The term apocalypse has become a standard part of the
vocabulary of
modern society. Politicians warn of a nuclear apocalypse. Ecologists
describe the apocalyptic effects of pollution and abuse of the
environment. These physical apocalyptic phenomena act as a surface,
beneath which lies a fascination for or even a need for some kind of
major ending - an ending that functions as a means of purification,
transformation and rebirth, or as from the extremes of post modern
philosophy, an absolute ending, irrevocably final, for example, the
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's proclamation of the `end of ends'.
In a world constantly on the brink of, and undergoing, minor and major
apocalypses, the periods before and after the new millennium act as
focal points. These periods allow an intensification of multiple
simultaneous apocalyptic activity, both actual and rhetorical. Why do
humans,
particularly in western culture, feel the need to manifest such
apocalyptic activity?
Marking Time delves into the human condition with particular focus on
the nature of power, change and transformation.
Marking Time uses texts gleened from a range of
sources including: the
Bible, websites on millenarianism and prophecy, various philosophical
essays, and recent writings on apocalypticism. The concepts propounded
by the textual discourses are used as springboards for musical
structures. Musical gestures and textual discourses complement and
influence each other to facilitate understanding. Marking Time treats
the subject of apocalypse with a mixture of humour and sincerity.
The composition incorporates a range of sonic
elements, including
extensive use of spoken and sung text, non linear narrative structures,
improvisation, electro acoustics, found sounds, and highly structured
musical sections. The artists involved in the project each have a very
unique performance language, which they present with a high degree of
virtuosity. Materials that were used in the final work were generated
through a process of directed improvisation workshops in which the
artists were recorded. The resulting performances were then dissected
and recomposed using digital non linear editing software.
Textual sources include: J. Baudrillard, C. Wulf,
T. Hefferman, S.
0'Leary, H. Walpole, F. Kafka, W. Stevens, The Vedas, J. Berger, F.
Kermode, L. Quinby, M. Foucalt, L.J. Lyotard, The Bible, William Blake.
Composition,
musical direction, production, electronics and digital editing by
Robert Iolini with:
Amanda Stewart & Michele Morgan - voice
Jim Denley - saxophones, flutes, flax
Phillip Mar - saxophones, electric guitar and bass, violin
Recorded at ABC studios Ultimo, Sydney, 1999
Marking Time was commissioned by the ABC audio arts program The
Listening Room. Production for TLR Sherre DeLys. Engineer - Andrea
Shabunov. Marking Time was the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation's entry for the 2000 Karl Sczuka Prize It was also included in Australian Perspecta 99 Arts
Festival. Living Here Now - Art & Politics
Released
in 2000 by
ReR Megacorp on CD iolini- Electroacoustic, Chamber
Ensemble, Soundscapes and works for radio.
CD can be purchased online from ReR Megacorp
Audio
& Transcripts
Part
1: PROPHECY
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a
cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
And he had I his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot
upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.
And cried with a loud voice , as when the lion roareth: and when he had
cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about top
write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Seal up those
things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted
up his hand to heaven.
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and
the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein
are, and the sea and the things that therein are, that there should be
time no longer.
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin
to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to
the servants his prophets.
The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed at
the end of six thousand years is true as I have heard from hell. For
the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his
guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be
consumed, and appear infinite. And holy whereas now it appears finite
and corrupt. This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual
enjoyment. But first the notion that a man has a body as distinct from
his soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method. By corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying infinite
which was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed and everything
would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up
until he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
X-Files, Sightings, Independence Day, Contact. The prophecies tell us .
Men in Black. 2012. 22 December 2012. Armageddon
200 miles away Deep Impact 2 = 4 + 8 = 12, 12, 12 month in the year, 12
inches in a foot. Asteroid. The number 12 itself. 1, 2….
Recalculate Number 13 is magically important. Everywhere on the tenth
day the Third Sign comes……..
Many of you know already what's going to happen. It is not a negative
event.
There will be signs. The first sign was famine that will not be spread
worldwide. Many of you know already. If you look at Africa, we've heard
of these things worldwide, yet we did nothing about them. It is not a
negative event. The Second Sign was when you begin to see life around
you change in form. This planet is not going to be destroyed. This
planet is not going to be without living beings. The Second Sign was
shown to us just last year. And it began with the frogs; now it's into
the chickens, the cows, the sheep and into a lot of the plants and
vegetables that we eat. This planet is not going to be destroyed. That
was the deformity, the deformity that comes through in three and five
legs. six and eight fingers, legs that aren't there, hearts that aren't
there, This planet is not going to be without living beings.
Space weather is going to get worse.
Reliance on thousands of chips and millions of lines of computer code
could make nuclear weapons especially vulnerable. Space weather is
going to get worse. Solar cycle 23 and 19 19
19……. It is not a negative event. Rework the
figures. Recalculate. Solar cycle 23 is expected to reach its maximum
strength around 2000. The Rapture. Recalculate. Rework the figures.
Revelations Recalculate. Rework the figures.
That's if asteroid1997 XF11 hits planet terra nova and misses us. It
will be a win win situation for many. Rework the figures. It could be
seen as the purification that was necessary to proceed to the next
evolution of Earth's existence. Other members of earth's population
will be drawn back to the church and religion of their choice in mass
numbers. The power of prayer. Divine intervention. Of course there will
be new churchs and new religions.
Satan-Prince of the Powers of the Air, Lord of those that Fly,
Intelligence behind UFO manifestations and alien
encounters….
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his
guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be
consumed…
Your dead ones shalt live, my dead body; they shall rise up. Awake and
sing, dust dwellers; for the dew of light is your dew; and the earth
shall cast out the rapha (to be judged). Come My people, go in your
rooms and shut your doors behind you. Hide for a little moment, until
the fury passes. For, behold Jehovah comes out of His place to visit
iniquity on the dweller of the earth.
Part
2: ANTI - APOCALYPSE
without horizon without hope Imagination reigns entangled in a
rhetoric of ruins and speed the question
remains no return the question
remains and comes back the explosion has
already occurred
the end
of ends the pole of
reckoning la fin de la fin the passion for
meaning no meaning. what
more do you want? feedback no return la la la la
it is useless to
dream everything is
retroactive retroactive what more do you
want? .........a theory
of narrative, positing a universal urge on the part
of finite human being to imagine the end of the story in which they
find themselves always in the middle.
what more do you want?
human beings
imagining the end of the story……. The imagination
stands always at the end of an era in which they find
themselves…. truth, power,
ethics, power always in the
middle what more do you
want? what more do you
want? what more do you
want?
the idea that ones
life is a work of art, that one's existence is a
process of self-creativity, runs counter to both Christian
prescriptions for the salvation of the soul and human sciences
prescriptions for the normality of the individual
the imagination
stands always at the end of an era
the question
remains and comes back: what can be the limits of
demystification No doubt one can think - I think this - that this
demystification must be led as far as possible, and the task is not
modest. It is interminable because no one can exhaust the
over-determinations and in-determinations of the apocalyptic stratagems
What more do you
want? What more do you want? What more do you want?
Part 3: TIME
How
can a human being, within his restricted life-span, cope with the
fact that the world is expanding beyond historic time and beyond the
temporality of nature into a virtual infinity, with the discrepancy
between the potentiality of an individual life and the general time
limits of the world at large becoming intolerable. Time's new
dimensions have thrust individual lives with their limited
timespans into meaninglessness. On the one hand, a cosmos extended to
incomprehensible limits with its corresponding time dimensions; on the
other, a life stretching over a mere seventy to eighty years. The
dimensions of time as we knew them have suddenly been smashed and the
expanse of ether has become visible. Humanities need
for time has become boundless. The time
dimensions of the world and those of the individual human
being have once and for all been separated from each other. Where does the
history of humanity begin? Where does it end? The history of
humanity is swallowed up by the history of life and of
nature. In this regard, too, human beings experience that sense of
being lost in time. Only our concept
of Time makes it possible to speak of the day of
judgement by that name; in reality it is a summary court in perpetual
session. Throughout
history those who have sought to mold humanity's activity to
their purposes have recognised that action in the world is constrained
and made possible through particular constructions of Time, that an age
belongs to those who have (or can seize) the power to define it. Human beings
cannot comprehend infinity; they do not even possess the
power to grasp the enormous time dimensions of the finite world. It is extremely
difficult to avoid seeing the history of humanity as a
history of progress, although a certain view of history has repeatedly
arisen according to which the "Golden Age" is to be found at the
beginning of the history of humanity, the periods after this being
considered, rather, as periods of decline. Historical
development was usually conceived as the history of the
expansion of humanity's reasoning powers. We, today, are
increasingly experiencing the indifference of time
towards
the reasoning powers of both the individual and the whole of humanity. ...promising an
end to time, and therefore to evil ..... Time continues
to be not only the form within which all historical
happenings take place, but itself has taken on an historical quality.
History, then, no longer takes place within the framework of time, for
time has become a dynamic power in history itself. The faculty for
memory has become the very centre of the conflict
between an individuals time dimension's and those of the world. The complete
cycle is terminated by a dissolution, which is repeated
more intensely at the end of the thousandth cycle. .....And then
everything will begin over again - ad infinitum. …….a
perpetual calendar of humanity anxiety and
of humanity hopes………
