Interrogation of the Crystalline Sublime

Martijn Comes - Interrogation Of The Crystalline Sublime "The human being knows himself only insofar as he knows the world; he perceives the world only in himself, and himself only in the world. Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I hear atmospheres, sound shapes, gestural narratives, spectral trajectories, stochastic rhythms and phasic space when I encounter an environment rich in sonic phenomena. But in order to be open to this meta-sensory information, I must first get my ears out of the way. I don't listen with my ears but with an inner sensory apparatus, what Goethe called "organs of perception," that I have developed over the years. Once opened to this world sound becomes something very different—it's as if one could previously only see in black and white and suddenly were able to see in color. One becomes a witness to a full range of qualities and events that were previously inaccessible. The drone is not a steady-state sound but a constellation of sound objects that lie hidden beneath a simple surface. The listener can penetrate this surface when they allow time to exist in a space where the past and future collapse into an infinitesimal, yet infinite, moment. Once inside this space the drone serves as a conduit to other planes of existence and explains why spiritualized cultures around the world have used the drone in their worship for millennia. The drone integrates us with the supernal, a synesthesia takes place, all of our senses become a singular super-sense: there is no longer a distinction between sound and sight, or taste and touch. When we experience the world in this way we see the vast web of interconnections and how we deprive ourselves when we divide the world into the narrow-band regions of our senses. It is by transcending these boundaries that we become more fully human and open to the richness the world has to offer us. Kim Cascone - San Francisco, Nov 20 2015