3125 - Mankind and Time XIV

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Evi Charitidou

The domination of space on time is not a fiction. It is one of society’s characteristics. For, its components, i.e. people are incapable of visualizing time. Yet, perceiving time is essential to comprehend Mankind. Human beings are nothing but pieces of time; thus, perceiving time is nothing but awareness. The paradox is that music, which is one of Mankind’s most ancient arts, is essentially temporal not perceptible, though. It is difficult unless one is a musician or rather a compositor to see a symphony’s architecture; even if this is designed in a classical way like a cathedral. It is difficult to move around in it as we would in a cathedral. For average audience there is essentially only one distance to cover in an absolutely linear hierarchy. However, this framework is not a tourist guide’s one; it does not either correspond to the compositor’s one. Moreover, if the cathedral is of Antoni Gaudi’s type, then perception of music de facto becomes literally imperceptible. For, listening to the music is a way of looking at time. This art, which according to Leonardo Da Vinci, dies at the moment that it is born, represents a real way to get deeper into time. Nevertheless, time has also been so structure-wise ill-treated that its degeneration not only is it useless, but harmful as well. For, by transforming music into noise we cannot reach time any longer. The Brown movement takes precedence over mental space created by temporal structure. Associating music with mathematics allows us to go even deeper into temporal creations. This allows us to make not only analyses, but also syntheses. So, it is surprising how little music is used by society, at least since we we do not comprehend society’s conceptual framework. In fact, as music even from the past could be played in future, it behaves like intelligence. So, it is necessary for society to keep it on a leash so that music may not endanger society. To do this, it takes advantage of mass media to transform quality of music to music of quantity. This is what made any structural research disappear, because what is important for society is to exploit its own capacity as it wishes. One of the marvelous applications- if we are allowed to use this expression – of consumer society, is to use classical music in supermarkets so that people are urged to buy products. Thus, even though music is not degenerated as such, it is by its role. By modifying its teleology society affects music’s ontology. In any case, music has become an art in danger because of interventions of the masses aiming at preventing themselves from temporal bifurcations.