Monday, 26 July 2021

Hyborian Bridge 182

Logical mutations of order produce monstrosities, is an interpretation of "BEM" (P180). There is a hidden side to order which is that mutations occur purely randomly to create monstrosities. Castle Radium's schizophrenic delusions are actually very real.

DNA is a signpost for the modern dilemma - like AI - since that is the age we live in. The ego is attracted to the facilities of logic, and steps inside the mirror of illusions where resides the profane serpent of endless mutations.

Where "land developers" represent real estate and money (the wormdollar), architecture in its primal condition represents balance and proportion - the Greek temple 

While a framework of logic enables many mini-mutations, and the modern monstrosity, a disordered framework has an internal logic of desire.

Disorder simply means lack of an overall plan that has a logical basis; the only rules are balance and proportion.

A man who knows his way there can defy all the police of India"s summer capital, so cunningly does veranda communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way, and bolt-hole with bolt-hole..

Together they set off through the mysterious dusk, full of the noises of a city below the hillside, and the breath of a cool wind in deodar-crowned Jakko, shouldering the stars. The house lights, scattered on every level, made, as it were, a double firmament. (page 214,217 Kim.)

Of course, these scenic townscapes that blend into landscape are familiar from Hyborian settings. The situation allows for psyche, in that desire and free-expression (dance, sleep, rhythm) are enabled in a disordered framework that a logical one mutates into monstrosity.

The monster in "BEM" is just the other side of the striving for order in society. It becomes more obvious where "smart-buildings" act like programmable DNA and mutate at the expense of the ability to soothe the psyche.

The psyche is the missing element of modernity. Where Yimsa is calming to the psyche in its quaint proportions and odd lighting effects, modern buildings act as efficient programs.

The reason for this is again that AI is a signpost of modernity. The heads that are attracted to AI are the standard-bearers of modern design (as with Apple.)

This is partly why I previously said the psychic intoxication of Charlotte Perriand (P179) seems more suited to retro-futurism than futurism per se. The retro trending Japan being one of her influences.

In the modern sense, the Japanese strike one as schizophrenically conservative while pursuing futuristic dreams. These retro-elements also hark back to the 60s, as this quote from Grace Slick's memoir makes clear.

As you walk onto the dance floor, you have the feeling you've just entered seven different centuries all thrown together in one room. The interior of the building is turn-of-the-century rococo, and a man in red briefs and silver body paint is handing out East India incense.  A girl in full Renaissance drag is spinning around by herself listening to some Baroque music in her head, while several people in jeans and American Indian headbands are sitting in.a circle on the floor smoking weed. (page 97).

While there is a standard "type" of modern head, those halcyon days would invoke native Indian lore in the same breath as Art Nouveau and Baroque.

The monetary system of information in resolved space (straight-lines) has the effect of using money to create convincing spaces that are prone to mini-mutations with no food for the psyche.

On a personal basis, in bygone days I frequented Aberdeen University Student Union (near Upperkirkgate), a fantastical  warren of a building in the granite city.

As one's eyes adjusted to the dark hall, lit here and there by dull pools of white-green fluorescent light, it wasn't hard to reimagine the reckless abandon and cathartic expression that the Union provided for its student body; the smell of alcohol seemed to still linger in the air, on the carpets and floorboards, consuming much of the open space at Sivel's Bar which operated in the largest, mural-covered hall.. (Our Abandoned Union, The Gaudie )

An epic rumble, with the apparent claymore, put a finish to the vaulted presincts as a den of dubious delights. The abandoned shell has been replaced by a student "Hub" of the sort that resembles a school canteen.

The logic of desire - which is food for the psyche - has been replaced by purely functional requirements.

This is the logic of the modern order that convinces the ego while ushering-in mini-mutations of monstrosity. With the psyche weakened, belief in information replaces the cosmic-oneness of a disordered state, a frayed tapestry of stars and human destiny, kismet.