SPATIAL HARMONICS
By Wayne England
"My [music theory] books however were of no help for me, for nothing whatsoever was said in them about what music is or on what it's laws are based."
Vitviskaia
quoted from G.I. Gurdjieff’s,
MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN
What interests me most of all in addressing the subject of art and music, is how it can evoke in the observer the experience of authentic questioning. In such questioning a sense of wonder is awakened, and within it an innocent and yet bold willingness is actively open to a greater Mystery. A deeper question arises concerning this willingness, as it relates to the latent wish that resides within. Is there a common aspiration or wish, a universal essential striving that unites us beyond our cultures and education and conditioning? A plant reaches for the sun, a bee strives to make a communal hive, a dog seeks attention, a person strives to succeed in life and individuals strive for spiritual liberation. What is apparent is that striving occurs in different qualities of energy, on different levels. But is there a pattern which connects these levels of striving? Is there indeed an aesthetic language of alchemy that can uncover a submerged or unrecognized wish to be in alignment with a finer quality of energy, which itself speaks to the realization of unity and-liberation?
Energy-and-Form
The Law of Octaves, as presented by the mystic-scientist Gurdjieff, concerns relationships between varying realms of experience and levels of manifestation. According to physics and the laws of vibrations, the literal, physically derived link between each octave is through the mathematical or lawful forces of the natural harmonic overtone series. Harmonics are a lawful manifestation of vibrations and can quite accurately be described as the natural language of resonance. Yet resonance is by no means limited to the domain of sound but rather, is applicable to all realms. It is quite commonly understood that vibration is itself energy, but it is also scientifically accepted that matter is energy. In this way we can speak of energies associated with different levels, resonating harmonically within different realms.
A simple way to approach the relatedness of form and vibration, is in observing the effect sinusoidal motion has upon a simple extended string. (The string is horizontally attached at two ends while at one end, a speaker facing upwards is physically linked to the string via a tiny rod rising up from the speaker). Depending upon the length of the string and the frequency moving through the speaker, the string will resonantly vibrate into the shape of standing waves (like the shape of a plucked string). In doubling the frequency, another standing wave is added to the resonant structure. Between each standing wave is a mysterious, absolutely still center of gravity, which is referred to as a nodal point. It is here that we can begin to approach with perspective the mystery of the Platonic notion of the “Music of the Spheres". Plato was referring to planets in relation to the principle as above, so below. But can we ask for a moment, what is a planet? Is it possible to drop what is assumed and ask: why have particles of matter congregated in the same place, to a single center of gravity, creating a huge stable mass? Are we not seeing the same nodal points of stability in planets, yet in the frequency of the Sun’s harmonic signature? Transposing levels with this question to the subatomic realm, we see the same structure or relationship between atoms and electrons. All of this suggests that planets and molecules are harmonic structures with centers of gravity in different frequencies.
So, planets and molecules are music? But what is music? Can we look for a moment at the possibility that there is a world of energies moving with harmonic order throughout all matter? That is to say, that matter in essence is a musical phenomena, at all levels corresponding to the law of Octaves? Going further, we come to the implication that there is no essential difference between the movements of natural phenomena and the movements of our inner, psychic experience. Physical nature and psychic experience resonantly correspond. C. G. Jung speculated on this possibility:
"There are indications that physical energy and psychic energy may be but two aspects of one and the same underlying reality. If this turns out to be the case, then the world of matter will appear as, so to speak, a mirror image of the world of spirit and vice versa" C.G. Jung
Is this not what enables metaphor to be the carrier and translator of meaning from one realm of experience to another? How is it that the body can be an instrument capable of summoning emotional intelligence and the experience of meaning, through various postures and movements? In re-addressing the notion of striving, we may be touching upon the deeper, subtle aspects of the language of archetype, if an archetype is to be understood as representative of openings and illumination of the Way. The way that is, of realizing upon one's journey glimpses and aspects of ascendant transformation.
Powerful and sacred music innately expresses an autonomous intelligence within its sense of direction. Through its expression, we can hear a quality of striving, as representative of an aim. Such music is received as a language that is common to each of our three centers, (fluently conversing within mind, feeling and body).
Yet I can only find meaning in my experience and recognize archetypes, to the extent that I feel degrees of valuation towards aims, wishes and loves. This brings us back once again to our initial questions regarding art and authentic questioning. Can the artistic expression have the effect within the beholder of inviting assumed conclusions to fall away, while simultaneously evoking openness and availability toward realms of mystery and discovery?
Most fundamentally, music expresses a sense of direction and in this is the inherent sense of journeying through movement, from one moment to the next and from one environment, one atmosphere, one space into another. Is it possible to realize the experience of music perceived as naturally expressed through visual-spatial expression, as through sound?
Spatial Harmonics
These are questions that have animated my own sense of wonder, particularly in relation to music. In turn they have in part led me in the direction of approaching a viable perspective upon the aesthetic ideal of syneasthesia. Spatial Harmonics, as an art form and area of aesthetic inquiry, is the evolving outcome of that search.
While a music composition major in college, I began to work with digital imagery and animation as a way in part, to respond to some profound, revelatory creative experiences, which were linked to questions I was asking about the nature and possibilities of music.
Both as an art form and area of aesthetic inquiry, Spatial Harmonics can be described as a view to music as a language of energies. Based upon qualities of matter in the form of a scale of physical energies, it is a study in the unifying relationships of sound, energy transformation, and space. The laws of harmonics and resonance and the human body serve as the basis to which the principles of the aesthetic are linked. The art form is in part based on an understanding that when physical substances or energies are choreographed in varying movements, the motion and blending of these energies or forces create spatially derived orchestrations of symphonic "musical" phenomena.
To better illustrate the principles of the art forms harmonic motion, a reference can be taken from quantum physics. Within a quantum field of energy, even a slight adjustment to an atom in one location can immediately influence other atoms in totally different locations. Physical matter in this realm follows the laws of resonant fields of energy through its propagation. In a similar vein, harmonics are not usually thought of in relation to movement, but there are also harmonics of space. There are unseen resonant forces inherent in the spatial relatedness of any object relative to another. These “standing waves of proportionality” can elicit sensitivities to space, which can be likened to the leading and repelling tendencies in the notes of a musical scale. Pythagoras spoke of syneasthesia as an aesthetic union of the senses, which he related to experiences of the Greater Harmony. Could this also be related to our striving for the realization of unity?
Bio: Wayne England is an accomplished multi-award winning artist, visual effects supervisor and Creative Director. He is the Founder of Spatial Harmonics Inc. (a creative agency), based in Los Angeles, California. Spatial Harmonics is a visual music brand. A thought leader in the bourgening new realms of immersive visualized musical experience, his background includes graduate studies as a dual masters in Music Composition and Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts, with spaciic focus upon synesthesia.
