The Age of Asymmetry

Tim Morton

The essence is elsewhere

There is no essence

There is an essence right here, yet withdrawn

Caspar David Friedrich, The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Hegel’s Aesthetics

Symbolic object > spirit

Classical object = spirit

Romantic object < spiritAge of Asymmetry (object = spirit)

∧(object ≠ spirit)

Romantic Phase

chromaticism

Mahler

narrative

equal temperament piano

Anthropocene

Into Asymmetry

piano

John Cage

La Monte Young

just intonation

Anthropocene

Piano as Object

Bridget Riley, Fall

La Monte Young, The Well-Tuned Piano

The Age of Asymmetry

The Age of Asymmetry

“They were going to make me a major for this, and I wasn't even in their Army anymore” Apocalypse Now

“The vicissitudes of this life are like drowning in a glass pond” Chögyam Trungpa

The Age of Asymmetry

MAD

rhapsode Ion

Demon

weakness the capacity to tune

Weakness

“Well, what's your name?” you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. “And where do you live?” “No fixed abode,” he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. Kafka

Weakness

Some say the word Odradek is of Slavonic origin, and try to account for it on that basis. Others again believe it to be of German origin, only influenced by Slavonic. The uncertainty of both interpretations allows one to assume with justice that neither is accurate, especially as neither of them provides an intelligent meaning of the word. Kafka