Hospital of Objects. Recycling plastic from the small electronic devices to redesign old objects by the 3d printers

Abstract "Hospital of Objects" is a service that provides for the recovery of forgotten, obsolete and accidentally broken objects, it fall within typical chain of personal manufacturing. Through the design input of the designer / maker, the obsolete object reacquires an aesthetic and functional dignity, according to the contemporary hybrid design and hacking design logic. The aim is to give new life to small everyday objects , recomposing, aggregating or replacing some parts with new parts 3d printed, using filament obtained from the recycling plastic of WEEE waste. The service through the exchange of expertise (including Laboratory for the recycling of WEEE and Rapid Manufacturing Laboratory), cooperation (between user and designer / maker), attention to environmental impact, leading to the creation of a particular product: hybrid of languages and technologies, that allows experiments in the field of recycling, technology and creativity, exploiting the 3D Printing aimed at small-scale production or unique pieces.

Planned obsolescence and Perceived Obsolescence
The current production process for each type of manufactured article is a linear system defined "from cradle to grave" and what today designers and advertisers define "life cycle of the product" is actually nothing more than obsolescence. considered a precise production strategy. Compared to the past, now manufacturers generate, constantly, new product categories to persuade the owners to replace the old with the new, according to the logic of "designing for the dump" employing real tricks thought to make obsolete and unfit needs products ahead of time.
In this behavior, defined as "planned obsolescence", joins the '"perceived obsolescence", the behavior of those consumers who need to stay ahead with fashion and its constant changes: they both contribute to the same logic and the exponential increase of quantities of waste, especially plastic.

The issue of waste
Despite the increasing presence of waste collection services and the growing awareness raising of this issue, we continue to live in a world in which 90% of waste which pollute our seas and about 12% of the total municipal solid waste materials plastics principally derived from consumer products. The problems related to consumption are the result of the speed with which exhausts the usefulness of the resources that we exploit. By a linear process, the ideal would be a change of direction that leads to a circular system "from cradle to gate." In our linear economic system, when goods is no longer needed is thrown into dump or incinerated. At best is recycled, that is recombined into shapes necessarily any less pure than the original ones considered of a lesser value. The reason for this devaluation depends on whether the materials that comprise the goods are not pure, but hybrid, composed of different substances, which once blended together become difficult to separate.

Conscious Designing
In order order to succeed to move from a linear system to a cyclic system should eliminate the concept of waste and starting from the design, studying the "nutrient flow," and separating the flows of biological nutrients (anything that can be put back into the cycle life of the earth without danger) and technical nutrients (all that remains of a good and that can be "upcycled", ie used again increasing in value). Consumer products are the ones that you consume, as the word itself suggests, should be designed so that their release in the land and in the atmosphere, is not dangerous. A basic condition to get the expected results is a deep transformation of the market, which provides a real change of the entire economic and trim paradigm of traditional industrial production. The important thing would be transition from an economy of brute force in an economy of intellectual power, where technological expertise, knowledge and sharing are the central resource for new economic activities (Blue Economy). In fact we should get used to to buy services rather than products, and to perceive, understand and be able to exploit the potential that wastes have. This is the goal of Systemic Design.

The role of Systemic Design
Systemic design is the discipline that allows you to define and plan the flow (throughput) of materials that flows from one system to another in a continuous metabolization which reduces the carbon footprint and generates a significant economic flow, especially at local level. The project organizes and optimizes all actors and parties within the field, so that they can develop evolving, coherently with each other. The singol parts of the system interlace in order to form a virtuous net (autopoietic) of relations between the flows of material, energy and information flows. The goal is the local social well-being entire system, not one-way.

Human being and Object
Our homes are filled with objects that possess varying degrees of usefulness and indispensability. Objects are unquestionable facts of everyday life and, today more than ever, our possessions have never been bigger as a result of what is called product maturity that "obliges" to continually replace old products with new ones. Today, the passion towards the possessed object is consumed almost in the same moment in which we acquire, destroying completely, the value and identity; this conception, it was once totally inverted, so that the inherited objects had much more value than new ones, because designed and manufactured to be durable and accompanying people all throughout their lives. In contrast, the life cycle of a product that was once estimated in decades, now is measured in a few months and the product is soon considered of little use, a waste.

The refuse concept
The refuse is linked to the concept of worthlessness, the word itself, inevitably, leads to its opposite: the utilitythat is defined in terms of the functionality exercised, in view of certain purposes. The refuse is the useless, that is, the unusable, or what is, by its own nature or by reason of some accidental event, excluding any possibility of use. Despite all that, paradoxically, the consumer still persists a tendency to preserve old objects no longer used, or even not working.
If you analyze our possessions, from a semiotic point of view, they can be considered an integral part of an individual's life both psychically and emotionally, in fact, contribute to building the personality, participate in the formation of character guaranteeing continuity of his being in time. Unacceptable to consider them a waste. Many objects, now, entering the waste circuit when still possess infinite possibilities of use. The object considered obsolete and useless may, from another point of view, be seen as something good for a productive transformation process and / or converted into new product.

Third Industrial Revolution
The phenomenon, that is developing like wildfire, is the basis of a true democratic revolution in industrial production: with the reduction of the cost of the machines, the production is moving towards a decentralized form, on-site and on-demand, of thre consumer products and not, thus laying the foundations of the Third Industrial Revolution.
The 3d printing is part of the "Additive Manufacturing" cycle, different from the "Subtractive Manufacturing "typical of the traditional production processes and better consolidated.
The market opportunities are significant in the hobbies and crafts field, particularly for Makers, new digital artisans (modeling, toys, accessories, jewelry, footwear, fashion, ceramics, sculpture, restoration parts, pastries), to create objects unique or personalized, direct production in the FabLab or through service centers.
In the industrial field, the most promising markets in addition to the rapid prototyping, are: the automotive and aerospace industries, precision engineering, implants and other medical devices which require a high level of customization and complexity. Although the continued spread of additive manufacturing and the benefits that derive from it compared to the subtractive manufacturing, such as the significant reduction of material waste, the 3D printers have been consolidated, only, in specific areas such as rapid prototyping ( important for the improvement of the life cycle of a product) and tend to a personal production (personal manufacturing) and small-scale, thanks to the spread of FDM technology, anticipating a return to dislocated production.

3D printing and environmental impact
According to a recent study by Michigan Technological University, the production through 3D printers implies lower energy expenditure by 47% compared the traditional manufacturing. But consider the 3D printing as the one and only solution to ecological production management, is risky. A negative note on the environmental impact caused by the three-dimensional printers, however, it emerges from another research conducted by M. Kurman and H. Lipson, co-authors of the book Fabricated, which underline especially two negative factors: • the energy consumption, significantly higher than of the classical industrial machines; • the high dependency on plastic materials (in particular the FDM technologies that work by extrusion of thermoplastic polymers).
Given that for additive manufacturing the most developed fields fall into the rapid prototyping of test specimens destined to the testing phase or formal check, while for the personal manufacturing concerns the production of gadgets and "no deposit" supports, it is clear that the environmental impact, due unconscious use of plastic materials, is a decisive element for the effective and sustainable development of these technologies. How 3D printing can reduce the environmental impact due to the use not very consciously of plastic?
We live in a situation in which we are, unfortunately, submerged by tons of wastes, toxic and nontoxic, caused, for the most part, by industrial production without criteria; find a balance between production, consumption (economy) and the environment could be the key to success.

The service: The Hospital of Objects
Imagining a typical chain of personal manufacturing which provides an active role of the final consumer, the involvement of the production places such as Fab-Labs or otherwise, of laboratories that offer 3D Print services and working according to the logic of the Do-It-Yourself in addition to the planning and managerial contribution of generation of designers defined precisely Makers, was born the project "Hospital of Objects", developed by Sapienza Design Factory Laboratory in collaboration with the Laboratory R4R of ENEA Casaccia research center. The perspective is in parallel with the recovery and recycling where systemic design plays a key role. The user's role is active, ie to create a its output an input that can move the complete system using new technologies, the logic of the DIY, the world of the Fab Labs, the makers, professionals, designers. The input consists of obsolete objects, disused, to which the user is attacched and WEEE category R4, the present case, old devices: smartphones, tablets, old keyboards and mouses, clock radios, consoles. Exchange, the cooperation, the meeting of needs and different skills, leading to the creation of a final product, one of a kind, a hybrid of languages and technologies, that allows experiments in the field of recycling, technology and creativity, embracing also the logical 3d printing technology oriented to the production of small-scale or unique pieces. "The hospital of objects" is a multi-professional laboratory where the forgotten objects, obsolete or accidentally broken objects, are reconditioned, restored, made hybrids, hacked, or just plain restored, according to customer needs, with technology three-dimensional printing, and all the techniques and methodologies typical of the Time Compression Technology. The the service includes the choice by the user of two types of recovery of objects: • the first based on the restoration and then functional restoration of ceramic objects that recalls to the concept of traditional restoration (which aims to just plain life extension of the manufactured with the help of the new 3D printing technologies); • the second, called "RAEEsugi" (which is linked to the ancient art of kintsugi, the Japanese technique to repair broken ceramic objects with gold or silver cast, giving back the object a large semantic value). It provides a first step where to recycle the old WEEE category R4, to give life to the filament for the next 3d printing, and a step of free design based about hybrid and hacking logic. The aim is to give new life to small everyday objects (with a strong semantic value) recomposing, aggregating or substituting part of them with new parts made through the FDM 3D printing filament obtained from the recycling of old WEEE category R4 . The added value of the service choice "RAEEsugi" consists in having made an "ecological" choice giving rise to a authentic, technological, unique and functional object.


Sounds too true to be good: diegetic infidelity – the case for sound in virtual reality

ABSTRACT Cinematic virtual reality (VR) elicits new possibilities for the treatment of sound in space. Distinct from screen-based practices of filmmaking, diegetic sound–image relations in immersive environments present unique, potent affordances, in which content is at once imaginary, and real. However, a reductive modelling of environmental realism, in the name of ‘presence’ predominates. Yet cross-modal perception is a noisy, flickering representation of worlds. Treating our perceptual apparatus as stable, objective transducers, ignores the inter-subjective potential at the heart of immersive work, and situates users as passive spectators. This condescends to audiences and discounts the historic symbiosis of sound–image signification, which comes to constitute notions of verisimilitude. We understand the tropes; we willingly suspend disbelief. This article examines spatial sound rendering in virtual environments, probing at diegetic realism. It calls for an experimental, aesthetic approach, suggesting several speculative strategies, drawing from theories of embodied cognition and acousmatic practice (amongst others) which necessarily deal with space and time as contingencies of the immersive. VR affords a development of the dialectic between sound and image which distinctively involves our spatial attention. The lines between referent and signified blur; the mediation between representations invoked by practitioners, and those experienced by audiences, suggest new opportunities for co-authorship.

Introduction: spectacle of mes-mmersion
The growth in demand and supply for immersive experiences (Gartner 2016) whether for brand-building, entertainment, or empathic journalism, seems set to continue. The enablement of such experiences through new media such as virtual reality (VR) compounds what seems to be a desire for amplified experience. A posthuman encounter with the sublime, immersion in virtual environments allows temporary oblivion, an escape from real environments and the pressures-as-habitus of the information age. This in turn attests to the accessibility and convergence of technologies, rich, hyperreal media, and commerce's backing of this form of twenty-first century nihilism (Bia 2016).
Immersive experiences such as VR, are increasingly extensive (accommodating many sensory systems), surrounding (they approach us from any direction), vivid (rich and varied in informational content) and match proprioceptive feedback about our body movements (Slater et al. 1996). As such, they dissolve subject/object oppositions, offering us complex multi-sensory environments in which our perceptual apparatus and technology are synthesised, with minimal mediation. VR is not in fact a new medium, but its level of current accessibility, brought about by improvements in computing, reduction in component size and reduced pricing, has made it a technology for the consumer. Yet it suffers from a lack of research due to the recency of its adoption (Biocca 1999;Sharples 2016) and exists in a fragmented ecosystem. Sound's late positioning in project timelines, often results in a pressured, innocuous approach to spatial sound design, just when it can be placed in any position relative to the user, and importantly, relative to its visual counterpointits source.
Production conventions for VR are underdeveloped compared with screen-based media, and evolve apace, assimilating the results of research and practice in a kind of internal combustion and accelerated reproduction. Components are developed and brought, 'market fresh' from high tech industrial zones in Schenzen. Cross-disciplinary, experimental work by engineers and psychologists working with virtual technologies continually redefine our conceptual frameworks for understanding the relationship between the hardware and human 'wetware', 1 work that is in turn absorbed into the pastiche-belly of wider dissemination: interactive VR installations, workshops held in cultural institutions, business meetups. Such empirically conducted research raises as many questions as it does provide affirmations or refutations, in a dense quagmire of ethical issues attempting to guide responsible use, for the young, for parents, for risk-averse though fervent manufacturers. 2 Will production and consumption guidelines emerge from trial and error?
Today's emphatic declamations ('thou shalt not use jump-cuts!') morph into tomorrow's anecdotes of derision. At present many challenges remain, from directing attention in a medium which necessarily deals with freedom of head movement (there is no finite framing as with screen-based media), to addressing emotional engagement and user interactivity (currently positioned as mutually exclusive). Are these obstacles to be overcome, or openings to new ways of conceiving communication? 'Hidden environments' (McLuhan and Fiore 1967;McLuhan and McLuhan 2011) the subliminal forces of media and their effectsenable 'anti-environments' after all, the forms of work that rise to challenge and interrogate new media, and in doing so give rise to nascent creative strategies. Some strategies will establish roots, over time bearing answers to VR's predicaments. They will form its material and political contingencies, and give VR meaning beyond affect. Presently, strategies of both environment and anti-environment are in flux. Meanwhile, an explicit recognition of the extent to which sound rendering in VR is influenced by its technologies, and their historicised ascent is useful. 3 Convergence in technologies has placed production into the hands of novice practitioners, and reception into the ears of naïve listeners, using (minimally) a smart phone, cardboard headset, and their own headphones. Binaural sound synthesis, dynamically rendered, offers a compelling experience even under such circumstances. In pursuit of 'presence'a sense of 'being there', improved realism and quality may seem of key concern, indeed they exert a powerful effect (Hendrix and Barfield 1996;Serafin and Serafin 2004). Yet does ever-increasing fidelity produces ever-increasing aesthetic gains? We may feel we are 'there', but once the impact of VR's novelty has lessened, why is 'there' interesting? What else could sound contribute? Audio in VR has distinct benefits, including its ability to cue user attention. It can be, however, the victim of its own ephemeral appeal. For screen-based filmmaking, sound has been a post-production concern. Automated dialogue replacement, foley, and sound effects have all contributed to its efficacy in 'adding value' to the visual in a process of 'synchresis', the forging of sound-image signification (Chion 1994). Sound adds value by creating: … the definite impression, in the immediate or remembered experience one has of it, that this information or expression 'naturally' comes from what is seen, and is already contained in the image itself. Added value is what gives the (eminently incorrect) impression that sound is unnecessary, that sound merely duplicates a meaning which in reality it brings about, either all on its own or by discrepancies between it and the image. (Chion 1994, 5) Chion draws our attention to the crucial role sound plays in creating, legitimising and subverting meaning. Yet it remains invisible and consequently to some, even if involved in production, imperceptible. Acknowledged more in absence than presence.
In VR, post-production is bottlenecked in the extreme, exposing for the first time the impact of earlier mistakes, often unrecoverable. New technologies require new skills, new constellations of teams, familiarity with products and processes that rapidly shift. Many practitioners learn through failure. Soundif making its inception hereprecariously remains a post-production affair, despite the extent of its contribution. At present diegetic sound is usually mapped to its visual source, whilst non-diegetic sound is placed 'in head' stereophonically. This is not only a result of time constraints, however. Unlike a visual 'shot' sound in any media does not exist as a discrete unit, thus lacking the '… enormous advantage of being a neutral unit, objectively defined, that everyone who has made the film as well as those who watch it can agree on' (Chion 1994, 41).
Can audiophiles be forgiven similar transgressions and visual biases? The '… discourse of loss' in which audiophiles are typically obsessed with fidelity and reproduction of the live original as the technological ideal …'. (Chow and Steintrager 2011, 5) suggests that even if sound is acknowledged, it represents almost a fetish in absentia. Chow and Steintrager see both sound's technical and phenomenological pursuit as predicated on its elusive qualities, its unwillingness to be caught -' … it has always already escaped' (2011,5). How faithfully then, was it ever captured?
According to Altman (1992), recordings have only partial correspondence to the original event. Chion underlines the reasoning underlying this approach in film sound: … the processed food of location sounds is most often skimmed of certain substances and enriched with others. Can we hear a great ecological cry -'give us organic sound without additives?' Occasionally filmmakers have tried this […] the result is totally strange. Is this because the spectator isn't accustomed to it? Surely. But also because reality is one thing, and its transposition into audiovisual two-dimensionality […] which involves radical sensory reduction, is another. (1994,96) Chion perhaps stops short where he could challenge the 'realism' of perception itself. 4 The notion of veridicality between the world and our perception of it, is questionable. It presupposes that our sensory apparatus are incidental, 'faithful transducers' replicating objective external reality (Lennox 2004). Such ideals of objectivity and consciousness [… which] did not explicitly recognise the constitutive differences that participate in the 'soundscape' as a multivalent field of sounds with diverging social identities, individual creativities and affordances, biodiversities and differing abilities. (Novak and Sakakeeny 2015, 7) The world 'out there' is not objectively experienced by us then. Itlike media soundis always representational. Chion goes on: … conventions of rendering, sound effects, and so forth, […] consist of accommodations and adjustments […] to conserve a certain sense of realism and truth in their new representational context. […] 'trompe-l'oreille' is a worthy art … . (1994,96) Rendering is a worthy act of creation then, it declaims a voice, a message, an identity. It does not purport to be non-partisan. Our attraction to rendered hyperreality, immersion, and other rich environments testifies: Unreality is more presence-inducing than reality. So then, realism need not be the aim. What would Chion say about virtual, rather than two-dimensional media? At what attentional cost do we enter immersive unrealism?
Unbounded by frame, we have more information to parse in VR. Our spatial attention must be allocated and coordinated across modalities, each of which initially encode information differently. Perceptual processing and prioritisation of information from different modalities involves complex interactions. Given our limited attentional resource, 5 we may favour 'reliable' sensory input over accuracy (Battaglia, Jacobs, and Aslin 2003). How is it that ultimately we are presented with a coherent perceptual experience? How much are we subjectively 'gathering in' loose ends?
This work of gatheringan effort to unify and make cohereimplies that subjectivity is involved whenever we try to draw some boundary in the sonic domain … . (Chow and Steintrager 2011, 2) There are adaptive benefits to the resolution of conflicting sensory inputs, benefits that help explain the 'Ventriloquist Effect' (Alais and Burr 2004). The question then arises of how we enjoy experiences if they rupture such correspondence, and require a higher level of attentional resourcing? It would appear that the detection of an irregular event is a prerequisite for an emotional response. (Steinbeis, Koelsch, andSloboda 2006, 1391) Is such irregularity that which violates our expectations, jolts our complacency, and ultimately moves us? Perhaps the higher cognitive load which such a situation demands could be used to transport users along an aesthetic arc? Perhaps a one-to-one diegetic mapping of sound to image isn't the most effective way of communicating information, particularly in an artistic context? Drawing from music cognition studies we might explore the relationship between perception and aesthetics. In the inverted bell-curve of the complexity-liking relationship (North and Hargreaves 1995; Orr and Ohlsson 2005), content too predictable or too complex is less 'liked', whilst at the peak of the inverted bell, complexity and liking are in an optimal position. Might sound-image incongruence, initially unexpected yet systematically applied (thus recognisable), move users along a similar aesthetic arc? What might the optimal position be for liking/complexity? Would this vary between audiences, or for the same person over time? Could it be exploited to sustain interest? It is not the smooth simulacrum of reality but the ambiguity in the continually shifting background of sound-image relations that serves to hold the viewer-auditor's interest, promising suspense and surprise even where […] there is no narrative. (Johnson 1989, 26) Complexitythe impression of randomness despite regularity in incongruent soundimage relations, can 'continually shift', can be increased or decreased to induce a heterogeneous, emergent experience. The site of this 'becoming' experience is distributed, with cognitive processes acting to organise further meaning from arranged audiovisual phenomena. Cognitive processes themselves contain personal and collective histories, such that the act of reception is also one of authorship. There is no supplicant with abdicated sensoria. VR is socially composed with a level of inter-subjective production which may be unprecedentedindividual differences are exacerbated in immersive settings due to the egocentric placement of audiences, and the orbiting of events and constituents such that 'everything is interpreted relative to you' (Blesser and Salter 2009, 49).
What understanding then, need practitioners of spatial sound design for immersive media have, of cognition? As an example, Chion discusses a kind of substitute memory: The question of verisimilitude, is a terribly ambiguous and complicated one […] sound that rings true for the spectator and sound that is true are two very different things. In order to assess the truth of a sound, we refer much more to codes established by cinema itself, by television, and narrative representational arts in general […] quite often we have no personal memory we might refer to regarding a scene we see. (1994,107) Here media acts as a substitute, codified recollection, not just due to a lack of experience, but as Chion explains, also resulting from the strength of impression left by media. This in turn focuses our concern on sound's rendering more than its reproduction, even in a reality that is virtual. This symbiosis, and the partiality of our auditory 'representational' archives, has been acknowledged: Whereas comparing the visual architecture of two spaces through pictures does not place a burden on short-term memory, comparing the aural architecture of two spaces involves [ … ] the unreliability of auditory memory … . (Blesser and Salter 2009, 17) Despite Altman's (1992) 'reproductive' fallacy in cinema sound (which holds that the image is creatively unfaithful, but sound is automatically faithful), we can see that practitioners have exploited sound-image disjuncture and recognised audience cognitive subjectivities before immersive media assumed its current forms. The line between diegesis and mimesis was blurred by film and theatre sound-image relations, to effect. Some of these effects may be so well established that they exist below the threshold of awareness. A banal examplein real life we would not hear a cat purring unless we were extremely close to it. In film sound practice an incredulously amplified purr is an acceptable representation of reality. 6 This acceptance underlines the value of expression over realism. Tarkovsky clearly states the case: … sounds of the world reproduced naturalistically in cinema are impossible to imagine: there would be a cacophony. Everything that appeared on the screen would have to be heard on the soundtrack, and the result would amount to sound not being treated at all in film. If there is no selection then the film is tantamount to silent, since it has no sound expression of its own. (1989,161) When dealing with sound that has been designed, we necessarily do so aesthetically (aesthetic appreciation as perceptual experience). Yet our symbiotic absorption of mediated 'realities' means we soon incorporate them into an updated range of realism. The treatment of sound-image relations may want its aesthetic expression, but we could exercise caution here. A critique of the hyperreal as a semiotic structure and nihilistic device provides a useful reminder (Eco 1986(Eco , 1989Böhme 1993;Baudrillard, 1994) that doppelgängers are elusive figures whom we would do well to recognise, less they succeed as the signified, and flatten our sense of perspective. As Böhme prompts, any 'ordering' of elements contains some agenda, whether declared or implicit. Without interrogation, we risk perpetuating hierarchies and inequalities in the most benign or beguiling of forms: [A] response to the progressive aestheticisation of reality … aesthetics represents a real social power. There are aesthetic needs and an aesthetic supply … to the aesthetics of the work of art we can now add … the aesthetics of everyday life, the aesthetics of commodities and a political aesthetics. (Böhme 1993, 125) Our complicity with spectacle neuters us (at least in part). Thus there is a certain morality in imagination, and the ability to draw ourselves away from an enveloping, mes-mmersive present toward disjuncture, the rupturing of expectation, the artwork as 'antienvironment'.

Diegetic anti-realism
The real can never be represented; representation alone can be represented. For in order to be represented, the real must be known, and knowledge is always already a form of representation. (Altman 1992, 46) Realism, and so anti-realism, is a continually shifting concern. VR's 'reality' is bound by inherited representational systems until its own emerge. And whilst they do, we might askwhat affordances does VR offer for effective communication? Tarkovsky asserts: … accurately recorded sound adds nothing to the image system of cinema, for it still has no aesthetic content […] if the real sounds are distorted so that they no longer correspond with the imagethen the film acquires a resonance. (1989,162) Such deviations, applied to three dimensions in a virtual experience, may engender effective strategies for designing spatial sound in a world that is wilfully incomplete, awaiting the interpretive 'filling up' by individual users' meaning.
We need an alternative concept that assumes neither the completeness nor the consistency of a real space. (Blesser and Salter 2009, 132) Exaggerated sound-image interactions may for example 'break' the representational frame in an otherwise unframed environment, allowing for real-time subjectivity and awareness of illusion, an ebb and flow of tension and aesthetic release. This may all be achievable in an environment which promotes phenomenological presence. But rulebreaking is an act involving less deliberation than rule-making: When inventing new rules and applying them in novel ways, an artist is just as likely to create musical experiments that have little enduring value. The application of aural architecture to cinema is a good example of aesthetically pleasing spatial rules that never presume a space as a real environment.
[…] unrelated aural and visual spaces often coexist simultaneously … . (Blesser and Salter 2009, 160) Rupturing for the sake of rupturing will only take us so far; too much may break presence and fail to engage audiences (who have an overwhelming array of choice and lack of time). Too little may go unnoticed. Experimentation is requisite, and it is contended that a systematic, considered strategy will be less likely to become the very thing it seeks to subvertspectacle.
Speculative strategies for experimentation … the history of music illustrates the attempt to find ways of describing, notating, and therefore identifying sounds, without specifying a cause for them … . (Scruton 1997, 3) From whom should we draw inspiration for spatial sound design? An experimental palette may include a diverse a range of disciplines (a hybrid approach being appropriate for this hybrid medium).

Aesthetic philosophy
Aesthetic philosophy, working towards a new aesthetic of 'acoustic atmospheres' (Böhme 1993) would allow us to consider the relationship between environmental qualities and human states. Böhme suggests we treat aesthetics experientially rather than dialectically. This suits VR as immersive environment: This new aesthetics circumscribes […] their very immersion [ … ] Atmosphere surrounds, includes, involves, envelops, and gives forth both the qualities of the environment and the experiencing human […] in order to stand as atmosphere, a spatial arrangement needs to be experienced or imagined into being. (Grant 2014, 21) But should we rely on its sensuous or formal characteristics without concern for the social function of the work? Böhme cautioned against this. Updating metaphors of materiality in filmmaking practice (for example those of the Constructivists) requires that we celebrate the innate sensual properties of aesthetics in spatial sound design, and the dissolution of subject-object authorship. Here we may look to theories of embodied cognition.

Embodied cognition
Theories of embodied cognition suggest that form and meaning cannot be phenomenally or logically separated. 7 Perception directly engages with meanings that are in the world and body, but uses symbolic representational structures to do so. This is a useful segue into a strategy which leverages the phenomenology of experience whilst (through designed-in incongruence), foregrounding our subjectivities. Lakoff and Johnson (2003) offer conceptual metaphors and image schemas 8 for understanding the way that we relate to sound (a more abstract phenomena) in terms of our concrete experience. This process in turn leads to systematic conceptual metaphors and related expressions, and might provide a useful framework for incongruence. As an example strategy, incongruence might deviate aesthetically by slowing the tempo of sounds rising in pitch and quickening the tempo of those falling. This would represent a clear disjuncture, whilst adhering to principles of concrete experience (we slow down when moving upwards due to the greater exertion needed to counter gravity's effect). This might provide artistic interest whilst not 'breaking' presence.
Embodiment is not, however, de facto reflexive. In discussing Benjamin's (1936) essay on the effect of reproduction on the 'aura' of a work of art, Böhme argues that the avant garde: … did not succeed in discarding aura like a coat […] What they did succeed in doing was to thematize the aura […] this made it clear that what makes a work an artwork cannot be grasped soley through its concrete qualities. (1993,(116)(117) He goes on to cite Benjamin's description of aura as spatio-temporally contingent, and apt as analogous to an atmosphere, internalised through breathing, entering the 'bodily economy of tension and expansion' (Böhme 1993, 117) in an act of inter-subjective absorption, extension, and spatial perception. Layering, at the concrete and conceptual strata, means its … human character is perceivable [ … ] audiences are capable of perceiving properties of works as realizing artists' manipulations of materials … . (Gerwen 2012, 223) Crediting audiences with this ability echoes Chion's (1999) concept of the 'acousmêtre' that calls attention to the false sense of unity in sound-image relations, provided through synchrony. The acousmêtre, being ambiguous, leaves the source of the sound open to interpretation; it destabilises conditions. The anti-environment continually shifts. Which practical examples can we draw from, which tackle sound in space phenomenologically and conceptually? Sound studies critique sound beyond both its formal and ideological characteristics, even those which seem nebulous, such as its ubiquity and panopticism. This bodes well for immersion.

Sound studies and acousmatic practice
Recent developments in sound studies are encouraging. 'Acoustemology' (acoustics + epistemology) for example, theorises sound: … as a way of knowing. In doing so it inquires into what is knowable, through sound and listening. (Feld 2015, 12) This kind of approach necessarily deals with socially constructed knowledge and practice, refusing sound's 'objective universality' by positioning itself: … against 'soundscape', the key legacy term associated with [R Murray] Schafer [acoustemology] refuses to sonically analogise or appropriate 'landscape', with all its physical distance from agency and perception. (Feld 2015, 15) Meanwhile scholars and practitioners of acousmatic and electroacoustic music deal with notions of space as essential components. Smalley's (1997) notions of source-bonding or surrogacy are two foundations for compositional strategies. Source bonding can be real or imagined and is: The natural tendency to relate sounds to supposed sources and causes, and to relate sounds to each other because they appear to have shared or associated origins. (1997,110) Surrogacy meanwhile describes the progressive remoteness of sound source from directly experienced physical gestures. Smalley (1997, 124) provides guidelines for a global spatial style for a work 9 which could be applied to spatial sound design for VR (indeed his first guideline, that of 'single spatial setting', a cumulative spatial awareness in which a user appreciates (over time) the topology of a space within which a work sits, can be seen at work in 'Stifled'a VR game released in 2017 where the world is revealed through the sound-input of a user's microphone). 10 In his discussion of such ideas, Emmerson discusses how our auditory processing utilises: … established frames of reference when confronted with spaces, real or imaginary. Using electronics we may conjure up this increasingly wide set of alternatives. On the one hand the composer may attempt spatial re-presentation, that is the re-creation of an appropriate 'real' space to support a narrative; this can approach a kind of onomatopoeia in which the idiosyncrasies of a real space maybe mimicked … we may move from direct imitation […] through increasingly vague evocations to more remote impressions of colour and texture. (2007,101) He describes this range of options as exactly parallel to the mimetic axis of the materials of electroacoustic music. Gerwen's (2012) caution that we cannot hear everyday sounds acousmatically, as we cannot abstract sound events from their objects (including our own bodies), is a useful caveat. Sound may be intentionally organised and decoded, but its 'sounding' (its environmental and performative realisation) is integral to its appreciation as aesthetic expression. Gerwen, though not the first to do so, calls for critical listening.

Classical cognitivism
A classical cognitivist view may be useful to understand aesthetics in the context of expectation. Composer Frank Lerdahl usefully states: Aesthetic Claim 1: The best music utilizes the full potential of our cognitive resources.
Aesthetic Claim 2: The best music arises from an alliance of a compositional grammar with the listening grammar. (1992,119) Lerdahl's definition of musical grammar, is 'a limited set of rules that can generate indefinitely large sets of musical events and/or their structural descriptions ' (1992, 99). He subdivides this into two elementscompositional grammar, consciously employed to generate and organise events, and listening grammar, more or less unconsciously employed by auditors, and in effect generating mental representations of the music.
Lerdahl points to the prerequisite for 'stability conditions' to achieve comprehension and avoid boredom in the experience of listening (expectation and the violation of expectation combine to form satisfying musical experience where listener is neither constantly surprised nor constantly correct in their predictions). Transitional probabilitiesthe statistical regularities of sequences of eventscan be learnt with surprisingly little exposure, with semantically impoverished stimuli, and by infants (Saffron et al. 1999). The learning and exploitation of these stability conditions are engendered by systematically applied incongruence, which can then be ruptured to destabilise for aesthetic or narrative interest. Sound may be exceptionally placed to respond to the ideology of stability, which according to Voegelin: … does not exist but is assumed and pretended by a visual ideology. Sound by contrast negates stability through the force of sensory experience … . (2010,(11)(12) We cannot exert control over sound's ability to move us, we cannot shut it out. Audition is the eternal 'site of performative embodiment' (Barton and Windeyer 2012, 198) which extends beyond our will, enacting our bodies as environmental alarms. Sound is not stable, nor as we have seen, is our perception of it. How then, to allow for this in our ways of discussing it? How to mirror this fluidity in the very syntax with which we describe audio-vision?

Taxonomies
A final strategy, that of re-thinking taxonomies of sound-image, is now suggested. Many have contributed to establishing classifications in this field (Percheron and Butzel 1980;Raskin 1992;Chion 1994) to address our visually biased syntax for film (as Altman (1992) points out, we go to 'see' a film, we discuss 'point of view' etc.).
Even now the cinema has kept its ontologically visual definition no less intact. A film without sound remains a film; a film with no image, or at least without a visual frame for projection, is not a film. Except conceptually. (Chion 1994, 143) This biasing persists despite sound (unlike image) retaining its dimensionality in media. Image, whether screen-based or post-screen, is flattened. It flickers. We see stitch-lines, pixilation and other artefacts of its reproduction: … a filmed object loses a dimension in the recording, recorded sound maintains its dimensions … . Recorded sound thus has a higher coefficient of 'reality' than the image … . (Stam 2000, 214) Addressing this insidious imbalance may require new schema. Raskin (1992) situates both actual and subjective sound within the boundaries of the diegetic, seeing sound as a typology: 1) as a means for including in a stylistic profile of a given director, an exact description of his/her sound 'palette' -perhaps even as it evolves from film to film; 2) as a construct enabling us to deal with clearly defined varieties of sound, one at a time, in a systematic effort to chart the functions of film sound; and 3) as a basis for determining to what degree any given model for studying film aesthetics, encompasses a full range of variables with respect to sound. (1992,12) The idea of 'incongruent' (or at least playful) taxonomies is best reported by Foucault. We can make such rich, idiosyncratic categorisation our own, and unbind it from historical, objective alterity.
… animals are divided into: '(a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies'. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend […] as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that. (Foucault 1970, xv) Such taxonomy may not relate directly to sound-image relations in VR, but the freedom and possibility underpinning them may rupture perceived wisdom, in favour of unperceived imagination.

Wrapping up: keeping it unreal
Without the sound technologies to enable dynamic spatial rendering, the question of keeping it real or unreal is moot. Intentional rupturing would not be possible, only unintentional (wild) glitching. Deliberate rupturing must exceed realism in some sense, and could usefully defer to the reception of media as an act of co-constitution: If we expect spatial music to be something that a listener can be inside and can explore, then it may be necessary to surrender some control to the listener. (Lennox 2004, 30) Enabling audiences freedom to engage their own subjectivities offers spatial audio aesthetics as something which non-spatial audio cannot be. According to Lennox (2004) there cannot be a strong argument that the only kind of spatial structure we could understand is that found in real environments. We may use the proxy of immersive experience to (at least temporarily) discharge residual anxieties, a mental 'stress ball', absorbing the excesses of a digital existence with which our corporeality struggles. Yet we need to look beyond such techno-seductive affects. Immersive experiences may seem less mediated than ever, but the complex and multifarious systems they arise from and serve contain their own organisational aesthetics. Buyer beware. New practices for the presentation of multi-sensory experience will emerge and ossify, borrowing from prior mediums as they do. Any claims of objective realism uphold hidden environments, and the move from real to virtual environment is uncanny. In designing sound for space, practitioners may need to do more than upskill technically, as they carry new ethical responsibilities forward. Yet the promise of this medium, of an aesthetic, immersive space in which sound is crucial and can be highly designed, and variously decoded, is incentive enough.
In evaluating the aesthetics of spatial audio in VR, we might recall Chion's (1994) consideration of Tati's work, and ask ourselves, as he does, whether the: … audiovisual strategy produce[s] added value? That is, are we dealing with sound that enlivens the image, and deepens it in spatial terms? (1994,125) Notes 1. Two useful authors to review are Mel Slater, Research Professor at the University of Barcelona whose work uses VR to examine body ownership illusions as studied in cognitive neuroscience, and Pontus Larsson, whose research encompasses multimodal interaction, presence and virtual acoustics, and who currently working with Volvo Technology within the Human Factors group often work in interdisciplinary research teams. 2. For a detailed account including recommendations for researchers and consumers, see Madary and Metzinger (2016) 'Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct. Recommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology'. 3. For an account of the historical development of sound in early cinema which foregrounds the triumph of idiosyncratic practices over rationally presented guidance, see Altman's essay 'Sound Space' in Altman (1992). Bregman's (1990) 'Auditory Scene Analysis: The perceptual Organization of Sound', and Spence's Crossmodal Research Lab at Oxford University, alert us to the perceptual illusions which underlie our reasonable if flawed impressions of the sensory world. 5. The concept of human attention (behavioural and cognitive processing) as a limited resource which can be allocated by concentrating certain aspects of information while ignoring other others. 6. For a discussion of these concerns see Bottomore's (1999;2001) work on sound practices in early cinema. 7. For an introduction see Anderson (2003) 'Embodied Cognition: A Field Guide' and Wilson (2002) 'Six Views of Embodied Cognition'. 8. Lakoff and Johnson 'Metaphors We Live By' (2003) 2nd ed.; Johnson (1987), 'The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason'; Lakoff and Johnson (1999), 'Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought'. Lakoff and Johnson argue that (particularly metaphorical) language is not simply a mental construction, but is shaped by bodily mediation of the world, and so our corporeal experience shapes our thinking, and is not distinct from cognition. 9. (1) Single spatial setting. The single setting has two aspects. A work can be set in a single type of space of which the listener is aware at the outset. On the other hand, different aspects of a space can be revealed over time. Spatial awareness is cumulative, and the listener eventually realises that there is a global spatial topology into which the whole work fits. For example, the extremes of proximity and distance are unlikely to be known until the work has advanced somewhat.

As examples,
(2) Multiple spatial settings. Throughout the work, the listener is aware of different types of space which cannot be resolved into a single setting.
(3) Spatial simultaneity. Imagine a very present granular texture directly in front of you as if actually within your listening space, while in the distance a door closes in a large reverberant space. You are aware of simultaneous spaces. (4) Implied spatial simultaneity. Implied simultaneity occurs when the listener remains aware of the existence of a space in its absence. This can occur, for example, when contrasting spaces are intercut and alternated (spatial interpolation), giving the impression of simultaneity even though the spaces are presented successively. This is related to film, where in spite of the cutting between successive events, they are considered concurrent. (5) Spatial passage. Passage between spaces can be sudden (interrupted passage), repeatedly intercut (interpolated passage) or more gradually merged (graduated passage). (6) Spatial equilibrium. What is the relative balance between types of perspective and spatial texture in the work? Is one type of space emphasised more than another? Are there alternations or reciprocal exchanges between spaces? 10. See http://store.steampowered.com/app/514830.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
The authors wish to acknowledge support from the EPSRC and AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology through Queen Mary University of London.

Notes on contributors
Angela McArthur is a practising artist and PhD student on the Media, Arts & Tech programme at Queen Mary University London. Her work explores spatial sound for immersive environments and virtual reality, synthesising technical and creative practices with auditory perception research. She has worked with the BBC R&D lab, and is currently in post production for an experimental sound-led cinematic VR film, which aims to embody and further develop her conceptual framework.
Dr Rebecca Stewart is a Lecturer in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London. She works with e-textiles and signal processing to build interactive, body-centric wearable computing systems which often incorporate performance, fashion, music and/or design. As a member of the Centre for Digital Music and the Centre for Intelligent Sensing, she also conducts research into binaural audio for creative applications.
Prof Mark Sandler, FREng, FAES, FIET, FIEEE, CEng, is Founding Director of the Centre for Digital Music, a world-leading research group in audio and music technology with over 80 members. The Centre is in Queen Mary University of London's School of Electronic Engineering & Computer Science, where he holds the chair in Signal Processing. He is Principal Investigator of the EPSRCfunded grant, Fusing Audio and Semantic Technologies for Intelligent Music Production and Consumption (www.semanticaudio.ac.uk). He is a recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2015-2019) and has published over 400 papers in conferences and journals.


The Liminal in a Diptych: A Study of Roots and the Ruminant in Bob Dylan and Kabir Suman

This paper compares two certain sections in the musical career of Bob Dylan and Kabir Suman to look at a possible ideological heredity--1963-65 | 1993-97-these two timelines had established Dylan and Suman in their iconic status. My argument is that there is a liminal tradition-in four separate lyrics by the two composers-that transcends their geo-temporal boundaries. Dylan’s four songs—“Blowin’ in the Wind”, “Tambourine Man”, “Farewell Angelina”, “All I Really Want to Do” have been spiritually translated by Suman in the early to mid 90s, when he was most productive musically. These songs, amongst others, not only established Suman as an avant garde musician but also seamlessly merged with his own vision of antiestablishment and non-belonging. Dylan was writing against the imperialist capital, Suman was writing against the parliamentary Left—they both assert the same bohemianism before proceeding towards iconic stasis. Dylan, after the 60s turns towards safer, politically inert aesthetics; Suman partially removes himself from music in favor of a fledgling political career. The bohemianism or the perennial non-conformity ends for both. What is the significance of this phase? How liminal are the lyrics divided by language, time and society?

Introduction
Although he has reportedly claimed: "Dylan was never my guru", Bengali singer and a stage performer Kabir Suman has, in the same reportage i , attributed his meteoric rise and decadetranscending lyrics to Bob Dylan: "Dylan's simplicity, in fact, sent me back to my folk roots." My argument of treating Bob Dylan-Kabir Suman as a diptych hinged by the same liminal philosophy finds a distant ringer in the latter's otherwise cursory tribute to Dylan winning the Nobel. Two words are of significance here--'roots' and 'liminal'. If perceived as a return to a sentient, prelapsarian cora, the first word has volumes to tell--from religious to political. For brevity's sake, let us assume that Suman is talking about an idealized musical heritage--innocent, transcendental, non-binarized. Dylan himself has been described as a predominantly collage artist ii , and the stylistic and thematic influence of Country, Rock n Roll, Gospel musical traditions are rife in his songs. Dylan was a cultural expatriate from rural Minnesota, and has consciously, continually distanced himself from edifying fons et origo throughout his career--from Jewish to Christian, protest to introspection, counter culture to establishment. As Jeff Taylor notes in 'The Political World of Bob Dylan', although deeply moved by Jack Kerouac, Dylan never wanted to be another Dean Moriaty.
What, then, might the word 'roots' signify? Irrespective of how Suman meant it, Dylan is a reminder of a musical root--especially to the former's context--in a more complex manner than a 'simple' throwback of the nativist tradition. This paper argues that the seemingly inconsequential ascendancy of Dylan over Suman's music (by the latter's repeated confirmation from the 90s to present) is not random, but a protraction of a liminal philosophy. It's neither here nor there--a Les Rites de Passage iii that constantly escapes ideological categorization, keeping itself abreast of establishment-oriented averments. Both refused to play by the rule of the state, both eschewed even the zeitgeist of jingoistic counter-establishment as well. Yet there is a catch. In spite of being close to Aaron Copland, Lotte Lenya or the Seeger family, Dylan, 1962-65, had an ambiguous relationship with the surging anti-imperial vogue. Dylan had equal debt to his native Yankee idealism. In fact, by the mid-1960s, Dylan's brand of non-conforming euphonic had started to attract derisions from Rock aficionados as conservative, reactionary and discriminating. iv Yet, this is also the phase that produced the most enduring legacy of the composer. Suman, on the other hand, enjoyed a similar patch of colossal influence over Bengali modern music; but unlike Dylan, his creative proximity was to a general disillusionment towards the global Left. The early 90s, especially in Bengal's context, was marked by an intellectual ennui coupled with a growing dispassion for the social Left, lumpenism and a fallow music-scene. Suman had--through five subsequent studio albums from 1993-97--his own brand of wistfulness that is part lament for an idealized past, and part rejection of the sterile present v in search of what even Suman himself did not seem to know. I hope that the nature of the hinge is becoming clear. Dylan and Suman--early 60s and early 90s--both non-conforming without being radical--one jaded with the capitalistic excess, the other with the Left's morphing into an establishment. Both are cynical of the present, but unsure how to move on. Neither is rejecting the ennui, yet seems undecided of the 'right' direction. Suman has four iconic songs in this period directly influenced by Dylan's global hits. These are my case studies with some rudimentary translation from Bengali to show the thematic parallels. Probably Suman was thinking of this phase while talking about 'roots'. I call this rhizomatic relation 'liminal', because there is a clear progress from pensive rejection of a dystopic present to a renewed hope for something that is artistically obfuscated. What we have in both is a slow recognition of somebody other than 'Me'--Angelina, the-girl-I-know, the Tambourine Man or a simple 'You'. Liminality is a rite of passage that is an itinerant continuum between two set places. Dylan and Suman have started their journey from a scenario of anti-establishment, and have morphed into wizened agents of establishment themselves (Dylan has been a Christian, star performer, actor and Nobel Laureate; Suman a preacher, actor, TV show host, National award winner and politician). But the liminal phase is still regarded as the most influential period for both. My argument is a close pondering over the lyrics that might reveal why, and finally bring the panels of a diptych closer to form a meta-picture that transcended geo-temporal barriers.

The Temporal Shift
In this section, I will look at the lyrics of Dylan and Suman in an episodic fashion--more thematic than it is chronological. The span, after all, is short--less than half a decade, and it is safe to assume that the liminal tendency is homogeneous in the songs composed at this time. I start from 'Blowin' in the Wind', recorded on July 9, 1962, and proceed towards 'All I Really Want to Do ' (1964) and two additional texts in between --a strategy concurring to the recording dates of the Kabir Suman's versions three decades away ('Uttor-o toh Jana'(1993) to 'Chaichhi Tomar Bondhuta'(1996) and two other songs influenced by Dylan). I don't want to give the impression that this temporal shift is insignificant and/or contravened for the sake of a seamless Dylan=>Suman argument. In fact, this seam is an organic part of this article because of the previously mentioned diptych-quality of the disparate archs: one half belongs to Dylan's transition from belligerent anti-imperialism, the other initiates Suman's surreptitious critique of the parliamentary left. Put together, we perceive a cogent aesthetic evolution that starts from denouncing the Right--forms a liminal transition which does not conform to ideology--proceeds towards finding an established, iconic and somehow inert identity. The question is, where is the hinge that holds the parts of the cypher? If liminality is the fulcrum of this evolution, does it owe itself to the interim stretch?

The Two Disparate Arcs: Lyrics of Dylan and the Adaptation by Suman
The three decades of intercession is that time of germination when liberalism dressed in the attire of establishment, the left became legislative and Dylan receded into introversion by distancing himself from the liminal, eternally non-conformist polemics. In another part of the world, Kabir Suman appears as a conspicuous resumption of where Dylan left off. In the twilight of the socialist regime around the world, Suman initiates his liminal phase as free market ascends in Global proportion. The liminality of Suman, clearest through his equally iconic adaptation of Dylan's liminal songs, affirms that the gap of three decades was always gravid with a possibility of renewal--irrespective of geo-temporal boundaries. Dylan rejects war and examines the simple, transient aspects of life-in-flux; Suman turns away from skewed humanity and bids farewell to everything 'known' or 'familiar'--a walk into solitude. Certainly, Suman must not be the only one, and the same phenomenon must have taken place elsewhere at another time. Rehabilitating Suman in the reflected glory of Dylan was not our intention either. Dylan and Suman, by complementing each other by the latter's musical choice, only proves that the liminal theme of Dylan's songs can defy any conceivable boundary. A close look at the songs is likely to enforce this point.

"Blowin' in the Wind" and "Uttor-o toh Jana": the Rhetoric of post-Protest
'Blowin' in the Wind' was famously recorded in 1962 as part of Dylan's second album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan". The iconic status of the song is owed to the simple yet robust chords and lyrics that not-so-subtly provide a critique of anti-imperialism, especially the Vietnam War. The cannon balls must fly a million times, the white dove must fly untiringly and people must endure a perennial grind of slavery before the desired stasis comes. It is difficult to call this song 'hopeful', because the answer is ever-elusive--"blowin' in the wind". The description of the grind or a pensive trudging is further clear in the imagery of a long road, the unreachable sky beyond a concrete jungle, or the habitual nonchalance for the others' despair. Dylan is certainly invested into a tangible idea of freedom from the system or an idea of alienation from an organic conception of the lived experience--"How many years can a mountain exist/ Before it's washed to the sea?/ How many years can some people exist/Before they're allowed to be free?" The world is transient, everything that stands must fall, yet the eternal subjugation of the human defies this natural cycle. What he eschews, however, is a direct mention of events, names and places--the song is universal, is perfectly dissociated from any delusional polemic of revolutionary change, and seems to be more interested in asking questions than answering them. Dylan's tryst with liminality is thus clear from his non-incumbency towards 'art as activism'.
Suman is no less non-conforming in "উ রও তা জানা" [Uttor-o toh Jana] ("The Answer For-granted"). While the majority of the song is heavily indebted to the same imagery invoked by Dylan, Suman seems to be even further removed from the spirit of direct activism or an invested, counter-culture and political critique. In a way, Suman is even more humanist and liminal on a greater level because his critique is of a time of disillusionment of the rhetoric of protest itself. Dylan was against imperialism, Suman is against even the anti-imperial (since the latter subsumed the former's garb). Behold a few lines: First, Suman eschews the reference to war, because the war on humanity in his geo-political context has been surreptitious, waged by those who once defied it. Hence comes the first two quoted lines--"Must lives be wasted to know the nature of men/the questions are simple and the answer is plain". The tone of a post-Dylan cynicism is clear in the morbid realization of failed revolution and the unmasking of the messiah in the next two lines--"Should thousands die before you must know/ Too many have drowned in the torrent and flow". This song, recorded in 1993 for the album ইে হল (As I Wish) is the first step towards Suman's own brand of liminal nonconformism intensified in গানওলা(The Music Vendor)(1994), itself a spiritual company of "Tambourine Man"(1965).

"Tambourine Man" and "Gaanola": A Carnival of Rust
"Tambourine Man", recorded for "Bringing It All Back Home" (1965), is probably Dylan's most unambiguous exploration of the liminal philosophy, "it's just escapin' on the run". The song can be an abstruse satire: Dylan is not going anywhere, because he knows that the world is spinning around the unchanged; there is no magic in power, because the evening's empire will forever return into sand. Dylan cannot sleep, yet he cannot wake up because the realisation of the futility of existence has rendered him blind. The creative is reduced to mere repetition, the mobile only chases its shadow, and the poet is dying to escape the grind but he cannot. Dylan is clear about the self-delusional nature of control--all the players are "circled by the circus sands", the streets are ancient and empty and its rhetoric of power is just a clown-ish self referentiality. The journey of liminality takes a decisive turn here--"Blowin' in the Wind" is a rejection of the war mongering empire, "Tambourine Man" is a rejection of the existence sanctioned by that empire. Dylan refuses to play the game, yet he does not know of any alternate strategy. All he can do is to remain static as the world goes around in a meaningless circle, perennially waiting for 'another' last song. He is neither here nor there, unsure of where to be or whether to proceed. Suman gives a fresh spin to the extreme pensiveness of Dylan, yet remaining just as true to the spirit of flux in গানওলা Suman is interested in the passing of a more idyllic, idealistic phase that might have succumbed to the temporal drift, but he refuses to accept the changed times: "The violin player of yore/Has parted with his violin/His song is done/And I have no clue/ If he will return in the changed time." Once again, we notice the near constant pensiveness giving birth to a Dylanesque liminal sensibility, but on a more intimate note. Suman is just as cynical of the nature of the "evenin's empire", but he has a static ideological reference point where Dylan is faced with utmost nihilism as his past. Let it be reminded that this is exactly what I am trying to argue here--Dylan distances himself from an authoritative dogma; his liminality has a subtext of a possible initiation of something new. His despair is that of the jaded, whereas Suman's liminality is the next phase-the 'new' came, and turned out to be the 'old'. Dylan is blasé, Suman is sad. Yet liminality brings them together when the latter, just like Dylan, asks the vendor to play a last song as he has nowhere to go and nothing to do in a country of eternal gambling ("এই ফাটকাবািজর দেশ ে র পািখ েলা বঁ েচ নই"--"The birds of dream are gone in this land of wager").

"Farewell Angelina" and "Biday Porichita": the Liminal Merging
The third and the fourth songs in this structure have to be in an argumentative parallel because Dylan (and Suman) signals a change in the liminal worldview, if such a thing is at all possible. My point is, from the eternal 'I know not where I stand', Dylan seems to have found his footing somewhere in the nowhere. First comes "Farewell Angelina", recorded in January, 1965, and released two and a half decades later in "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 -3" (1991), although Joan Baez had already popularized the song 1966 onwards. Possibly the most complex text in our purview, "Farewell Angelina" belongs to somewhere between the empire of dust and a renewed hope in constant anti-establishment. Dylan "must go", because everything is still the same, and there is no decisive emotion that might turn the table in the already troubled relation with nothingness. "Tambourine Man"'s fatal cynicism is abundant still--the pirates have lost their way and the neighbors treat them as circus freaks, the giants and the dwarfs continue the same absorption and re-absorption of authority and power while the innocents die. Time does not matter anymore as the hands of the clock are stolen themselves. Yet there is a change, because the "sky is trembling" and Dylan must go even if he knows the futility of moving in a circle. There is a change coming, the dystopic world of the ruler and the ruled is soon turning into ash but Dylan is not going to be a witness to the destruction. This is what I call a motif of rejection, germane especially in context of "All I Really Want to Do" (1964)--which finally brings the circle to the next level of continuum. In "Farewell Angelina", he is still not sure of his destination, and neither is Suman. The latter-structurally and philosophically--is also growing out of the baggage of his geo-specific sensibilities, and "িবদায় পিরিচতা" [Biday Porichita] (Farewell, the Girl I know) is a testimony to Suman's merging with Dylan's liminal philosophy. Dylan talked about a time-bomb on a short fuse in "Farewell Angelina" noting that the destruction is imminent. Suman is still more pensive. In his song, the sky is neither erupting nor angry--just nonchalant or plane sad. There is no countdown to an explosion, just the corpses of murdered dreams and old Dylan writing songs that nobody will hear. Yet Suman must go too: "My road is fraught with aborted dreams/ I hear its sighs in the leaden breeze/ Please cover their listless eye/ Farewell, I leave for the pensive sky"--Irrespective of a general ennui, the theme of rejection is clearer than ever in Suman's oeuvre. I hesitate to call it decisiveness, but the dogged persuasion belies a sense of an indurate mindset. The grind goes on, but the poet refuses to follow the suit, although the time of hope is yet to come: "The ballad has lost its charm, yet I sing/As old Dylan does in his faded bling/ May you listen or not, yet I sing my song/ Farewell my love, we're loners for long." This was in 1997, almost on the verge of Suman's post-liminal phase of political and religious obduracy in িনিষ ইে হার (The Forbidden Manifesto) and আদাব (The Salute)--the two albums of Suman's initiation into Islam and parliamentary politics followed in 1998 and 2002, and it indeed seems he is writing a final elegy for the time that is lost forever.

"All I Really Want to Do" and "Chaichhi Tomar Bondhuta": A Truce with the 'Other'
The last text of our consideration is "All I Really Want to Do", recorded in 1964 for the album "Another Side of Bob Dylan", and widely acclaimed as one of the most significant songs that Dylan wrote in the period immediately after he abandoned topical songwriting. Dylan has never been clearer in his liminal standing and neither has Suman in চাইিছ তামার ব ু তা [Chaichhi Tomar Bondhuta] (I Seek Your Friendship), a song heavily influenced by Dylan's version. The semblance to a diptych is not only in the spiritual bonding of the two songs, their very titles complement each other. All I really want to do is to seek an alliance with you. There are reasons-both topical and philosophical--why this is clearly liminal, I will cite only one for the sake of brevity. The postcolonial concept of liminality is heavily indebted to a strand in continental ethics--the 'Other'. I will avoid citing seminal works focused on this, because there are too many on a topic already unfathomably complex. The 'Other' is the one who remains on the threshold. The one who does not conform and is essentially unreadable because it is not and will never be recognizable by 'Me'. Irrespective of my best intentions and supreme magnanimity, the 'Me' is captured in a cycle of self-recognition--whatever I see or speak are only intelligible because I decode their existence in my way. In this sense, the 'Other' is everywhere because I unfailingly alienate everything in my obstinate persuasion of recognizing everything in my own language and perception. Emmanuel Levinas' life's work, specially summarized in Entre Nous (1998), has been to offer a kind-of resolution to this conundrum, although no resolution is ever possible. To know the 'Other' is an impossibility, says Levinas, because to really know the 'Other' entails disclaiming the 'Me', which cannot happen as long as the 'Me' is alive. What is possible is a recognition, an innate responsibility for this ever-belligerent relation because that, comments Levinas who is also a commentator on religious ethics, is the way proper 'living' can be achieved.
Let us spare a moment for the critical arc that has brought Dylan and Suman to our present juncture. At the beginning, it was a critique of a self-indulgent time, yet both the songwriters refused to take any alternate side. The resultant indecisiveness has begotten a deep pensiveness which again is liminal as the author rejects the ennui yet does not/cannot specify the way forward. To seek the affinity of the 'Other' can hardly be called a way out, because to know, to recognize and to let it be is a more complex iteration of inwardness--a spiritual u-turn. The world has ceased to make meaning, all that remain are fragments, to recognise this is to admit immobility--yet this is pregnant with an ever-renewable possibility of a fresh start. This is falling in love with the moment, and to live it eternally in spite of its inevitable passing into obscurity. I ain't lookin' to compete with you Beat or cheat or mistreat you Simplify you, classify you Deny, defy or crucify you All I really want to do Is, baby, be friends with you.
Dylan is just as blase about his surrounding as ever, his only active persuasion is to "be friends with you". The relational aspect of a friendship is myriad. It can be everything or nothing, close or distant, passionate or formal--yet it recognises that you are. Suman is no less partisan: তামায় আিম বাঁ ধেত চাই না, রাখেত চাইনা, কাটেত চাই না, ছাড়েত চাই না, ৃ িতর মত ঘাটেত চাই না, চাইিছ তামার ব ু তা । "I do not want to keep you or bind you/ Dissect you or leave you/ Rummage you like I do a memory/ All I want is your affinity" Dylan is not interested in almost anything that has a remote connection to the 'you' as a person--not the identity, caste, creed, intentions, family or societal traits: yet the friendship is actively sought. It is clear that the 'Other' is perfectly disembodied for Dylan, it may or may not have a tangible existence but Dylan is unfazed. This brutal simplicity can be perceived as the most complex part of Dylan's liminality because of the apparent untenability of having any connection to something that does not have a body. On the other hand, this non-corporeality is symptomatic of a boundless liberty where 'I'--in no conceivable manner--can influence the 'Other'. Suman actually says the same in his version: " তামায় আিম গড়েত চাই না, পড়েত চাই না" (I don't want to make you, or read you). The inefficacy of my translation that completely obfuscates the literary value of this line should not necessarily hinder the impact of such a declaration. Dylan and Suman have formed a rare camaraderie across geotemporal spaces. The former swears that he does not intend to make the other 'feel', 'see', 'be' like him, where Suman closes his song by disclaiming the readers' desperate attempt to decipher this paradoxical relationship. Dylan makes a statement, Suman strengthens it. "উটেকা লােক, এই সু েযােগ, তাল িমিলেয়/িব ী কথা কাটেব জু ড়েব,/িনেজর ালায় িনেজই পু ড়েব" (The average Joe, shall take his cue/Will gravel us, with his paltry view/Shall burn within, and burn anew). Recognising the 'Other', not interfering with it and still be content, and therein find a possible equilibrium in a state of flux--these are the primary traits that forever bind Dylan and Suman.

Conclusion
This paper has attempted to establish a philosophical journey of Bob Dylan and Kabir Suman, through the sophomore phases of their career--divided by decades yet having a collusion on the thematics. The journey is structured: rejection--ennui--acceptance--recognition. The project, at the outset, might have seemed capricious, but a similar look at the lyrics along with the negotiation by the composers with their respective political-temporal backdrop amply reveals the complementary traits in both the arches. A parting reference to the Marilyn Diptych (1962) by Andy Warhol may summarise the innate nature of the collusion. The painting has twenty five pictures of Marilyn Monroe on each of the tablet--one set brightly coloured, the other black and white. Read simultaneously as a meditation on life and death, youth and maturity, prominence and fading away or just the passing moments in general--Marilyn Diptych does contain two phases of a singular icon in different perspectives. Together, however, they reflect on the transcendence of artistry and temporality. Together, Dylan and Suman, form a commentary on the sublimity of timeless artistic influence. It is also, a somewhat pensive account of the passing of an idealized creative phase.