Blind
obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
Albert Einstein
I
can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm
frightened of the old ones.
John Cage
To
make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the
science of liberty.
Joseph Beuys
DEO is another name for the Greek goddess
Demeter, who is also related to Ceres, goddess of liberty, and
to Liber Pater, god of wine and liberty.
The word Demeter has its ancient etymological origins in the
Indo European *met, which indicated the idea of mother, of a
generating element, of creative energy, and which was related
to matter and mind, from which these words originated.
On the other hand, the Indo European root *D indicated the idea
of light and generated our word "god" (deus in Latin).
For the philologist and scholar of the classical world Martin
Litchfield West, who lived between 1937 and 2015, Demeter would
result from the fusion of da- (meaning "earth") and
-matura (meaning "mother").
In India, the earth-goddess is Bhumi, also known as Prithvi or
Prithvi Mata, meaning 'the Vast One'.
So we could understand DEO as the earth-goddess a goddess
of matter and mind.
We are rarely aware that we are the Earth! About 60% of our bodies
are made up of beings with non-human DNA. We are colonies of
many different beings. Our skins are covered with them. When
we feel an emotion, for example, it is bacteria in our intestines
that produce a large part of our neurotransmitters responsible
for what we feel.
To leave the Earth means to expand it.
Our way of thinking is directly related to the Earth, to Nature.
This reminds me of two moments in Krishnamurti's thought: "It
is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and therefore
to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have
passion for all things, not just between two people, but for
all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the
trees - everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion
we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now and we will
have no wars. (...) All life is a movement in relationship. There
is no living thing on earth which is not related to something
or other".
Therefore, the individual is and is not, separation exists and
does not exist - revealing the logic of the universe of quantum
physics.
Thus, when we admire Nature, we are admiring ourselves, because
what we see is what we are.
But none of this happens when there is no thought. And when that
happens, conflicts of all kinds emerge, war, races against races,
duels between brothers, friends, parents, children, and so on
- just as happens in the forest when the zero-sum game dominates.
Only when there is thought, civis, is there liberty - because
thought implies knowledge of the other.
That is the first nature of Deo.
And that is the primary sign of liberty.
That is why Demeter is closely related to earth, spring, love,
wine, peace, liberty, wisdom and knowledge.
When we look around us, what is the nature of order that stands
out? The answer lies in an order of a teleological nature - it
is the cars, streets, houses, human-made objects, popular music,
manufactured objects - all obedient to a teleological strategy,
of a strongly hierarchical nature. Think of something as simple
as a table. It is basically a tabletop and three or four feet.
Something that has been teleologically "thought out"
for its function. Go to the movies: the movie you watched was
made for a purpose, articulating everything to communicate something
in terms of a hierarchical order designed by the human. The same
is true of practically everything that surrounds us. Everything
is intentionally elaborated to achieve an end.
Whenever this happens, there is a dramatic decrease in what we
call intelligence, which implies diversity and discovery. Everything
being intentionally hierarchical and leading to expected ends,
expected functions, everything becomes entertainment.
Entertainment is the absence of thought, as was the case in the
Nazi universe or in any other kind of totalitarianism. It eliminates
critical vision, the capacity to react to authoritarian determinations
- entertainment produces the obedient and blind mass of sheep.
Critical vision implies knowledge and liberty. This reminds me
of a thought by Albert Einstein when, in 1933, he said, "I
cannot understand the passive reaction of the entire civilized
world to this modern barbarism. Can't the world see that Hitler's
goal is war?!" - it should be emphasized: Einstein said
that in 1933! Isn't this somehow exactly what we are living today,
when the elements of liberty are daily suppressed in the name
of a supposed good of all? What could be the result with the
end of liberty but totalitarianism and war? How can we understand
the passive reaction of the entire civilized world?
Therefore, more than forty years ago I started to question this
logical principle that makes almost everything that is material
and that constitutes us as humans, as unconscious, always possess
a strongly hierarchical, similar and teleological logical nature
- leading to the annulment of difference and, in this way, of
consciousness and thought. I started elaborating paratactic logical
structures, by coordination, which trigger a process of perception
and cognition that follow the principle of Chaos Theory, and
which determine, therefore, a different logical universe, unchaining
a process of self-knowledge, of questioning, of criticism.
Only difference produces consciousness - and by this means, the
conflict of two different logical orders, triggers a state of
consciousness.
This is the ultimate meaning of Deo: thought.
When one is faced with a different logical order, he or she has
the contradictory sensation of "already knowing" and
"strangeness".
DEO is a composition for transverse flute solo, composed in 2021
as part of the larger project entitled L like Liberty, which
is made up of movies, concerts, texts, images and so on.
All musical notes were set according to chance operations in
a stochastic system. I started from a piece by Erik Satie and
the process resulted in a transformation of the old order of
sounds.
The new order leads to a new state.
The world premiere of DEO took place at Casa della Musica in
Bolognano, in the mountains of Abruzzo, Italy, in October 2021.
The recording of DEO at Casa della Musica,
created with Lucrezia De Domizio more than twenty years ago,
in the year 2000, was a version for two transverse flutes, both
played by me.
The score of DEO allows the performer to freely choose the order
of the pages, and in the case of two or more flutes playing together,
one must not know the order of the other.
Emanuel Dimas de Melo PimentaLocarno 2022
.................................................................................................................................................
Casa della MusicaEmanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta2019Bolognanophoto by Emanuel Pimenta1999Joseph Beuys Square andPalace Duriniphoto by Emanuel Pimenta 2019Bolognanophoto by Emanuel Pimenta2019Lucrezia De Domizio,Baroness Durini celebratingat Palace Durini, 2019Joseph Beuys' house inBolognanophoto by Emanuel Pimenta 1999Giorgo d'Orazio, EmanuelPimenta and Lucrezia De Domizioat Joseph Beuys Museum2019