At the start of my summer vacation i visited my daughter in Oslo. One of the main events for me this summer was the time we spent together at a rock festival at Ekebergsletta in the Oslo area, Tons of Rock. The line up that day was sublime, so was the weather. But for me personally, to get to see grindcore pioneers Napalm Death was something i had been looking forward to for months and was going to be the highlight of that day.
Dan Witz- Scrum 2 (All Out War), 2015. Oil on canvas.
The central figure with the flannel shirt in Dan Witz ‘beautiful and captivating painting could have been me that day, and i can relate to his presence and expression. Not to mention the receding hairline. Look close and you can see he is captured in a composition of a square that stands diagonally in the frame. His face is placed at a point where the now horizontal diagonal of the square is cut by its side length, the Silver mean, or 1:1+√2, also known as a Sacred Cut. The eyes closed in an expression of inward reflection. The density of the crowd is emphasized by the lack of depth in the forefront of the scene. The crowd further away, fading in the dark are placed at different heights left and right, a nod to Davinci’s Mona Lisa.
The painting shows there is order in chaos. At least when it is used in art.
A study done by Cornell university NY in 2013 studied the movement of people in moshpits and found patterns that resemble the movement of molecules in gasses known as the Maxwell- Boltzmann distribution. When the movement of people results in circular patterns, the behavior becomes increasingly more ordered and vortex like.
Chaos only goes so far.
When the concert started i wasn’t at all sure if i still had the stamina and physicality to participate. After all, it had been at least 30 years since last time. It’s frustrating enough to get killed by teenagers in video games, but did i really wanted to seek this in real life? The energy and atmosphere of the music and the people surrounding me quickly assured me i did not need to worry. My feet were already moving as i gave my daughter a quick hug, and in the high pitched voice i get when i’m nervous shrieked “I’m going in!” And so i did, no, its gravitational field pulled me in,and i got carried away by the waves of bodies and music.
Total strangers become intimate friends within the context and duration of a concert. No social status, no insecurity of what you look like, age or gender. Nobody cares what you have accomplished or wasted in life. A voluntary suspension of personal space and boundaries.
A study published in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2018 suggested that people who experience live music together synchronize brainwaves. This synchronization appears to be guided by the rhythm of the music performed. The higher the measured synchronization, the more the participant said to have enjoyed the experience.
Another study published in NeuroImage in 2020, measured synchronization of brainwave activity between performer and audience, with synchronization increasing when patterns in music are recognized.
This gives us a foundation to place music at the core of social interaction. Whether it is formalized Ballroom dancing, street dance battles, or the emphasis on chaos at a punk rock concert, it is all a temporary expression of something that in essence has not changed since the dawn of civilization; We are social creatures who connect and synchronize through music, the geometry of sound. This interconnectedness makes us more than just isolated individuals. Our behavior and response to external stimuli is part of something bigger. What Consciousness is or where it resides is something of a hot potato between neuroscientists, philosophers and the spiritually inclined, but during a concert it becomes rather tangible. It really doesn’t feel like that much of an issue.
Somewhere during that concert it dawned on me what a beautiful social activity this was, and how it was a metaphor for life itself; You go in with the intention of not hurting anyone, and you trust your fellow men to do the same. When you fall, you are lifted up, just as you lift up others who might fall in front of you; Nobody can carry another person on his own, but if a crowd surfer suddenly rolls over you, many hands will hold him up without effort. He too will not fall. Basic human values that we wish to encounter everywhere the currents of life take us. It is beautiful to see all that arise from chaos.
The Bruce Lee adage “Be like Water” came to mind, and how you can be in control of any situation without forcing it to your will.
I was perfectly safe, no harm could overcome me.
Even how different the experience was compared to the concerts i went to as a teenager had a real life comparison; Back then i didn’t have a clue about anything really. Now i could see connections and social cohesion in a pure unfiltered way.
In the Divine Comedy Dante places the souls of the lustful in the second ring of the Inferno. They are swept away by a storm on which they have no control, much as their lecherous desires. Dante emphasizes that the intention itself is not sinful. It is the measure with which they let it rule their lives that places them there.
For the uninitiated the scene of a crowd churning during a rock concert may look somewhat similar. But the social interaction of the people involved is something that is so different from the helplessness that the souls in Dante’s Inferno experience. It has much more similarity with the scene he encounters in the sphere of Jupiter in Paradiso, where the Many speak and move as One, not because they are conditioned to, but because their free will is aligned with God.
The synchronization of intention and a surrender to the shape and movement of the crowd at a concert can be felt and celebrated as something intrinsically Good, Beautiful and True. I will not go so far as to say it is God’s will manifested, but it does offer a glimpse of our true human nature, that is inherently social, caring and loving.
Somewhere in between two songs i stood next to a guy. His buddy tapped him on the shoulder, and said to him, “I love you man.” They hugged as the next song set in, and the storm just passed by them.
A metaphor for life – yes. Am sharing this with friends who are still young enough to do the moshpit thing. And music as the geometry of sound – Athena’s web ( or Indra’s web) that binds us all together.