INvolution by [MONRHEA] + AGF

Monrhea and agf met online, as admirers of each other’s productions on Soundcloud. They later collaborated in the Darmstadt summer course program “Sonic Writing & Soundings”, curated by agf and Cedrik Fermont. In 2023 they met in person in Darmstadt for the performance of the pieces created in the summer course program.

After Monrhea invited agf to an online workshop and a lecture to Nairobi artists, they started dreaming about a production collaboration and developed the application of the mathematical concept of Involution in music and run with it remotely between Hailuoto and Nairobi. Their first sessions in this project happened during March 2024, the season during which Monrhea’s Kikuyu culture marks the new year and the beginning of a new season. Their work then focused on creating pieces that celebrated the rain, Spring, rebirth, the inversion into a new season. This line of inquiry led them to come across the concept of self inversion, involution.

Involution is explored in the context of various disciplines. In Psychology, Sociology, or Anthropology, but also in Biology and Medical sciences, in the natural phenomena of arising and passing away. Involution is a natural process of maintaining balance and order, and can be a formula to restoring balance.

The idea of inversion is the main approach taken as Monrhea and agf would take turns to work on the tracks. At turns, both freely manipulated the ongoing compositions, adding to them, editing, but also subtracting or reversing the recordings. Both their voices were also incorporated as growls and rambles and text to speech narrations that created sonic textures.

A full excerpt is narrated by Monrhea in track 2, INvolution formula:

"In psychology, involution can sometimes refer to a turning inward of the mind, focusing on inner thoughts and feelings rather than external realities. In Sociology and Anthropology, involution can describe a process of increasing complexity within a society or culture that doesn't lead to progress or advancement. In biological and medical contexts, involution refers to the process by which an organ or tissue returns to its normal size after an enlargement. With the laws of nature informing that everything is in a constant state of change. All phenomena arise and pass away. Actions have consequences. Positive actions lead to positive outcomes, and negative actions lead to negative outcomes. All phenomena are interdependent; Everything is interconnected; The attachment to things that are impermanent results in distress, in agony.

Understanding the natural process of involution of maintaining balance and order. Internal focus on self-regulation with increasing complexities by restoring the original or normal state. Maybe living by the universal basics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control which even children are born knowing. Could be the formula that restores us, restores us to the normal, to the golden age. A period of peace and stability, prosperity and abundance, cultural flourishing, justice and fair governance, social harmony and unity, moral and ethical values, innovation and progress, education and learning, respect for nature, and spiritual and philosophical growth. Our mother nature has already prepared for us, prepared a kind of living where our current state of group consciousness is far from imagining, it’s offered as our birthright and can be experienced in this current lifetime, as we know, deep down, we’ve experienced characteristics of the golden age in our previous lifetimes, can be actualized. Accepting the role pain and agony has played in teaching us what we have been missing, learning from it and allowing ourselves to remember the bliss. Letting go and allowing the natural laws to govern, the natural process of involution to take its course and restore balance, could be the formula."

Crónica is an artist-run, non-profit label dedicated to sound art and electronic, computational, and experimental music.

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