The Assignment: Record a piece of music intended for an alien species.
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, February 25, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 21, 2019.
Tracks will be added to the playlist for the duration of the project.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0373: Copernican Music
The Assignment: Record a piece of music intended for an alien species.
This week’s project was made as a proposition by the artist Jonathon Keats:
Step 1: Compose a work of music for sentient beings elsewhere in the universe. Aside from sentience, assume nothing about your audience culturally or cognitively. Make a connection by modulating frequency and amplitude over time.
Step 2: Share your work with the cosmos.
Here’s some additional background from Keats on his general premise: “Science is Copernican, but society remains Ptolemaic. Our behavior is self-centered. Our culture is bigoted, our politics tribal. Society needs a Copernican revolution. If we are to survive, we need to recognize that we are not special. If we are to have a peaceful relationship with one another and our planet, we must become humble. A Copernican revolution is achievable, but will not be accomplished through scientific education alone. Only culture has the potential to put us in touch with our cosmic insignificance, and to bring about a cultural paradigm shift. The Copernican revolution in culture will be realized with Copernican music.”
And here’s some additional background from Keats on his Copernican music: “Copernican music affords the opportunity to encounter something that we cannot directly experience, but that could potentially be experienced by beings other than us. It provides a means of getting outside of ourselves. We recognize that we are not special, that our position is not privileged. We perceive ourselves as average. Simultaneously we find ourselves to be part of a continuum, and therefore part of something greater than ourselves. This adjustment to our ego can change our behavior by making us less self-centered, more aware of others, and more aware of our larger selves.”
The image associated with this project is from one of Keats’ own instruments related to his Copernican artwork, a gravitational radio. Photo credit: Dora Tsui.
More information on Keats at this space.com interview:
https://space.com/41258-communicating-with-aliens-music-art-project.html
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0373” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0373” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0373-copernican-music/
Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, February 25, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on. It was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, February 21, 2019.
Length: The length is up to you. Short is good.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0373” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: Please for this project be sure to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).
For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:
More on this 373rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Copernican Music / The Assignment: Record a piece of music intended for an alien species — at:
https://disquiet.com/0373/
This week’s project was made as a proposition by the artist Jonathon Keats.
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0373-copernican-music/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
The image associated with this project is from one of Keats’ own instruments related to his Copernican artwork, a gravitational radio. Photo credit: Dora Tsui.
