[ http://www.richardbowers.co.uk ] [ resources ]
[large version of 'Atlas']
'I came to a place mute of light...'
Background.
The title.
Location 1.
Location 2.
The text.
The images.
The first reduction text.
The second reduction.
Installation as musical composition.
Marginalia?
Telescoping time.
Artificial head recordings.
Talk.
Partners.
This project was borne out of discussion with my brother concerning the central idea within Jorge Luis Borges' story, The Library of Babel, which is the author's vision of a library of unimaginable size containing all possible narratives formed from all combinations of the letters of the alphabet in innumerable pages of innumerable books. In addition to a small percentage of meaningful narratives, there is a vast amount of unintelligible streams of characters. Anyway, the idea lent itself to a parallel application in the sonic domain in terms of permutations of speech fragments. This was a point of departure and it was as a result of a meeting with Professor Dylan Jones that I was given the opportunity to explore the possibility of developing a speech-based sonic work for the entrance hall to the School of Psychology. (A later discussion with Todd Bailey at the School around phoneme confusability offered a context for these sonic transformations). With funds from the Arts Council of Wales and additional support from the School and the Washington Gallery in Penarth, this became a realisable ambition.
In the lead up to this project, I had been working with some of the images from Dante's Inferno, particularly with regard to the manner in which Dante drew upon a whole host of references. Characters from history, myth and legend sit side by side in a systematic catalogue of sins, sinners and punishments. This interest manifested itself in two works: a wall-mounted relief with audio, In Memoriam RB, and S.A.A.B.'s twelve hour performance, Darkness Visible. With the relief, I conflated a number of references into the piece creating a chimerical figure set in a Dore landscape. The RB of the title is the Reichmann Berlin piano, the remains of which formed parts of the figure and the sounds of which formed much of the audio component. With the performance, the duration was intended to tax the listener and the performers perhaps as a more fitting parallel to Date's Purgatorio. The sections were divided up to correspond to the circles of hell and the piece drew inexorably to its close at the centre of hell.
I felt that my reduction of Cary's translation of Dante's text (see below), and the sonification of it, was akin to me writing notes on it - notes without intention, so to speak. I was drawing value from the text and forming a sort of commentary upon it, but using its own content to do so. Therefore, they are like doodles - elaborating what is already there and enlarging it through repetition and emphasis. Scholars would not consider such doodles to be 'marginalia', but the term has some elasticity to encompass what I was doing here. (It's funny how things tie up, but I was told that Coleridge, himself a writer of published 'Marginalia' having coined the term, considered Cary's translation to be excellent - an assertion which contradicted my own impression of it being a rather turgid poem.) The term 'marginalia' also applies to the decorations in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, making it relate to the visual components of the installation - the books, the paintings - which have such manuscripts as an influence.
The entrance hall of the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. This is where the installation was sited throughout the summer term, 2008. The rotating doors isolated the space acoustically from the busy street outside. This made it possible to project quiet sounds audibly into the space.
As it turned out, the space did not facilitate clear localisation of sound details, it being fairly large and with hard echo patterns. With this in mind, I used long reverberation times in the software to extend the cavernous acoustic further. A square of four loudspeakers in the middle of the space was used to project 'dry' sounds while four speakers at the farthest corners deliver a very 'wet' copy of the dry signals.
Photographed by Louise Blackburn 2008.
[large versions of wall-hangings]
The Washington Gallery, Penarth. The turret-like, semi-circular room in this attractive gallery appealed to me as a space in which a more intimate listening experience is possible. The visitor was surrounded by eight loudspeakers in a comparatively enclosed space. I regarded this smaller installation to be almost a commentary on the larger work. A footnote, perhaps. Or perhaps a shrine.
The intimacy of this space, with its dark backdrops, facilitated a much more detailed acoustic experience. I used a similar pattern to that described above with the exception that the 'wet' loudspeakers were placed on the same plane as the dry but placed above. The speakers in this case were hidden behind the hangings, removing the association of sounds with the speakers. These differences resulted in a paradoxical sense of sound being unlocatable, yet somehow moving around the listener.
Using a method I applied to the production of some texts a while back - one of which I set to music in 'Justine' for voice, cello, bassoon and percussion - I took the Cary translation and extracted words and phrases in reading order (see 'First Reduction' below). This is a fascinating process because it creates a modern window onto an older linguistic landscape. The fragments, lined up in order and separated by ellipses, are the ruins of a huge edifice (a Victorian folly - almost); taken as a new point of departure, they embody some of the raw, less florid qualities expected of a modern text. This stage I call the 'first reduction'. One might also associate it with the Romantic notion of the 'fragment' as form.
The second reduction is the extraction of single words, pairs of words or fragments of words from the first reduction. This further step away from, or to the core of (depending on your view), the original translation seemed necessary to 'kill' the poetry and present a simple lexicon more suited to sonic treatment at a micro-scale. Therefore I had a framework for working at several depths, so to speak: at times the poem will shine through ('in ocean with his sequent streams'); at others raw text comes like bullets ('ocean'. 'stench', 'iron' etc.). Furthermore, phonemes are made available for texture ('ff', 'sh', 'll' etc.).
An alternative second reduction, forming a forked reduction, is to create a 'meaningful' text from the first reduction. This is given at 'Second Reduction' below.
The Cary poem with its illustrations has been close at hand since my childhood but, like many of the books I've had in my possession, it remained unread until quite recently. It was the illustrations that drew me to the book in the first instance with their awkward naturalism. In negotiating ways of representing the fantastic, there emerges a clear mismatch between the [ mannerist] rendering of a figure and a landscape; another between the exaggerated mountain formations in Hell and, for instance, the gentler landscapes of the upper world. This extension, or distortion, of naturalism is a hallmark of Romantic painting and we find examples today in popular culture: films, video games, graphic novels.
The use of images in what was planned to be a purely sonic installation grew, to some extent, from fear. I was worried that the visitor (and I always had the visitor in mind) would need to engage with something visual in order to feel less self conscious when listening. This is a problem with concerts of electroacoustic music and must surely be a problem in an environment where you are not expected to sit and listen. So, it seemed necessary to create some images, or objects, to aid the listening process. However, it would be wrong to suggest that fear was the only motivation. Let's just say it was a concern which had the fortunate result of extending the vocabulary of the installation; making it richer.
As I said, the piece 'In Memoriam RB' used a Gustav Dore landscape and I had created a set of thirty six mutations of Dore's Inferno prints for 'Darkness Visible'. This was another point of departure. I had my text and I had these prints: I was able to bring these together and merge them in various ways. Initially I worked over a set of the (modified) prints in paint and applied fragments of my text to them in handwritten and printed forms. These were then enlarged and bound into an atlas-sized book for display at the Washington Gallery space. Secondly, I took the first reduction text and the set of prints and bound them as two books in a single volume. It therefore has the character of a publication in which notes are made; these notes being the second reduction from which I will derive the primary sonic material for the audio component of the installation. So, you can see there is a to-ing and fro-ing between the elements of the piece. That kind of cross-fertilisation is important to me.
The following text is the 'First Reduction' of the original. The images are likewise a first reduction, with modifications, of the accompanying illustrations by Gustav Dore. The illustrations, and the style of translation in the source, are unmistakably 19th century and, as such, provide a bridge between the 14th century Italian text and my 21st century reductions. They are the images as used in Darkness Visible: they undergo further modification in Marginalia (see above right).
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that forest...in bitterness not far from death...sleepy dullness...senses down...a little respite...difficult short breath...from sea to shore...perilous wide waste.
over that lonely steep...a speckled skin, appear'd...vanish'd...strove...aloft the sun...swift animal...the sweet season...head held aloft...the air was fear-struck...full of all wants, and many a land...haunted by that fell beast...the sun in silence.
lower space with backward step...long disuse of speech...great desert...the subject of my song...cause and source...all delight...the tuneful train...I...have sought thy volume...from whom I fled...from out that savage wilderness...beast...by earth nor its base metals...and his land shall be the land...until he to hell at length restore...by envy first let loose...through an eternal space...invoke a second death...content in fire.
into whose regions...in whose charge...King...holds...citadel and throne.
and the air, imbrown'd with shadows...and that perilous road...safe in a written record...yet cloth'd in corruptible flesh...tribes...if truth be spoken...and to the papal robe...the chosen vessel...if on this voyage...and with new thoughts...was I on that dun coast...so eagerly embraced...that he recoils...who rest suspended...blest and lovely...angelically tun'd...on the wide desert...eloquent persuasive tongue...assist him...from a place I come...prompts my speech...the smallest orb...to leave that ample space...for this centre here beneath...hinders my entrance...nor flame of that fierce fire...that hindrance...of all cruelty the foe...all the multitude admires...which in the torrent flood, Swol'n mightier than a sea...whereat I felt...as she will'd...harbour vile fear.
as florets...air of night...blanch'd their leaves...unfolded...undaunted...onward mov'd.
through me you pass...through me among the people...all hope abandon...inscrib'd...these words...to misery doom'd...into that secret place...sighs with lamentations...resounded through the air...horrible languages...voices deep and hoarse...with solid darkness stain'd...without praise or blame...of angels mix'd...but for themselves...exultation vain.
beheld a flag...no pause obtain'd...this the tribe...went on in nakedness...stung by wasps and hornets.
farther onwards...great stream...whom here we view...the blear light...our steps arrive...reach'd the river...hope not ever...to the other shore...into eternal darkness...heat...ice.
not by this passage...where will and power are one...straightway in silence...the boatman...eyes glar'd wheeling flames...faint and naked...teeth...the human kind...together sorely wailing...eyes of burning coals...with his oar strikes...light autumnal leaves...cast themselves one by one down.
through the umber'd wave...the opposing bank...turn'd into desire...gloomy region trembling...clammy dews...shot forth a vermilion flame...senses conquer'd... sudden slumber.
broke the deep slumber...crash of heavy thunder...risen upright...wherein I stood...the lamentable vale...joins a thund'rous sound...and thick with clouds...nor could aught discern...the blind world there beneath...with pity stains my cheek...urges to haste...no plaint was heard...eternal air tremble...multitudes, many and vast...we are lost...that we live desiring without hope...I began through wish...through his own...whom afterward was blest.
the shade of our first parent...ceas'd not our onward road...spirits thick beset...a flame...darken'd hemisphere...separate from all the rest...echoes through.
the luminous beacon...round defended by a pleasant stream...slow their eyes around...tuneful sweet...there on the green enamel of the plain...that commentary vast...to speak at full...vex'd with storms...where no light shines.
I descended...a lesser space embracing...grinning with ghastly feature...strict examining his crimes...it all confesses...speaks, and hears his fate...to his dwelling hurl'd.
where will and power are one...the rueful wailings...smites on mine ear...where light was silent...noise as of a sea in tempest torn...the stormy blast...before the ruinous sweep...shrieks...lamentations, moans, and blasphemies...in large troops...when winter reigns...chanting their dol'rous notes...stretch'd out in long array...who came loud wailing...by the black air...whom love bereav'd of life...antique days...so light before the wind...soon as the wind...and hold discourse...on wide wings...wafted by their will along...the wind, as now, is mute...the land...in ocean with his sequent streams...book and writer...spake...wail'd...fell.
show'rs...heavy, and cold...discolour'd water...the dun midnight air...stank...eyes glare crimson, black...spirits...howling there...rainy deluge...jaws...limb...palms expanding on the ground...yelling bays...his fury...thund'ring...they for deafness wish in vain.
in such torment...more disgustful...overflows its bounds...beneath this rain...dire affliction...who under shore now rests...keeping under heavy weight...three fatal sparks...blacker...deeper.
angel-trumpet...re-echoing rend the vault...mixture foul of spirits and rain.
down this rock...inward on thyself...through the dark profound...as sails full spread and bellying with the wind...the mast split...gain'd on the dismal shore...with loud voice...then smote together...repeating their despiteful song...the horrid circle...conflicting met again.
at each extremity...now makes them dark...with clenched grasp shall rise...no labour'd phrase...beneath the moon...each part shines to each...light in equal distribution...over the world's bright images...to heavier woe descending: for each star is falling...the circle cross'd...boiling..sluic'd from its source...inky waters...expands the dismal stream...all naked...their hands...the head, the breast, the feet...the surface heave...fix'd in the slime...a foul and lazy mist...the dry embankment...a tower's low base.
its height ascended...another light return the signal, so remote...that other light...there on the filthy waters...nimbly through the air...while o'er the slimy pool we pass...into the skiff, and bade me enter...cutting the waves...dead channel...in filth disguis'd.
we quit the lake...I saw the miry tribes...sound of lamentation...in the valley...gleaming vermilion...fram'd of iron...'twixt will and will not...to trial fled within...no ground of terror...upon its arch...down the steep, passing the circles, unescorted.
the hue...imprinted...inwardly restrain'd...who listens...through the sable air...thick-gath'ring cloud.
mutilated speech.
this journey...obscurest, and remov'd...the road...that lake, the [noisome] stench exhaling...toward the loft tower...to its burning top...in limb and motion...instead of hair.
and such shrill clamour rais'd...loud-crashing, terrible, a sound that made either shore tremble...wind...forest...plucks off the branches...sweeps its whirlwind rage...ancient foam...the smoke ascends...lies on a heap...toward that territory mov'd...a fortress...wide-stretching space...all thick spread with sepulchres...scattered flames...interr'd within these vaults...different in degrees of heat.
between the walls...all the lids are rais'd...and bring their bodies...which thou conceal'st in silence...length of words.
city of fire...sudden that sound...stood at the tomb's foot...somewhat uplifting...and the blood...the unclosed jaw...upon its knees uprais'd...through this blind prison...through this clime conducted...nor mov'd the neck...continuing the first discourse...flood with crimson...then thus resum'd...the present uniform'd...nor of your human state...knowledge...to him there fallen...laid...from sight withdrew...reverting...onward he mov'd...turn'd his feet...the middle space...a valley...exhal'd its [noisome] steam.
the utmost verge...environ'd round...more cruel...the horrible excess of fetid exhalation...that somewhat first the sense...within these rocks...in gradation place'd...that the sight alone...in durance they abide...peculiar evil...and beneath...all the first circle...and painful wounds...and wastes...and the flames...and each one that smites...in reckless lavishment...marks with its seal...leaves a sting...afterwards gives birth.
the rain beats...with tongues so fierce...city fire illum'd...in thy memory the words...without these walls...imperfect sight...to an attentive ear...recall to mind...from the beginning...in another path...on forward journey bent...horizon...and onward there a space.
as is that ruin...should'ring the wave...loos'd by earthquake...mountain's summit...so the headlong rock...would pass...descent...stretch'd...it gnaw'd itself...comes not tutored...like to a bull...dilapidated crags...this ruin'd steep...deep concave...thrill'd with love...circling all the plain...keen arrows...and issuing from the troop...ever quick and rash...aiming shafts...from out the blood...where the two natures join...and solitary...the gloomy vale...she left her joyful harpings in the sky...so wild a path...and convey across.
onward we mov'd...crimson-seething flood...loud shrieks arose...wail aloud their merciless wrongs...clust'ring hangs...farther on...extant from the wave...the heart...the head...the feet...the boiling wave...seething flood unlock'd...and quitting.
a forest...not verdant...foliage...dusky hue; not light...fruits...none...thorns...with venom...nest...the human form...belly fledge with wings...the horrid sand...breathe...so many voices...thickets...a single twig...stretching forth...gather'd I a branch...rooted...burning...groaning sound...hisses...broken splinter words...the bough...injured...in the snare detain'd...opening and shutting...gloating eyes...pest...inflam'd...so spread the flame...bitter...new roots...fix...prostrate...imprison'd...gnarled joints...chang'd into sounds articulate...torn asunder...sprouting...a savage plant...feeding...a vent to grief...each on the wild thorn.
to listen to the trunk...the wild boar and the hunt...loud rustling...torn with briers...mastiffs, gaunt and fleet...and led me to the thicket...at so many points...lamentable speech...those citizens...ashes...labour'd without profit.
I the scatter'd leaves collected...contrivance horrible...its sterile bed...of arid sand and thick...sand fell...dilated flakes of fire...descending, solid flames...the marble glow'd...falling fresh...the sultry tempest...he snatch'd the lightnings...and the bolts...no torrent...foot in the hot sand...crimson'd wave...each bank stone-built...this river...in midst of ocean...desolate...pure and chaste...with leaves and streams, deserted...drown'd.
an ancient form there stands...of finest gold...pure silver...of brass...well-temper'd steel...penetrate to that cave...red seething wave...not within this hollow...unimpeded...all vapour is extinct.
of the solid margins...envelop'd in the mist...arising...and saves from fire...to chase back the ocean...to defend their towns...though not in height or bulk...from the wood...turning round...beside the pier...a new moon...at his needle's eye.
parch'd looks...smirch'd with fire...lies then a hundred years...when the fire...thy garments walk...the path descend to tread...then once more...their rough mountain-flint...transmitted...and now strikes...and how I priz'd the lesson...and with another text to comment on...not new or strange...then look'd at me and spake...but of the rest silence...polluted...blotch...a mist new-risen on the sandy plain...wherein I yet survive.
the water's din...hum of swarming bees...tormenting storm...running swift...upon their limbs, recent and old...the fiery darts...resum'd their ancient wail...one restless wheel...smear'd...soil of Hell...next to me that beats the sand...I had been shelter'd...vanquish'd the desire...fix'd deep within me...deeds and names...the sweet fruit...first I downward tend.
long space...shine bright...or have vanish'd clean...condemn'd to wail...for an answer took my words...escape this darksome clime...that of us thou speak among mankind.
when a water's sound...the loud din...holds on its course unmingled...by that name no longer known...this dark wave resounded, roaring loud.
and somewhat strange...signal so strange...these notes which now I sing...a shape come swimming up...grappled fast against some rock.
breaks through fenced walls...that he should come to shore...head and upper part expos'd...interchangeable embroidery...a lighter skiff...fenc'd the sand with rock...far as to that ill beast...better to escape the flame...ten paces...seated on the sand...that to thy full knowledge may extend...against the vapours and the torrid soil...their jaws and feet...beneath the pelting of that dolorous fire...their eye did feed...they thunder mine ears.
of ample circuit, easy thy descent...a small vessel...her station quits...outstretch'd at length he steer'd, gath'ring the air up...wrapt in flames...liquefaction of the scalded wax...wheels his downward motion...heard the cataract beneath...wailings smote mine ear...wearied descends...in many an orbit wheels...deep-furrow'd rock...an arrow from the string.
rock dark-stain'd...round it circling winds...gulf profound...successive forms ten trenches...to the space within...and as like fortresses...their threshold...flank'd with bridges...flinty paths advanc'd...that swarming peopled the first chasm...when the year returns...for such as pass the bridge...on their back unmercifully smote...of him...with fixed gaze...paus'd with me...cast thy eye upon the ground...this bitter seas'ning...once inhabited...sendeth me to mourn...so o'erthrong'd...so many tongues...upon its splinter turning...underneath the gaping arch...the old bridge...his speech resum'd...condemns him to this pain...and thus much to know...its keen torments urge...bestrides its shoulders.
we heard the ghosts...low melancholy sounds...the foul steam condens'd, encrusting hung...distinguish...the human body...his head so grim'd...glut my tongue...thy face...sluttish...defiled nails.
wedded unto goodness...rapacious...now must the trumpet sound...where the rock impends...the livid stone...equal in their width...fram'd to hold the pure baptismal streams...a seal to undeceive...motive of my deed...high upward...the soles were burning...such violent motion...scarcely touching where it moves...glancing in fiercer agony...where least the slope bank falls...what silence hides...narrow strait and perforated close...limb quiv'ring...driv'n in the soil...a wretch for murder doom'd.
the writing play'd me false...piercing not the drift...did wrench his feet...down the bank descended...under my head...already longer time...upturn'd have stood...planted with fiery feet...shepherd without law...gold or silver...treading the good...who sits upon the waves...of gold and silver...violent upsprang spinning...listen'd ever to the sound...the summit...the fifth pier...a path.
in silence weeping...quires chanting solemn litanies...against a rock...treads reverse his path...serpents...main-sea wide in boundless view...at length her seat...words detain thy audience...water between the vale...at midway of that lake...a garrison...with front oppos'd...each way descends...and winds a river flood...a wide flat...overstretching...pestilent...a territory waste...naked...and liv'd...who round were scatter'd...enclos'd...on those dead bones...more numerous...embers lacking life...to cut the cable...so sings my tragic strain.
onward now...touching the wave...the deep wood...onward.
from bridge to bridge...within the round...marvelous darkness...through wintry months tenacious pitch...not by force of fire...glutinous thick mass...therein nought distinguish'd...subsiding and fall.
wings buoyant outstretch'd...shrouded by the bridge...beyond the bridge's head...the sixth pier...dogs...from beneath the arch...through this savage wilderness...among the crags...low crouching...infantry...fixt and motionless...shiver'd to the base of the sixth arch...later by five hours...troop of ten...the bubbling tar...uninterrupted traverses the dens.
outstretch'd for flight...sound of trumpets...of bells...introduc'd from foreign land...a strange recorder...in evolution moving...fearful company...their arched backs...their threaten'd vessels...drew back under the wave...in this dire heat...under the tar.
whereof their tongue...their captain then...to see or hear...spirits quaking...these ill talons...remaining in this self-same place...shrill whistle...that word deriding...rich store of nice-wove toils...I not on foot...will beat my plumes...be as a shield...to th' other shore...his following flight...with upward pinion...desire of strife inflam'd...boiling lake...from the other coast.
in silence and in solitude...journeying...language hath not sounds...bursts from another...with loss and mock'ry...form'd of leaded glass...I one design have fram'd...this imagined pursuit...as a mother that from sleep is by the noise arous'd...the jutting beach...never ran water...reach'd to the lowest...ministers of the fifth...in the depth...a painted tribe...and wept...dazzling...leaden...the fainting people...dusk air...by the action of his throat...what privilege allows...unmantled...torment...bonnets gleaming white...leaden...and indifferent arbiter...fix'd to a cross...distorted...transverse...extended on the cross...any opening in the rock...on the dark angels...from the next circle moving.
the nights recede...dazzling...milder...the plain around...all whiten'd...at the fallen bridge arriving...at the steep mountain's foot...one capp'd with lead...from crag to crag...all toward the mouth...from the last flag...the breath exhausted...as smoke in air or foam upon the wave...vanish thy weariness...in each struggle formed...a longer ladder...profit by my words...a voice...utt'rance...but who spake seem'd mov'd in anger...thus I spake...hear and understand...request silent performance...the chasm...of serpents...of her sands...her brood...plagues...numbers swarming...exuberance of woe...horrid fear...serpents...bound...tail and head...transpierc'd...kindled, burn'd, and chang'd...dissolv'd...the dust again...the self-same form...blade nor herb...bewilder'd with the monstrous agony...a vapour rises, wrapt in turbid mists.
when he had spoke...riveting itself...the power to move...ashes...earth...circles of the abyss...they swarm'd...open wings...breathing fire...that near him stall'd...for a sign...plac'd against my lips...serpent with six feet...a dodder'd oak...burning wax, each melted into other...a brown tint glides, not turning yet to black...two heads...blended in one form...that lays bare the fields...flash of lightning...an adder all on fire...the serpent, and the serpent him...breath'd a thick smoke...transmuted did he sing...compacted...then twisting up...cleft in twain...shadowy smoke...glaring and malignant lamps were shifted...superfluous...not backward dragg'd...protuberent...his tongue continuous...the smoke...the brute...th' unsteady ballast...my tongue confusion hung.
land and sea thy wings...thy name spreads...when dreaming near the dawn...and that chance...as time wears me...from the depth departed...and drew me up...solitary...without the help of hands...turns again...or something better...when the sun least veils...fire-flies innumerous spangling...flames so numberless...steep flight for heav'n...upsoaring...every flame...a flinty mass...swath'd in confining fire...ascending from that funeral pile...the ambush of the horse...power of utt'rance...player a thousand-fold...horned flame arrive...thy tongue refrain.
began to roll, murmuring...labours with the wind...threw out its voice...beyond a circling year...deep illimitable...which round that ocean bathes...the life of brutes...to the dawn...for the witless flight...each star...the ocean-floor...underneath the moon...whirlwind.
still'd its light...drew our eyes that way...echoed...tormented...pierc'd through...into its language...the dismal words...vibrating...fall into this blind world...of the mountains...flood...broad circumference of plume...green talons grasp the land...yields to winter's frost...the level and the steep...roar'd awhile the fire...this spirit mov'd the bones...winding subtlety...that the sound reach'd the world's limit...and gather in the lines...had fought, nor traffic'd...nor sacred ministry...the fever of his pride...so to execute...power to shut and open...hov'ring at his hair...impenitent...which biting...in the fire must vanish.
in words unfetter'd...no tongue...speech and thought...made a pile so high...grinding force...bones...treachery...where beyond thy walls...his limbs...a spectacle...the ninth chasm...torn from the chin...cleft...and the others...who with his sword...so lingering to delay the pain...from orb to orb, conduct...a hundred spirits...stood...impris'ning snows...with foot uprais'd...pierc'd in the throat...and whelm'd under the waves...then so shape his end...the outcast this...uplifted in the gloom...headless trunk...his arm aloft...maliciously to strife.
eyes inebriate...whom various wounds...this weakness...the valley winds its circuit...the moon...pursu'd...wailing the crime...at the bridge's foot...menacing...the towers...he pass'd me speechless...show'd the other valley...the last cloister...i clos'd both ears...the sultry time...pestilent...their maladies...torment...the stench...from fester'd limbs...on the utmost shore...the depth...time...the air...restor'd...languish'd through the murky vale...crawl'd...step by step...in silence...to lift their forms...set to retain the heat...or himself...tir'd with long watching...drawn from underneath in flakes...tearing pincers...everlasting to this toil...from rock to rock...in th' upper world...unseemly and disgustful...to wing my flight in air...alchemy...no subterfuge...discover'd in that garden...wide-spreading woods...sharpen'd sight...transmuted metals...alchemy.
resentment burn'd...such fatal frenzy...dash'd upon a rock...plung'd...forlorn and captive...on the wild sea-beach...barking even as a dog...infixing...pale and naked...a false shape assuming...affixing...in fashion like a lute...disproportioning...one drop of water...falsified the metal...the reeky moistness...so darkly nam'd...like a drum resounded...remember...the horse remember...whence thy tongue cracks...fix'd to listen...a man that dreams...wanting power to speak...to hear.
tongue...silence...twilight...a horn sounded aloud...so terrible a blast...many lofty towers...how distance can delude...vision traces...condens'd in air...atmosphere...turreted...his mutt'ring thunder...her plastic hand...elephant and whale...and th' other bones...his sweet lips...sweeter hymns...understood by none...and five times round...where guilt is...by violent earthquake...that held him fast...in the fortunate vale...numbing cold...stretch'd his hands...we were both one burden...cloud...in th' abyss...there leaning...stately mast.
that hole of sorrow...for to describe the depth...infant babbling...tuneful...words to speak of...we stood in the dark pit...frozen surface...the chilling sky...blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice...in shrill note...distill'd upon their lips...plank unto plank...the valley...from one body issued...breast and shadow...and to cut short...shiv'ring horror...passing 'midst the heads...some fresh revenge...he barking...chatt'ring teeth...biting axe...when the people slept...garbage...moist.
speak and weep...hear...through effect...when I slept...tore the curtain off...tir'd and lagging...and the hour...outlet underneath...horrible tower...until another sun...a faint beam...obdurate earth...outstretch'd...fall one by one...now grown blind...call'd on them who were dead...firm and unyielding...from their deep foundations rise...perish in the waters...skarf'd in rugged folds of ice...impediment...the first tears hang clustered...some breath of wind I felt...this airy shower...harden'd veil...to the lowest ice may I descend...the glazed...moment...yields her body...body of a ghost...where the pitch tenacious boils...darkest spirit...alive upon the earth.
the banners...a cloud heavy and dense...a windmill...transparent, as through glass...prone...eminent in beauty...vermilion...yellow...a bird so vast...outstretch'd on the wide sea...texture...three winds...with pond'rous engine.
night now re-ascends...all is seen...by such stairs as these...lofty and luminous...and underneath whose canopy expir'd...to our hemisphere...firm land...by the sound of brooklet...the fair world...again beheld the stars.
In dullness, from wide steep skin,
the air full of land in silence,
sought out that wilderness,
earth,
until through fire and throne,
shadows, cloth'd in tribes and the papal robe,
who rest on the wide desert,
assist him.
My speech,
that ample entrance,
that fierce torrent flood,
swoll'n as florets of blanch'd leaves,
mov'd through me,
inscrib'd words into horrible voices,
deep, solid, stain'd.
Angels beheld a flag stung by light into ice.
The boatman,
eyes wheeling and naked,
eyes of light autumnal leaves,
cast the umber'd wave into a vermilion flame.
Thunder risen upright,
wherein I discern the blind air desiring our first parent,
darken'd, luminous,
with ghastly feature,
speaks (where light was silent)
blasphemies in large troops,
stretched in black air,
bereaved of antique wings.
The wind,
the land,
ocean,
streams,
book and writer,
howling jaws more disgustful,
who under three fatal sparks,
rend the mixture of spirits and rock.
Through dark sails the mast gain'd the horrid circle at each extremity.
No moon shines light over heavier inky waters, naked, fix'd and lazy.
Another light, that other light,
there on the skiff,
quit the lake (sound of gleaming vermilion)
unescorted.
The hue, imprinted through cloud and lake,
exhaling its burning limb and hair,
plucks ancient foam, all thick spread with scattered flames.
The walls bring their bodies in silence.
At the tomb's unclos'd jaw,
knees uprais'd,
this blind prison conducted the neck,
continuing with crimson there fallen.
He mov'd, turn'd, a valley within these rocks.
The sight alone, in painful wounds and flames,
gives birth with tongues
in words without horizon.
That ruin, the wave,
gnaw'd itself,
like to a bull thrill'd with love,
circling the troop where two natures join.
And solitary, a path and loud shrieks arose,
clust'ring the heart, head, feet and forest
with so many voices stretching forth
broken splinter words in the opening and shutting eyes;
gloating eyes.
So spread the flame;
gnarled joints chang'd into sounds articulate; sprouting a savage plant,
feeding on wild boar.
At so many points those citizens
scatter'd flakes of fire,
falling fresh.
He snatch'd lightnings in the hot sand,
pure and chaste, with ancient form of gold.
Penetrate unimpeded the sold margins,
mist arising from fire. Their towns,
smirch'd with fire when garments walk rough mountain flint,
priz'd another text - not new or strange -
but polluted.
A mist,
wherein the hum of swarming bees running on fiery darts
resumed one restless wheel,
beats the fruit on its course unmingled.
By that dark wave,
signal so strange which now I sing, against
rock, fenced walls and upper part expos'd,
a lighter skiff did feed the air up in flames of wax.
The cataract descends in an orbit,
an arrow dark stain'd
circling ten trenches and flank'd with flinty paths,
swarming with fix'd gaze.
This bitter splinter,
underneath the speech and keen torments,
heard the ghosts,
low melancholy sounds,
foul steam condens'd,
wedded unto goodness.
The trumpet,
the livid stone,
fram'd to hold the pure violent motion
scarcely touching where silence hides,
down the bank descended,
under my head without gold or silver,
treading the waves of gold and silver
to the fifth pier.
A path chanting solemn litanies against serpents
in boundless view.
Words detain water at midway of that garrison
and winds a river flood
overstretching, naked and lacking life.
So sings my tragic strain:
onward now; the deep wood, onward.
Bridge to bridge through wintry months,
not by fire, glutinous, subsiding, wings shrouded by dogs.
Savage crouching infantry,
fixt and motionless,
outstretch'd trumpets, bells, a strange recorder
in evolution moving under the wave,
under tar.
Their tongue captain,
quaking in shrill word of plumes,
a shield with upward pinion inflam'd,
bursts from leaded glass
as from arous'd and dazzling leaden throat.
Bonnets, fix'd to a distorted cross,
moving the nights all whiten'd, capp'd with lead, exhausted
as smoke mov'd in anger.
I hear and understand the chasm,
plagues,
numbers swarming, tail and head,
bewildered with the turbid mists.
He spoke, riveting the circles of the abyss,
breathing fire against wax melted to black.
The fields, all on fire,
breath'd glaring and malignant lamps,
backward dragg'd.
When dreaming, as time drew me up,
solitary, without help of hands;
when the sun veils flames so numberless;
every flame, flinty, horned,
began to roll, murmuring,
beyond that ocean to the whirlwind.
Our eyes, echoed, tormented,
pierc'd through into language,
vibrating this broad cirumference of plume,
grasp the winter's frost
and gather in
the power to shut and open.
The fire must vanish
in words and thought;
a grinding force where a spectacle,
torn from orb to orb,
stood headless with various wounds
at the bridge's foot.
Menacing, the towers pass'd me speechless.
I clos'd both ears on the shore,
languish'd in silence;
tir'd with long watching;
drawn from tearing pincers
discovered in wide-spreading woods.
Transmuted metals burn'd upon a rock
on the wild sea-beach; pale and naked,
like a drum resounded,
the horse
wanting power to speak, to hear.
A horn sounded many lofty towers,
condens'd in air her plastic hand.
Sweeter hymns,
by violent earthquake held fast,
were there leaning,
stately,
to describe the infant babbling
shrin'd in ice,
distill'd upon lips.
Plank unto plank,
he, when the people slept,
when I slept,
tore the curtain and the hour
until a faint beam, outstretch'd,
call'd on them who perish in the waters.
This airy veil yields her body alive upon the earth;
a windmill, glass,
eminent in beauty,
outstretch'd on three winds with pond'rous engine,
lofty and luminous.
At the forefront of the development of the piece is the musicality of the sonic components, adopting the organising metaphor of the 'mobile' from the visual arts. In addition to embodying conventional musical parameters of pitch, duration, timbre etc., the mobile form is imagined as a set of fixed sonic objects set in motion relative to each other, in a temporal sense. However, the metaphor may be extended to the spatialisation of the sound via the eight loudspeakers where sounds could be played out at static points or moving through space. Furthermore, the objects can be seen in different lights - the shifts in angle and colour of elements of a physical mobile can be translated into changes in the spectrum of the sound and changes in duration and so on. Let the metaphor end there.
In practical terms, the sound objects were established in advance leaving the task of setting these objects in motion to the live processing in the installation. An element of interaction was achieved or, more precisely, the system responded to acoustic stimuli within the space. Noise levels in the space, which varied over the course of each day, triggered different deployments of the fixed musical materials - the sound objects. This was conceived of variously as: a simple linear correspondence (the environmental sound increases in volume, thus the system outputs sounds of matching volume); simple linear correspondence in relation to density of events; a stepped correspondence (when the level goes over a certain threshold, the system switches to a new set of sounds, or a new density of events, or a new loudness). I took a combination of these approaches.
The proposed method for sensing the acoustic activity in the space was a double channel approach: one channel sampled the sound levels periodically, comparing the current values with the previous ones and applying the switching mechanisms; the other listened continuously, triggering instantaneous responses from the system. Put another way, the first method takes on the role of an orchestrator - making selections between possible combinations of 'instruments', while the second takes on the role of performer - playing the sounds chosen by the orchestrator at moments determined, in part, by external stimuli.
What are the sounds? In keeping with the use of a poem as the source material, I felt from the outset that all of the sounds must be derived from speech. This self-imposed limitation was actually liberating because it removed the distractions offered by the non-vocal sound world.
I made a set of recordings of the second reduction - one whispered and one spoken - in a sound booth at the School. The booth facilitates a relatively dry sound so that the speech is largely free of reverberation. The booth is also reasonably acoustically isolated so that there is little sound leaking in.
These recordings were converted into phase vocoder analysis files using the program CSound. This means that very short overlapping timeslices of the sound are analysed for their spectral content and the analysis data is stored for reconstructing the signal subsequently. Using the tools within CSound to access this data, I programmed a way for the sounds to be played back in different ways: slowly, so that the spectrum of the voice changes slowly and is unrecognisable as speech; quickly, creating a scrambled sound; discontinuously, where the speech is jumbled in order, creating an assortment of non-words and, occasionally, recognisable words; and pitch shifted, where the sounds can be varied continuously in pitch without changing the speed. (This latter, in the case of speech, has the effect of ruining the relationship between formants, the spectral peaks resulting from this or that phoneme being uttered. With pitched musical instruments, this is not an issue).
The program read the analysis files in these various ways depending on the sound levels of the ambient noise in the installation space. A microphone monitored the sounds produced by people and things in the environment while the program switched between listening and sounding. The program calculated an average sound level for a period of, say, 5 seconds and used this to choose the nature of the transformation. At low levels, the output sound was a slowly shifting spectrum with no discernible words. At a certain threshold, the output changed to incorporate recognisable speech content and so on. Also, the duration of the listening/sounding timings varied - as the system switched up through the thresholds, the duration got shorter.
Randomisation was used, seeded by the system clock, so that the patterns are never repeated exactly, but displayed similar tendencies. Therefore the work was constantly evolving, having a set of four broad tendencies which were never identically manifested.
Some of the movements through the analysis data to produce the sounds were mirrored in their 'localisation'. Using the double-quadraphonic arrangement described above, the sounds were located somewhere on a 360° circuit. The rapidly changing sounds had an equally rapid movement around the listening space; the slow moving spectra circled the space slowly.
With the listening/sounding cycle, it was necessary to minimise the effect of the output sound on the the listening. This was achieved by killing the dry output during the listening stage. All that remained was the reverberant residue which had less acoustic energy and therefore had a lesser effect on the listening mechanism.
The 'soundtracks' are a commentary on the source - the source being a reduction of a translation: an underlining of Cary's text. What is the nature of that commentary? Is it a commentary on the poem's meanings? On the poem as a form? On the nature of translation (Cary's translation marks a distance, temporally, culturally, linguistically, between himself and Dante. So too does mine with the additional derailment of a shift of medium*)? To what extent does my abbreviation constitute a 'poem'?
* Alternatively, the use of audible, and pitched, speech could be seen as a shift back to the tradition of poetry as a spoken and sometimes sung art form.
I had these pictures and a text to work with. The text, as described above, was reduced making a fragmentary rendering of a verbose, 19th century model which, in turn, was an English translation of a mediaeval Italian poem. How would I work in a complementary way with the images? When developing the set of images for projection at the Darkness Visible performance, I worked in a 'reductive' way: taking a section of the original print and removing certain features from these segments such as faces and heads. For 'Marginalia' I took these images and reworked them, reintroducing the poem in a number of ways. The result is that there is a telescoping of time: a window onto a window onto a vista.
Photos: Ian Watson.
Recordings were made in the foyer for the purposes of developing a model of interaction. These were made using an artificial head microphone that simulates human hearing as closely as possible. The various qualities and levels of noise in the space can be ascertained in order to identify effective thresholds to trigger changes in the sounds being output from the loudspeakers. (My thanks to Joel Burton for his assistance).
The voice recordings were made in a recording booth at the School. This booth has very little echo and is fairly well sound proofed from the outside. These characteristics were particularly important when recording whispered speech. (Thanks to Joel and Ian Watson).
This 'talk' - actually a sound and video performance - took place in Lecture Theatre 3 to a group of psychology students and guests. Actor Dewi Savage provided, at very short notice, a reading of the text that was used in the final mix. A rendering of the audio part of the presentation shall soon be available on a CD document of the project.
This is the subtitle text for the video part:
|in the beginning|books of uniform size|uniform dimensions|every book ever written|garbage|horrible languages|in the beginning|keep them in order|copy in best handwriting|that is the only rule|everything must be in order|but forget the rules|a film without sound|tableaux vivant|fragmented|“In dullness,”|“from wide steep skin,”|“the air full” etc.|whispered words|more noise than pitch|solar system|freeze the spectrum|words as isolated signs|hearing without listening|reverberant shadow in corner|the mobile:|organising metaphor|the pictures|stripped of proper nouns|cloaks filled with air|the pictures|decorated with naked words|exploded as a tapestry|primordial utterance|invert a formula:|architecture = frozen music|thus:|music = architecture melting|listening and responding|keep at the forefront:|composition;|decomposition;|melting buildings;|temporal and spatial organisation|reverberant residue|simplify the model|the outer reaches of the vortex|...|
The voice over narrative:
Take a man ... an old blind writer in Buenos Aires ... imagined a library ... so vast ... books of uniform size ... let me give you the dimensions ... and I quote: 'each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line of some eighty letters which are black in colour' and so on ... every possible combination of the letters of the alphabet ... and spaces ... full stops ... and commas ... there is not enough matter in the universe to construct such a library ... larger than all the libraries of Islamic Spain ... a library of the imagination ... the imagination - larger than the known universe ... the imagination - detailed in these books ... defined in these books of uniform dimensions ... the results are well known ... every book ever written ... every book never written ... and much more besides ... garbage ... ninety-nine point nine percent garbage ... horrible languages ... Babel ...
what would they sound like? ... those horrible, garbage languages ... beautiful sounds ... from horrible languages?
in the beginning ... try an experiment ... take a text ... not any old text ... a chosen text ... this, for example ... more about that later ... and go through it carefully ... make it new ... underlining a word here ... a phrase there ... go through it from start to finish ... in order ... there are no rules ... just choose and underline what feels right ... what sounds about right.
move on to the next stage in the experiment ... take those words ... the chosen words ... these chosen words ... and go through them ... copying a word from here ... a phrase underlined ... from here ... to here ... but keep them in their original order ... that is the rule ... what feels, what sounds, right ... in its original order ...
copy these words ... into a book, perhaps ... adding ellipses to indicate the absence of inessential words ... copy in best handwriting ...
but ... there are still too many words ... get rid of them ... go through them ... underlining a word here ... a phrase there ... there are no rules ... just choose what feels, or what sounds, right ... and copy those words ... into a book, perhaps ... but keep them in their original order ... that is the only rule ... everything must be in order ... to make a poem from a poem
but there's a distraction ... let's go back to the original text for a moment ... let me show you what we're up against ... pictures everywhere ... too many pictures ... therefore apply similar methods ... select ... mutate ... efface ... but forget the rules ... the order ... images have no order ... are timeless ... motionless ... lacking direction ... like a film without a soundtrack ...
this distraction ... a world governed by images ... the tyranny of the image ... seduced me ... for the best part of six months ...
The inferno ... tableaux vivant ... spiral ... a downward spiral ... a circular motion downwards and inwards ... skeleton of a cone ... inverted cone ... Pandaemonium ... assembly of fallen angels ... the words spiralling downward ... the sounds ... all of them formed from speech ... circling ... sometimes quickly ... sometimes almost still ... but moving, nonetheless ... the sounds ... each one of them from my mouth ... now mixed ... now one by one ... fragmented ... fused ... (re)fused ... rejected ...
half a year of effort ... half a year of detritus ... river of effluent ... ninety-nine point nine percent rejected ... discarded ... until now ... the words ... inscribed here and there ... spoken then and now ... "In dullness, from wide steep skin, the air full of land in silence, sought out that volume...." ... the sounds ... located in space ... situated ... circling ... the motion matching their transformation ... whispered words ... more noise than pitch ... where words turn to liquid ... to wind ... or the spectrum frozen ... machine-like distortion ... spoken words made to sing ... a song suspended ... much of this rejected after six months of effort ... in favour of a simpler model ... a mobile form ... think 'Alexander Calder' ... or the chiming toy unwinding above a cot ... or the solar system ... fixed in place ... more than the sum of its parts ... each part independent ... and interdependent ... self-contained and made new through an infinitely variable relationship with its neighbours ... circling the origin ... the Sun ...
freeze the spectrum ... then move it on ... tearing back and forth ... non-words ... confusion of phonemes ... horrible languages ... with occasional moments ... of lucidity
how about taking the thousand or so words ... group them roughly ... according to some scheme that didn't work as planned? ... like this ... words as isolated signs ... a bare list ... perversely rhyming ... repeating ... a poem gone wrong ... shredded ... but not reforged ... words ... made unremarkable ... anti-poetic ... telephone directory
and the images ... the pictures ... stripped of proper nouns ... the headless sculptures at Epidavros adrift on the river Styx ... spirits drifting ... cloaks filled with air ... edging their way along a precipice ... staring down ... without head or eyes ... into the rising flame and smoke ... down the spiral pathway to the ice ...
the pictures ... now mutated ... now defaced ... decorated with naked words ... unrelated yet resonant at times ... these transfigured pictures ... paraded in these books ... or exploded as a tapestry ... a
necessary distraction from the incessant noise ... nothing to do but to look at the pictures ... in a world
tyrranised by images ...
annihilation ... let the words evaporate in the rising smoke and flame ... satisfy yourself with the slow-fast journey through the spectrum ... through the vocal fingerprint ... primordial utterance ... take it at face value ... don't hamper the experience ... let the words appear when they feel it's right to ... when it sounds right ... when there are no rules ... no syntax ... no order ...
as I said ... simplify the model ... let the motion be fluid ... let the internal rhythms translate to external motion ... a graceful interrelatedness ... a mobile ... made up of noises ... casting shadows each on each ... solar system ... movement about the origin ... no end in sight ... send its shadow ... it's
reverberant self ... to the outer reaches of the vortex ...
School of Psychology |
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What are marginalia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalia
Text of 'Inferno': http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8800
Text with illustrations by Dore: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8789
Todd Bailey's papers: http://www.cf.ac.uk/psych/contactsandpeople/lecturing/bailey-todd-overview_new.html
Wikipedia entry for Borges' Library of Babel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel
Cardiff School of Psychology: http://www.cf.ac.uk/psych/index.html
Washington Gallery: http://www.washingtongallery.co.uk/