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The vision herein is the treasured copyrighted product of:Meridian Design Associates, Architects, PC

1140 BroadwayNYC, 10001

www.meridiandesign.com212 431 8643

Feedback and interest in the undertaking can be directed to:Bice C. Wilson, AIA

bice@meridiandesign.com

We ask you not to convey this folio or parts thereof to anyone else withoutour express permission.

If you have one, it has been sent to you by us because of our respect for you,and our desire for your participation in realizing the work. We entrust you

with it, and ask your discretion.

Horns Passing, Summer Evening-

In the gloaming, Summer EveningSitting on the Larchmont Coast of Long Island Sound

The Shore running East to West

I heard the sound of air horns approachingCrescendoing, passing, fading

As the yacht clubs, sun setting, called in the boats

Club by club, East to West, down that rough latitudeAs Sunset passed me by

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Each day the sun whichRises in the east soonEnters through my roof

Contents4

The Paradox of the Universal & The Unique5

The Simple Concept6

Exploring ExamplesThe Simplest FormNew York Noon RhythmUNESCO / UNHCR Global Noon Rythym

16Struggles With Place

18The Noosphere

19A Noosphere Garden

20The Elements

The Place / Moment SculpturesThe Nervous SystemThe Places & PeopleExpressions of the WholeHow Is This Music?How It Could HappenWhat Do We Need?

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The Paradox of theUniversal & The Unique

In the past 24 hours you have lived a day in your life amongthe places you inhabit.

In the past 24 hours the sun has graced most every place on this planet weall inhabit.

At every moment it is high noon in many nations.At that same moment it is midnight down one longitude, just half way around

the world.

In different, simultaneous place-moments the sun is making the electrons of ouratmosphere dance as his rays become tangent along an infinitely thin line from

pole to pole. . . .A line that, over the course of the day, is as wide as every place on earth.

Say you live in New York City, and today was the summer solstice. If you rosebefore dawn, and watched the sun peek over the limb of the world, at that samemoment that same star is at high noon for those in Lapland, Kiev, in Cyprus and

the Sudan. That same day, as the Sun disappears behind the far horizon, it will beoverhead in the Kamchatka Peninsula and down vast expanses of the Pacific. . . .

Over those hours of daylight you will have shared glimpses of the sun with morethan half of the planet – each from your own place, in your own context.

These are epiphanous and hackneyed understandings, as glorious and clichedas every dawn and sunset.

It is always, and everywhere our choice to experience the pattern of lifethrough either jaded or joyous eyes.

There is a wonder and an intimacy in these understandings. It is that wonder and such an intimate knowing of our tangible

living planet that inspire the Global Music Project.

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The Simple Concept

The project expresses the animate wonder ofthe dance of the earth and the sun, as manifest in

myriad specific locales and cultural contexts. Site spe-cific sculptures will evoke the place-moment of high noon

over those loci through sound and video initiated at the mo-ment the sun fills a Sun-Catcher, such as a brass bowl, or when it

excites a light sensor embedded in the sculpture.

Upon awakening, the installation will send a signal to a central processingfacility. That signal will, at the least, be a pulse indicating that the sun has

arrived at a given place. This pulse can then be integrated with others,preceeding, simultaneous and succeeding, to form rhythms whose musical tonal-

ity can be selected by those choosing to experience the pattern.

It is hoped that most place / moment keepers will select a sound that will expresstheir locus, and that they will also generate an electronic image, which could be aview of the place, or an artistic icon. These multi-media “notes” could then beaggregated into an infinite number of compositions controled by the viewers, by

consortia of place / moment keepers, or by artists moved to create beauty out of theapparent chaos.

Hence, each Place-moment is a note of music, an element of video. Each Place-Moment expressed amidst poignant intervals signifying the time it takes for theplanet to rotate under the sun from one site to the next. The assembled place

moments expressing the sacred space-time continuum we inhabit.

The Sun-Catchers could be located at sets of places, such as Public Librarylawns, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, School Yards, Sacred Sites, Towngreens, Refugee camps or Battlefields. The music would accrete through

the integration of sequential place-moment-notes.

In some settings, one could hear the sounds of the sun’s move-ment over your harbor, or down your valley. In others, one

would select counterpoints of various sets of locales, sayrefugee camps and UNESCO sites, and thenexperience their relative patterns across the

earth via a multimedia display oftheir synthesis.

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Exploring Examples

There are literally an infiate number of ways this simple idea can beexpressed. Its expression will be both in the place-moment sculp-tures that capture the music, and in the installations where the com-posite music can be experienced.

What follow are three examples, a few of the many which we hopewill evolve as the meme thrives.

The first is a simple bowl on a hillside, witnessed by an individual,in concert with others doing the same thing, east and west.

The second expresses High Noon as it encompasses the Island ofManhattan.

The Third proposes a counterpoint between all the UNESCO WorldHeritage sites around the world, and all the refugee camps man-aged by the UNHCR.

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The Simplest Form

Imagine a fine brass bowl

Sitting on a lawn, aligned to itsImmediate Local Longitude

Looking, expectantly, at the placeWhere, that day, the sun will reach its peak in the local sky.

At dawn the bowl is dark.Soon, sun rising, a sliver of gleam dances on her western edge

Then the crescent crescendoing, filling the bowl smoothly,In infinitely small increments,

Reflecting the earth’s rotation, asShe dances with the Sun

Through the Cosmos.

Soon enough, and momentarily, the bowl is full.

Knowing this, the bowl rings with sound and sees itself in thatMoment, filled with

Radiance.

And then a crescent of shadow forms on the western lip, decrescendoing into midnight.

The ringing diminishes, the eye closes

As others, westerly, awake, see and sing.

Imagine these place moments connected byInstantaneous noosphere nerves, so that their

Accumulated songs and images in harmonious sometimes cacophony make anEndless cycle of hearing, seeing, and knowing,

Showing us ourselves - Herself,Endless,

Where we are, are coming from, going.

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New York Noon Rhythm

Meridians of longitude are omnipresent and everywhereinvisible. They are two dimensional concepts, refined by

mariners, seen on maps, determining relative time among us.

Typically we think of them as infinitely specific and finely thin.

Imagine expanding one to encompass the entire island of Manhattan.

Imagine a plane aligned to the local meridian on the eastmost edge of the island,[under the Tri-borough Bridge, facing Randalls Island and the Bronx.]

The sun would shine on its eastern side all morning,On both sides, briefly, as it transited the zenith at noon, and

On the west face in the PM.

Imagine a similar plane, this time on the island’s westerly edge,[on the Battery, near Castle Clinton, predecessor to Ellis Island.]

The sun would arrive on its west face after highnoon at its location.

And between them it would dance as well.

From the time it leaves the east face of the easterly wall, till it arrives on the west face of thewesterly wall, it will pass infinite meridians over a finite and invariable time: 26 seconds.

The maps which follow show that time. In between, the yellow dots indicate all the JuniorHigh Schools in Manhattan. The score at the top shows their pacing as the sun passes overeach, through those 26 seconds of the meridian as wide and encompassing as Manhattan.

Imagine a sculptural learning environment in each school that plays the music daily,[the Music different daily, conveying cloud cover and fog, shadows, birds and leaves]

A place where the crescendo is felt approaching, the sound being, the decrescendopassing.

Where both the unique and the universal are manifest

Where real time satellite feeds show the passing patterns of the livingearth,

Where Students map the patterns they inhabit.

Imagine the E/W planes in place, handing off timeto each other

Daily.

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UNESCO / UNHCR Global Noon Rythym

Find the rhythm of the sun’s passing all the Unesco World HeritageSites.

Contrast it with the sun rhythm of all the Refugee Camps managed by theUN High Commissioner of Refugees.

In all these places, build the sculptures that catch high noon and express thepattern of life specific to that place.

Collect their songs and images via a radio frequency nervous system,

Integrate them via a central processing mind,into a counterpoint of place, identity and displacement.

Disseminate their music and visions via the web to those who will keep time bythem,

Those who will meditate on them.Those who will learn by them,Who will create art with them

Enjoy the long silences over oceans with neither edifices nor refugees.

Wonder at the beauty and the cacophony in East Asia and the Levant.

Mourn how few are still alive in the camps of Guatemala.

See yourself everywhere.

See Everywhere as Yourself.

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Struggles With Place

Many of us struggle with our place identity:

What place do we inhabit?Where are we from?

When will we be from where we live?

Where do our loyalties lie?Do our loyalties lie any Where?

Many fear that accepting world citizenship means forswearing citizenship in their countryTheir State

Their TownTheir neighborhood

Their familyTheir Selves

Many fear allowing themselves to become from anyplace in particular, fearing the pain that comeswith identification, change, caring.

Many inhabit virtual no places, portable, controllable, voluntary, convenient, in fear of havingno place at all.

These fears separate us, from ourselves, our communities, our bio-regions, our history,

From becoming whole.

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Perhaps these fears are rooted in ourmany ancestral memories of separation from

place.

Perhaps they are habits so old their antecedants are longVestigial, diminished,

Forgotten ghosts of traumas and wisdom we could never articulate,Never knew we carried.

Perhaps they are a legacy of common sense. Perhaps this sensibility does not serve uswell anymore.

Perhaps it is time to trust Someplace again,To Find Home.

This work is intended to offer an alternative model, working with theparadox that the most visceral way to experience deep connected-

ness with the larger fabric of life is to connect intimatelywith it at a very local level.

This is the paradox of the universal and theunique.

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The Noosphere

In the vision of Teillard DeChardin, Earth is a living, sentient being.He was among the first in Euro-centric Judeo-Christian influenced

culture to catch a glimmer of what is now known as the Gaia Hypothesis.

He believed her to be evolving - deepening in her wisdom and knowledge, as herbeings evolved, and gained in wisdom and knowledge.

He believed her / us to be increasing in complexity and depth.

He came to believe that eventually she would evolve a nervous system by which she wouldknow herself and integrate the many beings within her.

He called that nervous system the Noosphere.

De Chardin was merely rediscovering something we have frequently forgotten,An awareness often willfully exterminated from Judeo-Christian society.

(De Chardin, a WW I battlefield medic and Jesuit Priest,, was embargoed by the churchfrom publishing his controversial views in the last decades of his life, see

www.technoetic.com/noosphere/ ).

Generations, time out of mind, have seen this vision.Cultures, human and otherwise,

Living and long dead,Have long had a hand in building those connections.

We build those connections in this work.

Give us a hand.

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A Noosphere Garden

A Noosphere GardenDispersed

Around the globe,Sprinkled

Through the regions.Flowers

Sharing a nervous system,Knowing

From its cousins, east to west, that the dance goes on - through the dark times, sheis always imminent.

Then –When the sun first touches it each day. . . . .

SingingWhen the sun fills its bowl with light, and

CelebratingWhen photons tickle its darkest reaches.

SeeingItself as the sun graces it.

SharingIts song and visionSo long as the sun animates her

ListeningTo the music approaching across its cousins to the east, to the music decrescendoing across itscousins to the west.

ObservableSolo, in its placeIn ensemble, over the network nervous systemOf the noosphere.

InfiniteIn its potential for evolution

MyriadIn the themes implicit among its correlations

TrustingThe wisdom of the observer to:

FindThe themes

FocusThe beauty

IntegrateThe poignant

Joys and Horrors

Some may find there.

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Organization, Technology &Details

The basic elements are simple:The Place / Moment Sculptures,

The nervous system to integrate their expressions of place,The Places ,

The People & Institutions wanting to participate,The Installations - Expressions of the whole.

While we can imagine specific ways each of these can be manifest, our model isevolutionary, organic, anarchic. We will establish & publish basic protocols by which

essential coherence and reliability can be established, allowing integration of disparateindividualized manifestations.

We, along with those who choose to assist in the initial manifestations of this vision, willcreate exemplar place sculptures unique to the place moments it is ours to express. We willestablish the fundamental nervous system, the initial displays expressing the whole. We will

let it live, and trust that it will grow.

We will then create an institutional and information structure to support those moved to joinin. We will assist them to integrate into the whole.

The Place / Moment Sculptures

There are an infinite number of possible variations on the basic sculptural idea. Its basicelement is a sun sculpture with a sensor that knows when the sun is over head, and a sound

source and camera which react when the sensor wakes up.

It could be as small and portable as a pocket watch, as big as apertures in buildings whichsee the sun at different times of the year. It could be a sculpture in a public park, or a

small focus of meditation on a desk top.

At its simplest, it could literally be a brass bowl witnessed by an individual, as de-scribed earlier.

Or, it could be a high tech receiver with myriad photo sensors that monitor /express the crescendo, peak and decrescendo of the sun’s passage, adjusting

themselves to the earth’s seasonal dance with the sun.

The sensors could actuate a switch which could initiate a soundgenerating device of any kind, local or remote, as well asturning on a camera to witness the visual context of the

place in the moments the sculpture is awake. Thesensors could use our “nervous system” to

tell a central brain that they areawake, and that brain

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could distrubute thepattern of awakening to those wait-

ing for the music.

The Nervous System

The nervous system can be as simple as the nerves of the personringing one bowl, or the culture among a group of people ringing

bowls in a region.

It can be as complex as a network of radio frequency transmitters sending theirexperiences to a series of processing hubs, which integrate the input and generate

audio/video feeds to local and central installations which express the whole.

Within the nervous system the objective fact of the sun’s arrival must be translated intosubjective expression. The Hiesenberg Principle applies here. There is no music in thesun’s passage, except the epiphanies universally experienced inside those who experience

the wonder. Whatever receivers, transmitters and expressions of this wonder we create anddeploy, those instruments will alter the wonder, modulate it in a purely subjective way. Wewill need to make existential choices of meaning and coherence, of boundaries and limita-

tions, resources and impacts. We will need to accept futures, and release possibilities. We willneed to build a culture among those wishing to be part of the music.

That is the real work.

The Places & People

An essential element of the piece will be networking to find “sets” of people and institutionswho would choose to either create a place / moment sculpture, or a display installation. Weimagine that evemtially the work would involve many simultaneous sets of places, such as:The Junior High Playgrounds of a region, or its libraries, or perhaps all the sites which our

design firm has affected over the past 20 years. It could be all the UNESCO WorldHeritage Sites, or all the Refugee Camps managed by the UN High Commissioner ofRefugees. It could be all the harvest fairgrounds in the world, or all the known sites of

mass graves, or all the nature preserves. It could be a set of locations chosen suchthat their rhythym plays a chosen piece of existing music.

So long as the sculptures in a given location follow the protocols established,they can be found by those who choose to experience the overall piece.

Those who choose that experience are free to combine disparate setsto experience the counterpoints of different parts of the spectrum

in the pattern of life.

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Expressions of the Whole

Installations will be created to express the gathered music - the synthesis ofthe information gathered through all the preceding efforts. These can be assimple as one’s ears & eyes when listening to the bowls ringing through a

region. It can be as complex as a multi-media environment in a school or apublic space which expresses the work for viewers.

Through the use of software filters, the expression can be of a limited set ofnetowrks, say all the junior high schools of a certain type which build a network

together. It could also express counterpoints among many networks, chosen eitherby the owner of the installation, or by the viewer at any given moment.

They could be as small as a portable device that emits a sound when the sun is overa chosen place sculpture, or as large as sculptures in a public park where groups of

people can inhabit the pattern in time together.

The patterns can evoke expressions on many levels - They can seem scientific,educational, spiritual, political, comical and poignant. In choosing the sources

and their counterpoints, myriad patterns can be expressed / experienced.That’s the whole idea.

The Global Music Project:Places Evolving Towards Harmony

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How is This Music?

Many ask: How do these apparently random place moments of sight and soundtranscend noise to become music?

Each place moment installation captures the most prosaic and universal of wonders– the sun, yet again overhead. How does this objective phenomenon generate art?

What differentiates that which is generated from mere data.

One ancient root of culture lies in the expression of the prosaic wonders whichanimate our lives.

The objective to subjective shift inherent in any place / culture’s choice as to howthat every day wonder is expressed is an act of Art. As in any Art, the mediummust be explored. As in any art aesthetics must evolve. As in any nascent Art,we trust that culture and interchange will develop among the artists and those

who experience their efforts.

The simple answer is that in the process of the piece, disparate culturalexpressions of place/moments will evolve towards harmony (whilenever completely abandoning pockets of independence, and disso-

nance).

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How It Might Happen

The Keepers of the place / moments may choose their rela-tionship and sensitivity to other place moments, or sets of place

moments. These choices will develop and transform as awareness ofthe potentials of the greater whole increases, as colloquy happens.

Thereby, the patterns in the music will evolve and transform. An ephemeral or“permanent” chain of place moments may be formed by like-minded beings, each

taking responsibility for a place moment note in a mindfully created aggregation ofmusic.

Alternatively, individual place moments’ keepers may initially establish a locus and choosetheir tone and visual based on an independent image they are moved to express. In the

context of this field of potential, viewers may find patterns of harmony among aggregatedindependent place moments that don’t even know of each other’s existence, or of each

other’s implicit harmony with their own emanations.

And over time, place moment keepers may choose to evolve their sites’ emanation into (andout of) an ephemeral harmonious relationship with others, much in the same way pendulums

in proximity move into sync with each other.

At the root, always, is a place and a keeper or community of keepers who choose to wake uptheir place and connect it into the larger pattern. Each place community is free to choose itsrelationship to the infinite musical opportunities that can be created. Some may find it more

important to sustain a keenly felt note/image without regard to relationship. Others mayinitiate a note/image specifically to put in place an element previously missing from a larger

whole developed by yet others.

Here are a few examples of ways the music might evolve:

Field of music with filtersGiven a broad group of places each generating music as they see fit, creating aninchoate field of music, with or without any intent to create a larger whole. View-

ers will be able to establish filters to establish coherence among place / mo-ments on a variety of bases.

Each site will define itself for the central database by a list of criteria.Hence a viewer can select a list of criteria, such as the example

illustrated of contrasting all the UNESCO World HeritageSites with all the Refugee Camps managed by the

UNHCR. Either the viewer or the site canchoose the musical impact of the sun’s

arrival. Thus the rhythm ofvarious pat-

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terns of inhabitation can beexperienced.

In the same manner, an artist can composemusic using their own filtering methodology, and can

share the music as they choose.

Themes evolving as regions deepenAs place / moment installations proliferate in a given region, they can be

expected (and assisted) to communicate, and to build relational themes, de-velop collaborations, and create cultural processes among them.

Mapping of tonal scale geography generating tonal qualityAs local cultures make choices of the musical expression of themselves, one can expect

them to select tones in reference to their own identities. These identities are likely toexpress region consistencies. Hence one could create a kaleidoscope of world music imag-

ery as identities establish themselves.

Syncopation of occulted notesOn any given day, places will be occulted by clouds, trees, perhaps someone standing in the wayof the sun. In an established piece, these notes will be missing, leaving a space expressive of localconditions.

Frequency variation by dimensions of degrees of longitude at various latitudesThere are any number of techniques which appear to establish tonality as a function of objectiveconditions. For example, the dimension of a degree of longitude varies from the equator to thepole, becoming nothing.

In the same way that a finger on a violin neck increases frequency while reducing amplitude, soone could take an initial frequency at the equator for a certain degree of Longitude and have it

vary as a function of the relative latitude’s longitudinal dimension.It is important to note that there is as much subjective choice in these methods as in any other.Their merit lies in their expressiveness of deeper aspects of the global pattern.

Sun as source of musicMany phenomena of the sun are also rich with patterns which can be used to generatemusic, from sun spots, to the waxing and waning of the solar wind, among infinite

others.

Sun as opener of gateways for musicAs the sun arrives overhead it can “pass the baton” from place to place

as part of a continuous global music festival, where each placetakes responsibility for a day part, or perhaps consortia of

places along a longitude collaborate to create music to-gether for a period of time.

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What Do We Need?

By its very nature, this is not the task of an individual. We need sculptors andastronomers, musicians and engineers, graphic designers and coordinators. We

need the full spectrum of talents to build the vision.

We need funding for Research and Development, Model Building, Design Time,and Proof of Concept Trials.

We need a home base, and a 501 C3 to assist in our fundraising.

We deeply need your feedback in refining our presentation and challenging ourconcepts. If you are reading this, it is because we rely on your wisdom and

integrity. If are are so moved, mark this up, send us an email, call,

Participate.