"No Self Can Tell" by Laasonen Belgrano, E. and Price, M.D.

The research explores 'ornamenting' as a transferable method in inter-disciplinary studies, inter-faith dialogues and artistic/therapeutic practices. Adapting techniques of Renaissance musicology, the processes we have developed de-create and re-create vital connections. It is a communica-tions strategy for times of crisis. Starting with simple sonic relations we extend the method far be-yond its traditional musical setting. The practice utilises 'Nothingness' as a component of creativity, providing a novel response to figurations of nothingness as mere negation. Preliminary results sug-gest its potential as a counter force to nihilism and social dislocation. The work divides into four areas. 1. Primary research on relationships between sound, meaning, and the sense(s) of self, exploring how sense is made of Otherness via processes akin to musical praxis: consonance, dissonance, 'pure voice' and ornamentation. 2. To apply this new perspective to a range of exile experiences – mourning, social disconnection, ex-communication and aggres-sive 'Othering'. 3. To investigate the cancelling of normal time-conditions in crisis situations such as trauma, dementia, and mystical experience, relating non-linear temporality to creative practice and healing. 4. To widely disseminate our results and methods as contributions to the methodology of artistic research via journal articles, live workshops and performances, and a book of original, praxical, testable, and teach-able interventions.

ICELAND

OPENING STATEMENT

DR BELGRANO AND DR PRICE HAVE FOR OVER TWO YEARS BEEN WORKING IN A VAST IN-BETWEEN SPACE.

ALONG WITH OTHER COLABORATORS THEY HAVE PRODUCED ORIGINAL WORKS USING ADAPTED VARIANTS OF THE RENAISSANCE 'ORNAMENTATION' METHOD.

THIS CAN SWIFTLY BE DESCRIBED AS EXPLORING THE SPACES AND VARIATIONS OF ANY TWO SIMPLE TONES.

APPLIED OUTSIDE OF MUSICAL PERFORMANCE THE METHODS OF ORNAMENTATION ALLOW A NEW KIND OF PERFORMANCE SPACE TO UNFOLD.

IN WHAT FOLLOWS WE AIM TO DEMONSTRATE HOW THE PROCESS WORKS AND TO SHOWCASE SOME OF THE MATERIAL WHICH HAS – IN ONE SENSE - PRODUCED ITSELF IN THE COURSE OF THE RESEARCH.

ONE: REPETITION AND VARIATION

Drop - A drop in the ocean

Drop - A drop is one thing

Drop - The ocean is another

Drop - From one thing and another comes

Drop - The sound they make on impact

Drop - Which is a third thing

Drop - or a fourth. A fourth - because there must have been a space

Drop - between the things.

Drop - A space - a nothingness

Drop - by which the things were separated.

Drop – A creative nothing in which they make a noise when they collide

Drop - and become one thing.

Drop – Though in becoming one thing they have brought our attention to

Drop – the drop, the ocean, the sound, the space in which the sound expands

Drop – and to which it will return when we can no longer hear its echo.

Drop – which brings our attention to two silences: the one befreo the sound,and the one after.

Drop – Which brings our attention to time, and the body.

Drop - And ears, of course, the ears, into which the sound dropped, and the mind.

Drop – as a space in which the sound spreads its waves. And also thoughts, the thoughts about the drop, the single drop, the ocean, the space between them, the sound made in that space, exteriors, and interiors and the passages between them, sensations, spreading the thoughts further, and the space between the thoughts, and in those spaces also memories, many memories, of water, of fine wines and spirits, of blood, of drops of dew or tears and dropping rain and dripping taps and – a Chinese man, Lao Tzu, who hit the ocean of death some five hundred years before the body of Jesus was a twinkle in the eye of a dove. Lao Tzu, who let fall what some call a drop of wisdom:

''The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. Three begot the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.They achieve harmony by combining these forces.''

(Lao Tzu, Tao de Ching, Chapter 42).

The drop of life we call Lao Tzu is gone, but left us with interference patterns here, on the other side of the planet, still harmonising or dis-harmonising: with the One God, who is Word and also Flesh so two, and also a trinity, which created all things, and so on. There is no need to believe a word of either cosmology to watch or play this game of creative and destructive interference patterns. One need not navigate with either the One God or the Tao as the centre of the cosmos. One can see either God or the Tao as the ocean, or as the drop, and still appreciate their interactions. Nothing and nobody has to win or lose.

Much is gained if we leave the central metaphor of ''ideas as correct or incorrect positions'' and instead work with ideas of creative harmonies and dis-harmonics, consonance and dissonance, amplification and dampening. The process allows creativity to come from elsewhere. The music of the world starts to assemble itself, to speak for itself. This is a refreshing change from the egos of the world shouting at each other.

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The methods have produced dozens of original works including a nine-hour long Vigil for the Art Earth symposium last year. Here are EXAMPLES OF SOME OF THE WORKS PRODUCED:

Peaceful section from the Vigil (Jerusalem chant)

Hiraeth (section)

Three Laments (section from Lament 2).

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One might say that all we are doing here is

The unconscious as mind-and-body space. As Deleuze and Gautarri amply demonstrated, there are reasons to abandon the Freudian concept of a private unconscious space, in which the family dramas of an artist play out to haunt the creative act which is called 'the ego' – and whatever works of art or music the ego takes credit for producing.

And yet a human-centred view of the unconscious remains the capital city of much psychology. Many people, especially in the arts, seem to remain enamoured of the ''civil war'' model of the psyche. This is a model in which tyrannical drives and the need for constant repression is part of the operating system. The model supposes that normal functioning is violent and miserable. This may be the result of conceptualising the unconscious as CENTRAL. Deep in the body, deep in history. ( Critique of 'depth' in philosophy – recent work by some Nordic woman?)

Still less are we convinced by the model of counterparts in an argument or a creative enterprise bringing their unconscious prejudices and drives to the table, where they will fight it out for dominance in the arena of words, musical phrases, or (… needs thought ! - need to say WHY ORNAMENTATION IS NOT SIMPLY A 'DAILECTIC'. And say it swiftly!)

The ornamentation method allows a new approach to the emergence of unconscious forces.

It makes no presuppositions about the location or ownership of the forces: they may come from inside the body ( memory, desire, etc), or from the materials the body is working with (air, vibration, a drum beat, a gesture), or from the interference patterns of the two – and very possibly many more things of which the participants are unaware. The forces which arrive at some kind of form may come from the vibrant materiality of the world, from the body, from God, or Grace, or ancestral spirits, demons, nowhere, nothing. The process is epistemologically agnostic. It does not require anyone to believe anything.

The less pre-suppositions, the less 'egoic' investment, the emptier the stage or studio - all the better.

One could of course argue about whether the forces are impersonal or personal, natural or cultural, etc etc but to stage the argument thus and perhaps even ''convincingly win the argument'' would be to re-entrench the problem. Taking up positions, attacking and defending, winning and losing. ''Transcendence versus imminence! Plato or Nietzsche, who will triumph? Only one can leave the cage alive!'' - a blood-sport with the blood of dead men – ink and words.

Drop drop ink drop drop blood drop drop tears rain sweat water life blood tears joy etc.

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