The world is beyond doubt flooded by people releasing industrial quantities of gobbledygook about incidents connected to speculative “illuminations” in relation to sounds that actually don’t mean a iota for the human brain, if not for lulling it to sleep by the association with comfortable suggestions of snugness and warmth typical of the blind-minded. In this case we’re dealing with physical resonances that many of those desperate entities regard as sheer noise while keeping the chit-chat a propos of supposed next lives and evolutional enhancements going on, yet finding pleasure in the easiest brands of classical music of three centuries ago (so much for “progress”) or believing to cure their anxiety via so-called “prayers”.
Mark Fell, a British artist working on the fringes of artistic genres, explores “the relationships between geometry, colour and waveform” on this, a DVD where the simplicity of the utilized means is – as usual, one would say – the key for a rigorous experience of outright transcendence, not attained by listening to someone who scares the shit out of unhinged audiences by hypothesizing intimidating scenarios of boundless ignorance, usually conjured up by the consequences of an overly abundant dinner on the sleeping process. Fell achieves the objective through the adaptation of the senses to events that link our perceptive channels and organs efficiently: waveforms (mainly derived from computer-processed Tibetan bowls), geometric shapes, hues derived from barely conceivable colours.
By looking at the video we’re instantly captured as the graphic representations of the sounds manifest themselves with unmistakable precision, stopping only when the sonic substance ceases its momentary existence. The design is extremely simple, and all the more significant: intelligent waveshaping is the basis of the whole thing, relating gradations and visual oscillations to the aural involvement coming as easy as breathing for those in the know. The psyche is dazzled by the associations, its functionality improved at the same time. The music is gorgeous per se, a cycle of electronic emissions which gradually evolve from scattered surges, strident wakes and rhythmic clicks to the often literally astonishing unhurried glissandos characterizing the third and longest segment.
To quote the composer: “Are these phenomena affirmations or reconfigurations of the subject (…) or are they essentially physiological? (…) Are we being enlightened? Examined? Entertained? Enmeshed?” This writer could not answer to these questions. What’s important is that we’re not subjected to counterfeit mysticism, a constant presence – nourished by people’s discouraging weakness - hiding money-spinning intentions in today’s practices.
Attack On Silence is a sample of serious borderline ability, definitely not suitable for just-woke-up laggards.
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