CICERO says “that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.” The reason of which is, because study and contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ it separately from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and a resemblance of death; or else, because all the wisdom and reasoning in the world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fear to die. And to say the truth, either our reason mocks us, or it ought to have no other aim but our contentment only, nor to endeavor anything but, in sum, to make us live well, and, as the Holy Scripture says, at our ease. All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, though we make use of divers means to attain it: they would, otherwise, be rejected at the first motion; for who would give ear to him that should propose affliction and misery for his end? The controversies and disputes of the philosophical sects upon this point are merely verbal- “Transcurramus solertissimas nugas”- there is more in them of opposition and obstinacy than is consistent with so sacred a profession; but whatsoever personage a man takes upon himself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it.
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Science and art are systems of knowledge with a lot in common: each grapples with the status quo - challenging the manner in which we interpret the world around us, engaged in a constant search to find a new vocabulary which can articulate the human condition. Both are dreamt up behind closed doors - be it the laboratory or the studio - the secrets of their art clear only to close disciples, and both have their claim to controversy, whether it’s the latest development in stem-cell research or a fish in formaldehyde. Yet they remain fiercely separate from one another in the mind of the public - a division that begins in the school curriculum and persists in the media. Science is heralded as progressive, art at best as a subversive form of critique, at worst as a pretty picture or frivolous sensationalism.

Graphik - Special Report: Art Theory

Carsten Nicolai at Eigen-Art

People who experience a sense of spirituality in church may be reacting to the extreme bass sound produced by some organ pipes.

Many churches and cathedrals have organ pipes that are so long they emit infrasound which at a frequency lower than 20 Hertz is largely inaudible to the human ear.
But in a controlled experiment in which infrasound was pumped into a concert hall, UK scientists found they could instil strange feelings in the audience at will.

These included an extreme sense of sorrow, coldness, anxiety and even shivers down the spine.

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Warming beneath a naïve comfort
the waves probe and illuminate
tracks and highways
they spoke of promises
unfiltered dreams
the
safety of death and movement
inspired by immortality
hiss wording hiss
static catechisms of dreamt intent
seeds that flourished in decay
pointless
leverage
for self-hate
Bang Shoot Rake

The Telephone

“When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All Still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say –
You spoke from that flower on the window sill –
Do you remember what it was you said?”

” First tell me what it was you thought you heard.”

” Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word –
What was it? Did you call me by name?
Or did you say –
Someone said ” Come – I heard it as I bowed.”

“I may have thought as much, but not aloud.”

“Well, so I came.”

Robert Frost