A Christmas Poem
The sadness of fêtes, chorals, windows, lights
and children's eyes, wide open with great wonder,
my driftwood, tell, how stale became bread bites
when crusty pleasures had been torn asunder?
Our mouths turned death into liquid whey,
nothing belonged to us from concert halls.
Horses are cold, harnessed to a fast sleigh,
they want to go and break through snowy walls.
Let's end the liturgy! We've prayed enough,
enough we've burned in Him, to no avail,
till we fell down like a poor epitaph
for lonely holes, where all our dreams turned stale.
The church calms the organ and grows arcane
where our faith shone so bright not long ago.
My driftwood, tell me, where'll you change your train,
when the point is reached with nowhere to go?
Jiří Orten, The Christmas Poem, from Jiří Orten, Selected Poems, trans. Josef Toms
The sadness of fêtes, chorals, windows, lights
and children's eyes, wide open with great wonder,
my driftwood, tell, how stale became bread bites
when crusty pleasures had been torn asunder?
Our mouths turned death into liquid whey,
nothing belonged to us from concert halls.
Horses are cold, harnessed to a fast sleigh,
they want to go and break through snowy walls.
Let's end the liturgy! We've prayed enough,
enough we've burned in Him, to no avail,
till we fell down like a poor epitaph
for lonely holes, where all our dreams turned stale.
The church calms the organ and grows arcane
where our faith shone so bright not long ago.
My driftwood, tell me, where'll you change your train,
when the point is reached with nowhere to go?
Jiří Orten, The Christmas Poem, from Jiří Orten, Selected Poems, trans. Josef Toms
❤9
Carsten Nicolai & Ryoji Ikeda
cyclo.
2008
“cyclo. is a collaborative research project by Ikeda and Nicolai which focuses on the visualisation of sound. The artists are developing a database of sounds that they are composing for the visual responses these produce when analysed in real time using equipment developed originally for phase correlation in mastering vinyl records. With such stereo image monitoring equipment, the phase and amplitude of stereo signals can be illustrated graphically.
The audio elements have been constructed and chosen through agendas concerned with the minute editing of frequencies (often beyond the physical range of human hearing) and the perceptual amassing of audio elements to an undefined point.“
[x]
cyclo.
2008
“cyclo. is a collaborative research project by Ikeda and Nicolai which focuses on the visualisation of sound. The artists are developing a database of sounds that they are composing for the visual responses these produce when analysed in real time using equipment developed originally for phase correlation in mastering vinyl records. With such stereo image monitoring equipment, the phase and amplitude of stereo signals can be illustrated graphically.
The audio elements have been constructed and chosen through agendas concerned with the minute editing of frequencies (often beyond the physical range of human hearing) and the perceptual amassing of audio elements to an undefined point.“
[x]
❤6
❤5
“Sounds are both temporal and spatial. As we converse with a partner, there is space between us created by the sound of our voices and the proximity of our bodies.
The sound of the conversation can radiate out of the intended intimate space and be heard by others not necessarily included in the conversation. The intimate dimension is overlapping with a more public dimension that we may or may not be aware of. We can hear the dimensions of the space consciously and unconsciously.
Simultaneously we may be taking in other dimensions — a dog barking outside, other conversations in the same room, passing traffic and so forth. Our global attention is engaging with numerous overlapping dimensions created by sounds.
[…]
Listening also may have a kind of secrecy about it. One can listen to others without their knowing it. This is true of radio broadcasts or conversations that happen in a public place, or when someone chooses to listen surreptitiously to a private conversation (to overhear).”
— Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice
2005
The sound of the conversation can radiate out of the intended intimate space and be heard by others not necessarily included in the conversation. The intimate dimension is overlapping with a more public dimension that we may or may not be aware of. We can hear the dimensions of the space consciously and unconsciously.
Simultaneously we may be taking in other dimensions — a dog barking outside, other conversations in the same room, passing traffic and so forth. Our global attention is engaging with numerous overlapping dimensions created by sounds.
[…]
Listening also may have a kind of secrecy about it. One can listen to others without their knowing it. This is true of radio broadcasts or conversations that happen in a public place, or when someone chooses to listen surreptitiously to a private conversation (to overhear).”
— Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice
2005
❤1
“[…]
What I did not know when I was very young was that nothing can take the past away: the past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.”
— John Berger, from And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos
What I did not know when I was very young was that nothing can take the past away: the past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.”
— John Berger, from And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos
❤5