Its difficult to decide how to write about this, as it is difficult to decide definitively how it was felt and is still being felt: a tension in the mind manifesting through the body without conceding a difference between the two but certainly a process of regulating a transference between sensation felt and ruminated over, from above, dislocating from the presence in order to float through a sea of ideas populated by all these 'archetypal archipelagos of awareness', our bodies made physical making metaphysical through a morphogenetic field composed of ourselves as well as something (or un-thing) decidedly other. You know me - or at least you think you do, or at least you are rigorously engaged in a tangential process of knowing and unknowing and reknowing and remembering 'me' in various phases as well as in the present, and perhaps also willing to admit that the knowing of 'me' or 'me-ness' is contingent upon many processes of my own and yours actively worlding, intermingling and coagulating in and through various materials, constantly in flux, shifting with shades of energy or exhaustion, determined with statements and sounds, shifting with invisible tides - so you must know that I entertain a desire to unpack this experience of words, actions, relationships, possible musics of the mind and the actual sonic forms we molded, and all the minutiae that revealed itself (as well as other particles that remain hidden) over the last few weeks of living and working together out here at the edge of the world. This unpacking is motivated, which is to say oriented, towards a specific goal that (referencing Baud-man) should be considered more of a procession of seduction than desire, perhaps. Seductive, because the enchantment of the mind and enticement of the body is what we are sustaining, not a desire to outline a specific program or achieve a concretized object-experience. At least this is how I imagine it, and I imagine that my "it" will instill various shimmers, shivers, tremors, and terrors in your own imagined visions of the events. As well they should, or we are not working to our highest potential, perhaps (always a maybe with me these days, not of uncertainty but in sidestep of a definite which seems so stifling). So let's just say this conversation is motivated by keeping the conversation going, by learning what our mistakes were and collaborating on a rubric so that we may not repeat them in the future, or repeat them more consciously and productively, to appease all of our individual aspirations, however it is we choose to define them.

I feel like its appropriate to write about this freely, that this medium of writing is conducive to clear linguistic articulation while also maintains a slower deliberate pacing compared to in-person conversations which sometimes make me feel rushed or stunted.

First, the general lack of preparation: very little contact from individual members of the group with me, not to mention each other, regarding the potential parameters of interaction. A huge missed opportunity to initiate a dialogue of immanence, exchange of inspirations or techniques, familiarization with individual dialects of expression as well as (more importantly) the articulation of the grand project. Dialogue should have commenced in January, with months of conversation & planning under the belt when everyone arrived so we could jump right into solidifying visions rather than beginning from scratch. Major cause of disorientation, confusion, frustration, & distraction.

First conversation: how to we maintain a freedom of the dynamic without tyranny. Outlining various motivations and linguistic/expressive capabilities. Delineation of internal hierarchy excluding the others. Complication of bringing in outside projections with their residual ontologies.

First improvisations in music school: mitigating away from musicality towards abstract ideas localized in a central voice, an emotional struggle for freedom in action alongside an intellectual struggle to dominate ideologically? Conflicting preferences & aversions to particular sounds, a rigid subjective armoring.

Concerning the theater space (and other spaces): spatial amplification of sounds and egos. Some division of labor technically that reinforces mental controls. Delineations of conflict through aggression: breakdown of tact & poise - the ability to avoid embarrassing situations & ability to resolve embarrassing situations - noncompatible with radical transparency. Difficulty of articulating self in relation to the group: islands with too much distance between them. The space was originally conceived as a participant with presence, along with the video and potentially the instruments themselves, but in the end all focus was put upon one spatialization in one space (rigid!). Other conceptions of space are necessary: the intimate space, public space, body space, interpersonal space, various spatializations of mediums in relation to each other, mental vs physical spaces.

Power dynamic: no conciliation of perspectives between members, general struggle in playing and communicating, therefore soundscapes that feel "right" are impossible to qualify and repeat. The role within the group is confounded with the individual autonomy: not following a personal idea amounts to silencing that performers voice in the whole. Lack of cooperative model produces chaos. The difference between actions & words: an inversion: ___ aggressive in speach while generous in playing, ___ generous in speech & aggressive in playing, ___ a silver tongued subtle body, ___+___ as alternating in rigidity.

Attentions: in terms of spans (time/energy) & focus upon competing aspects. A qualitative difference between anticipation & performance attentions, what is said before & what is conducted during & what is appreciated afterwards. Shifting of attention upon technical aspects (navigating a personal archive of sound abilities) & how these elements interact with others. War: presence in group dynamic fluctuating between consiliation & disruption, reconciliation & prodding into the unfamiliar. Breakdowns of attention due to critical mass of information in the system & the collective struggle to isolate elements that are useful/productive/interesting from those that are detrimental/counterproductive/masturbation(!).

Meta-considerations: dialogues about dialogue, structures about structures, orientations about orientations, music about music or non-music, sounds which represent specific affects or those which designate styles/genres, awarenesses which facilitate playing or presence that isolates forceful focus. Neuroplasticity vs neuroelasticity. Location, articulation, & projection of the etheric double. ((All of these terms required increased fidelity, reconciliation with the myriad focus, but remained relatively underutilized in the group psyche. A philosophy of/for stones, ontology of the invisible, fluctuating definitions of energy, language in general (significance vs signification, symbols, thought-forms manifest in impressions vs ideas, thought-forms manifest in mind or through performance). Ecological models, cellular models, organ/corporeal models: animism, anthropocentric senses or articulations of the anthropocene, shifting of temporal scales from bacterial, botanical, biological, anthropological, sociological, cosmological, ontological, mystical.

Quantization of information: how much a single individual can take on: in a day, in a session, in a conversation, in a musical scenario, in a project. The problem of downtime interfering with articulations of an ongoing process; necessary for productivity or distracting from heightened potentials?? How do we evaluate the good/bad (morally) or the useful/obsolete (productivity) or expressive/cliché (affect) or that which instill desire/aversion (physical or mental attraction) without a solidified rubric for such delineations?

(Unclear) Metaphors: of the universe, of an opera, of music or expressions through sound, of group order & influence. General confusion due to language impediments (Norwegian, Swedish, English) & semiotic shimmer (metaphors, allegories, definitions, instructions internalizing/externalizing visions). Ambiguity of content producing disorientation in articulation of participation. The carbon table: an unstable piece of furniture, designating what? (consciousness, collaboration, potential or practical projects, dimensions of physical space, bodily orchestration, conversation). Academic vocabularies citing (un)specific sources vs colloquialisms & slang taking for granted 'common sense' understandings of action & response. The matter of scaling: micro/macro or molecular/molar:: linkages in the individual networks compiling perspectives of a larger discourse.

The Matter of the Audience: orientation remained unclear from beginning to end. First question: Who is this of/for? Somewhere somehow came the implication that our activities required an audience in order to be justified, but this should have remained a conversation or even a question not addressed. Audience is not a problem in itself but did dramatically deter focus upon the present by inserting dire anticipation (for an imminent event rather than an immanent process). The proposition that we are both performers & audience simultaneously: how does this imply a shift in attention?

Un/Familiarity: pertaining to social hierarchy (the triangulated psy-minds over the two initiates). Became a continual syphon of energy from centralizing focus, demoralizing tendencies amounting to myriad individual frustrations or distractions. Again, this should have been overcome before the physical meeting occurred through emails, video conferences, music exchanges, & other "immaterial" conduits. Lack of preparation.

Preoccupation with content: jazz, minerals, ontology, love, etc. Premature articulations without being able to digest. Would have been alleviated by more preparations. The goal seemed to become a paradigm shift in the expectations of the audience through orchestrating a product of reproducible components, rather than exploring the potential of an internal dialectic to shift the externalization of the affect toward elucidating their own becoming. Actions were general felt as avoidance of recognizable forms which devolved to a pale facsimile of an exchange. Content of text, video, & exchange between instruments became rudimentary & cliche: of course there is a power in this but nothing seemed to have been learned.

The most interesting questions came at the end: considerations of professionalism as musicians, articulations of leadership & unity of vision & solidarity of voices, being represented or suppressed within the group dynamic, how changes in space would facilitate different performances/experiences (as performers & audience), how content could be oriented towards pure becoming rather than speaking about (love for example) specifically, issues regarding leadership & direction (role formation in general).