page.layout: post page.title: Tore Us Not Apart, But Tore Us Around page.date: 2021-06-25 00:00:00 +0000 page.url ⛓️: /2021/06/25/1-tore-us-not-apart-but-torus-around/ page.content_id: 8 page.author: Tyler page.type: Autofiction page.ascii: * page.x: 3 page.y: 24 page.class: red page.attributes: mapcore, exposition
We awoke ensconced in a warm fog.
“The Vactrol Mist,” someone only half said.
For we had each been split in two!
A kitten meows -
STOP! Fre(ez)e time. Capture it. Be present for a single moment and:
Imagine the meow, but 3D-printed. It might look something like a crystalline sphere: a dense latticework of self-similar patterns at the core expanding in all directions to the “fuzzy” outer reaches of silence. Come to think of it, the sphere is perhaps more of a torus, for the kitten sits in the center thereby dampening the sound.
This torus, in this single moment in time represents a single, infinitesimally small slice of the meow. A bit rate of infinity.
Now, in your mind, move forward a single, infinitesimally small moment into the future. The torus has changed. Those crystalline structures each swam along their own invisible parabolic vectors. Always away and never null. These structures are made from differing densities of nothing. (Air.)
Slice the torus in two, like an onion. Dip the onion in red paint and press it to the wall. Gently though! There are some very fine lines that are very close to one another! Even though this is paint, it is now the sound.
Now, in your mind, release time! Watch the red ring dance on the wall as the meow grows in volume. The ring disappears to nothingness as the meow tapers off to silence. Let this blinking meow play in a pleasant loop.
Now, see things as they really are.
This blinking ring on the wall (that is not the sound (but also is the sound)) is a computer screen. Freezing and releasing time is my thumb on the space-bar key.
Unfortunately, my thumb was also on the other side of the room. We had been sliced in half, just as audio. Perhaps we had become audio. Indeed, at least one of us was in “AUDIO ONLY” mode just a few moments ago…
This is the level of abstraction the synthesist must work with if they wish to use their eyes.
This is the level of abstraction the synthesist must work with if they wish to use their eyes: a blinking ring on the wall. It is perhaps the most remarkable piece of synesthetic technology in existence. But for some tasks, it is suited not.
The Vactrol Mist was deepening in hue. The waters of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch were choppy today. White noise foamed all around. Time felt limited, even though time was the same.
“To reconstruct ourselves,” Trent half said, “we must use OR logic.”
Certain analog sound computers allow for mathematical operations such as SUM, OR, AND. These operations all you to isolate, split, combine, and erase certain geometries of sound and voltage.
Destroying sound is easy. But can you heal it?
Can you reconstruct the sliced torus meow with its other half? With 100% accuracy? Down to the atomic tip of each fiber of silence? And, when you, finally so confident confident in your spatial precision, when you finally tap your thumb to the space-bar to fre(ez)e time again, will both halves play perfectly in precision?
Violence is simple and sudden. Convalescence requires grace.
I powered up my mapdeck and got to work reconstructing that which tore us not apart, but torus around…
