Imagine a massive, utilitarian room, with a high skeletal
ceiling, eerily empty but for a round, slightly elevated platform covered in
white cloth that sits starkly in the center. Imagine white chairs that sit low
to the ground, arranged in concentric circles around on the platform with sound
equipment placed indelicately in the center. Imagine entering this room, being
asked to take off your shoes and to put a white cloak over your head. You blend
with the hundreds of other white-cloaked figures who are beginning to take
their seats, and in that moment you lose your identity. You sit, curious and
uncertain of what will happen. All you know is that you are about to hear a
piece of music. What you would never imagine is that you might walk away having
your mind intimately and profoundly altered. You would never imagine that a
piece of music—a work of art—could change your life.
This is Oktophonie,
the electronic musical layer from one opera within an operatic cycle by German
composer Karlheinz Stockhausen entitled Licht
(Light). The set of seven operas, composed between 1977 and 2003, are named
for the seven days of the week. The technical structures embedded in the music
are difficult to conceptualize. This isn’t a normal opera—the work is played
entirely on synthesizers. The recent
installation and performance of the work at the Park Avenue Armory in New York
City enabled listeners to truly step inside the music. There is a narrative —Oktophonie is taken from Dienstag (Tuesday), which focuses on the
conflict between the archangel Michael and Lucifer.
I could go into greater detail, explaining how Stockhausen’s
music evokes cosmic and cataclysmic violence, but to do so would deny the truth
of my experience when I saw this work during spring break. I attempted to focus
on nonexistent melodic threads; I attempted to form a narrative that slowly
escaped my grasp; I attempted to stem the rush of insistent thoughts about the
utterly mundane—all to no avail. I cursed myself for drinking coffee before the
performance and deliberately closed my eyes anyway. The swirling sounds that
clashed and died down finally lulled me to sleep.
When I woke the lights were slowing coming up and I felt as
if I were coming out of a trance. My friends had stunned looks on their faces.
I saw others waking up, glancing around nervously. The light grew until the
white of our robes and the white of the platform were blinding, and suddenly Oktophonie was over.
We stumbled out of the armory, wondering if we had just
inadvertently joined a cult, or at least been brainwashed by one (our
suspicions were not helped by the complimentary wine offered in the lounge
outside). I was shaken—what had happened? As I talked with everyone else and we
shared our impressions, I began to realize that we had experienced something
extraordinary.
It’s strange that I
speak now with such praise for a work of art in which I was incredulous, bored,
and did my best to resist—and yet. And yet. Oktophonie
forced me to face a void—in time, in memory, in space, and ultimately within
myself. What happens to the human mind when it encounters something it cannot
understand? I looked inside myself and recognized fear of the unknown, fear of
isolation, and the intense relief of connection and common experience. Oktophonie allowed for both internal
accessibility and an intimate encounter with the sublime. It challenged my
control over my body as the boundary between art and life was ruptured,
creating a continuum of chaotic beauty and horror. I faced the universe in
those 70 minutes, and I lost my mind.
Oktophonie is a
piece of revolutionary art, partly because of its technical, experimental, and
conceptual prowess, but mostly because it dislodged something inside me,
releasing a torrent of thoughts and emotions that have forced me to reconsider what
is important to me. This art turned me on, allowed me to access parts of myself
that are difficult to tap into. While the experience itself was uncomfortable,
the aftermath has created a spark within me, reminding me what passion feels
like and revitalizing my desire for intellectual vitality and challenge.
As much as I try to convey my emotions and thoughts
surrounding Oktophonie, ultimately I
am left with a few scribblings in a slightly worn notebook and my memories. I
am left only with questions that have no answer. What does it mean to embrace discomfort? What
does it mean to experience, both communally and in isolation? What does it mean
to be a human, and to negotiate this strange thing called life?
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