Someone suggested that Suss Müsik repost our contributions to the weekly Disquiet Junto projects, because they enjoy reading the explanations of the tracks. While you’re reading the original post, make sure you check out the other contributors’ works as well. This piece was inspired by the 3D modeling architectures created by #NEWPALMYRA Founder Bassel Khartabil and rendered into VR forms by artist Paige Dansinger.
Alvin Toffler, author of the now-classic (and eerily prescient) book Future Shock, knew something about transience. “One of the great unasked questions of our time,” he wrote in 1970, “has to do with the balance between vicarious and non-vicarious experiences.”
It was not so long ago that a hologram of the late Michael Jackson appeared at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, sparking controversy over the ethics of using a digital visage to promote one’s posthumous career. Then again, humans have always been adept at manufacturing what Toffler calls “ritual significance” — the state at which the symbol for a thing becomes more important than the thing itself.
(Suss Müsik wonders what all the fuss was about regarding MJ. You’d think the music industry would be accustomed to such paradigms. After all, wasn’t it Freddie Mercury who famously asked “Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?“)
For this short piece, Suss Müsik explored the state of emergence. We hit little rocks with mallets recorded with heavy dollops of backwards reverb, then added some fake strings and gently plucked guitar. Buried in the mix are two solos played on an EWI device, which were panned right-to-left while the fake strings moved left-to-right.
The life of Bassel Khartabil was too short by any metric but the vicarious. Our collective participation in this week’s Junto project ensures that Khartabil’s work will continue to be celebrated and his memory preserved.