Below is an essay I wrote as part of my Masters Degree in Art, Society and Publics.
It accompanies a cassette release of music created using the bamstick and was printed on a scroll using waterless lithography and screenprinting. It was a limited edition of 15 housed in recycled tin cans. I gave them all away.
What is Magic Today Shall be Science Tomorrow
When T. C Lethbridge published Ghost and Divining Rod in 1963
the world was reverberating with the shockwaves of socio-seismic
activity. John Kennedy murdered, the Cuban missile crisis narrowly
averted, the appearance of The Beatles first album and most
importantly for myself, the transition from amniotic cocoon to
dislocated consciousness.
As these momentous global events unfolded Lethbridge was busy
scrutinising the liminal world of energetic resonance at sites of pre
historical significance taking measurements with his para-scientific
apparatus to reveal the sources of invisible energy vortices, all
findings being documented with typical precision and the application
of a strict scientific methodology.
Lethbridge was a believer in resonance and the ability of the
sensitive human subject to receive and channel energetic
vibrations through the use of analogue amplification devices such as
dowsing rods, pendulums, scrying machines and the recording of
electronic voice phenomena (EVP). Forces or energies which have
historically been associated with and attributed to esoteric factors
such as ley lines, spirits of the deceased, communications from
disembodied deities or even imprints left in the akashic records by
tumultuous events taking place at focal nexi in the space time
continuum. Lethbridge had a theory that these phenomena are all
ultimately empirically quantifiable. We are after all,
electro-mechanical beings who can unconsciously respond to the
stimulations of electromagnetic fields (EMF) and other (sub-liminal)
phenomenological disturbances.
Could the ‘electromagnetic field’ of the water be somehow to
blame - that same ‘field’ that produces the response in the
dowsing rod? Is it possible that such fields can receive the impress
of an emotion, as the sling stone received the impress of anger, and
transmit it later to someone who stands on the same spot? He invents
the term ‘naiad field’ for the electromagnetic field of water,
and advances the suggestion that mountains and open spaces (like
deserts) may also have their own individual fields.1
Transposing this notion of divining rods and their usage as receptors
for unseen energies into the present technological millennia we can
consider the work of German sound artist Christina Kubisch whose
audio investigations into the nature of EMF in the contemporary urban
space clearly demonstrate the intense energetic presence of radiation
beyond the audio-visual spectrum. Kubisch has noted through the
duration of her famous electronic walks2
in various cities around the globe that the occurrence and intensity
of EMF static has multiplied exponentially over the last 10 years. We
are now being engulfed by an invisible deluge of radiations from
mobile devices, routers and computer controlled machinery at every
level of our day to day existence. Are they harmful to us?
The modern day sensitive who is attuned to these
hyper-frequencies may find themselves tormented by the
bombardment of voices and signals from the inaudible spectrum, indeed
there are a growing number of cases of phobic or allergic subjects
who find no alternative but to seek refuge in the hinterlands where
such signals are weak, these individuals report symptoms such as
nausea, headaches and stomach cramps when any type of mobile device
is activated even several feet away from them. This syndrome is now
recognized as ‘Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity’ (EHV). An online
search will yield an ever growing number of articles reporting a
disturbing trend towards this kind of debilitating condition. The
case of Per Segerbäck who is forced to live in the Scandinavian
wilderness being just one notable example.3
Genius Loci (and the Muse).
Ancient Greeks and Romans (not to mention Victorian landscape
architects) attributed the ambient conditions of specific areas or
places to the presence of the Genius Loci or the spirit of place.
The nature of this spirit entity being the determining factor in the
numinous mood of specific regions or landscapes, each place having a
uniquely identifiable character.
The 18th century poet and essayist Alexander Pope addressed the
subject thus;
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise or fall;
Or helps the ambitious hill the heave’ns to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale,
Calls in the country catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods and various shades from shades,
Now breaks or directs th’intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.4
It can be seen from this that any mortal interjection with the
surroundings is subordinate to the will of the genius who channels
the creative process through the human agent.
This is a digression.
The real thrust of this discourse is to present the reader with the
fanciful proposition that the the attuned individual can resonate
with the genius of a place and that the voice of the spirit
may even become negated by the presence of artificial interferences,
blocking out higher vibrations and leading to a supersaturated noise
environment (albeit invisible) which in turn may ultimately lead to a
detrimental disconnect between the human entity and his space, a
cognitive dissonance, manifesting itself in dis-ease, mental
deterioration and a malaise of spatial dislocation.
Music and Divination.
In assuming the mantle of clairvoyant or dowser, the musician is able
to employ his/her inherent sensitivity for rhythmic and harmonic
vibration by tapping into and channeling the electromagnetic flux
into an aural manifestation, a process sometimes referred to as
contacting the Muse. In an act of ritual meditation, the musician
(hereafter referred to as the magusician being a concatenation
of magus and musician) takes up his divining rod, and reveals through
his meditations the underlying harmonic structure of a space,
clocking into the metronome of the spheres which governs the tempo of
all life on earth.
The single stringed diddley bow is a fine example of the
musical divining rod being the apparatus of choice for the ancient
shaman of the Mississippi Delta and also where the Genius Loci of Muscle
Shoals exerted her beneficence upon generations of song makers. Where
once the high priest of the blues, Robert Johnson, channelled
the voices of the mystic. Legend has it that he performed a
transaction with the evil one but I propose that he simply communed
deeply with the Genius. In a mystical rite the electrified
string of the bow and the barrel of the slide connect in the manner
of a cosmic crystal radio set, the player becomes a meta-antenna
tuning in to the spirit of the Muse, a conduit, a sound scryer
entering into a musical psychomanteum, transmitting back messages
from the collective unconsciousness.
The Necessity of Ritual in Music.
Walter Benjamin in his seminal paper The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction draws our attention to the loss of what
he calls the aura, a metaphysical quality that is inherent in
an object or work of art and manifests itself in a symbioses between
the situation or physical context of said objects and the viewer. The
creation and multiplication of the subsequent facsimile removes this
aura from the work. The original placement and location of the
artwork imbue the object with layers of signification and content
which are now subordinated and ultimately lost through the process of
repeated mechanical reproduction.
We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a
ritual – first the magical, then the religious kind. It is
significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to
its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In
other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has
its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value.5
We can apply this model to the present trend in digital music
streaming. The currently eviscerated vessel of audio delivery has
evolved from wax cylinder to vinyl record to magnetic tape to compact
disc to mp3 and finally into an ephemeral stream of invisible data.
The sound of music (live performance notwithstanding) has in fact
always been mechanically reproduced ever since Edison's first
ethereal recordings but up until recently it still had a physical
presence, being enshrined in a delivery medium which in turn
imbued it with a fetishistic value, a sacred totem if you will. The
record collection was and still is for some a reliquary of spiritual
significance, a place where the acolyte can worship at the altar of
the magusician, a place where he can ritualistically ‘connect’
with the soul of the artist and partake of the audio sacraments which
are set before him.
This was music for a new religion, with the record player as
domestic shrine. The private nocturnal consumption of these records
assumed a devotional, even sacramental aspect. Psychedelia’s links
with shamanism are well documented. The shaman invariably uses sounds
and symbolic images to help him navigate his ecstatic flight through
the otherworld. All religions have their symbols, altars, shrines,
icons, and mandalas, combining still images with music to facilitate
the devotee’s passage from the worldly light of the image to the
unworldly light of divine vision. Featuring the same symbiotic
conjunction of music and image, the record was a portable idol, the
worship of which afforded illicit glimpses of otherworlds and
forbidden gods. Prog-gnosis.6
Music must return to a ritualistic action which involves context and
‘reverence’ if it is to be saved from the meaninglessness and
devaluation with which it is currently afflicted. This is what has
been lost to the non-entity of the perpetual wi-fi stream. Aura and
ritual have been subsumed into a morass of background noise. As a
culture we no longer actively listen to music, we simply have
it on in the middle distance.
In a gut reaction to the homogenisation of musical culture in the
digital age, the underground artist has embraced a return to the
older formats. Vinyl is king but equally demands kingly sums for its
production. The cassette tape is also favoured not only for it’s
meagre price, but sometimes also for its sonic properties (noise,
black metal and ambient artists) even more crucially for its ability
to rescue the aura, the very thing which Benjamin identified so many
years ago. The old model of commercial success is now roundly
rejected by the avant music producer in favour of a non commercial
hand produced, limited edition, totemic product which serves to
personally connect with a minuscule but appreciative public. It is no
longer a question of finance or success, there are far greater
stakes at risk here.7
It serves to re-establish the ritual of actively listening to music
and the re-evaluation of why we listen and what we
value about the experience. It asks the question; what is music
really worth to us?
The democratisation of arts production in the digital age has
inverted the old world meritocratic relationship between artist and
fanbase. The well known Warholian axiom on the nature of individual
celebrity status has been fundamentally and irrevocably subverted.
Nowadays, everyone can be famous for 15 people
(figure1)
x - artist xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - artists
xx xxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx xxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxx xx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx - audience x - audience
Old World
Model New World Model8
4
Pope, A: An Epistle to Burlington,
1731.
8
Figure 1: The relationship between audience and artist in the age of
digital democratisation.
Ghost & Divining Rod available free on Bandcamp here: http://lungsparrow.bandcamp.com/
Ghost & Divining Rod available free on Bandcamp here: http://lungsparrow.bandcamp.com/
