Written by Eric S. Shi, 2022-05-14
《Capriccio • Mankind, Singularity, and Beyond》connotates the thoughts on the relationship of human civilization vs. Earth civilization vs. interstellar civilization. The work manifests itself in two folds: (1) the painting jointly done by Eric Shi and ESAG (i.e., Eric Shi Art Generator); and (2) the music piece jointly done by Eric Shi and ESMC (i.e., Eric Shi Music Composer). Both the painting and the music may be conceptually divided into three sections.
The music piece starts with an introductory bar of piano at moderato, followed by the emergence of the first violin motif at andante cantabile. The first section runs from bar-1 to bar-46. It goes from soothing violin solo to violin-piano duet with an increasingly quickened pace (moving from andante into allegro), recapping the accelerated progress of human civilization from hunting and gathering through agricultural and industrial until today. In the painting, this progress is depicted by the majestic sunset scene on the lower 1/3 of the canvas. The bright sunlight over the sea, corresponding to the increasingly resounding progression of the music towards bar-46, highlights the brilliant technological achievement attained so far by human civilization.
The second section of the music score starts with a single twelve-tone chord (all in the treble) at the bar- 47 and ends with a string of eight-tone chords (i.e., four in the treble and the other four in the bass) at bars-57 and 58. The thundery twelve-tone-chord signals the arrival of the singularity of human civilization development. Between bar-48 and bar-56, different sub-motifs enter at various times, disturbing the coherence of the overall music progression, depicting different interest groups in nations, and countries of conflicting ideologies, racing against one another competing for technological supremacy. This is likely a dreadful and disastrous period in real life, and many ugly things may happen. However, further elaboration on any of these is beyond the scope of a small 3-minute-long music piece. So,《Capriccio • Mankind, Singularity, and Beyond》decides simply to wrap up the second section with a string of eight-tone-chords, signaling a series of explosive events. Such explosive events are likely inevitable for the history of tomorrow to terminate the dreadful and disastrous infightings and subversions within the human race and to allow reshaping and sublimation of the human civilization into an interstellar civilization to take place. In the painting, all these stated by the second section of the music are depicted by the spaceship hovering above the Earth sky, on the middle 1/3 of the canvas.
In the last section of the score, the music starts with a momentary busy-and-chaotic search for direction at bars-59 and 60 but quickly converges into a coherent and epical melody. The solo violin travels through strings of high notes at a pace slowing down gradually from allegro through andante, and eventually ending at largo, mimicking the "Doppler effect" as the spaceship leaves Earth's orbit and accelerates further into the depth of the vast universe (cf. the nebula painted on the top 1/3 of the canvas).
Human civilization (homo sapiens based) is only a chapter of the Earth civilization; the Earth civilization will be a chapter of a broader interstellar civilization. The first half of this statement has been true so far, and the whole will likely be proven in the future. The best we can hope is that there are some good elements in the legacy of human civilization that will enable them to survive and sustain in the posthuman eras. It is the hope and dream of the 《Capriccio • Mankind, Singularity, and Beyond》that we, the likeminded in the human race, carry forward those good elements during our times, leaving something worthwhile for the posthuman civilizations to carry with them into the deep space, just as the first motif echoes in the bar-78 to bar-87 of the epical melody, in section 3 of the music.
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