Audience instructions:

To perceive this piece, please use the Weighted Pitch Network/Harmony-Building Method (applied to more dimensions than just harmony), explained below:
In order to use this method, an audience member mentally builds a network of associations between pitches, hereafter referred to as the Pitch Network. One builds this Pitch Network according to pitch simultaneity: if two or more pitches occur simultaneously, those pitches become connected to each other in the Pitch Network. The Pitch Network can only be added to (at least, consciously), never removed from, and each pitch is represented by only one instance in the Pitch Network. When one (one being an audience member) physically hears a pitch, one should imagine the pitches that are connected to it in the Pitch Network. And if a pitch is closer to the physically occurring pitch(es) in the Pitch Network, then one should perceive it as more “physical,” i.e. one should imagine it to a more convincing degree. Though the Pitch Network is built as one hears the piece linearly from beginning to end, at each moment the Pitch Network is consistent throughout the entire timeline of the piece; in other words, whenever a new connection is built in the present Pitch Network, it is also built in all past and future Pitch Networks of the piece. So, whenever one updates the Pitch Network, one should also update one’s memory of pitches imagined in the past.

In addition to this webpage, make the following SoundCloud track visible on the computer screen, but muted:
https://soundcloud.com/dezra-1/leveler/s-3aYAR?fbclid=IwAR3dGbzy6TjkLKmAI2aKvE7LDNkQeQsajsdBBoxtFvDaymX29EO0X2Gogro

Enter 3 possible overall opinions of a piece of art, then click “Submit” and start the YouTube video and SoundCloud track (pseudo-)simultaneously.
Two or three of the 3 submitted opinions will appear at different times during the piece — please adopt and express these opinions about the YouTube video, by commenting on the SoundCloud track. In the center of the YouTube video, words describing foods will appear — during the appearance of each word or group of words, please imagine tasting the corresponding food.

Commentary:

Here Be Dragons is based on the structure of a thought experiment, in which one imagines an impossible or unlikely scenario in order to explore new experiential territory and thus gain new insights. The audience applies my Harmony-Building Method (described below) to sound, visuals, taste, and touch in order to physically perceive and imagine objects in those mediums. The content gradually becomes more complex and takes further advantage of ambiguities of the Harmony-Building Method to increase demand and decrease guidance of the audience’s imagining. This creates chaotically innovative content and form, and allows the audience to possibly experience the feverish energy of New Complexity from the performer’s perspective. As another way of applying the concept of a thought experiment, each audience member adopts and defends instructed opinions of the piece at certain times. This encourages them to explore more fully perspectives of this piece that they would otherwise not consider.

The audience’s critiquing on a SoundCloud track brings to light the role that others’ (published and unpublished) opinions play in one’s perception of an artwork, encourages the audience to be actively engaged in the piece, and makes unlikely (and actually misguided) interpretations of the SoundCloud track available to listeners who are unaware of Here Be Dragons.

During the last 30 seconds of the piece, almost all of the content remains static. By this time in the piece, the network of associations (from the Harmony-Building Method) connecting parameters between and within different mediums are very complex and strong. Because of this, the audience member is probably rapidly re-adjusting her or his imagined content, which is too extensive to perceive all at once. This creates an interesting juxtaposition between mental turbulence and physical stasis.

This piece also explores new ways of perceiving time, including nonlinear time in which the audience can change the past, present, and future through the use of the Harmony-Building Method; subjective time in which the audience actively re-imagines the formal structure of the piece; frozen time in which my colleague “dezra,” while using my digital instrument to create his SoundCloud track Leveler, tries to perceive no passage of time; and recorded time in which an audience member, by defending her or his opinions through comments on the SoundCloud track, converses with people whose side of the discussion was recorded through the SoundCloud track at some earlier time.

Additionally, the spatial sound phenomenon of a virtual sound source being perceived between two speakers is applied to visual spatialization, and the concept of different blending modes of visuals is applied to sound mixing.

This piece is intentionally short in an effort to encourage the audience to be more engaged.