Culture and the Environs

Go far.

From a distanced perspective it is clear the "culture" surrounding entire populations may reflect individual taste and interests yet be devoid of a single original impulse or expression.

This is vanity and complacency, indicative of a loss of vision, a failure of the spirit of reason and inquiry, and vapid self-indulgence.  One must go beyond, even into the uncanny and unknown.

Oppose, Engage, Evolve

Art first.  All the extraneous nonsense is just that, foolish waste.

Bring together the transcendent sounds.  Elevate the surroundings and thus the culture.

Shadows, Shallows

Observe, as vicarious experience supersedes direct engagement with reality.

Art undergoes transformations that may or may not be absolute and permanent, yet regardless, what was once essential recedes into a past beyond comprehension.

Contribution

Sound may be manipulated as an art form at a distant remove from "music".

Such a statement is outside the context of cultural and academic politics.  It is the simple fact that sound may be used as an art medium, made "problematic" only by the definition, articulation and application of the creative processes involved and the fact that most such experiments are failures.

These compositions, based on aesthetic principles, are the results of successful experiments, ideas, concepts, and theories that may be replicated, refined, and extended.

The Need for Sound Art

The fish, it has been said, is not aware of the presence of water.

The discriminating listener is constantly aware of the sounds of art subverted by "programming".  It is the same set of generic structures adorned with different characterizations and attitudes of style. The artist must transcend this, and provide the listener the opportunity to acclimate to a different state of auditory awareness.

Yet it is effortless to recognize the uniqueness of these aesthetic atmospheres, composed, as it were, of  "reverse-engineered" representations of perceptual sound environments.

Distant Echoes Remaining II

Range of awareness, not complexity, extends and refines consciousness.

Contemplative understanding is not burdened by the complex nature of things.  It is the emptiness of the vessel that makes it useful; the least obtrusive sound may bear more meaning than the loudest.

Field of Listening

It is possible to hear only what seizes the attention.

When this is the case, reality is understood within narrow limits. Aesthetic awareness is more than a refined sense of perception.  It is a survival skill as well.