PROLOGUE > ACT1 SCENE1

The libretto is working, introducing characters, incorporating self-criticism, perpetual nagging, infinite regress of discursive negativity = negative theology is how the prologue begins!

NEW COURSE OF ACTION:

1. Re-record the vocal monologues of the prologue. "The universe was not born..."

2. Use new music (solo guitar drones) as background chord shimmers to new monologue, replacing the original improvised sections: the sizzle following MMM tension and the final emotional ascension monologue. New monologue will set the time span of this new musical section.

Structure:

>>MacaMammaMatrix :: cut up & transfered to Ableton for new performance, fill out the low end with new software instruments, general mixing fidelity improvements

>>MMM tension :: made more tense + more sparse(?)

>>Sizzle = Negative Theology Monologue of the Afflicted Self :: solo guitar drone.

>>Magic Flute (the Parallax of the MMM) :: treated same as MMM, remix + enhance

>>Affective Ascension = Cosmological Scaling Monologue of the Parapsychic Self :: slow building guitar drone pitched to Wagner-appropriated Warp Spell, crescendo to "The Universe is a Black Love," sharp cut to black

>>Act1Scene1 begins...

3. MMM + MF OVERTURES require new found footage video accompaniments based on conceptual, theoretical, symbollic signifiers, such as:

>>Monologues are black screen with aesthetically modulated subtitles (colors, movement, placement, etc).

#1: Inner layers of the mind

#2: Stratified layers of atmosphere, from the person to the universe, as a cosmological representation of love.

Evoke the content of the words, negation or positive charging respectively.

*Excellent opportunity for incorporating animated diagrams = requires learning AfterEffects (or other software) skills, but could be conducive to incorporating the drawings into the experience of the world in a more immersive manner.

>>MMM = a great convergence, crystalline structure, Gaia feminine ovarian vestibules of the jungle, warm, sweaty, activating, melodic, harmonious scales, nurturing.... *conduct an inspirational conversation with ___ concerning the potentials of this music as a material for representing a feminine force in the universe, incubating the mind, whispering like Ayahuasca.

>>MF = ascension, the Andes mountains rising out of the Amazon jungle, a holy mountain with impossible altitude, scraping upon the heavens, intruding upon the plane of immortals, rough, dry, sharp, inhospitable, masculine, brutish, violent to the body and negligent of the mind, screaming like a schizophrenic monk.

***Could possibly use footage from NM... White Sands for MMM and mountain cresting line at sunrise/sunset for the MF... must try before committing, otherwise could be made from found footage ala video scroll.

4. Choral experimentation with new monologues: layering of voices, harmonies, satanic triad and other dark/negative dissonances. *Use the compositional method of/through the voice to reinforce the philosophical content of the words. First performance is read to a tone for tuning reference so that following performances can be harmonized/modulated.

>>Negative Theology Monologue of the Afflicted Self (NTMAS) starts a with some velocity, power, a punch in the face of the senses, rising through the tension membrane of the post-MMM to punch a hole/threshold to another space, its inverse/parallax, first along the contours and then through the stratified layers of the Mobius strip rigmarole. Violence! Moloch! >>release into Magic Flute, which takes the form of a (holy) mountain.

>>Cosmological Scaling Monologue of the Parapsychic Self (CSMPPS) starts from an extended flute drone (or nothing) rising along a slow ascension as though along a valley floor back up another mountain of a different temperament, a tonal ascension through pitched guitar drones ending with the Warp Spell clip. Must learn how to speak this text: broken up into segments for harmonic convergence, isolate lines for call+response echos (archetypal archipelagos of awareness, etc).

Record the first monologues, do it well, then start layering.

5. Act1 Scene1 video representation: representations of nature that are really blown out, over saturated and over exposed so that they are predominantly white, projected onto a 3-walled scrim "room" backdrop = ___'s textile dream theater. Brion Gysin's dream machine, the purple and pink neon lights in LaMonte Young's NYC dream center, ___'s recently posted video capturing the light of the sun through the material of his back pocket while walking in nature, a visual representation of Rupert Sheldrake's morephic resonance effect as observed through the morphogenetic field, like a riff off of Kant's sensuous manifold updated for the psychotropic subject, or like Jung's cosmological archetypal symbols projected into the Ancient Greek cosmos - Astrological wisdom of oracle and divine manipulations coming before the Astronomical knowledge gain from the optical instruments of telescopes.

The viewer's perception is the 4th wall. Figure on stage (representing the Psychological Self, like the shadow described by Jung!) can make reference to the various facets of our perception so that the set becomes an architectural metaphor for the spatio-temporal compartment of our multivalence energy-based awareness (perception, apperception, proprioception = !!! is it our phenomenological senses, the focusing of mental awareness, or is it in relation to the body as coordination, eye-hand, moving through space and time, as in animal awareness?).

*The table = should be constructed as an optical illusion. When its first brought on to the stage it is only seen from one angle, but as the figure redirects our attention the table distorts, losing legs or contorting into impossible shapes, becomes fragmentary, illusionary. Like mirrors used on stage by a magician to make an elephant disappear or saw a woman in half, a foreshortening illusion or optical compression.

*The "Dream Theater" room = like conducting a google chat with 3 other individuals! Perhaps the best way to make the digital maquette is to enlist the service of 3 friends and screen grab the results, or to borrow some devices in order to conduct a 3-way conversation with myself, or just to record video of myself in 3 different locations and map/project the video images on a 3D digital model to simulate the same effects. Video material could consist of: faces (my own or others), landscapes, video scroll-esque montage collages of found footage put into mythopoietic sequence, or perhaps images of audiences!

*Actor for the Anthropologist/Amateur Ethnomusicologist = ME donning the aesthetics of the 'New Skin Colors' project, ie: naked and covered in spirulina acting upon an even monochrome ground. In post production the ground will be chroma-keyed into a matte-black stage (either a still or video image) and my body will be chroma-keyed into ambiguous world cultural pattern references appropriated from tribal patterns, esoteric motifs, transcendental imagery, etc., like "cultural camouflage" obscuring the definition of the figure. ***Same technique can be used for chroma-keying the Rational Objectivist figure from the Dream Theater backdrop.

*Black stage = can it be made as a physical scale model? Use ___'s black textiles with iphone video? Could also make a small maquette of table and lazy susan stage?

*QUESTION: do the audience spoken dialogue get subtitles or not?

*Last monologue conducted by the Psychological Self is paired with a black screen, but not completely black = video of matte black stage without the spot light with modulation of the video footage in post production to induced an inverted morphogenetic field, shadows on shadows, like retinal burn gazed through closed eyes after staring at a strobe light on robitussin, referencing "New Shades of Purple" from THE BOOK OF ENERGY.

6. Act1 Scene1 music production: METACHORDS coming into effect = improvisation instructions for specific musicians (Nick, Solveig, Erlend). Notes of chord are presented as a splayed lattice that can be navigated by the performer however they wish, although completely chance-based operations are encouraged. Chord is accompanied by affect instructions, consisting of 2 section: the still chord + the dynamic chord (a parallax of each other, differentiated by dynamism.

Still chord = choose any note and play all long and evenly as possible, separated by a space the length of a complete inhalation, followed by another note of the chord of the performers choosing, for a set number of repetitions (provided by the score) = see Cornelius Cardew's notation. REFERENCE: Pythagorean chord, Fibonacci separation of notes, see John Chowning's Stria.

Dynamic chord = choose any note and play as frenetically as possible without resorting to a steady pulsation or rhythm, lasting as long as such action can be sustained, then switching to another note with no space. Different variations could be experimented with, playing with the precise instructions of the affect of the playing style, attending to possible transitions between notes, or determining the length of time such actions should take place. REFERENCE: Heraclitus chord, Tony Conrad glissando technique, see: Morton Subotnik's Touch and The Dream Syndicate live improvisations.

*The second (dynamic) chord is recorded at full intensity/volume, but during re-performance scoring it should be slowly faded in, a swirling phantasmagoric miasma of ascension mirroring the Wagner Warp Spell ascension from the prologue.

*Both playing methods should involve a sensitive attention (most importantly!) and may incorporate various extended techniques in order to emphasize the affect of the performance over the fidelity of the recording. The goal is for the performers to innovate, to ascend to a state of mind ("awareness") wherein the performer is able to surprise themselves through their own performance, seeking out perpetually novel experiences with the chord provided.

*These instructions might serve as an early form of pre-emptive notation for the performers, to be differentiated from the reverse-engineered notation following the recorded performance.

>> In the meantime I can recreate these still+dynamic chords with midi instruments to fill the space of the video and continue working until proper recordings can be injected.

*Remember: the music is scored to the libretto, so the midi instruments are a chance to experiment with the performance of this technique. When the acoustic instruments are recorded they will then be edited into clips and re-performed ("scored") to the monologue. The voice always determines the spatio-temporal coordinates of the composition.