when chessboards reveal eternity...

"the checkers traveling in a sequence of their white and black diagonals going both to the right and to the left, the contrast of the vertical and horizontal, both are similar in their alternating rhythms in light and darkness. this physical ordering reflects the cycle of man's destiny; the vastness of my former fears of darkness were resolved as i read first the dark square, meaning: first night. i read second a light square, meaning: then day. the seasons i read, the years i saw appearing as images, the living followed the dying in my checkerboard existence; and since every black is followed by a white, i found my place in eternity."

alfred jensen, 1960 (image: a 1963 postcard announcing jensen's exhibition in madison n.j.)

the two worlds of music...

a 1968 chart by composer udo kasemets mapping "the two worlds of music - macroworld and microworld - large and small - triangle." it's part of a longer text that is sort of a manifesto, sort of a fluxus/concrete poem mostly related to the use of graphic notation. the image connects, of course, my love of all forms of attempting to notate a belief system or group of ideas as an abstract form/chart/map... connecting kasemets logic system with heroes from alfred jensen to emma kunz...

here are some bits of the text that covers about 14 pages:

"what if gutenberg had never been born?

the print-era turned the composer into a writer, distinctly apart from a musician... and totally remote from the listener...

the pre-print era man lived in soundspace. he was surrounded by silence and had a keen awareness of the sounds which emerged from it. the print era man lived in sightspace. he became more and more unskilled in reacting to non-visual information. the post print-era man lives again in soundspace, but in one which surrounds him in constant composite sounds. he is learning to distinguish between desired and not desired information...

the most reluctant to abandon their print era concepts are the performers at the cathedrals of music education that have been preaching the gospel of the written score... it's holiness and infallibility. is it any wonder that most of them, when asked to play music, not notes, don't understand what it is all about."