ARP Synthesizer. Composed in 1973. Released on Important Records in 2011.
“Before the greatest achievement.
Before the greatest detachment.
At the limit of the frontier space of the unconscious – tuned waves – “consonant things vibrate together”.
Where does the change happen? In the inner field of perception or the exterior reality of moving things in the course of becoming.
And time is no longer an obstacle, but the means by which the possible is achieved.”
– Eliane Radigue – June 20, 1973
Image: Eric Rondpierre
Self knowledge is not fully possible for human beings. We do not reside in a body, a mind or a world where it is achievable or, from the point of being interesting, even desirable. Half of what lies in the heart and mind is potentiality, resides in the darkness of the unspoken and unarticulated and has not yet come into being: this hidden unspoken half of a person will supplant and subvert any present understandings we have about ourselves. Human beings are always, and always will be, a frontier between what is known and what is not known. The act of turning any part of the unknown into the known is simply an invitation for an equal measure of the unknown to flow in and reestablish that frontier: to reassert the far horizon of an individual life; to make us what we are – that is – a moving edge between what we know about ourselves and what we are about to become. What we are actually about to become or are afraid of becoming always trumps and rules over what we think we are already…
— David Whyte, 2014. Excerpted from “Self Knowledge”, from the upcoming book of essays CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning in Everyday Words.
birdcage thaumatrope
[7 may 2012]
i am a dervish
a thaumaturge
i spin very fast
bore downwards
pour stuff out of the top of me churned rich like butter as i whirl
why do i spin so?
see
the thing about spinning
is that it is an oscillation between opposites that generates the movement
it’s how motors work
it’s how hard drives work
it’s how atoms work
the spin is ambi-valence made physical
attracted/repulsed/attracted/repulsed
so i am always moving fast yet can seem to be going nowhere
in my indecision, in the swinging tension between irreconcilable polar opposites
i can actually drill down deeper
because i am always spinning, seeing both sides almost, but not quite,
simultaneously
it’s impossible to see both sides simultaneously
but the quicker you are at seeing multiple perspectives
eddying off on fractal tangents
the faster you spin
(and the dizzier it can make you and others)
how do you solve a problem like maria?
i am not moving linearly
not climbing a ladder
it does not mean i am unproductive
it does not mean i am trapped
the hum is just my motor running at a higher frequency than the
general populace
a powerful magnet
drawing stuff in constantly
flipping it over and over
360 degrees of perspective, 365 days a year
a thaumatrope
it’s a funny thing
i can actually spin, physically, round and round for ages and not get dizzy
i think this is how i manage to get through life, mentally
i am mostly able to tune out the vertigo
i have learned
others can’t
they can’t take how fast i am going all the time
the spinning keeps me upright
in perpetual motion but never able to choose only one definite course
drawing straws
in perfect tension
twirling thread
spinning gold
activates
sigils
semiotics
polarity
magnetism
solenoids
speakers
the speed of sound
affects aerodynamics
flow
determinism and chaos
it’s all connected
all ways
in the dance of particles
fleurmach 