The research team of acoustic anthropologist AgentMX7 and visual ethnographer MYSTERYFORMS are commissioned off to the flood-drenched foothills of Del Monte, to conduct a series of studies on the indigenous communities co-habitating within the little-known post-colonial township of Neu Berg, as part of the ICS Cross-Cultural Immersion Invitational program (C2I2) to promote and cultivate awareness and empathy among tribes and nations of the far eastern subtropics.
Phase I of this study centers around neo-tribal ritual and worship, as manifest in their music and art; their rhythms and tonalities, their visions and symbology. This is no mere dance music, MX7 reports, this is consecrated ceremonial music played in their regular Sunday worship; played across gymnasiums and town plazas, blasting through military-grade soundsystems; elders and children-alike partaking in this hallowed commune.
...This body of work, including painting, video, dance and sound design, is an exploration into parallel cultures and new realities; a home-made, ghetto cosmology based on and stemming from an intimate and personal spirituality.
Ancient truths are spoken in a new symbolic language of ritual, pattern, repetition, symmetry and geometry. Steeped in devotional vibrancy and dynamic self-surrender, theirs is a religion of chromatic self-cultivation that culminates in a frenzied fervour for the Divine and an uncleavable oneness with the Universe.
Recently premiered at the East Richmond Cultural Centre as part of the annual Asiatic Heritage Exposition Fair, we now present the acoustic module of this important study -in its entirety- for public broadcast, to be followed by a comprehensive exhibition of our visual research in the weeks ahead. All proceeds will go towards the perpetuation of the C2I2 program, as well as funding for a return trip home for MX7 and MYSTERYFORMS.
...in honour and invocation of the One who soon cometh...
