<2002-2007>
I
The aim of supermodernism is to postulate transcendence from the prevalent culture of populism; capitalist realism or commercialism; entertainment; war; or whatever category might be attached to the current modus operandi.
II
Supermodernism does not try to obliterate or disprove anything, but clearly circumvents and disengages current culture to pursue, envision and manifest a utopian notion of sound below the surface of the common building blocks of music. This is pure synthesis.
II
The model of pure electronic music contains the utopian notion of sound free from its material condition. As all natural produced sound is complex, the liberation of sound occurs through the exposition of an underlying sine tone structure, if we follow Fourier's mathematical model to describe sound. The elements of pure electronic music are therefore sine waves. All synthesis like Additive, Ring or Frequency Modulation stipulates pure synthesis.
III
Supermodernism goes beyond the transcendental principles laid out by its modernist predecessors. Supermodernism is aware of the history of pure synthesis, is aware of the a posteriori categories of a priori given principles. Perception, even if claimed as pure or conceived of outside anything that might infer perception, is still only a posteriori true. Only through perception does the world of pure utopian ideas becomes manifest. Supermodernism in this regard pays attention to becoming supermodern. This brings with it the fetishization of its origins.
IV
As pure synthesis is tied to a world of time and space to become manifest, so it is intertwined with retro-computation. In this regard, pure synthesis is properly done on data processing machines from the 1980´s, a period where the concept of digital synthesis, even the concept of the digitalization of all of society was propagated. Culturally, digital synthesis stood as a reaction against analog synthesis, which was primarily accomplished via subtractive and continuous filters. In contrast, the game sound chips and earliest FM instruments had no filters. They were not continuous but highly quantized, which led to synthesis that departed radically from analog: The synthesis model itself as a series of sequential computational steps could be heard.
V
The object of pure synthesis is always itself, as pure ideas point only to pure ideas. In post-modernism ideas point to any other idea, as anything can be connected to anything else. This of course is only a verification of current culture, as the survival mechanism of ideas is their competition for mass replication. The result is the homogenization of all culture and the suppression of utopia. Post-modernism is double redundant: It merely repeats what's already been stated both within the work as also in reference to outside ideas.
VI
Pure synthesis has often stirred the public imagination as it has been utilized by current culture as a science fiction, either as the sound of not-yet-invented machines or the music of aliens.
APPENDIX
A
If you were to put monkeys in front of typewriters, would they produce a work of Shakespeare? The answer is, of course, yes - but under one condition: It would take an almost infinite amount of time. The relationship between mathematics and art is therefore proportional, in favor of the almost impossible. All human beings die, we don't have a lot of time, so monkeys on typewriters will not give us anything that we consider Shakespearian. But human beings also realize that their very existence might have come about with the help of some monkey business.
B
On a superhuman scale a string of independent random events will produce something we consider meaningful. In this way a string of independent random events will lead us to our own unconscious whose nature we are but do not know.
C
The Grand Architect Of The Universe, a conjecture of the Freemasons, appears to play with dice since our models of the visible and quantum world show a random distribution of an unimaginable scale. Mathematics, here as in the study of proportion and the counting of time, connects us with transcendental categories, as first described by the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant.
SUMMARIUM`
Since the summer of 2002 I have been working to realize the sounds and sites of supermodernism, which so far has resulted in 59 soundtracks in various stages of completion with a total length of 6 hours 56 minutes and 04 seconds. The plan for the pure and applied electronic music of supermodernism calls for the randomization of man and machine, so that the boundary between them cannot be told with certainty. The composer operates in a subconscious or transcendental state of mind and the machine is a reflection of divine design. Parameters of sound-shaping can be subjected to the laws of a probability function. This requires time and practice as both man and machine have to be perfectly stable in the linear or empirical world before being subjected to enter the "other side". To look at it from the perspective of the machine: the IFORMM data processing instrument system was especially invented to archive these "quantum mechanical" effects in real-time. For example, the pitch and tuning of a note played on a keyboard is altered by an IFORMM random distribution and this distribution itself can be played via knobs. Looked upon from the perspective of man, which is most "monkey" when not really awake, so I only create directly to a recording medium when I'm almost asleep. All parts have to be played by the "I" and his "clones", multiple time-shifted rothkamm's playing together as one. The architectural formula of these pieces expresses a continuous sequence of events or a time-bended trip, built in such manner that while we play the next part I am a listening back to all the previous ones. This is only necessary, of course, because time does not stretch to infinity and beyond.