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Electricity
"Music is the electrical soil in which the
Spirit
lives, thinks and invents."
--Ludwig van Beethoven
This nOde
last updated December 30th, 2006 and
is permanently morphing...
(5 Caban (Earth) / 10 K'ank'in - 57/260 -
12.19.13.16.17)

"Man is beginning to wear his brain outside his
skull, his nerves outside his skin. New technology breeds new
man. When he is surrounded by electric media, he enlarges
his
nervous system, as the wheel extends
his foot, the
wired planet extends
his nerves." -
Marshall McLuhan
To make a long story short,
alchemy derived from the basic idea that
matter is alive and that we can, by manipulating matter, increase its
quality of organism and take advantage of that spiritual quality. The
first time that electricity enters the English
language is in a book by an alchemist. Often
it is described---this is more in the 17th century---in alchemical
terms: "the
ethereal fire," "the
quintessential fire," "the desiderata," or the desired quintessence of
matter. The idea in alchemy is that you take the nature of matter and
by distilling it and changing it and forcing it and fighting it, you
will create a spiritual essence from it. That essence was associated
with electricity.
- Erik Davis
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54:44
· A lexicographic sign found in dictionaries to indicate
that
a specific term belongs to the field of electricity.
The ideogram commonly used to
signify
electricity
is |
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electricity
electricity
(î-lèk-trîs´e-tê),
class of phenomena arising from the existence of CHARGE. According to
modern
theory, most ELEMENTARY PARTICLES of matter possess charge, either
positive
or negative. Two particles of like charge, both positive or both
negative,
repel each other; two particles of unlike charge are attracted. The
electric
FORCE between two charged particles is much greater than the
gravitational
force
between the particles. Many of the bulk properties of matter are
ultimately
due to the electric forces among the particles of which the substance
is
composed. Materials differ in their ability to allow charge to
flow
through them. Those that allow charge to pass easily are
conductors,
whereas those that allow extremely little charge to pass through are
called
insulators, or DIELECTRICS. A third class of materials, called
SEMICONDUCTORS,
is intermediate. Electrostatics is the study of charges, or charged
bodies,
at rest. When positive or negative charge builds up in fixed positions
on objects, certain phenomena can be observed that are collectively
referred
to as static electricity. The charge can be built by rubbing certain
objects
together, such as silk and glass or rubber and fur; the friction
between
these objects causes ELECTRONS to transfer from one to another with the
result that the object losing electrons acquires a positive charge and
the object gaining electrons acquires a negative charge.
Electrodynamics
is the study of charges in motion. A flow of electric charge
constitutes
an electric current. In order for a current to exist in a conductor,
there
must be an ELECTROMOTIVE FORCE (emf), or POTENTIAL difference, between
the conductor's ends. An electric CELL, a
PHOTOVOLTAIC
CELL, and a GENERATOR are all sources of emf. An emf source with an
external
conductor connected from one of the source's two terminals to the other
constitutes an ELECTRIC CIRCUIT. Direct current (DC) is a flow of
current
in one direction at a constant rate.
Alternating
current (AC) is a current flow that increases in magnitude
from
zero
to a maximum, decreases back to zero, increases to a maximum in the
opposite
direction, decreases to zero, and then repeats this
process
periodically. The number of repetitions of the cycle occurring each
second
is defined as the
frequency,
which is expressed in HERTZ (Hz). The frequency of ordinary household
current
in the U.S. is 60 cycles per sec (60 Hz), and electric devices must be
designed to operate at this frequency. In a solid, the current consists
not of a few electrons moving rapidly but of many electrons moving
slowly;
although this drift of electrons is slow, the impulse that causes it
moves
through the circuit, when the circuit is completed, at nearly the speed
of
light.
The movement of electrons in a current is not steady; each electron
moves
in a series of stops and starts. In a direct current, the electrons are
spread evenly through the conductor; in an alternating current, the
electrons
tend to congregate along the conductor surface. In liquids, gases, and
semiconductors, current carriers may be positively or negatively
charged.
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The Italian anatomist Luigi Galvani (who
inspired Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's classic novel _Frankenstein_ in
1818) discovered in 1786 that electricity was one of the essential
secrets of life. This discovery galvanised society, its future
applications are only just beginning to be envisaged. Its
infiltration and uses are beyond calculation, its
symbiosis presently is even greater than
before as technology increases the use of electricity becomes even more
fundamental to the workings of machines - Machine Breeds Machine.
Duchamp's futuristic vision of
allegorical machines is one of the true marriages between matter and
spirit, art and technology, "the spirit is the bride". Duchamp
invented a new physics of his own, closer to Jarry's pataphysics than
to conventional science, a fourth
dimensional
engineering that goes beyond the rational axiomatic rigidity of
scientific law. One of Duchamp's greatest works, _The Large Glass
or the Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even_ (1915-23) represents
the most difficult and mysterious of all domains, the fourth
dimensional phenomenon of sex. These theoretical suggestions
which were later to be discovered by Baron Von K. Reichenbach and
Wilhelm Reich, isolate and demonstrate a
tangible biological energy generated by the human body (particularly
during sexual activity). These discoveries can only enhance yet
even more new possibilities in the future exploration of the man
machine symbiosis in all levels of creation. As technology
accelerates and new knowledge formulates so does the spirit in its
needs to expand its own awareness, only in the pursuit of knowledge of
all things can we discover ourselves.
- liner notes for
track _Techno Geist_ by
ClockDVA off of
_Man Amplified_ CD
on Contempo
(1992)
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what's this humming in my head
was it something that someone said
it's connecting us with them
electric wires turned on again
it aggravates and it pacifies
hear the power in the lines
strung high on every pole
how can this power be bought and sold?
trying to harness solar rays
making minutes seem like days
it captivates and it hypnotizes
hear the power in the lines
powerline
