is evidently

entirely objective and has nothing to do with

our knowing the details of how this happens. The

information in the radio wave is potentially

active everywhere, but it is actually active

only where and when it can give form to the

electrical energy which, in this case, is in

the radio. ... We therefore emphasise once againthat even the information held by human beings

is, in general, active rather than passive, not

merely reflecting something outside itself but

actually, or at least potentially, capable of

participating in the thing to which it

refers.

Bohm & Hiley 3536


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Rather than simply a notion o how technology extends andenhances the body, I want to comment on the reection obodily events such as thoughts and intention within thetechnological process itsel. Not just hybridizing the body

through technology, but technology as a mirror, an expression owhat is going on within the person. These ideas o symmetry andreection (both interpreted as transerence) are represented bycontemporary conceptual orms which likewise complement eachother.

Explanation:

This type o writing in this context attempts to linearize a non-linear process. As such, it terminates the movement of thought.

7.

Fig. 1


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The computer and equipment do not work other than to

a) time events andb) transcode data

To be a simple machine with an understandable unction,our bodies must be involved in the process as much aspossible.

8.

9.Performance through transmission:

The presence and location o the body o the perormer andthe observer inuences the orm o sound produced.

The process o interaction reveals a property involving thewhole context in an inseparable way.Intent applied to the body aects environment.See item six.


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10.

11.

I suppose one question I would have to ask, or an ideato put orward, is that I preer a general impression. Iwork rom vague lines drawn between disparate sources.

Interpretation is more o a gut instinct. That is how Imake it, that is what it is, there is no way to preciselyexplain it. Any other way would be a lie. Surelymaking an artwork takes into account some necessaryquantiable and measurable details, however theoverall creation o an art piece relies on an intuitiveunderstanding o the acts at hand, and the trust oideas, suggestions, and ormulations that may not makemeasurable or provable sense.

I have an angst that it is not possible to fully express what I know. I canwrite and give references to everything I read, but no one wil l go look atthat. No one will have these insights again.

I do not wish to explainthe artwork by drawing rom

the natural sciences, be it physics or neuroscience. Forthe most part art is not a discipline based on empiricalevidence. I want to suggestanalogues rom the naturalsciences, as the best approximation and expression ohow I eel. This point has an essential connection toitem ve, which reers to transcoding. I intend or thecritical inormation to retain its signicance, whichrequires hard work on my part to balance between the

generals and the specics o a scientic concept.While I am inspired by much scientic thought andevidence, I do not appreciate overly literal thought. Ihave no problem applying metaphorical, mystical, andmagical elements to my thinking.

It amazes me how I can move my consciousness away from a problem, whichcan then be resolved in the back parts of my mind. I do not have to wait

long until a solution leaps into the conscious fore, as if no thought had beenput into it at all.To be convinced in these moments requires a great amount of trust in myself.12.


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The activity of the great is given the

form of the small


Fig. 2: Benjamin Libets measurement of the delay of consciousness.

Readinesspotential 1(pRepRogRammed/skilledact)

Readinesspotential 2(simpleact)

consciouswishtoactact

-1 -0.5 -0.2 0

seconds

Vetowindow

The readiness potential is a shit in the electrical potentialin the brain which shows an action is being prepared, or

calculated. Consciousness becomes aware o the potentialconsiderably later (see Fig. 1), despite being convinced that it is theinitiator o the chosen act. (Nrretranders 214-219) When appliedto a received stimulus, this backwards behaviour can be explainedby a delay in which the awarenessthe subjective experienceoconsciousness is given an earlier time rame than rom when theawareness o the stimulus actually occurred. (ibid 235)

The Veto window suggests a urther theory o Libet in whichconsciousness drives the selection o volitional outcomes rather thanthe initiation o volitional acts. In eect, consciousness may veto theunconsciously initiated readiness potential. (ibid 243)Since it takes time to become conscious o both the inner and theouter world, the mind must know when something will happen orwhen something has happened, not when it becomes conscious othe act.

13.


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Some notes about the structure of thisthesis:

a) It is sel-reexive. To be more specic, in additionto discussing the artworks at hand, this thesis existsto discuss itsel.b) The method o scattered points reerencing each

other is thus appropriate. Since there are no deniteconclusions or deductions, an open discussion ispreerred. A directed narrative would serve tocomplicate mattersand hinder the ability to drawlinesuntil the context calls or such a method.c) The discussion this thesis holds with itsel aims tobetter explain the context o its own creation. This

urther emphasizes the separation between thesis andartwork mentioned in item three, and such emphasisis intended. However, neither work is meant to bean island. Indeed, this is merely a projection o itemnumber ve.d) For urther clarication, see item 1(c).e) One reason or this concerns the act that agreat many artworks I have made in the past haveincluded text as either accompaniment or attemptedexplanation. These texts have always shown a certainelement o sel absorption and brevity. This presenttext serves a similar purpose.

14.


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Consciousness is the instance o selectionthe appearance o intention is not

but the consummation isUrgeUs

Action A choice selection gate

Consciousness cannot control desire

It is not the only channelBut it is the only channel that eels like sel

15.

16.Inormation and potential or activity is heldin channels. Those not occupied by thesystem o active inormation lose all potentialor becoming active.There is nothing more common in ordinaryexperience than or inormation to lose itspotential or activity.

Entropy, orgetulness, channel selection.Participation. Abstraction. Implicate order.


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Using Bohms terminology and world view,I will be writing about things that last andthings that persist; The erosion o structureor the addition o entropy and the meaningul

content which survives.

Everybody has many experiences of [the]

implicate order. The most obvious one is

ordinary consciousness, in which consciousness

enfolds everything that you know or see. It

doesnt merely enfold the universe, but you act

according to that content as well. Therefore

you are internally related to the whole inthe sense that you act according to the

consciousness of the whole.

The enfolded order is a vast range of

potentiality, which can be unfolded. The

way it is unfolded depends on many factors.

The way we think and so on is among those

factors. The implicate order implies mutual

participation of everything with everything.

No thing is complete in itself, and its fullbeing is realized only in that participation.

The implicate order provides an image of how

this participation might take place in physics

in various ways.

Bohm 106

17.


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Priming:Our unconscious must eed us the correctthings to pull decisions on. Beore we are aware,everything is sorted or us. We are not aware

o the stimulus, nor the cognitive process thatacts on it. We may develop associations aboutthings and people without any awareness othe cognitive and perceptual basis or them.

(Nrretranders 170-173)Thoughts and desires do aect others. Becauseo such things as priming, we probably know

more and eel more o other peoples thoughtsand desires than we consciously think we do.

And they may know more about us than weknow about ourselves.

In unpleasant situations, we are hyper-consciouso the act that we continuously and consciouslyinterrupt our own actions. There are dierences

between what the conscious will and theunconscious urge are ater.When we do what our unconscious wants, ourwhole body eels good to not be involved in the

struggle over the veto. (ibid 247-249)

18.


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In this analogy we can see that information is

constantly losing its potential for activity.

For example, people may see that some of it

is irrelevant or wrong, while a great deal may

simply be forgotten. Even if the informationis preserved in books or on discs, most of

these latter eventually become more and more

difficult to access, for example, by being

sent to depositories and ultimately being

shredded. Other information is simply lost

by dispersal, for example, by the spread of

sound waves and radio waves. Insofar as this

information can no longer affect human

beings (or their proxies in the form ofcomputers) it has lost its potential for

activity.

It is clear then that nothing is more

common in ordinary experience than for

information to lose its potential for

activity.

Bohm & Hiley 105


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19.I am disturbed because o the constant conict between theunconscious commands and the combative conscious will. The willis oten suppliant to the suspiciously intrusive commands. This is me

getting in the way o my ownmovement.

This creates a grinding tension between

My conscious will and intent the desire o my organism

the commands which go against the desire o my organism

I my ree will consists o what my entire organism thinks and eels,do I have two competing ree wills?

Is my veto strong or weak?


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Musical Sculpture.lasting and

Sounds leaving rom

diferent places and

ormingsounding

a sculpture which lasts.

Fig. 3.

The layout ormat o thisthesis is substantially

derived rom Duchamp andHamiltons book, which doesnot have ordered pages.

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Book One

Preparing to Move

In which the author tries to describe

a context of action

Fragments o various detritus, basically,collapsing into itsel at the end.Either ruining or uniting.


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(redacted.instead,think about:

the utmost importance o yoursubjective experience,

and

how science also presentssubjective experiences.

neither are stable.)


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An Anecdote.

In the winter o 2006 I was walking past Telord lakemore o aslough, reallywhile listening to some music on headphones. It is

quite uncharacteristic o me to walk and listen at once, as I nd itdistracting. At this moment, it was late in the aternoon and lightwas dimming. The sky, as usual in medium cold temperatures inAlberta, was great and eatureless. The air was still and cool, andI came upon one o the bird watching decks.

As the track Dungeoneering (Hecker 2006) played, I witnessed

a lovely fock o birds, perhaps sparrows. The cyclical patterns inthe music seemed to explain the movement o the birds. As thefock descended and rose above the ice o the lake, their movementappeared to slow, as I began to relate the order o the fock to theorder o the music.

Collective animal behaviour, like collective behaviour in manycontexts in nature, is an emergent phenomenon o sel-organizationas the result o the local interactions between the individual units,without the need or centralized coordination. (Ballerini et al.2008). For example, a bird may only concentrate on the seven birdsaround it, not the entire ock, no matter how large. We can thinkabout a large ock o European starlings, as studied by Ballerini,as being a large cloud with an orderly movement. From a distance,this cloud is one thing. Closer, it is o small birds. Closer still, it is

individual birds paying attention only to seven o their companions.The cloud as such is not aware o itsel. Ballerini et al. go so ar asto examine other orders that aect the ock movement, such as themass o the entire ock related to its horizontal movement in space.

So here is a metaphor or an implicate order. The implicate ordero the ock are single birds. There is a urther order o small

groups o seven or so. At a distance we see the explicate order othe entire ock.


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I am not suggesting a reductionist view o the universe. What I aminterested in is this nesting o orders, and the patterns o behaviourand action which result. The order o the quantum which emergesthrough my work is not as yet reducible to another order, and it

is precisely this level o mystery which I nd poetic. It is the smallwithin the great.

My perception o the mystery Heckers music imbued into themovement o the birds is crucial here. In this example, my mind ismaking a relation between an artistic construct and an observed,seemingly mechanistic process. These two things are not related,yet the mind can pretendor better yet be ooledthey are. Fromthis conusion o pattern recognition emerges the possibility orcreativity, interpretation, and sel-reection.

The interpretation o the event is conscious. Something occurs tomake the brain aware that the event o recognition is important,and this is orwarded to consciousness. This seems a spuriousthing because since the pattern is alse or imagined, there is really

nothing to decide on other than whether I think the event is realor not. Sometimes there is a terrible amount o conusion as towhat really was recognized, and even i there was anything at all.Why am I paying attention? Why do I eel slightly disturbed? Issomething wrong?

The use o random numbers and the impossibility o sequence.

The sound and movement produced by random events causesa slight conusion. Is this music? Art? Noise? Whether one isdiscomted by the notion or not, the very presence o the observeralters the production o the numbers. Thereore, the observer isimplicate in his or her own conusion.


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Acoustic resonance isCavernousEarthWarmClosed space/ullness/body

An embracing comort, grounding, unity o earth and sound, gathering, stableyet destabilizing, sureness

(The Small within the Great)

Electronic amplication resonance isCelestialOuter spaceAbsolute zero

Open space/emptiness/synthetic

Destruction o body through sound, aggression towards sel, disintegration,dispersion, ragmentation, conusion(You are Dissolved)

It would be a good idea to perorm this by running around tryingto get a hang on everything, but everythings on a dierent wall

and needs seeing to. Stress, panic, executive unction overload

Very beautiul, quiet moments or medium-volume contrasted withloud terror/stress

Two ConTrasTs

How to include the things I am interested in, without saying that I am trying tosay anything ABOUT them? I am just infuenced by these ideas and they make

me think in creative ways.


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Why does a perect production make me nervous? Itseems like a perect skill implies that the musicianor painter or whatever deigns that they know itall. There is no way to approach the work o art inthis respect, as the technical details have covered allentries and exitsthat is, good skill can sometimes, iclumsily used, get in the way o reception and blind

the receiver. The lie and the shock o hubris comesacross in the act, which is oten strained o emotionand diicult to approach. Emotion is strived or, butnever reached, because the thing o technical perectionhas top priority. This overtakes, and causes a kind oconusion in the artist.

The strength o the amateur is o the drive. The driveto do something because it needs to be done, and doit eectively with all available aculties, which are ew.

What makes me nervous is an imbalance, a conusion,an unwillingness to let movement pass thoroughly withall its intended mistakes. In the case o high levelso technical skill, I think one should be careul to let

things into the process. In the case o lack o skill, oneneeds to be attentive not to let too many things in.Movement is not perect. All action has noise.

Noise has always been part o the system.


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Duchamp, beauty o indierence/painting oprecision, strength o amateurism.

Interested in the downplay o virtuosity. I am not very interested

in being a music player or a composer. Indeed I know little omusic as understood culturally in the institution. (I am alsokind o bad at even building electronics.)

None o the things Im doing right now show virtuosity exceptor my ability to bring all o these elements together in a way noone has thought o beore. Well, maybe someone has, but Ill not

worry mysel about that, its unimportant anyway.

A virtuosityor perhaps skillulness is a more appropriate, lessconceited wordthen is not a physical mastery o a single process(cratsmanship) but the understanding o conciliating the wholesubject with the rest o things. A unication, or anti-separation.Or at least tryingto conciliate. That is best we can do. The realwork is in the deects.

(

In making a machine (The Small within the Great) whichplays itsel according to its own data, I eel it is some kind oalternative to beauty and taste. Even though I attempt to tuneit musically the material eventually attens the tone out anyway

so it makes an ugly sound. It is a precise machine, and outside oits initial creation I dont do much to it once its installed. It onlyneeds some basic maintenance to make sure it makes any soundat all.

Duchamp made some paintings o precision around 1914,such as Chocolate Grinder No. 2, in which he wanted nd a

dry kind o painting to contrast the in-vogue Cubism o hisday. To be irregular and lack virtuosity, and also emotion. Forthese paintings he made stencils to distance his hand rom the


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drawing practice, to deactivate the retina and activate an idea-based method o painting. (Henderson 59)

I am not sure i this is a point to write about. I eel like my

machine is accurately expressive o the austere, dry emotions Iwant to convey. It has just enough awkwardness and irregularityto it to be seen as an artwork made by a hand, but its unctionis purely mechanical. Precise but expressive, but not virtuosic byany means. Duchamp seems to contradict himsel: by ocussingmore on the idea, is then the idea itsel the virtuosity ater all? Isit impossible to be good at anything without having the diicultand elitist position o being a virtuoso in ones eld? Perhapsnone o this matters at all. But perhaps some things can only beexpressed without the presence o a virtuoso intermediary.(ibid 61)

My machine could also have a parallel to Duchamps MusicalErratum pieces, which are composed by drawing notes rom ahat (ibid 60). Duchamps music however ends in a written score,

whereas mine has no determined beginning or endsimplywhen I decide to turn it on, or o. It plays beyond humanlimits, to a randomness that we do not even ully understand.Duchamp plays with canned chancewhich is essentially anykind o measurementwhereas I play with open chance, whichsomehow rustratingly dees our meaning making potential atevery level. Yet Duchamp is right in critiquing the very notion o

measurement, and especially in pointing a nger saying that wemust conront chance rather than try to can it.

)

(write an actual thing here)


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Working as an artist, inrelation to what you have said

previously, is a process o nely-tuned attention to your owndecisions. You are responding to

a million things at the same time.This requires training, skill anda developed sense o you-seeing-

yoursel-thinking/deciding.This process is extremely ast anddense, like a car crash. It cannot

be accurately portrayed outside othe work o art, as this activity is

refectedin the work o art.Thereore, you cannot ully

talk about the workings o thismechanism in language, as art-making uses a compressed time

rame with ar morebandwidth. What

you can talk aboutin language is the

things that arehappening around

you. Then someonecan get some kindo idea as to what

might be happening.But even so, there are so manythings happening in your skullat once, you cannot reerencethem, you cannot even know

where they come rom, you justknow that they are there in thepresent moment to be processed

in whatever nely tuned way youdecide. Most o the times this is

not even conscious.

Aperception: the process o perceivingyour perception. Noticing you are noticing.By calling to attention the point at whichyou see yoursel seeing, you are highlightingthe importance o this activity.A sensor sensing the greater order it is apart o. The greater order senses itsel.


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In this interview Bruza clearly states aims similar to mine. WhileBruzas area o study is strictly limited to the unction o words in our

memory systems, his use o the general concept o quantum theoryis analogous to my own. That is, quantum theory is used becausethe unction it describes intuitively oers a deep insight the actionbeing studied. Specically, the idea o non-separability aids greatlyin understanding the system under scrutiny. In Bruzas case, theidea o memory acting as a whole movement is more inormativeto study than it would be to study each individual component in

the mind. This intuitive concept is useul. I quantum theory canexplain a lot about the motion o a subtle orm o reality, then it ispossible to use such a concept to understand another subtle ormo reality: memory retrieval and even the general rise o thoughtto movement, neither o which are capable o being understoodthrough Cartesian models o separation.

We view quantum theory as an abstract rameworkor developing models o non-separability in a variety odomains including cognition. Note that, even though weare using quantum theory to model the non-separability

o words in human memory, we make no claim that thiscorresponds to a physical maniestation o entanglementin the brain. (Peter Bruza quoted in Zyga 2009)


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GalleryofmeaninGfulobjects

These objects have some kind o aura and the sound they makealso has an aura. The materials and the culture that made thematerials is expressed in their unction. Down to the iron in the

transormer o the radio, it speaks o the time it was madeGrunig raio 70s - strapped up like a guitar - this highlights the act otuning as a conscious activity - the instrument-nature o this activity. Thickplastic case resonates sound in an interesting way. Sensitive tuner, sweetsound. This is the most important instrument in the repertoire.

Garrar portable turntable 60s - highly manipulable (speed, tone)record player, plays all types very noisily. Warm tube sound provides a

dierent edge, which gets at and saturated at high volume especially in bass.Easy to scratch (spin) the record manually. Nicely crated wooden case withbuilt-in speaker. Loud. Beautiul round noises, huge monumental lock grooves.The entire device also acts as a kind o contact microphone.

Orion Cassette recorer 70s - ruining a tape through a broken playbackdevice - meaningul inormation survives, object imposes its own colour andorder (through bent drive belt) to the music. The general quality o a cassettetape is desired as well, I will process most o my loop sounds to emulate the

compression pattern o magnetic tape.

Akai reel tape eck 60s - busted transormer. Can be modied with a newmotor to have precise jogging capability, but this will have to wait. Will begreat to play tape loops.

Pioneer raio tuner 70s - noisy stereo section. Cant x. Still has a greatsound and will use in perormance. All analog, powerul sound. Nice bezel.

fm transmitter

The transmitter is a bare PCB built rom a kit. I have set it on asmall metal box with batteries inside to make it easy to perormwith. I have attached a large rabbit-ears antenna to it to enableeasy perormance and signal manipulation.This object is not particularly meaningul, only in the sense thatI have built it mysel and perorm it by touching and moving

around it.


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total elawareness o presence in totaleld

inormation owing both ways

in eld through the human andout o the human and rom thehuman into everything else

a constant now but a constantbecoming: relentless utureorward, endless change yetendless sameness

Soun revealing the spacethe sound lls the space, which makes it

solid. this creates a sublimely large and ter-riying mass threatening the body through

shape and vibration - physical attack o

moved air - this engenders aggressionbecause it is aggression that causes oneto want to do this, and then aggressionis urther intensied through you being

threatened. The mass o sound (solid) ag-gressively threatens you.

I did this by pointing the speakers at thewall, ceiling, and windows.

getting in the way o the movement onlymakes it worse

The music buildup, sweeping melody

succumbing to noise and destruction/distortion

could be an analog or:

how my mind can take an initially nice notion, thenslowly over time twist it through obsession and doubt into

a system o paranoid delusion

Thats a bit heavy, but an intuitive analogy.However it is cathartic to take a melodic line and destroyit through layers o static and intererencethis is one

order blotting out another. This is a kind o combat thatI think I play with in my sel. In many o us, there are

two orders. Which one wins?


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Selected studio notes

With the Grundig shortwave receiver it was nice to make rhythms by movingmy body with the radio, picking up dierent stations in the room, and touchingthe antenna. It gets louder with bodily touch and the audible thump can

be modulated by the pressure o touch. It eels as i I am touching the soundwaves, but what o course is actually happening is that the radio is using meto gather more. The inormation is traveling through m bo. I wouldtune this radio to noisy and abrasive shortwave stations as well as rather quietbut sinister AM stations with pulses. The noisy shortwave sound was almostterriying because I eel like I am hearing voices in it. It is especially bad reallyloud against the glass window, which sharpens all the edges o the noise. I wouldtune past talk and music stations, using the inormation there to my advantageto make an improvisation. Depending on the time, it could be a very appropriate

sound.Now, the modulation o the FM transmitter. Touching the coil, the capacitors orthe coil, and the varicap produces great results. Not to mention shiting aroundthe antenna and ground antenna cables. Each area produces and dierent levelo signal drit and distortion, and the only problem right now is the act thatsometimes the transmission just cuts out completely - silence. This is a problemwith stereo transmission only. Not a huge problem but sometimes it is a bitannoying and shocking. Would be nicer to get a smooth distortion happening.It eels great to simply touch the transmitter in varying pressure, or dance my

hand around it, or indeed move my entire body to aect the noise generated.It also reacts to big chunks o metal placed near the coil. I put a errite barantenna next to the coil and when it didnt blank out completely it made a greattextured intererence, like it was trying to suck up some o the coils energy. Notsure what was going on there.I enjoyed running around rom radio to radio, it elt like I was playing with thespace. On the shortwave radio in particular at some points I was really gettinginto playing it as a perormance.

Later on I discovered how when using the shortwave radio strapped to my body,I could walk inside the arc o transmission, and even gure out its edges andborders. It is possible to mold the noise this way. There is also an interestingeedback and intererence between the shortwave and the FM transmission ithey are happening in the same signal area. Sometimes the shortwave receiverstarts picking up the FM transmission. I have no idea how that happens.


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The importance o intuition.

A guess on something perceived unconsciously or carelessly is quite oten betterthan i you concentrate on something (Voss & Paller 349). Voss and Pallersprimarily visual experiments reveal the memory encoding o a task with divided

attention is actually on the average more accurate. This is rather surprising anda bit disturbing, especially since results suggest we are much more awarethatis, having metamemoryo our explicit ull attention memory, while the dividedimplicit attention memory only comes across as a mysterious guess. One thingthat I could add to that argument rom my own experience is that ull attentiondemands more agency o the observer. Thereore, since the observer is giving hisor her all, they eel less condent about their observations.

With random music, the problem is your conscious perception o the music.

Your intuition probably knows theres nothing there, but your consciousnessreuses to leave it alone. This creates a riction in your own mind and your owncondence in yoursel. Similar phenomena include change blindness, whereit has been ound that subjects notice a change unconsciously, and thereoreare not aware o the change until they are asked to remember it. This suggestsa strict limit on the amount o inormation that can be consciously retained.(Levin et al. 289-290)

Both o these pointsunreliable metamemory and conscious rictionarerelated to my interest and belie in the allibility o the humans ability to knowhim or hersel, which I have discussed above in relation to the writings o TorNrretranders.

As a partial salve, I suggest that extra trust and attention be paid to the guessor gut memory, as it seems in many cases that consciousness proves to be ahindrance or at the very least an unneeded complication.

Jumping ahead:

In relating this more to channel selection: our mind can unconsciously guidethe selection o a channel, the active inormation does not have to enterconsciousness. The active inormation regardless passes through our body ontothe next stage o its journey. But our consciousness can decide to stop its

journey or to deactivate the channel, so to speak.


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When we are perceiving and appreciatingan artwork, what is more important:

a) The passive unconscious recognition o art-likeactors and the orwarding o that to our pleasure andintellectual unctions or

b) the conscious determination o art-like actors andthe deliberate appreciation o them?

Noting that: both o these options take into accountthe mostly unconscious application o memory romprevious art experience (school, history, making,viewing, cultural backgrounds).

This is not a question I can answer, nor would thesolution lie within the borders set by these questions.


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Pink noise - an implicate orer(electronic disturbance amplied.)

Elaborate:Radio static is also implicate order beyond otherradio waves. It is the static o the in between, thegeneral electromagnetic radiation o where ever,that is all around you.

Pink noise* is not really chaotic disorder. You haveto build a system to make it. That means that thecomponents o the system are acting together ina way that is actually structured. You can evenbuild that structure i you know how.

This is a perect example o Bohms idea that thereis no such thing as real disorder (Bohm 8). Noise or

static is the most disorderly thing we can think o,yet there is a precise structure behind it all. Staticon the radio is background eld radiation in theair, much like how there is background radiationin the universe rom the Big Bang (Cramer 2003).This radiation can be mathematically predictedand converted to audio. This cosmic event occurredwithin an equally structured context as pink noisedoes, albeit it is not a context we ully understand.

As many a physicist will tell you, this does notmean it was a disorderly event.

*a type o noise that can be generated in analog circuits whichhas equal noise power over all octaves. This note was writtenduring experiments to build such a generator.


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Selected studio notes

I scrambled up ve versions o Neil Youngs Cowgirl in the Sand, our monotracks (two in let, two in right) and one stereo track. They are live bootlegs soare o poor quality. I let the volume high or all o them. Some were too long,some too short, so I either stretched or shrunk them, and altered the pitch onsome o them to give a more ull sound.Its barely contained chaos, a really good approximation o how this type omusic makes me eel. Savage and constrained, exploding everywhere.The best part though is that when everything is swirling around, especially withuncoordinated tracks in both my ears, it depends on my current situation as towhat I can and cannot hear, what bits o song or melody I pick out and whatI dont.This is pretty amazing because each individual track is audible, its not acompletely soupy mess - all the individual notes are clear. I dont know whatit is, but depending on my situation, I hear some things and dont hear otherthings. No two listenings are the same.

For the most part art is not a discipline based on empirical evidence.(Quoting mysel rom the Introduction)

Surely making an artwork takes into account some necessary quantiable and

measurable details, however the overall creation o an art piece relies on anintuitive understanding o the acts at hand, and the trust o ideas, suggestions,and ormulations that may not make measurable or provable sense.

Part o my blooming interest in the cassette tape I think came rom early in thesemester when I was simply looking to nd tape recorders so I could take theDC motors out o their bellies (or the Small within the Great). Then I must

have started thinking about tapes and how they sound and what can be donewith them.

I do not want to delve too deeply into philosophy! It is a slippery slope whereone has to constantly back onesel up in the tradition o that eld. Thus onebegins to write entirely about philosophy, not about what is actually at hand.Dangerous, boring, and worst o all o-topic.

Even though I know I am interested in studies o ontology, I still do not want tobring mysel o track.


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Infuence.

It would be unproductive within all this talk o relating scienticconcepts to my creativity to orget writing about the kind o

artworks that have been inuencing the orm o my work. Seebooks three and our or complete descriptions o my work reerredto here.All artists mentioned are ully reerenced in the works cited section.

Ben FrostA starting process

His composition Theory o Machines (2006) is a culminationo ragmented rhythms and a single melodic driver. It builds inexpression and tension while at the same time ragmenting urtherinto static, destroying itsel. It is on a road to becoming, headingtowards a climax, but while it is doing that it is unstable andpulling itsel apart. It is unknown whether the climax is reached ornot, or i a state o becoming is maintained. Melancholic and also

urgent. Urgency is an important expression or me, as it suggestssomething driving orwards somewhere, to attain some kind ocompletion.

I used an edited loop rom the beginning o this track or YouAre Dissolved, during a quiet moment. This was a moment othe perormance where I am slowly moving in and out o the radio

transmission. Frosts delicate piano gures are appropriate or thismore tactile moment.

Tim Hecker, Geo Mullen, an John CageThe music o machines an making music with machines

Heckers work is o high importance to me and is probably mysingle most signicant ormal inuence. His music career hasconcentrated on a specic investigation o melody, static, shitingradio sounds, and slow sub-bass sequenced rhythms.


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I have oten described this music as the type that is most ideal orme, or at least the kind that conjures up such distinct eelings. Themost important ormal aspect here is what I would describe as a

music natural or equipment. I can describe this in two ways.

One, it is a music that, when emitted rom a piece o soundequipment you can see, sounds like it is something the equipmentwould play naturally, as i it were speaking with its own voice.This relates to the idea o the aura o materials I have writteno beore. Through some combination o random-sounding staticand barely-there rhythm, human intent is seemingly mufed inHeckers music.

Second, it is a music that could be something hidden in the naturalorder o the air. Say one would hold up a special tape recorder intothe air, a tape recorder that can record a special requency we cannothear. It might then record something that sounds like Heckersmusic, the natural music o machines and radio transmitters and

power pylons, o transmissions constantly enolding and unoldingand becoming and dissolving. There is also a cyclical nature tomany o Heckers albums in that they end with the same melodythey started with. This implies an endless power o nature.

I have used sections o Dungeoneering, 200 Years Ago, andWhere Shadows make Shadows (2009) in the You Are Dissolved

perormance.

The sound artist Geo Mullen is also noted or his use o radioon his double album Armory Radio, a series o electronic andacoustic improvisations that contain radio tuning sounds similar tomy own. The compositions are noisy but rather minimal, primarilyinterested in the harmonics o the radio tuning process. Regardless,

this was an important document or me.

When talking about composing or radio I cannot orget to talk


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about John Cage, who was one o the rst to think about usinga radio as an instrument. For You Are Dissolved I had mainlybeen looking at the piece Water Walk (195961), in which theperormer is reely moving about the stage, attending to various

mundane devices including radios. In addition to the radio beingpart o the piece, a big inuence came simply rom the act o Cagewalking about trying to control various mechanical processes.

The Hafer Trio, Phill Niblock an Ton ConraIrrational enlessness

Andrew McKenzies long-running absurdist art and sound projectThe Haer Trio has been o interest to me or many years. I willhere ocus towards one series o works he has made. It is a serieso albums reerred to as Trilogy in Three Parts or elsewhere asThe Wedding Trilogy. I will reerence the third part, No MoreTwain (2003). The three albums are essentially one long glaciallyslow movement o woodwind-like bass tones and occasional shrillgures o unknown origin.

This composition is so long, and so slow, that in the midst o oneo the albums I could imagine it would never end. The music movesorward with its planned events but it seems as i time stops, or atleast the perception o time radically changes. There are no hardborders in McKenzies compositionit seems to shit and ebb tosome kind o universal constant.

We will see that I try to reect this eect in my sound installation,The Small within the Great. A similar composition called OrgansLost at Sea by Lawrence English was signicant in inuencing theway I tuned the installation, and in the way I wanted the chordit played to be built up and dissolved over time. In Englishs piecea huge wall o organ noise blares into being, slowly changing in an

organic (yet still composed) manner.

Another similar composition by Phill Niblock called Harm


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contains a sub-bass drone which I use in You Are Dissolved.Niblocks music is generally without rhythm or even melody. Smallchanges in micro tones may be observed, similar to McKenziessonic molasses.

Though his actual recordings were released much later, Niblockis contemporary to the early minimalist generation o the 1960sand 70s, which includes another inuence o mine, Tony Conrad.Conrads repertoire or ree orm violin playing is notablyinteresting or me because his works are completely uid, withoutstated beginning or end. The improvisations are without guresor notations to all back on, they simply plough orward in time.The texture o his sounds, a sharper-edged electric violin groan,emphasizes this disconnect rom a linear, composed music. Thisprocess is similar to another American composer, Henry Flynt,whose New American Ethnic Music shares a similar kind o anti-notational endlessness.

Alva Noto

Coping an survival

Amongst several albums o hyper-minimal technological soundsand a media art career exploring such things as sel-organizingprocesses, Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) produced two albumso more musical, organic sounding distortion called Xerrox in2007 and 2009. In these works he is taking simple musical gures

and applying a procedure o digital copying distortion to them,eventually destroying all trace o the original composition.

While Nicolai is interested in how the copy can become independento the original, I am more interested in how the original messagedissolves against the white noise o reproduction. In the end theobserver can barely recognize i the origin (sic) still orms a part o

the inormation transerred. (Nicolai 2007)

Nicolai, having built a special device to perorm this manipulation,


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seems to be more interested in the materiality o these musicalorms. Yet I take a clear notion o active inormation rom hisprocess. A musical gure that can persist through various processeso destruction. The meaning o the gure o course changes

throughout each manipulation, but some essence o the originalcommunication makes it through.

During You Are Dissolved I play a cover version o the trackHaliod Xerrox Copy 1 (2007) in its entirety. I set up my ownsimple system o digital destruction on Nicolais musical gure,play the samples procedurally, and apply urther distortion andruination by manipulating the FM transmission o the sounds. Thesong is emotional or me so the playing o it also involves someurious bodily movement and a not insubstantial wall o noise.

There is a certain austerity to Nicolais music here that I respondto, an icy distance that he shares with Hecker. While I nd thework o both to be emotional, I appreciate this type o dryness andthink it enhances the eelings and statements urther, by avoiding

pretenses to sentimentality.

CM von Hausswol an EVPGhosts in the machine, aphophenia, phantom raio,Retropschokinesis, an mutual participation

Hausswol has worked with the concept o something called

Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) on the album Operationsor Spirit Communication (2000). This is a supernatural idea thatone could hear the voices o the dead on radio static, througha medium (much like a medium at a seance). Musician StevenWilson has produced an album o similar concepts.

While I am not interested per se in the supernatural aspect o

this, I am ascinated by this exploration o our abilities o patternrecognition. Since I am working with randomness and static soextensively, it is important that I recognize the humans tendency


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to project whatever pattern they want to hear in the sound.

Calgary-based new media project Einsteins Brain, anunortunately-named collaboration between artists Alan Dunning

and Paul Woodrow, and scientist Morley Hollenberg have exploredthis idea in various works, most recently with Ghosts in theMachine rom 2009. Starting rom EVP, Dunning et al. examinethe eects o paredoliaseeing a vague pattern as signicantandapopheniaseeing patterns in total noiseby setting up a complexcomputer system that analyses a eld o video static. An algorithmthen scans the eld o noise or anything resembling a ace. It is asystem o meaning making, and comments on the problematizedrelationship between meaning and the meaningul. (Dunning etal. 2009)

This is precisely the kind o riction with the world I have beeninterested in. Such noise events orce us to conront our abilityto make meaning and when to make it. Hence the randomness inThe Small within the Great and the orceul static degradation o

You Are Dissolved. Can we see meaning in the random quantumevents, and can we still hear the music through the radio static?

Sound artist John Duncans 2002 album Phantom Broadcastpresents a related idea. Duncan supposedly came across thecomposition ully ormed as he was scanning through the shortwaveradio band, and recorded it in the studio. Whether we are to believe

Duncan or not is another matter, but it is ascinating to think thatsome spectral event elsewhere in the world could have arrived justinto his radio, making an oscillating rhythm that he appreciatedenough to perceive as signicant.

John Walkers web based Retropsychokinesis projects presentanother such challenge to our aculties o meaning making which

enters the supernatural. In this project Walker and MatthewWatkins have arranged a series o tests or subjects attemptingto predict or inuence a stream o random data arriving to their


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monitors. Watkins wishes to prove a thesis that some events can bedetermined by subtle psychic inuences rom the observer. Simply,he wants to see i the observer is participating in the experimentin a way that is more than just looking, but is actively changing

the results. The comparisons to the quantum physics we have beenlooking at are obvious, yet Walker and Watkins project has moreo the air o a bizarre supernatural story.

I would like to compare Walkers project and my own soundinstallation. In The Small within the Great I am using data romradioactive decay. To collect this I use a Geiger counter computerinterace looking at some decaying metal. This is essentially thesame setup that Walker uses or his experimental data, right downto the brand o Geiger counter used. While Walker is looking toprove that people can sometimes predict the random numbercoming to them not just by chance, my installation is providingsome kind o music that the observer must experience.

Whether or not my gallery-goers are indeed participating in my

installation is impossible to tell, but rom my own experience andthe experience related to me by some o my audience, listeningto the machine does have an unnerving eect that there could besome orm o communication happening. This could be evidenceo the kind o conused meaning making that Dunning et al. aretrying to explore.

Ellen Fullman an Paul PanhusenString instruments, movement in space, an measurement

Fullman is amous or her Long String Instrument, a massivestructure o ne bronze wires thread between large woodenresonating boxes. The Instrument is as large as the perormancespace will permit, thereore the perormance and composition

is dependent on the architecture, much like in my own soundinstallation. The texture o the sounds is likewise similar, a longsharp droning mass. In addition to the setting o an instrument in


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architecture, Fullman also must perorm her instrument in a kindo choreography, due not only to the large size o the instrumentbut also the amount o space that must be covered to perorm it.

So along with Cage, Fullman also inuenced how I thought toperorm You Are Dissolvedover a larger space, but treating thespace in its entirety as a more solid mass, the whole phenomenao which I could play or dance in. The architecture presents arame with which to ll with radio waves, which I push into withmy body.

Fullman has also worked with another builder o unusual stringinstruments, Paul Panhuysen, who has produced an album orecordings ltered through electrical monitoring devices calledgalvanometers (Panhuysen 1998). Panhuysen took many recordingso his string instruments and ensembles then transerred them toa series o these devices, which manipulate two tuned wires ospecic lengths. In relating this to my sound installation, we cansee a comparison between two things: the length o wires being

tuned numerically, and the use o a sensor medium in betweenthe data (in this case, recordings) and the heard sound event.

This latter is I think the important concern. In both o my projectsdiscussed here, we can see an interest in using some kind o mediumto change the input data, something that ts into the process toassist the sound event to become a useul carrier o inormation.

It could be a computer reading a sensor, or a modied FMtransmitter. Either way, the very presence o such an in-betweenmedium is important. This medium, then, can be seen as a shapingtool to mold the active inormation I seek to save. The medium isanalogous to, and an extension o, my own conscious determinationo what to do to inormation to best ensure the survival o thevital active components o my preerence. I irect the survival,

but am irecte b the situationI must make the rightchoices given m context.


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I heard nothing but silence, and enormous space.

I did not want to fll that space with noise.It required no noise.It made its own noise:It was low, and quiet, and oscillating very slowly.I could hear everything, and eel the weight o space.It captures space in stone,

the structure lets that space breathe,and it breathes quietly and elegantly, yet darkly.


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Book Two

Moving

The Measuring Instrument is a

Concept:

Channel Selection Explained

We, in our act o observation,are like that which we observe.

(Bohm 76)


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Every human activity has potential to participate

in the thing in which it occurs.


I am interested in art practice as a research process that is notreducible to a textual orm or is otherwise easily explainable,specically rejecting the idea that an art theory could explainboth the creative process and the contemporary climate o artproduction, as well as a nished work o art.

To this end, an artwork that is capable o standing on its owncompleteness is to be strived or, something that is comortablewith the audiences ability to ree associate outside o the contextwithin which the artwork was created. Context is encoded withinthe movement o the artwork at the moments o its creation, andthe crucial elements o it will unold naturally to the audience in

ways unique to each observers own context. The uture must beconsidered regardless o the artists individual artistic ideals andstatements.

The artist must accept that what he or she intends will notnecessarily be what each observer receives. Observers participatein artworks and perormances and their perception o the work willalter the works meanings. This is not to de-emphasize the roleo the artists agency and his or her concepts, but to consider itas an equal part o the equation. It is to set the work o art andthe creation o art to a state o non-totalism. That is, to acceptmalunction as another kind o unction, to consider all readings,and to reject dogma. Without a total ramework, presumed orotherwise, one will nally nd the reedom to associate.


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We consistently assume that theworld is made up o some kind obasic particle (Bohm 74). This is amistaken kind o aith, or a ault origid thinking, a result o our placingourselves above nature.The world does not and will neverdo what we want it to do. It doesnot and will never be constitutedo the things we would like it to be

constituted with.

It comes through us:we are what the world wants.


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An example o how an implicate orer works,using the iea o the hologram.

Each part o the hologram contains an enolded order

essentially similar to that o the object and yet obvi-ously dierent in orm.

the order in the hologram is implicate.

the order in the object, as in the image, will then beunoldedand we shall call it explicate

the whole object is enolded in each part o the holo-gramthe process in which this order is conveyed rom theobject to the hologram will be called enoldmentorimplication

The process in which the order in the hologram be-comes maniest to the viewer in an image will be calledunoldmentor explication

(Paraphrased rom Bohm & Hiley 354)


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Looping

All known and unknown elds o total existence canbe seen as a kind o hologram, a ground, that Bohmcalls holomovement. Everything in our experience is

an explicate order o the holomovement.Everything constant, persisting, or lasting is

sustained as an unoldment o something thatrepeats. Repetition is renewed by enoldment, and is

wholly dissolved by an unolding movement withindegrees o implication.

When the repetitive loops cease, orm vanishes.

There is no permanent identity. (Bohm & Hiley 357)


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Movement an mutual participation

Bohm criticizes our current society, commenting that the mode oseparating thought rom action has created a meaningless social

structure, in which we experience the very patterns o relationshipthat we ourselves have created as something separate rom usand alien to what is deepest and most essential in each individualhuman being. (Bohm 63) Bohm asserts that all parts o society,lie and the world are intimately related and interdependent, asaspects o an unbroken totality, which ultimately merges with thewhole o existence. (ibid 62). The lines in Bohms thought can betraced up towards his quantum ontology, which relies on the sameundamentals o totality and wholeness. As such, Bohm perormsa kind o ultimate theoretical abstraction, one that is however incomplete harmony with its theoretical base. As society is implicitwithin the order o physical being and becoming, so it can beapproximately described using the idea o implicate order.

Bohm argues that thought is real. This is a critical argument and

one he rames by pointing out how little attention we actually payto the reality o thought. We carelessly give little thought to theactual unction o thought (ibid 64). How, then, could we not beconused about everything else in lie? He argues that indeed we areconused, by the act that we ignore that thought is a real, physicalthing happening in the world. The goings-on o our imaginationsare real and cause real purpose ater it causes us to move to act

the unction is always real. Mutual participation exists in nature,the purposive, active content o imagination guiding creation.Bohm remarks nature may be regarded as that which takes shapeby itsel, while human activity leads to the creation o artiacts,shaped by human participation in natural process, ordered andguided by thought. (ibid) Thus we can see how we are intertwinedwith nature, participating as artiact-producing organisms in an

overall structure that is still taking shape by itsel.


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Movement, observation, an our place in the universe

An aspect o our observation capacities I am interested in is how wethink it places us above the rest o the universe, such as the classic

example o man-over-nature or the ar more mundane exampleo man-struggling-with-a-door-handle. To wit, the separation oorganism and world into parts. I posit that we have no such specialplace, since separation is merely an abstraction.

I would critique any personality that attempts to place itsel outsideo the universal ow o movement. We are using observation asa way to extend our capacity or survival in the universe, as away to understand the subtle characteristics o various orms omovement, that is events occurring around us. To move with it,rather than challenge it.

A theory o Murray Gell-Mann & JB Hartle uses a conceptwhich extends Dawinism and proposes a basis or it in quantummechanics. The Inormation Gathering and Utilization System

(IGUS, an abstracted orm o consciousness) evolves through natureto exploit particular aspects o physics: observation, measurementand classical mechanics. That implies that the IGUS occupies nospecial places and plays no preerred role in the laws o physics.(Gell-Mann & Hartle as quoted in Bohm & Hiley 340) To clariy,since the system has evolved rom the universe to observe itandthus better surviveit is an example o the universe observing

itsel. That is, it is a kind o universal reection. Through ideasdeveloped in quantum physics, we can use this mirror to seeourselves as being part o the universe in a whole way, and theseideas developed as a reection o our own inner processes (ibid,389). The human being can be seen as contiguous with the resto the universe, which is an entirely living thing not reducible tomechanical physical equations.

To extend this idea urther, John Conway and Simon Kochen haverecently produced what they call a Strong Free Will Theorem.


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This essentially states that i the observer has ree choice over hisor her observation, then the particles response to being observedis likewise not determined by the previous history o the universe.(Conway & Kochen 226)

Regardless o the neries o Conway and Kochens theorem, I enjoythis parallel between humans and particles, where all boundaries obeing special are knocked away. The concept o ree will becomes amoot point, i everything as such has it. It emphases our presencein a universal movement. I particles in vortices to use a avouriteexample o Bohmare part o a larger set o ever more subtlemovements, then so are we involved in subtle series o movements.What is interesting about the human situation is that, accordingto Gell-Mann and Hartle, we perhaps have evolved to best surviveby paying attention to the details within these movements, andselecting the correct course o action. It is this tension that I amtrying to study in my practice.

I we look at the examples rom Nrretranders I gave in the

introduction, we can see some research that has devoted itsel tothe unction o consciousness. We can interpret it as being a nely-grained sieve, which is designed to pull a decision only on events thatdemand a certain amount o complexity and time o contemplation.These are, potentially, moments within a larger movement whichmay or may not hinge on better chances or survival.

Possibly the reason why I am doing what I am doing with my artpractice is to point a nger at this crucial aspect o our personalitiesand unctions. There is something satisying about removing thepedestal rom underneath the human, suggesting that the pedestalitsel stands in the way o something so basic as survival. Perhapsthe pedestal is an essential part o this survival strategy, but I thinkmore oten than not it leads to the conusion o the kind Bohm

mentions, where we are rustrated by the inability to impose anorder, and are unable to get past that primary level o rustration.The person is trying to escape the awareness o a conict, rather


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than sorting it out. (Bohm 2021). In many cases, this is becausethe person is unwilling to accept being humbled. There is a dangero taking this analogy too ar so as to interpret every human actionas a simple mechanical move, but the universe is much more subtle

and organic than or such an easy reduction to make any sense atall.

In a way this is expressed in You Are Dissolved and its critiqueo multitasking and subsequent acceptance o a system one mustwork with intuitively rather than control.


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Movement an the artworks in question

The major unction o the sound in The Small within the Greatis to suggest a situation o endless becoming, o constant orward

throughput movement. It presents events which are brought intoexistence in space and time rom a broader background or context,and eventually dissolving into the background. (Bohm 75) Thatis to say, my instrument highlights this process, which is occurringin everything at every moment. My instrument takes a eetingquantum moment, brings it into some kind o audible orm, whichthen reverberates away into the rest o the world. It suggestsunbroken wholeness o events and modes o order.

This dissolution is highlighted even urther in You AreDissolved, the perormance or radio. A complex system o radiotransmission is developed, and is then interered with by myown body. Metaphorically and perhaps even physically, I becomepart o the dissolution o these events, both bringing them out othe background and then dissolving them back. The audience is

involved in this process mutually and intimately, by implicationo presence. This emphasis is on the real content o thought my thoughts literally moving events. As opposed to me doingthe movement required to operate the radios, it is much moreappropriate to see mysel as being inside the movement, as myoperation inorms their reaction, which in turn inorms my urtheroperation. Through this, sound and musical orms are manipulated

and despite the chaos o the system the meaningul content o thesoundsthe active inormationis assumed to survive or at leasta little longer beore ultimately dissolving into the whole.

In short, or both works a kind ototal eldis created, in whicheither the author or the machine draws inormation rom thebackground, imbuing it with orm. Bohm points out thatat least

in a quantum contextsuch things as experimental conditions,observed objects, and scientist could be regarded as part o a singleoverall pattern which is abstracted by our descriptionin my


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case, an artwork (ibid 76). In The Small Within the Great, theeternity o this process is especially evident. It makes a soundwhich is more or less similar to itsel. However, there are manydierences within these similarities. Hence this endless drone is in

act endlessly changing and, within itsel, totally dynamic. Withthis work I intended to make something that, through its sameness,seems eternally still. Yet through its similar dierences, is eternallydynamic.

In Bohms early essay On Creativity, he discusses thatthe nature o creativity lies within the recognition o suchsimilar dierences and dierent similarities, in such a waythat a new kind o order, implicate or explicate withinthe currently understood order, is revealed. (ibid 14-15)

As such, bringing orward something rom a total eld could beseen as a kind o beautiul revelation, even i partial, o anotherdepth o order. Further, the act that we must be consciously awarethat we are doing this activity all the time in subtle ways must

not be ignored. This is perhaps the key to a successully creativeresponse in the world.


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Human organisms are implicate to thestructure o nature.

Nature participates in thought b causingit to change.

Thought aapts to the situation natureemans.

Persistence an lasting.

Thought is implicate in the motion it givesrise to.

Urges rom context / one whole movemento esire


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THOU

GHTBOdILyREA

dIN

ESSB

OdILy

A

CTION

AFFECTSENVIRONM

ENTI

NFL

UENCESTH

OUGHT

ACTIVE

INFORMATION

IMPLyING NEEd


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T H E R E F O R E ,THE CONTENT OFTHOUGHT SHALL

BE SEEN ASTHE SMALLWITHIN THE

GREAT.

THE WHOLEOF MOVEMENT,

THROUGH

TOTALITY.


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Book Three

The Small

within the GreatThe simplicity of this apparatus is

important, least of all because you

know how to play it.

These elds, which are now being treated as theground o all existence, have to be understood asbeing essentially in movement. ... Thereore all

properties that are attributed to the eld have to beunderstood as relationships in its movement.

(Bohm & Hiley 356)


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In The Small within the Great: Direction and Survival, eightsteel stringed instruments are bolted onto a concrete wall. Thetuning o these instruments is such that each orms a part o agreater chord. These instruments are then strummed by constantlyturning motors. The speed o these motors is directed by the

readings o a sensor sending data to a computer program. Thissensor is reading the atomic decay o a piece o Americium 241, asynthetic radioactive substance. The strumming is thus random,and the chord is never ully achieved. The instrument, like theradioactive metal, decays over time as the machines wear down, asthe strings break, strumming picks snap o, and motors burn out.

The sound boards are placed on the wall in a basic geometricunctional shape, with the smaller lengths o string occupying themiddle section or acoustic reasons. There is little meaning in the

Fig. 4: Motors, view rom wall, perspective rotated.


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layout beyond this, the lengths o the strings themselves beingdetermined by equal temperament. The instrument was tuned toplay a G minor chord with a C or colour. Steel wire was used inthe rst installation, though proper piano and cello strings aredesired.

In this simple yet careul set up, we are witness to a quantummovement that unolds itsel through ever greater levels o order.The wholeness o the unbroken movement is emphasized as thereverberations dissipate into the space without and within theviewer in a system o mutual participation. Depending on where thework is installed, it will interact with the room in a dierent way.

The setup o the rst version o the installation was on a concretewall at the end o a long, large basement room. Thereore, the sound

Fig. 5:Computer andGeiger counter


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close to the wall was shrill and aggressive yet became more sotand gentle as viewers distance themselves, allowing the sounds toreect or longer distances o the concrete. Since the dierent notesare playing on dierent areas o the wall, the sounds are bouncing

around in dierent ways, so as viewers move around they will hearsomething dierent. Their position, as well, aects the sound orother viewers - everyone is implicated into the perormance o themachine. Dierent overtones can be heard in dierent places, andsometimes these overtones cause a sympathetic resonance withsome pipe or piece o metal in the ceiling. This is all physicaland direct. The sound is a harsh metallic drone, but is also otensoothing and grounding. It is loud enough to be orceul and presentat every moment, and is diicult to ignore.

It is my intention that a viewer may become aware o his or herimplication into the system.In the installation our classical world gradually emerges rom thesubtle quantum world (Bohm & Hiley 178). The primacy o themoment is an endless becoming yet eternal similarity.

Fig. 6: Detail o a sound board with broken strings.


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As our classical world is contained, or enolded, within the quantumworld, we are witness to a universe measuring itsel. Inseparablycontained within the quantum world, the sensor is revealing itsmovement within its own movement (it is unolding explicately).We can see in this act o measurement that the quantum worldis maniesting itsel in a world enolded within itsel. This soundinstallation is then a process o maniestation, a becoming that

reveals its implicate order through its explicate behaviour. (ibid179)

Fig. 7:Installationdetail withmotor spinning


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I want to point toward the eternally changing dierences withinevents and things, and to the endless becoming o new relationshipsacross the boundaries o things. With the work I have done, Iwish to attempt to reveal the illusion o multiplicity, to reveal the

abstract character o perception, to say it is okay to perceiverelationships in dierent ways, i those ways could be useul.(Bohm 86)

Fig. 8: A stylized diagram o implicate order, rom Bohm & Hiley 372. Thespecic unction being depicted here reers to trajectories that arise rom wavestructures and how they nest within each other.


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We emphasize once again that this

process of forming and dissolving

wholes is essentially quantum

mechanical. For it is only through

the existence of such pools of

information which are not expressible

solely in terms of relationships of

the actual particles that the notion

of an objective whole can be given

meaning. ... Quantum mechanics thus

implies a new kind of process; i.e.the collection and dissolution of

wholes. ... The whole is presupposed

in the quantum wave function and it

is the active information in this wave

function that forms and dissolves

wholes. (Bohm & Hiley 9495)


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Fig.

9:Installation

view


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Fig. 10: A graphic that was used on theadvertising or The Small within theGreat. It is an international standardradiation treoil set within an architectural

treoil. The architectural treoil suggeststhe invisible holy trinity as a drive, whilstthe radiation treoil suggests the invisiblequantum process as a drive.This is either comparing or a supplanting,no specic reading is intended.


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Book Four

You Are Dissolved

Creating a system of implication

around the self

1. Intention2. Fear =(equals) 3. desire

Fig. 11


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Note about incorrectl copie inormation.There could be two ways o copying inormation, a badand a good way.

The correct way would be to copy in such a way thatactive inormation survives despite degradation. Donein an aware way, in tune with the wholeness o occurringevents and the awareness o the reality o thought,actions and movement.

Selecting the right channel, maintaining the movemento the inormation.

The crisis o the human is to behave in such a way asto let the movement happen - to make a good, inormedchoice, and to not get in the way.

An incorrect way o copying involves the transmissiono aulty or conused inormation, the carrying-on oa separated mode o thinking. Conusion between therelation between thought and unction.

Fig. 12: manipulating FM transmitter and causing intererence with shortwaveradio receiver.


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You Are Dissolved is a musical perormance o sorts. I set up asystem o transmission and reception and play it with my bodyIn the initial set up, I have a computer playing looped pieces osampled music. The content o these loops is important and will

be returned to. These loops are then sent to a powerul FM radiotransmitter, which is set near the perormer with antenna askew. Atuner, several meters rom mysel, receives this transmission throughan improperly set antenna. These improper antenna situations areintentional, as intererence with reception and transmission aredesired. All o this is combined in a mixing board, which thensends everything to a loud sound system.

The speakers o the sound system are unconventionally pointedaway rom the audience, towards the corners o the room. Thisinvolves the audience in the sense that it embeds them more in thespace. The sound comes to them ater it has been wi

collection and dissolution: wholeness, the creative process, and the limitations of text

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