Alvin Lucier's natural resonant frequencies

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am writing on this page, trying to articulate my thoughts on Alvin

Lucier. Also, I suppose, trying to communicate the basic fact implied

by the existence of any recording, on stone or paper or magnetic

tape--that another present existed, and this was made then, and

there.

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am writing on this page, trying to articulate my thoughts on Alvin

Lucier. Writing the phrase, and the name Lucier, ghost fragments of

silvery undulating pure resonance suggest themselves to my ear, and

goose bumps rise up on my arm. Darkness, and space, and echoes, and

silvery Lucier bubbles up, just from writing the phrase. I regard

this not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as

evidence of a neural recording of my intense physical and emotional

reaction to Alvin Lucier's

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am writing on this page, trying to articulate my thoughts on Lucier.

I am recording my thoughts, articulated by speech, with the hope they

will reinforce themselves and gain some resonance. Perhaps if I do

this, again and again, and every time my mind wanders I simply start

over...

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am recording my thoughts, articulated by speech, about Alvin

Lucier. I am trying to write them down, again and again, hoping their

natural resonant frequencies reinforce themselves, and all semblance

of my speech, leaving pure forms of thought, is destroyed. What you

will have then, will not be a physical fact, but a way to smooth over

the differences between thought and speech, between right now in my

head and the moment you read this in yours.

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am recording my thoughts, articulated by speech, about Alvin

Lucier. I am growing bored of this process, and simply want to tell

you: do this live, in the room you where are, right now. Record the

sound of your speaking voice and play it back into the room, again

and again, until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce

themselves so that any semblance of your speech is destroyed. It is

different from understanding the process and hearing the recording.

As a demonstration of a physical fact, the room comes alive around

you, tuning you to the internal logic of its existence.

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am recording my thoughts, articulated by speech, about Alvin

Lucier. Once I breathed life into a large globe, exhaling once and

then hearing the globe inhale, again and again, reinforcing its

natural resonant frequencies until the breath became its own.

Squashes also work well, coming to life with a chorus of resonances

animating spongy flesh.

I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now.

I am recording my thoughts, articulated by speech, about Alvin

Lucier. James Fei once told me that Lucier would run the other

direction if I suggested his works had anything to do with Marx. When

I met Alvin Lucier at Mills I asked him about the importance of the

text to I am Sitting in a Room. He couldn't remember the name of the

dancer he borrowed the idea from, the idea of literally describing

what you are doing as you are doing it. I’ll always remember his name,

and his turtleneck, so perhaps it is ok that I borrow his process

for extracting resonant frequencies to my own Marxist ends. The

spongy squash chorus sounds best driven by the sound of the grumbly

tractor driven by the human smoothing out any irregularities in the

land- a different land from the one you are in now- a land labored

over again and again until man reinforces nature and any semblance

of alienated labor is destroyed; and a squash sings of the hand that

made it, the hand that feeds you that you have never seen, the labor

immanent to its spongy flesh, its natural resonant frequencies the

silvery transcendence of commodity fetishization.