Parabiosis [Disquiet0324] by Suss Müsik

“The cybernetic revolution has developed more rapidly than many could have foreseen. We are entering the second industrial revolution in which human physical energy—[not only] hands and arms—but also the brain and nervous system are being replaced by machines.”

If you’re the type who follows technological trends, you might think the above was written by a post-2015 Silicon Valley scribe on the emergence of AI. In actuality, it’s a quote from Erich Fromm’s classic book Escape from Freedom, written in 1941. Suss Müsik can’t decide whether to be humbled by such prescient statements or depressed beyond comprehension.

Any attempt to create a work of art that avoids distraction and suggests momentum is bound to fail by at least one criteria. Cognitively speaking, we’re more likely to get into a groove when we minimize distractions. However, it’s well known that humankind’s greatest innovations are the result of expanding one’s realm of possibilities beyond current modes of working. It could be that the true nature of collaboration is where machines and humans each perform the tasks to which they’re most suited.

For this weird piece, Suss Müsik attempted to replicate the above approach by playing a series of looping phrases on piano, organ, sax and percussion. The piano and organ were treated with a Moog MF-101; the sax was passed through a Red Panda Tensor on maximum randomization. The percussion is various stuff we had lying around plus a CR-78 emulator.

The piece felt a bit ... dunno what, so we added a vocal component in the middle fed through a Korg 411fx. The text was written by M. Tegler and recited by C. Koustourlis. Suss Müsik doesn’t know what it means, either.

The piece is titled Parabiosis, which is the artificial joining of two anatomic organisms for the purpose of scientific research. The image is a distressed coupling of two computer chips.

More on this 324th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Factory Floor: Make music for newsrooms, design studios, and other collaborative workplaces) at:

https://disquiet.com/0324/

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https://disquiet.com/junto/

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Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0324-factory-floor/

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