Monday, May 9, 2011



Modes of nodes 

Modes of representation can vary greatly, and can open up the world to new forms, ideas, theories and phenomena that are greater than their inspiration, or at least far removed from the original concept/form that the representation hoped to represent. The form of scores as biological sketches as well as musical composition and abstract art opens many windows. Also their connection to the geodesic and dymaxion Architecture of Buckminster Fuller, who put the Geometric makeup of the macro and molecular into sensible design. The forms of Dylan's composition have comparison here, and indeed to other representations of the micro and molecular systems of nature. 

Buckminster Fuller and others of his ilk have often looked at the geometry of a natural form in a stagnant state when mapping it out into architectural and engineering projects (not to say he and others have not looked at nature as a fluid form), but the fluidity and rhythm of nature is paramount to its form and is, in a sense, its form. Indeed, movement is the form of nature, one of the resonances of this movement is sound, and it is both an aural and visual resonance. I remember being intreegued (big pun) when reading the secret life of plants, by (not sure actually if it's that touched on in the book, but it was defiantly a main trail of thought in my mind) the time scale of plants, this drone existence is one to be envied, it is one that is easier or more experiential for us to fell and explore through sound, and in Dylan's case visual representations of sound. Plants indeed do this through their passionate murmurs and earth rumbling growth spurts. The aural range of plants in a time scale is far superior to that of any fauna, including man. Much of sound/music focuses on a linear moving forward, not on the floral branching out and slow growth, it is something to take on in composition and listening to sound, for instance, that beats can be decades apart. This being the case for ye olde trees, or that that fungi (can't remember his/her name) that spreads for miles, could make bleeps of joy suburbs away. 

From the cracking of branches to the crystalline growth and symphony of photosynthesis plants also have an anthemic happy hardcore of their time frame, this is hard to hear in real time. If it was amplified and speed up, it would I think take on a jagged posi-techno glacial feeling. 

Machines and plants share an alien and robotic identity in our view of them. It is a humanising in a way, but it is also above this, as some higher understanding be it spiritual or post humanist, non animalistic. In that machines take human form, but pose some kind of super threat, like higher beings or aliens. Plants also have been viewed like this, for example day of the triffids, or little shop of horrors. Also there is something that links techno/electronic music to plant life, there is the view of space and time as a similarity of drug use and plant time/space. But aside from the cultural connections, there are also the cycles of electronic music in relation to plant cycles. The sameness of micro chips and root systems, and time expanding relations of repetition in relation to the time span of much of plant life. This is surely part of the appeal of out door raves/ doofs, being one with nature, with plants. 

The dew drops on leaves at a different speed add a poppy dub beat (little pun). Plants are so a part of culture that they have their points of cringe, be it airy and hippy or through the standardisation of consumable vegetable material. But the exploration of plants is something that is deep and without ends to discover. This can be approached in a clinically scientific way, or more experimentally. Both in doses is probably the best way. The sound world of plants is quite an abstract space for exploration. 

Dylan's scores as architectural plans would be amazing, a common projection to make on the spatial nature of sound, but very relevant in relation to the technical nature of these drawings, and the possibilities they hold within the collaboration of human and plant. There is an optimism in this relationship that I find very admirable, and that brings me back to the relation to Buckminster Fuller, and his concept of space ship planet earth (One that Sun Ra brought about the sound effects for). On the micro level that plants occupy and of its time frame is a cellular nebulas in virtual cracks within solid earthly form, that creates inward skies, that creates geodesic forms in their molecular make up. The fluidity of this in a plant’s growing process is linearly rhythmic and chaotic like most structures in Nature but it is the Variety and time span that is so interesting. With trees living hundreds of years (maybe thousands?) it is unfathomable what they would hear, and how they would hear it. But it is nice to think about, maybe only for a second. Which as I write this expands to millions of micro seconds, it is all a point of view anyway, time that is. Stress can make hours drift away into nothing, actually so can be being relaxed. So, maybe there isn't a superior time frame exactly, but the extension of time is not a bad think in my view, and maybe dragging out the end of this piece of writing, be it in the form of inward thinking, or lack of full spot, is a good thing for you? I hope it is. 


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