The Blue Key
Extremely rare events such as the 2020 conjunction are generative of conspiracy theories. One of my favorite films by David Lynch is Mulholland Drive . One of the scenes involves the mysterious appearance of a Blue Key. Ever since its release there has been lots of speculation about the meaning of this object. One of the most interesting things in art is ambiguity; One of the most interesting things in science is empiricism and certainty. When we don't have all the facts, we ascribe possible meanings. Back in the 1990s, I experimented with random systems. It was called Atmosphere Generation , and consisted of playing a set of ~40 audio files in three separate systems set on random play. For example, I would start player 1 on track 3, player 2 on track 27, player 3 on track 10. As they ran on shuffle play, the triple-stereo surround-sound environment with six speakers would create a swirling atmosphere in the room. I designed the sound “universe” by ...
