solve et coagula

22 Pages·2013·15.2 MB·English

by  Joshua Humphrey

SOLVE ET COAGULA

JOSHUA HUMPHREY

  1
Contents

Grain Clouds

Chaos Magic I

Music of the Spheres

Chaos Magic II

The Elixir Vitae

  2
GRAIN CLOUDS

To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of you
hand, and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

  3
Autopoetic patterning aperiodic
order Alternating process of
break it down build it up break
it down Oscillatory ossification
Degenerating sonic particles
Grains of sound

Acoustic quanta Temporal
Corporeal Coreshine scattered
and domain decomposed
Cosmic hourglass swallows its
children like chronos son Sands
of time

Maelstrom1 Swirling vortices
vaporize synchronous variables
Clock decomposition, organic,
rotting Evaporation and
coalescence of granulated
matter Clouds of sound
Particle generated neural
reverberatory circuits

  4
Cellular automata2 Physical
models mattered mind
additive quiescent Moving
towards a burned nerve cell
Massa confusa3 the void matrix
mother births elementary
particles Prophetic sines

Sublimated Gaseous vapors
then condensed into
undifferentiated clouds
Vibratory fields of interference
Recombine the discontinuous
into interminable
comprehension

  5
The seed must die before it's
born Mercury and Sulphur wed
calcinatio, solutio, putrefactio4
Ah the peacock's tail cauda
pavonis5 Resplendent plethora
of brilliant colorful eyes

Ablution of alchemical opus
Palindromic color, uniform
texture, text, tactile traces,
tacit tessellation, fractalized
poetry Hermeneutic exegesis of
human history

  6
CHAOS MAGIC I

The Great Work is, above all things, the creation of man by himself.

-Eliphas Levi

  7
Chaosynthesis

Granular synthesis is a generative process utilized in digital sound design. It can be
used to create evolving atmospheres, lush organic pads and alien landscapes. In the
process, an audio sample is broken into tiny oscillating fragments called grains.
These grains are then reformed and condensed into a probabilistic mass known as a
grain cloud. Playing with granular synthesis is rather like playing God. Time, space
and frequency become plastic and soluble. The operator controls the causal nature
of acoustic quanta, bending them to the will of intent, sorting and sifting through
the skeletal remains of the old in the synthesis of the new. The operator is the
alchemist who recycles base lead into shining gold; the adept who sculpts their art
from the black swirling cloud of chaos-void or the massa confusa. A reduction of
basal metal is needed to sublimate this vaporous cloud. Oscillating sound sampled
audio snapshot moving image frozen into bits.

The Recipe

First cut the sample into small pieces,
between one and fifty milliseconds.
Then layer them on top of each other
to create holographic soundscapes -
vibrating manifolds of sampled sound.
Separate time and frequency domains.
Vary wavelengths, phase, and spatial
location. Soundscapes are carved by
grinding and pulling – the movement
of aether to mind to muscle to
machine and back to void again.
Switching binary emerges
complexity. Stretch time elastic sound
is malleable like soul.

The Pythagorean School

Music and poetry are the aparati used
to make the measure. Language is the
compass used to locate self in the cosmos. Rising and falling melodies are formed
by a colorful palate of sounds from which the artist dips their brush. “That which is
like above is like that which is below.” Planets vibrate like fireflies flickering in
softly humming summer night sky – their distances from each other form

  8
harmonious chords. Black holes bang on space-time like the membrane of a drum.
The universe is alive and sentient. Living information living in formation. The
adept among stars is a resonating string in a celestial symphony. The music of the
spheres permeates every fold and pleat of cosmic fabric. Seven metals of the
alchemist’s laboratory correspond to seven planets, to seven notes of the chromatic
scale, and to seven energy systems of the human body. From all spheres unto all
spheres there stretches an indestructible network of astral light. Like a spider web
holding glimmering drops of mercurial dew, we are suspended and sustained
recycling bits of information in the mind matrix mother.

Genesis 2:7

God-nature is at the heart of all forms. The heat of intent sublimes nestled
demiurges, which lay sleeping crystalized images of captured sounds. Imagination
latent seeds form drops of grain. Clouds are condensed into Mercurial rain, the
aqua permanens, which irrigates the soil of the soul. We are levees, where water
meets form creates consciousness. Astral body eros* is the spirit medium that
connects source and substance, chaos and gaia.

*
 In the book Chaos, Gaia, Eros by systems theorist Ralph Abraham, Eros is seen as the medium
that connects the void of Chaos to the substance of Gaia. Erodynamics, named in 1989, applies
dynamical systems theory to human social phenomena.

  9
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

There is geometry in the humming of the strings.
There is music in the spacing of the spheres.

-Pythagoras

  10