The Exploded Lunch — Report Two

Archetypes, Artefacts and Apparitions

Image: Sun, “De metaphysico macrosmi…ortu”, Fludd, 1617 (From https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sun,_%22De_metaphysico_macrosmi...ortu%22,_Fludd,_1617_Wellcome_L0016154.jpg)

Report two has been the difficult second album. Please see Report 1 for more overarching information about the Exploded Lunch project. Report two connects with the first. But it is became a battle not to get too precious over every detail. I think I won, but it is a dense, multilayered piece. What may sound like two or three layers of sound in many cases is closer to fifteen, all balanced (hopefully) to create the illusion of a range of imaginary places and impossible spaces

Report two builds upon the idea of mediumship explored in the first report and progresses towards the idea of Jungian archetypes. For those of you who don’t know, an archetype represents a universal pattern that emerges from within the soup of our collective consciousness[1] Jung first began to consider this concept during time spent with a relative who was also a spiritual medium. He would witness her transformation from a relatively uncultured person with a simple vocabulary into a sophisticated, worldly person during seances. Rather than seeing this as evidence that she was channeling a spirit, he began to consider what else may be happening. If you are thirsty for more information on this moment, I believe the best place to start is the Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, by C. G. Jung. The scene I mentioned is described in Chapter 1, section 2. This idea of the collective unconscious is one of the theories that saw Jung split from Freud. And from this comes the idea of synchronicity which Jung uses as proof that we are all connected via the eternal soup of our collective experience, knowledge, desires, and potential. It is also where the idea of the archetype exists.

There is an even older idea that this all relates to. The idea of Platonic forms (or solids, or divine forms.) This is the idea that there are a set of universal forms, or the universal idea of what form something should take. We can only really presuppose their existence by the shadows they cast, or the part of the form we witness as a phenomena accessible to human beings.

It goes deep. But let’s go back to the soup. Think of it like the liquid compound you would use to grow crystals. And think of these crystals as archetypes. And let’s go back to the story I told you earlier about Jung and the transformation he witnessed during seances. Just what is it that creates a point of focus in the soup to create the crystals, or what external factors are involved in unifying the multiple aspects of our unconscious to form our personalities? And, if these personalities are all potential shadows of an ideal, how many can there be?

I don’t know.

I had a tutor back in the early 1990’s when I first went to art school. He used to ask students “when is your Birthday.” And he would then say “oh you’re a Sagittarius”, or “ah you’re a water sign, are you one of the emotional ones?” Things like that. I kept in touch with him, and even made a few pieces of artwork with him over the years and he would often refer back to people’s star signs. But he wasn’t too much, or too weird with it. He said it was just a starting point. A presupposition on which to start building a better understanding of people’s personalities. And it always seemed to work. So, I called him and asked him about this. His voice is one of the voices you will hear in this report. It is the main, consistent thread through which the other layers of sound and recordings are woven.

Like the last report, this is a creative investigation of things I don’t understand. It is an opportunity to experiment and explore these ideas through a mix of literal historic material and through an expressive palette of improvised and composed sound. You don’t have to understand it either. But it is best enjoyed with headphones.

How to listen to it

This piece will play, 9pm (UK time) Sunday 6th March 2022 via Star and Shadow Radio sand will repeat the Sundays following until the launch of report three on the first Sunday in April. You can also hear it via the excellent Radio On across the course of the month. I don’t tend to archive these shows in their full two hour format, so tune in or miss it.

Thanks to:

David Goard, Laney Manion, Lindsay Duncanson and Michael McHugh for lending me their voices.

And thank you to the generous people who made their field recordings available through the use of Creative commons licenses. They are:

angelkunev https://freesound.org/people/angelkunev/sounds/519065/

JarredGibb https://freesound.org/people/JarredGibb/sounds/219492/

dkiller2204 https://freesound.org/people/dkiller2204/sounds/366111/

RutgerMuller https://freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/51047/

RutgerMuller https://freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/51137/

YemiMoses https://freesound.org/people/YemiMoses/sounds/346046/

BurghRecords https://freesound.org/people/BurghRecords/sounds/521360/

edhutschek https://freesound.org/people/edhutschek/sounds/263829/

flex0rnaut https://freesound.org/people/flex0rnaut/sounds/465911/

thatjeffcarter https://freesound.org/people/thatjeffcarter/sounds/388848/

klankbeeld https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/511066/

paulotantastico https://freesound.org/people/paulotantastico/sounds/531713/

bevibeldesign https://freesound.org/people/bevibeldesign/sounds/349903/

nicotep https://freesound.org/people/nicotep/sounds/622321/

Puniho https://freesound.org/people/Puniho/sounds/169213/

kvgarlic https://freesound.org/people/kvgarlic/sounds/479285/

Leandros.Ntounis https://freesound.org/people/Leandros.Ntounis/sounds/163607/

There are Two Librivox recordings in this piece. Librivox is an astoundingly good project, please check it out and consider supporting them. The recordings used are:

Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology https://archive.org/details/collectedpapersonanalyticalpsychology_2011_librivox

Timaeus Locrus by Plato https://archive.org/details/timaeuslocrus

The two bits of music used in this piece that are not my own are -

• Bolero, from my dusty copy of the album ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on The Moog’
• Dream Kisses by Sam Lanin and the Troubadours

[1] This is a ‘well intentioned’ rather than fully informed piece. This report is my exploration into this idea, it’s an attempt to gain better understanding and as such, it is more akin to a field report than a refined, robust document.