Under the skin are fur and fertility

Under the skin is nothingness

Under the skin is the uncanny

This piece has six sine waves performing phase modulations with each other based on the permutations of the elements of the array [010101]. The permutation is performed at a frame rate close to a short response time of perception. This piece challenges the possible answers to “What is music” by raising tension in form and local musical structures, rendering a single continuous sound as a single timbre, a single note, and a single note as a whole piece. Despite their authors' intent, many sounding pieces have such tensions: Alvin Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire, John Cages 4’33’’, etc. 
While after “de-contextualizing” the piece and rendering it as a nonhierarchical and unaffiliated object(s), I am intended to explore two related principles of causation put forth by Graham Harman: vicarious causation and compositional causation. The permutations, or the consequent sounds, or even the slightest vibration of singular particles, as real objects, come in contact with each other only through a sensual object, which is the very form and placeholding of the piece itself, which is hollow and contentless. The piece becomes coherent and has an “itself-ness” and becomes a new object or artwork. Nevertheless, this process could be done by fundamentally anything: a tape and a banana would suffice. The numerous permutations, hence the ever-shifting sound in this piece are only intended to exaggerate the process. Without necessarily asking “what is music,” we may also discover a uniqueness of music: music is an abstract play of form itself and has minimal or no content, such as a curator or canvas. More is discussed on this last point in Ranciere’s The Dance of light (Paris, Folies Bergère, 1893) where he talks more about the play of forms, which is not a main focus of this work.

This piece has the notes of Für Elise (BIA 515), with minor modifications, sampled on a piano. These samples are then played by a certain set of predetermined rules/routines concerning pitch and temporal arrangement (yes, a classical answer to the question “What is music”). Nevertheless, this set of rules is strictly based on the original tune of Für Elise, e.g. imagine a matrix with the first row defined as the notes of the melody of Für Elise, with the remaining column elements as chord notes with the first row being the fundamental. The purpose here is to preserve as much as possible the original temporal and pitch arrangements of Für Elise, rendering it a solid object since no incisions are made on the tune itself as its contents are complete and static. 
I intend to “objectify” musical elements that are already perceived as “musical” (“What is music?”) in this piece. I intend to suspend their musical properties, as aesthetical instincts, from themselves. The tune of Fur Elise is nevertheless still “musical,” but the focus, or instinct, on musicality, has shifted to this piece that is “wrapping” the tune. The tune is compressed to music material, which is a notion that is closer to the notion of objects. Through this compression, the original structure and hierarchy of the tune of Für Elise, as well as its cultural implications, are suspended. A clean suspension requires the aforementioned process of preserving the original contents. 
The Piano is also a target of suspension here. The samples are played through different ratios that are not on the piano. Thus, the sounds are deprived of their source, which is the piano, and become new objects. The Piano itself is also transformed into a sensual object as the keys are not discrete anymore. They become analogous (in the later half of the piece they become a new sound), and the notion of, instead of actual, “keys” prevail. 

A complete description is available on my website.

大提琴独奏(Solo for Cello)

[Für Elise]的变奏曲(3 Variations for [Für Elise])

[010101]的变奏曲(12 Variations for [010101])

时间性的离散写作 (A knife only has one blade)

切口在幽默表演 (cruel spasms)

形而下的戏剧性 (a corporeal theatricality)

具象和抽象死 (death in Eidos)

Cyberpunk/Narration(Title)/Scenarios

Mingji_Wang

Popular tracks