Dark, silent.

The time is 4 am. The setting is a black void with no distinguishing characteristics. Nothing can be seen or heard. In the beginning was a feeling, a hallucination of sensation, as though one were staring into a black velvet curtain, a billion impossibly small follicles of excruciating softness obscuring the seams of definition. Of the course of time - a quantity of minutes which very could be millennia - a light begins to seep into the space from no definite vantage, emitting just enough luminous beams to render the scrim of shadows as definitely something though uncertainly anything specific. One can think to reach out into space to grasp for an object to ground the perceptions but there is no one and nothing around in any direction and even the self cannot be touched upon, the body not yet formed, viscerally obscured through a thick soft cool membrane of silky skin velour poured between the fingertips - no part able to contact any other part, absolute separation.

A sound which may be one or many begins to murmur through the space, a low rumble shaking the gelatinous fluids of a body tingling with sensations as the sounds enter into the toes, vibrating up the legs to tickle the spinal column and ripple the salineated water of the ears, providing just enough direction to distinguish a forward from behind. The sound is warm, familiar, a voice which has never been heard but seems somehow to have always been cooing. The sound has no characteristics, is utterly unfamiliar, cannot be said to be of any specific tone or timbre. As the sonic texture approaches the frequency threshold to stimulate the follicles of hearing all of its abrasive dissonant textures seem to melt away into pure harmonic clarity, as though filtered through a prism and projected upon the scrim of the meat mind. The sound is now gaseous, now liquid, now some ethereal plasma flowing without friction through inner recesses, softly illuminating a difference between it-as-source and some other hearing or being-heard, a voice speaking through its own warbling consonance, often indistinguishable from the medium which conducts it. The voice/s emanates from within, swirling up from a deep watery pool of the self, but at other moments appears as an echo bouncing off of a distant cave wall, through its reverberations slowly revealing the a large interior space with deceptive acoustic properties sensed primarily through the musculature of the listener now taking shape, vibrating the marrow of bones fusing fuselage, cartilages of the calcium infrastructure grinding into position, gently massaging the muscles to cause the hairs of anticipation to trail up the neck, slowly creeping, rising and again, fading from the far left to the back right, though never certainly of one place or not of any other, just movement. The air is heavy and wet, palpable, carrying a smell of morning jasmine and faint bile, a mildly foul sweet-sour such as that emitted by carnivorous plants attempting to lure insects into their juicy acid bath internals.

The sound ceases to become sound by becoming a voice, definitely a voice, though it is still unclear who or what could produce such an emission. [Animal calls, clearly recorded human consonants, woodwinds playing in low register, breathing, etc. Slowed down to take on similar acoustic properties and woven into a sonic texture - the black velvet curtain.]

>>> recount the transmogrification from sound to voice from the prologue::

maca-mamma-matrix > tension > linguistic soup > sizzle/boil of negative theological narrator > dispersion and settling of elemental particles > prologue of the black void universe <<<

ON THE ORIGINS OF THE TABLE

(((SKETCH FOR A CONTEXT FOR CONVERSATION)))

The first scene is about building a table. The table is a place for meeting but at first there is only one voice, not yet any visible person. The components are described through language, through conversation with oneself, pulled out of the ether through a series of questions concerning the structure of one's self. The questions are associated to images, some being tied to particular sound-affects and others binding to words, concepts, or series of associations: building up a semiotic structure of associations as the words are being formed, articulating the visual > words describing a corporeal experience while images project the visual object. The first spoken words are of many languages, many voices, collaged from a variety of sources, playing back with many conflicting fidelities, with the voice of the narrator (my own) playing over them simultaneously as an ethereal double. On "screen" begins visual transcription of the spoken words: subtitles that at first appear scrambled, many colors and fonts and orientations, slowly distilling into a legible form dictating everything spoken by the narrator. [text-sound works, ref: mid-century audio collage experiments, sound-poems, dada poetry, fylkingen experiments, etc] the voice eventually more or less stable in tonal and linguistic qualia, though continues to subtly shift through speaking.

The words consist of collaged descriptions of parts: legs of animals, stems of plants, descriptions of beauty and general visually-desirable attributes, explanation of desirable qualia in buildings, artworks, furniture, sex appeal in humans, survival adaptations in the natural world. The words are constructed into sequences, through repetition and order, coming to describe an object(table). The images similarly become increasingly recognizable as they reoccur - not just the same image but categories of qualia becoming more consistent and meticulously timed with the temp of the speaking. >the image sequence and vocal oration appear to form each other, never clear if the voice is describing the image or the image illustrates what is being said, always-already both simultaneously< sonically, only the voice is present, though there are many subtly nuanced effects applied to double, triangulate, disperse, reverberate, and otherwise affect the speaker - focused on placement (panning and dispersion) through the space. The speaker becomes clearly audible - mixing down the unruly semiotic fragments and leaving a clearly audible narrator. The images become more consistent - it is clear that a table is being made although it is never referenced as such. A 2d (axiometric) rendering of the table is animated and drawn into a 2 point perspective space while the voice becomes monophonic. The table is drawn in 3d, 3 point perspective, as the voice pans to l-c-r. An image of the now clearly articulated table is projected onto a physical sculptural form of the table - projection mapping of the image onto the physical structure - while the voice enters into the headphones of the listener or pans into all speakers. A monologue begins concerning the importance of building the table so that a conversation may be conducted. The lights slowly fade up to reveal a neutral gray stage with a neutral gray table evenly illuminated from all sides so as to appear floating in its surroundings, slightly surrealistically separated from its physical environment. The narrator finishes the monologue and everything is silent.

THE ORIGIN OF TABLE MANNERS

(((SKETCH FOR A SCENARIO OF CONVERSATION IN CONTEXT)))

The first character (c1) opens a door (stage l), steps through, closes it behind, and walks across the stage to sit at the table. The movements are calm and deliberate, automatic, as one moving in the early morning just out of bed - a programmed awareness of the surroundings with little self-awareness. C1 sits on the floor at the table facing forward and brings up a small highly reflective coffee pot and matching cup, pours a cup of hot black liquid, and sips it silently making occasional slurping and swallowing noises. This first character begins speaking with the same voice of the narrator, beginning a monologue concerning the impossibility of conversation without an other (flow, change, rhythm/music/meter, exchange of information etc). As c1 speaks the table is slowly turned (on a platform?) To show c1 in profile, now speaking to the side. The voice is clear and unaffected. Another character (c2) enters (stage r), appearing identical to c1, and sits at what is now the head of the table. The characters visually acknowledge one another while c1 continues speaking. C2 sits at the table, pulls up a cup and pours from the same liquid, and also begins speaking - also in the same voice - an emotional description of the impossibility of describing a psychological self without an other in relation (or something of this nature). C1+c2's voices are speaking simultaneously, over each other not directed to each other, looking past each other straight ahead across the table. The voices create a monotony where very little is understood at first, but then slowly, through interspersing spaces in the two divergent monologues, a dialogue begins to emerge. At first it is not directed towards the other, consisting merely in 2 voices describing the (supposedly same) subject from different vantages: not agreeing, nor even acknowledging the content of the other. The table is oriented so that c1+c2 are oriented at 45° angles to front, creating an "x" across the stage, slowly revolving 180° so that both characters maintain the same x but are now facing backstage. A third character (c3) enters (center stage door), sits, pours, sips. The table rotates so the 3 characters are centered and symmetrical. After some time of sipping, c3 takes a breath, interrupting and diverting attention from c1+c2: silence. C3 begins a monologue composed of collage elements of the first 2, spoken louder. C1+c2 begin speaking again, 3 voices weaving a collaged narration of the self and other, the table as place, the instability of dialogue/communication, and various attempts to differentiate voices and perspectives from each other.

The vocal situation continues monotonously.

Each of the 3 voices begin to have effects applied to them which the characters seems to slowly become aware of, be affected by, and respond to through both implicit and explicit gesturing. A music composition is woven from the interplay of elements: cups of liquid on an amplified table, the 3 voices becoming increasingly differentiated (beginning as the same voice and becoming decidedly other in relation to each other), and the effect/affect being applied to color the voices. The voices transition from speaking to singing, exploring various vocal arrangements of polyphony, organum, colloquial folk chorus, etc. In addition to each voices becoming increasingly distinct in tone, timbre, and expressed philosophical perspective, a structural differentiation becomes apparent wherein each voice is speaking in different literary modalities.

>> each text will have a core monologue embedded with a larger rant. This core comprises the fodder for a series of structural experiments in the arrangement, ref: aba structure of arias, the reoccurring recitatives and intermezzos breaking the monotony of song, various poetic and literary devices, and even musical structures. <<

The vocal scenario becomes the context for a musical experiment in the distribution of meaning, modulation through affect intonation, and choreography or attention and orientation. The text itself takes on an increasingly reflexive quality until all characters are speaking about their selves-as-relation: each character is an axis of communication while maintaining distinct qualities. All statements become questions, directed to themselves and each other. The characters never come into agreement with each other, rather solidify their own idiosyncrasies even while continuing to ask similar questions.

(future notes)

Each of the 3 characters differentiates into 3 internal conversations to compose the 9 castes of the character hierarchy. Each of the 3 occupies a certain tessitura - high, medium, low - each of which is divided again into 3 to create 9 distinct voices. For the process of writing, work structurally: 1 monologue splits to 2, then 3, then 9. Write out full monologues for each character based on techniques appropriate/representative of their qualia (cut up, rhyming prose, hard analytical verbiage, etc.). Begin by associating specific writers or text sources to each. Each character will embody a particular archetype on all fronts of performativity: movement/choreography of body, posturing and aesthetics of the body, wardrobe/prosthetics in color and materials, tone and timbre of voice, speaking style, and content. Narrator becomes distinct 10th voice.

*cutup method of old and new text

*organize hierarchy based on iceland content

*research: literary, poetic, musical composition structures, lists of vowels and consonants

*diagram of familial relations: father/mother/son = continuity of life

I must create more hierarchies for cross reference with characters: matric of associations across platforms of consideration: plant and animal species (botanical/biological taxonomies or both physical and spiritual orders), symbols and glyphs (arcane magic, oracles, jungian symbolism), musical styles (performing techniques, instrumentation, sonic qualities, amplification or distribution methods, degrees of abstraction in composition techniques), a taxonomy of attention (who is aware or becomes aware of which others, concerning to whom they speak and from where they gain inspiration), and objects (references to the history of expression in art, imbued poetics of color and form, artworks vs useful objects, energy conductors/orgone accumulators/psychic incubators).

*new series of diagrams illustrating matrix relations of elements

*hierarchy of animal voices and animal transmogrification rituals