[-empyre-] the vibe

["Jordan Crandall" <jcrandall@ucsd.edu>]

Identifiable speech:  sounds forming patterns, distinct ideas and forms --
as they are relayed through voice and a shared matrix of language. 
Vibratory screech: resonating transmission -- modulation, rhythm,
expression, attitude, and disposition.  What is equally (if not more)
important to my message is your unconscious resonance with the experience
of its delivery.  What are the factors of this delivery-experience on the
narrow sensory pipeline of the email list?

Just as meanings are communicated between people, sensations are
transmitted among them too -- as well as between people and their
environments.  Every social environment has its vibe.  This vibe is
composed of the affective resonances of everyone present, yet it spills
over to include the space itself.  As when, captivated by a familiar mix,
we have to move to the beat.  If the energy is right, one might burst into
a full-on dance move:  arms aflail, hips abounce.  The space of Empyre has
its vibe.  What is this vibe?  To ask "in what sense are we present here?"
is an old question; to ask "in what sense do we transmit affect here?" is
a new one.

To feel the beat is to infuse the atmosphere with cadence; to emit and
inhabit rhythmic codes with the entire body sensorium.  Jeremy Gilbert
points out that music has physical effects that can be identified,
described and discussed -- but this not necessarily the same thing as it
having "meanings."  What we derive from music has less to do with the
communication of meaning, and more to do with how music moves us.

Constantly transmitted to others, these affective resonances can
accumulate into something like a collective good will (hot dance floor
scene) or an uneasy tension (online forum tension due to inflammatory
posts, or long silences with nothing happening).  Since they can be
transmitted, they are a powerful social force.  They can transform,
traverse form, and overcome thought in a sweep of delicious delirium. 
They can be more forceful than ideas.  They can be replicated to a certain
extent, applied as a formula.  This is what advertising does.  The
tried-and-true mechanisms of "rallying the crowd" in political speech. 
Dale Carnegie's enduring rules of effective salesmanship.  DJ-ing. 
Flaming.  Religious ritual.  Drill.