START



I


As a starting point for my research to define more precisely my own "habitus" I used written excerpts from my previous projects to continue with as, for now, a methodology.


  

“Rather than simply signalling a return to naive modernist ideological positions, metamodernism considers that our era is characterised by an oscillation between aspects of both modernism and postmodernism.”


(Luke Turner, 2015)


“For the metamodern generation,
we can see a return of a romantic sensibility: hope is not simply something to distrust, love not necessarily something to be ridiculed.”

(Vermeulen, van den Akker, 2012)



An inspiration for me and example of work what fits to this sensibility is this video of artist:

Guido van der Werve called: Nummer acht "Everything is going to be alright" (2007)



II


“The prefix "meta" comes from: metaxy or metaxis, describing an oscillation and simultaneity between and beyond diametrically opposed poles”

Wikipedia



  

III


As an ode to the brick I translated and edited text that is meant to function as a poem from Gilbert Simondon's written philosophies about the use of technical objects and tools.

 

“What makes it being itself, is the state in which its matter describes all the events that this object was subjected to”

Gilbert Simondon - L'individu et sa genese physico-biologique (1964), entitled Form and Matter.



    

IV


The

I am collecting and researching, carry the slogan “access to tools”. The makers tried to understand whole systems by listing and reviewing a wide range of products in the catalogues published in the late 60's and beginning of the 70's.



      

V


I went to my Google maps places-I-still-want-to-visit- that I collected from remarkable appearance on earth-view and decided the first place would be:

in the Veluwe area, between Amsterdam and Arnhem. The geo-spectrum I daily oscillate going back and forth.




    

VI


After doing some research and finding

showing six masts for this radio station I was really inspired to go there.




VII


The research went on from masts, to electromagnetism systems and back to the oscillation of the radio itself. During this exploration came across a long-loved artist: Walter de Maria and his

land-art piece located in New Mexico.


His diverse works are a source of inspiration, acting on the axis of both modernist and post-modernist sensiblities. Going from geometric sculptures with a system, for example the work



to a almost ironic work called:




    

VIII


It was necessary for me to narrow this fascination down again to something graspable and that led me back to a system as the radio. Also influenced because of the facility that WT offers having analogue

. So I started to experiment with that, trying to understand it and make actual radio with it.




    

IX


While testing the radio I was making sounds too with the synthesizers. Together with Sarah we did

and broadcasted it online on the WT radio website in December.




    

X


Shortly after I started researching the space where the radio and "sound-maker" could be placed in - sending it from one room to another. How was this facilitated? What makes best sense with a band-width of a few hundred meters.



    

XI


Diving in researching and defining an optimal space for making sound the inspiration continues: I discovered

,


located under the Fort Worden State Park, in Port Townsend, Washington State. A Cistern under the ground originally built to store water later now used to experiment with sound and location by the

Deep Listening Band.




        

XII


During my experimentation with sound I found out that the meeting-room at WT is interesting and silent for making sound while watching

as a stage and it having three big windows on a ground-level towards the streets.




XIII


A lot of inspiration is based on works and writings of John Cage.

Connecting sound, vision, systems and space. An example is Imaginary Landscapes

. According to Cage a term reserved for the new technologies.

“We notice that spatial hearing is not only an act of localisation; it is also in fact a process of imagination.”

Spaces beyond tonality II: John Cage, Imaginary landscapes I, Oase 78



  

XIV


A related definition that suits the idea of making coincidental sound embracing its uncertainty can be linked to chance music, a music term known as:

“Aleatoric music (alea, meaning "dice" in Latin) is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and / or some primary element of a composed work's realisation is left to the determination of its performer(s).”

Wikipedia

This was also exercised by John Cage. Who left chance by using existing systems.




      

XV


To finalise the inspiration, for now, I filtered some relevant sayings of Cage that have a some paradoxes of a (in theory-words: metamodern) sensibility in it.


 

“What is the purpose of making music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play.”



  

“This is an affirmation of life - not an attempt to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out if its way and lets it act of its own accord.”


- John Cage, 1961.





XVI


Koyaanisqatsi

is one single word that explains the many images of the documentary, the opposite of the napoleonic saying that one picture has a description of a 1000 words.

 

The word comes from hopi-language. In the western language it could be described in various ways as:
1. Crazy life.
2. Life in turmoil.
3. Life disintegrating.
4. Life out of balance.
5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.


A documentary directed by Godfrey Reggio, shot by Ron Fricke and music by

Philip Glass

, 1982.



XVII


In this

you see an example of how the visual metaphor of the skyscraper is actually taking over the vantage point of the moon, as typically one would consider the moon to be the biggest, brightest object in the sky and now humankind has built these buildings that go beyond the natural limits.

  

And the difference between a round moon and a rectangular building is something to consider too.




XVIII


This could be seen as postmodern but showing it without that directing narrative it can lead to metamodern thoughts and ideas by opening it up and actually looking outside and break out of this cave-thinking.

 

The documentary is made using the time-lapse technique and

of a work done this way too is focussing on showing the most beautiful parts of the day.



Ken Murphy, Zen: 360 Days Of Sky (2011)




XIX


“The various ways in which humans have re-made time, both speeding it up and slowing it down, show that time is not something that just happens, like a ticking clock as a backdrop to other activities; quite the opposite. Time is produced through human activities, and thought the things we make, and through our interactions with the world around us.”


  

The word clock is derived (via Dutch, Northern French, and Medieval Latin) from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning “bell”.





Inspiration in a videoclip.

System, repetition, production.






XX


Lightbox poster DOC&. The screening of Koyaanisqatsi on the 8th of February 2018.



Daytime


Nighttime



XXI


In order to understand my synesthesia better I am making a colour-alfabet in where I try to write down the words that are related to that specific colour and sound-tone.






XXII


Synesthesia system how it would structured if it had to be visualised in a graphic.






XXIII


Ceiling projection,

for look-up radio. Projecting on the attic where the radio station is located at the Werkplaats Typografie.


 

 


XXIV


“For the first radio event and prepared live-broadcast Sarah and I made

by placing the line-up on the ceiling on the locations where the sound-pieces were going to take place.


 

 

Line-up announcement 23.3

 

 


XXV


, the mysterious story of a man that claimed to have lived in a cave and never learned to talk. Davide Manuli directed the movie: La leggende di Kaspar Hauser in 2012 with a soundtrack by


 


XXVI


For this years Speelplaats event I collaborated with Sarah to do a Arnhem based derive inspired by

We broadcasted live sound and voice from WT building to the radio. Participants could listen and do the unplanned journey through the nearby landscape. We selected and edited texts that were talking about the act of walking and the meditative aspects of it.


 

“Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears”


(Pauline Oliveros. “Native” from Sonic Meditations)


 

 


XXVII


What means

to me?



“Forever is composed of nows”

–Emily Dickinson



PM: What do you find in silence?
LM: I love silence. I find it habituating and soothing. It’s the way I grew up, it’s the way I function best.
It’s what I like. I had to be trained out of it because you can’t be a partner to another person and never want to talk! As a family, we did more mental telepathy than talking. Is it even possible to say that we didn’t talk? As far as I can remember, we didn’t. So I find it fascinating that people can sit and talk. This interview isn’t difficult for me, but don’t sit down and try to talk with me casually. Do you know what I mean?

–Linda Montano




 


XXVIII


“Nobody minds death when there is enough space, it integrates in the landscape it’s a wrinkle” is the title of the

with photographer Ilan Weiss. Showing the infinite horizon through multiple landscapes.


 

 




XXIX


Result of research residency at Sitterwerk in St. Gallen, 16-4 till 6-5-2018:

.


 


XXX


Paradigm of sensibilities balancing on the continuum of an axis. Movement and oscillation and the need to un-time.


 


XXXI


CRYPTOTHARSIS — EOTYS project.

“A surplus, the cryptonomicon and the catharsis”. A momentary image carrying the looks of both a lucid dream and a cryptic chart that encrypts itself in the catharsis of an intense display. My side of the poster shows all the work at once using the psychoanalytic treatment of Sigmund Freud's founded concept: ‘abreaction’ and the ADSR envelope of release music that makes the work “a catharsis of the maker and of the spectator.” Together with Austin's side cryptotharsis shows that it is highly complicated showing an “end of the year work” with the idea of an end in it. By showing the whole year timeline all together and connecting multiple layers of work this poster tries to visualise the intensity and plentiness of simultaneous happenings and thoughts of both our practices that took place at the same time.

 

 


I


These excerpts I feel come most closely to explaining the sensiblity I feel related to. They help me understand my behaviour and direction I feel I belong in, mainly for myself as a human-being, living and learning, and more importantly, perceiving in this current time.


II


The name of my existing music practice is Mentaxis. The instruments I use for making sound and music I took to the WT and built

around it together with Sarah.



  

The starting point was to give the instruments a temporary residency and that they can be practised within this environment.


    

Bringing in the synthesizers also meant bringing a piece of Mentaxis' philosophy / mindset which is partly linked to the metamodernism theory as this is how the music practice evolved. Mentaxis carries a horizon as a symbol which refers to "ongoing time of uncertainty" that is also visible in the video on the left of

Guido van der Werve (Nummer acht, 2007)



  

III


The horizon represents a continues action of paving a way to something, we don't know where to, with the stones / bricks we have. This is related to my desired object:

"selling" them preserved in epoxy at the NYABF17. This comes along with my fascination for continuity of a world built in architecture (vertical) and the infrastructure (horizontal).




  

IV


The book I contributed to the WT library in December was the fall issue, 1970 of the

. It is a good example of a community-driven initiative that shared hopes and dreams even though they felt the world was negatively influenced by capitalism. My plan is to make of six facsimiles of the first complete (and best) issues.




    

When I got a bit used to the WT building and going from one book to another I decided to step out for a bit of it again,

to see where these interests and curiosities could perhaps also take place and how I could respond upon it.




      

VI


The constrast of having six 200-meters-high steel antennas in a protected nature area attracted me. Unfortunately the Radio Kootwijk

are not there anymore but I found out this was something that made me warm in the first place, rather than the building itself. So maybe this was my next step?



    

VII


This did not necessarily bring me any further but I do now see my

of the Syllabus question somehow related to where I was at that point. I presented photos taken of the tram lines from underneath, to show the grid of a this super visible (electricity) system in the city. I was focussing on visible systems I come across in daily life.




          

VIII


One reason why I did this is out of curiosity for the system of analogue radio itself. It gave me the feeling of preservation of such a beautiful invention that is going to disappear. Another reason to use radio for me is the sincerity of a live (sound) broadcasting.



  

IX


Together with Austin, Andrea and Sarah we experimented a bit with the

offers and had a few discussions about how to continue using the radio within or outside of this community.



    

X


With this I wanted to define the space to perform on the synthesiser-box it having a temporary residency within the WT building. Can I, with sound respond upon this specific location? What are the sensibilities of the WT building? Can I show a sensiblity of this space and / or surrounding?



  

XI


I would love to visit the

in Fort Worden State park. I will focus on finding another one closer-by and hopefully test it with making sounds and defining the three-dimensional needs for it. And maybe create this space?



  

XII


I contintued making sound while facing the viewpoint of the one, two or three windows of the meeting room. Firstly starting by doing this "internal" with headphones. Another idea is to (also) experiment with sound and space with speaker output.



The idea is to generate live sound intuitively (and sincere) from what I am perceiving in the "outside world". By setting a frame in an ongoing horizon and responding upon it as a live-orchestra and record this visually and auditorily.


With this I am splitting up those two perceptive senses: vision and sound on localisation. In the output here I do not want to seperate vision and sound as I perceive them related and being synaesthetic.


A reason for me to do this is finding out how I deal with the setting within the WT building and how I respond upon it.


  

Focussing on aspect of (visual) coincidences and uncertainty outside and using music / sound inside as a starting point. After I try to bring sound and image back together again in a different (new) way.




XIV


By practicising this sound-making more frequently I hope to be able to analyse outcomes more precisely.



  

XV


As an indidivual trip I am planning on doing this on different locations and compositions of framing in sound and vision. Maybe finding some pattern(s) of this (coincidental) sounds of the (coincidental) outside.


  

* I am currently using the synthesizers because this is the only instrument that I feel capable of working with in this setting. It is also the size of the instrument that makes it transportable and is able to set compositions and can be combined with different amplifiers as I like.

Working on: "space - sound - synesthesia"
* recording / testing *



XVI


The documentary and soundtrack is divided in six parts called:
1. Koyaanisqatsi
2. Vessels
3. Cloudscape
4. Pruit Igoe
5. The Grid
6. Prophecies


The documentary is shot from bottom and from above playing with the horizons from different perspectives. In part "the grid" you see a

through clouds on a building.


And also on the



XVII


“The curvy versus the linear lines show both the strictly defined borders but also the lack of ambiguity within them. Because these two are opposing forces existing in the same sphere, as they are captured in the same shot.”


These two forces can be linked to Plato's allegory of the Cave.

Plato's cave analogy: the bright sun represents the light of truth versus the dark and bounded areas of the cave.


  

This would lend itself to the interpretation that what ever happens within the building is similar to Plato's cave. People are working to survive within a capitalist economy. People have been conditioned to act, behave, habituate a sort of lifestyle that does not benefit the individual intrinsically or philosophically but for political benefit and societal harmony.




XVIII


I

the outside world from the meeting while making "blind" sounds watching the street exersizing synesthesia and finding sensiblities.



Sped-up time-lapse example



Before the DOC& screening of my suggested documentary I invited students in a built soundscape in the meeting-room and played ont he synthesizers from the office room next door.





XIX


Whether showing sped-up or slowed-down footage, never stops moving. The

is an instrument that is showing a movement. It is us that link that to time.



Add time to the WT building."


with Sarah Cleeremans






XX


The poster is is representing a punched music box sheet that contains the first two meters of Philip Glass' opening score called after the documentary. At day you see the reflecting blue of the sky, and at night the red-lights illustrate the colour of the identity.



XXI


As a test for colour vs. sound space I did a projection experiment in The Box to light up a colour on the walls while playing the tone connected to that colour.


  

Red is always first and stands for: A, 1, January, Monday, Morning etc.


Video of projection in The Box.





XXIII


Susan van Veen and I wanted to combine visual and projection with sound and listening to the radio. Creating an atmosphere on the ceiling where the sound is coming from merges those two senses into one space to experience both at the same time.


 


XXIV


The archive of the radio shows will be placed on the hatch, the entrance to the attic.


 

 


XXV


The edited audio piece of La Leggende di Kasper Hauser for the radioshow.


 

 



XXVI


The live-aspect became really important and a focus for the broadcasting platform in general.


 

 




XXVII


For the home project I made a website with a story and recorded sounds of where I grew up. Have a look at


 




XXVIII


The images of the photography book show an endless landscape full of possibilities for the imagination to go in happening in Mongolia. A perfect scenery to reflect about what is private property and how much sense does it make in reality in our culture.





XXIX


Being based at the Sitterwerk library you might experience isolation while global time passes by. You can see that by the movement of the clouds in the sky or while observing the base from the water tower. Sound is another direct indicator to notify progression. The following

try to give an impression of the psychical Cartesian movement experienced during the research residency at Sitterwerk, Sankt Gallen. It is preserved on the web and finds its accessibility via Google Earth View: TOWER and Trace, 2018.





XXXI


For the End of the Year show '18 I produced this silkscreen poster consisting of 3 layers, metallic gold, neon yellow and mat black.