Mu-Psi is to music what science fiction is to narrative art. It is sound-art that seeks to transcend the personal and to express universal concepts, patterns, and processes. Just as a science fiction begins with the premise of some possible future universe and proceeds to fill in the details and consequences of that premise, a Mu-Psi sound work begins with a hypothesis, a “what-if” premise, and proceeds to explore the ramifications of that premise.
Art has a purpose and plays a powerful role in society. The artist’s mission is to:
- Stimulate imaginative thinking, discussion, and creation of alternative worlds, solutions, possibilities
- Entertain by stimulating the intellect
- Guide audiences along paths through abstract conceptual spaces
- Invite the audience on an intellectually challenging journey from which they will return refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired
- Create sonic metaphors for powerful universal concepts (not personal psychological trauma)
- Create an ecstatic experience for the audience (in the original sense of ek stasis — to be outside or beyond one’s self).
- Play within a set of constraints; experimentally violate one or more constraints to explore the ramifications
We all want to be entertained but beyond that, we want meaning in art.
—Mark Johnson from The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding