CONCEPT ARTWORKS

NOTE: THESE “EXPERIMENTAL” ARTWORKS ARE NOT USED FOR THE ONLINE AND CD SALES.

Click here if you were looking for information about the album “Tick Tock” itself. >

“SON OF MAN” CONCEPT

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.” ~ René Magritte.

Roel made this concept artwork because of his fascination for those things below the surface., things that in real are different then they appear at first, the “façade” and the actual “being”.

The clock hiding the face (or the person hiding behind the clock) could in this case be interpreted as using “time” as an excuse or even worse, “legit” reason to don’t do or be. Nowadays people in the West live their lives structured and organized, with fully booked agendas, making their moves by the clock.

What happened with living in the moment? How often do you do something in the here and now, spontaneous? It time spend the result of you living your life or do you live by the clock? Do you hide behind the concept and structures of time or are you “free” from it?

Those of you familiar with Surrealism might have recognized the “reference” in the Tick Tock design (on the left) to the work “Son of Man” (painting on the right) by Belgium artist René Magritte. JazzProfilactika project member Roel likes art genres like Dadaism, Surrealism and Pop Art a lot and drew inspiration from works like this for his concept art experiments.

“FLYING CLOCK” CONCEPT

Within this concept artworks are various references embedded, references to philosophy, culture and mathematica, all aspects that define the character of music. Bellow you can read some background information about what is what and why it’s there.

ARTWORK BACKGROUND

SPIRAL (lines in background behind the Sun-Clock)
The oldest symbol known to be used in spiritual practices. It reflects the universal pattern of growth and evolution and represents the goddess, the womb, fertility and life force energy. Reflected in the natural world, the Spiral is found in human physiology, plants, minerals, animals, energy patterns, weather, growth and death. It is a sacred symbol that reminds us of our evolving journey in life.

For us the making of this album provided an opportunity for both professional and personal growth. The tracks evolved and the making of this album became a musical journey.

MILKY WAY
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. The strange blue-purple-ish “clouds” above the (gridded) horizon in the front side (Day) cover is the Milky Way. You might not recognize is as such (and see clouds instead) and that is logical. After all, if you look at the sky during day time you can’t see the Milky Way with the naked eye. It is there nonetheless.

With this we like to symbolize that there is more to it (our music, the artwork) than meets the eye (and ear)!

On the back side (Night) cover you can actually see the same image of the Milky Way as used in the front side (Day), but under its normal conditions (night-time, darkness). 

ARTWORK FOREGROUND

JAZZPROFILACTIKA4

At the album cover concept design you might have noticed the 4 at the end of the project’s name. The 4 stands in the first place for Quartet (4 performing artists: 1 DJ + 3 musicians). As mathematical “joke” you could also interpret it as “JazzProfilactika to the power of 4” and thus more then the sum of its parts.

PAINT BUCKET & BRUSH

The paint bucket and brush represent Ivan Boyadzhiev (Rest In Peace). The Bulgarian word for painter (dyer / decorator) is бояджия (boyadzhia). The displayed paint bucket and brush are not only the visualization of his name, but as engineer one records music as a painter captures a landscape. Besides that, his colorful personality left a “mark” on us personally and this album. Without his support (and unlimited studio time) and friendship this album might not have been …

AHNK ☥

This Egyptian symbol represents eternal life and provides magical protection. Regeneration of Life through Water. Many other wisdom traditions use this symbol with some variation in the vertical and horizontal cross.

The AHNK is placed next to the paint bucket and brush, to emphasize that Ivan Boyadzhiev has gained “eternal life” through the friendship and support he gave us and our project. He “lives on” through it …

THE CLOCKS

What better way to visualize time – it’s passing and relevance – than using clocks? 

Clocks with wings? Yes … “time flies when you’re having fun“! 

When looking at the full-size high-resolution artworks, the observing eye might have noticed that all clocks contain a different set of 3 numbers. Online the graphic resolution is not high enough to see those when looking at the complete artwork. Some detail crops are added below to zoom into it:

So, what do those numbers mean? 

216 (group of 3 clocks) / 432 (Sun Clock, group of 3 clocks) / 864 (group of 3 clocks)

216Hz (A3) and 864Hz (A5) are the octaves below and above 432Hz (Concert Pitch A4).

The Sun-Clock contains the numbers 4, 3 and 2, the pitch of A4. In the center of the clock you can see an iris. Above the Sun-Clock you see two of the 3 legs of a triangle. Combined they form the “Eye of Providence” or “The All-Seeing Eye”, that represents the eye of God watching over mankind. Nowadays this symbol is often associated with Freemasonry and used in movies and books (not always factually though). 

Above the Sun (in the “leg” of the number 4 in the background) you see the “Upsilon Two Hasta” runic symbol: IYI found in the center of a 7-legged “cross” (rosette). It represents the Mystery of the Sacred Proto-Bulgarian Number – the number 7 – and represents Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn as well. The characters IYI form the word IUI (or JUJI), the word JUI was related to a celestial body, possibly the sun. JUI is related to the old Sumerian name of the Sun and to the Elamic symbol U, JUI meant a “union with God” in the oldest work in Sanskrit – the Vedas. This sacred Bulgarian symbol appears first in Thrace (nowadays Bulgaria).

We added it to the design concept to refer to the origin of the album and the admiration for the history and culture of the location: Bulgaria.

According to Rudolf Steiner all unaltered tones (of the 7 tone scale of C Major) relate to planets and metals. He related the following:

C – Mars – Iron
D – Mercury – Mercury
E – Jupiter – Tin
F – Venus – Copper
G – Saturn – Lead
A – Sun – Gold
B – Moon – Silver

For the “number fetishists” among us: there are also several cool mathematical “formulas” you can make with these numbers. For example:

432 is a Multiple Harshad number. In “recreational mathematics”, a Harshad number (or “Niven number”) in a given number base, is an integer that is divisible by the sum of its digits when written in that base (see list at oeis.org). 

432 (Harshad) = 4 + 3 + 2 = 18 (Harshad) = 1 + 8 = 9 (Harshad)
432 (Harshad) / 18 (Harshad) = 24 (Harshad) = 2 + 4 = 6 (Harshad)

If you multiply (instead of summing-up) the digits of 432 you get the following Harshad numbers:

432 = 4 x 3 x 2 = 24 (Harshad) = 2 x 4 = 8 (Harshad)
432 (Harshad) / 24 (Harshad) = 18 (Harshad) = 1 + 8 = 9 (Harshad)

Looking at these Harshad numbers above as tone frequencies (Hz), then we find A4=432Hz, 9Hz and 18Hz would be tone “D” respectively 5 and 4 octaves below D4=288Hz, 6hz and 24Hz turns out to be a “G” respectively 6 and 4 octaves below G4=384Hz. Harshad number 8 would be the tone “C” 5 octaves below C4=256Hz. If you have “studied” the Pythagorean Temperament before, you might have noticed all those tones are a perfect match!

Both 216 and 864 are Harshad numbers as well and with the same math applied as above generate the following Harshad numbers (+ corresponding tones): 

216 generates: 2(C), 3(G), 6(G), 9(D), 12(G), 18(D), 216(A)
864 generates: 2(C), 3(G), 9(D), 12(G), 18(D), 48(G), 192(G), 864(A)

Something else …

27 = 3 x 3 x 3 …or “3 Cubed” (27Hz = A).
216 = 6 x 6 x 6 …or “6 Cubed” (216Hz = A).

128 (group of 4 clocks) 256 / 512 (group of 2 clocks)

128Hz (C3) 256Hz (C4) & 512Hz (C5)

According to Rudolf Steiner the human middle-ear “beats” on 128Hz. “Coincidentally” ear-specialists still use 128Hz as “test-tone”. Tuning forks at 128Hz and 256Hz are sill being sold at large medical supply shops.

256Hz is also known as the “Scientific Pitch” and part of the 432Hz scale if Pythagorean Temperament (of a variant of it) is used. For our album we have used 12-Tone Equal Temperament due to some limitations to the wind/brass instrument used for this album. Nonetheless we like to emphasis the importance of 256Hz as Pitch frequency.

The number 256 is the result of the binary fission (cell devision) we see in nature: 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256-512…

128Hz is the 7th overtone and 8th harmonic of 1Hz
256Hz is the 8th overtone and 9th harmonic of 1Hz
512Hz is the 9th overtone and 10th harmonic of 1Hz

 In algebra: 

8 = 2 x 2 x 2 …or “2 Cubed” (8Hz = C).
64 = 4 x 4 x 4 …or “4 Cubed” (64Hz = C). 
512 = 8 x 8 x 8 …or “8 Cubed” (512Hz = C).

153 (group of 4 clocks)
The number 153 is associated with the (sacred) geometric shape known as the Vesica Piscis or Mandorla. Archimedes, referred to this ratio (265/153) in his “Measurement of a Circle“, as constituting the “measure of the fish” or “Ichthys“, this ratio being an imperfect representation of 1/√3.

The number 153 has several interesting mathematical properties. 153 is the sum of the first 17 integers and is also the sum of the first five positive factorials: 1! + 2! + 3! + 4! + 5! = 153.

369 (group of 4 clocks)
“If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe.”
– Nikola Tesla

With setting one clock to this number, we like to emphasis the importance and admiration of the work and discoveries of Tesla (one of the greatest scientific minds). For this album itself this number 369 as tone frequency (369Hz) does not play a role. It is far from certain (if not unlikely) that Tesla spoke about tone frequencies when he mentioned 3, 6 and 9. 

528 (Broken Clock)
In both 432 tuning and “New Age” communities a tuning concept by Dr. Joseph Puleo & Leonard Horowitz called “The Ancient Solfeggio Tones” or “528-Love” is mentioned. Their mathematically, musicological and historically flawed concept is often mentioned in one breath online with 432-Tuning. With the broken clock with broken wings we like to point out that we do not use or support the 528 tuning concept. It simply “doesn’t fly with us“.

If you want to know exactly why their concept is flawed, then read the Roel’s World blog article about it.

CLOCK WITHOUT DIGITS (group of 4 clocks)
Time is relative and hard to get a grip on. It represents how we lost track of time and time passed by until the album was ready for it’s released.