Itching For More: Insight
Every Wednesday Itching For More appears, like a spot right on the tip of your nose.
This week, small musical toy/fabric of the universe generator: Insight
Music is directly linked to the universe. It pushes and pulls at every atom, each pitch causes an atom to vibrate at a different level.
Different atoms follow different time signatures, others different keys, creating something which at first can seem hectic, a mess.
But when you step back, refine your hearing, tune yourself to the right level, suddenly things can seem a little different. An atonal mess can revert to a harmonic masterpiece.
Legend has it, that out there, a certain tuning can cause the fabric of the universe to softly rip apart, revealing its core. Somewhere out there, the equipment exists to let this happen, letting you gain insight into the symphony of creation.
Or at least, in Insight, you can.
Insight, by Tobias Bruch, is perhaps one of the smallest games I’ve played for Itching For More. But hey, time doesn’t matter, at least not in the universe of Insight. Music is the glue to this universe. In Insight, you are given three objects (gems? gems.) in which to push and prod and try to reach the correct tuning.
Insight feels like a toy. Your only point of interaction with the world is a mouse based system, in which you drag and drop, push and pull the aforementioned gems, affecting the noise they generate. This noise isn’t necessarily a thing of beauty, more of a constant drone. In doing this, the noise becomes a tool, existing in a place outside of traditional music.
The key to the universe isn’t the correct melody, it is instead the correct frequency. Moving and spinning each gem generates a new frequency, taking you closer and closer to the end. In fact, the end comes within a few minutes, upon gaining the correct frequency, the room you inhabit bursts apart brilliantly, an orb of light shatters your view, and you see the universe for what it is — beautiful, elegant, interconnected and impossible to understand.
In reaching this conclusion so quickly, what is Insight trying to suggest about the nature of the universe? A conclusion I came to was this: Though the universe may be easy to understand, it is impossible to comprehend. It felt similar to the classic conundrum in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: having the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything, but not the question.
I love the idea, however, of the universe being connected musically. Music can cut to the very core of a person, of a being. If it can do that, it may even dictate the goings on of the universe.
Insight, by Tobias Bruch is free, available here
