Latest news with #Subversive
The Wire
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Wire
When Elvis and Ella Were Pressed Onto X-Rays – The Subversive Legacy of Soviet ‘Bone Music'
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Culture When Elvis and Ella Were Pressed Onto X-Rays – The Subversive Legacy of Soviet 'Bone Music' Richard Gunderman 37 minutes ago This rather bizarre, homemade technology became a way to skirt censors in the Soviet Union – and even played an indirect role in its dissolution. Elvis Presley. Photo: Wikimedia commons Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now When Western Electric invented electrical sound recording 100 years ago, it completely transformed the public's relationship to music. Before then, recording was done mechanically, scratching sound waves onto rolled paper or a cylinder. Such recordings suffered from low fidelity and captured only a small segment of the audible sound spectrum. By using electrical microphones, amplifiers and electromechanical recorders, record companies could capture a far wider range of sound frequencies, with much higher fidelity. For the first time, recorded sound closely resembled what a live listener would hear. Over the ensuing years, sales of vinyl records and record players boomed. The technology also allowed some enterprising music fans to make recordings in surprising and innovative ways. As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I am fascinated by the use of X-ray film to make recordings – what was known as ' bone music,' or 'ribs.' This rather bizarre, homemade technology became a way to skirt censors in the Soviet Union – and even played an indirect role in its dissolution. Skirting the Soviet censorship regime At the end of World War II, Soviet censorship shifted into high gear in an effort to suppress a Western culture deemed threatening or decadent. Many books and poems could circulate only through ' samizdat,' a portmanteau of 'self' and 'publishing' that involved the use of copy machines to reproduce forbidden texts. Punishments inflicted on Soviet artists and citizens for producing or disseminating censored materials included loss of employment, imprisonment in gulags and even execution. The phonographic analog of samizdat was often referred to as ' roentgenizdat,' which was derived from the name of Wilhelm Roentgen, the German scientist who received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901 for his discovery of X-rays. Roentgen's work revolutionized medicine, making it possible to peer inside the living human body without cutting it open and enabling physicians to more easily and accurately diagnose skeletal fractures and diseases such as pneumonia. Today, X-rays are produced and stored digitally. But for most of the 20th century they were created on photographic film and stored in large film libraries, which took up a great deal of space. Because exposed X-ray films cannot be reused, hospitals often recycled them to recoup the silver they contained. Making music from medicine In the Soviet Union in the 1940s, some clever people realized that X-ray film was just soft enough to be etched by an electromechanical lathe, or sound recording device. To make a 'rib,' or ' bone record,' they would use a compass to trace out a circle on an exposed X-ray film that might bear the image of a patient's skull, spine or hands. They then used scissors to cut out the circle, before cutting a small hole in the middle so it would fit on a conventional record player. Then they would use a recording device to cut either live sound or, more commonly, a bootleg record onto the X-ray film. Sound consists of vibrations that the lathe's stylus etches into grooves on the disc. Such devices were not widely available, meaning that only a relatively small number of people could produce such recordings. The censors kept a close eye on record companies. But anyone who could obtain a recording device could record music on pieces of X-ray film, and these old films could be obtained after hospitals threw them out or purchased at a relatively low price from hospital employees. Compared with professionally produced vinyl records, the sound quality was poor, with recordings marred by extraneous noises such as hisses and crackles. The records could be played only a limited number of times before the grooves would wear out. Nonetheless, these resourceful recordings were shared, bought and sold entirely outside of official channels into the 1960s and 1970s. A window into another life Popular artists 'on the bone' included Ella Fitzgerald and Elvis Presley, whose jazz and rock 'n' roll recordings, to the ears of many Soviet citizens, represented freedom and self-expression. In his book ' Bone Music,' cultural historian Stephen Coates describes how Soviet authorities viewed performers such as The Beatles as toxic because they appeared to promote a brand of amoral hedonism and distracted citizens from Communist party priorities. One Soviet critic of bone music recalled of its purveyors: 'It is true that from time to time they are caught, their equipment confiscated, and they may even be brought to court. But then they may be released and be free to go wherever they like. The judges decide that they are, of course, parasites, but they are not dangerous. They are getting suspended sentences! But these record producers are not just engaged in illegal operations. They corrupt young people diligently and methodically with a squeaky cacophony and spread explicit obscenities.' Bone music was inherently subversive. For one thing, it was against the law. Moreover, the music itself suggested that a different sort of life is possible, beyond the strictures of Communist officials. How could a political system that prohibited beautiful music, many asked, possibly merit the allegiance of its citizens? The ability of citizens to get around the censors and spread Western thought, whether through books or bone music, helped chip away at the government's legitimacy. One Soviet-era listener Coates interviewed long after the USSR's collapse described the joy of listening to these illicit recordings: 'I was lifted up off the ground, I started flying. Rock'n'roll showed me a new world, a world of music, words, and feelings, of life, of a different lifestyle. That's why, when I got my first records, I became a happy man. I felt like a changed person, it was as if I was born again. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: The Kenyan Icon Who Wrote For Freedom Till the Very End Interview | What to Do When Your Mother-Tongue Fades Away Entries Invited For Third Edition of Rainbow Awards for Literature and Journalism Semicolons are Becoming Rare; Their Disappearance Must be Resisted Singing Faiz's 'Hum Dekhenge' is 'Sedition': Nagpur Police Book Organisers of Vira Sathidar Memorial Writer Jeyarani Alleges Plagiarism, Misrepresentation of Her Story in Movie 'Seeing Red' 'In Honour of William Shakespeare': Tagore in the Garden of Shakespeare's Birthplace Bharat Summit Shows New Hope in the Wake of Hatred and Violence The Many Meanings of Vietnam View in Desktop Mode About Us Contact Us Support Us © Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
New York Times
15-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Vibe Shifts Against the Right
Alex Kaschuta's podcast, 'Subversive,' used to be a node in the network between weird right-wing internet subcultures and mainstream conservatism. She hosted men's rights activists and purveyors of 'scientific' racism, neo-reactionary online personalities with handles like 'Raw Egg Nationalist' and the Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters. Curtis Yarvin, a court philosopher of the MAGA movement who wants to replace democracy with techno-monarchy, appeared on the show twice. In 2022, Kaschuta spoke at the same National Conservatism conference as Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio. Finding progressive conventional wisdom hollow and unfulfilling, Kaschuta was attracted to the contrarian narratives and esoteric ideas of the thinkers and influencers sometimes known as the 'dissident right.' They presented liberal modernity — with its emphasis on racial and gender equality, global cooperation, secularism and orderly democratic processes — as a Matrix-like illusion sustained by ideological coercion, and themselves as the holders of freedom-giving red pills. For Kaschuta, who lives in Romania, the promise of a more authentic, organic society, freed from the hypocrisies of the existing order, was apparently inviting. 'There's always been something tantalizing about the idea that the world is not how it is presented to you,' she wrote on her blog. 'A frontier opens up.' But over the last couple of years, that frontier started seeming to her more like a dead end. Recently, she abandoned the movement. 'The vibe is shifting yet again,' Kaschuta wrote on X last week. 'The cumulative IQ of the right is looking worse than the market.' Kaschuta is not alone; several people who once appeared to find transgressive right-wing ideas scintillating are having second thoughts as they watch Donald Trump's administration put those ideas into practice. The writer Richard Hanania once said that he hated bespoke pronouns 'more than genocide,' and his 2023 book, 'The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics,' provided a blueprint for the White House's war on D.E.I. But less than three months into Trump's new term, he regrets his vote, telling me, 'The resistance libs were mostly right about him.' Nathan Cofnas, a right-wing philosophy professor and self-described 'race realist' fixated on group differences in I.Q., wrote on X, 'All over the world, almost everyone with more than half a brain is looking at the disaster of Trump (along with Putin, Yoon Suk Yeol, et al.) and drawing the very reasonable conclusion that right-wing, anti-woke parties are incapable of effective governance.' (Yoon Suk Yeol is South Korea's recently impeached president.) Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
How Submersive Is Rewriting The Future Of ‘Immersive Wellness'
Submersive Rendering - Subversive is a space for expanding aliveness. Submersive is the world's first immersive art bathhouse—a new kind of wellness space that blends immersive art, science, and traditional bathing practices to support healing and transformation. Founded by one of Meow Wolf's co-founders, Corvas Brinkerhoff, it's designed to awaken the senses and expand states of consciousness through environments that combine light, sound, temperature, architecture, and water. With its first location set to open in Austin, Texas in 2026, Submersive introduces what Brinkerhoff describes as immersive wellness: experiences that are not only beautiful, but measurably beneficial to our well-being. Corvas Brinkerhoff's journey from co-founding the immersive art juggernaut Meow Wolf to launching Submersive was anything but ordinary. 'Where to begin? A world bathhouse tour, heartbreak, a dream team of visionaries, getting off the rocketship, leaping into the unknown,' Brinkerhoff recalled. After fifteen groundbreaking years with Meow Wolf, Brinkerhoff began to feel something new calling him—something more intimate, purposeful, and healing. While pushing boundaries in immersive art, he was quietly envisioning a new kind of wellness space. 'I fantasized about taking time between ventures to explore the world's great bathing cultures,' he said. That dream became real as he traveled to 16 countries and visited over 75 of the world's best spas, bathhouses, and hot springs to understand the human tradition of communal bathing. Inspired by those research trips, Brinkerhoff brought together a think tank of world changers and visionaries to help shape the vision for Submersive—among them best-selling authors, prominent neuroscientists, spa industry experts, artists, and designers. These experiences, combined with a deep personal journey, laid the foundation for Submersive. Corvas Brinkerhoff, Founder of Submersive 'In my life I have experienced a lot of magic and wonder, but I've also been touched by addiction and depression,' Brinkerhoff shared. 'Through a lot of support I have received tremendous help and healing. Now my personal mission is to create experiences that support healing and transformation for others.' This mission, paired with his love for communal bathing, became the heartbeat of Submersive—what he calls the world's first immersive art bathhouse. At its core, Submersive fuses cutting-edge multi-sensory design with traditional wellness practices to produce what Brinkerhoff calls 'measurable, repeatable, therapeutic benefits.' The experience combines elements like lighting, sound, video, and interactivity with saunas, cold plunges, hot baths, and steam rooms—integrating these with the latest scientific discoveries and processes. The goal is to create environments that actively elevate your state of being, using art and technology not just for stimulation, but for real, evidence-based transformation. The vision isn't just about physical relaxation—it's about holistic change on a neurological, emotional, and energetic level. Brinkerhoff believes the future lies in what he terms Immersive Wellness. 'Immersive Wellness will far surpass existing immersive experience offerings, which tend to be based on novelty and entertainment value. That value typically wears off over time,' he explained. 'Wellness offerings have lasting value, but what's available now tends to be minimal, sterile, and clinical.' Immersive Wellness, by contrast, offers dynamic, artful experiences designed not to distract, but to heal and elevate. 'Immersive Wellness leverages the inherent draw and dynamism of immersive experiences and deepens it with direct benefit to your well-being,' he said. 'Entertainment can give you a wonderful, albeit temporary reprieve from your day-to-day life. A wellness experience can make your life forever better. Immersive Wellness can not only capture the best of both, but unlocks new and transformational capabilities.' The death of fellow Meow Wolf founder and close friend Matt King two years ago brought Brinkerhoff painful clarity. 'In the immense pain and loss I found clarity that it's time for me to take the leap and go create what I'm really here to create, things that have great benefit to our species and to our world,' he said. Submersive is the manifestation of that clarity—a space meant not just to awe, but to transform. Submersive Rendering Brinkerhoff sees Submersive as part of a larger shift toward what authors Joe Pine and James Gilmore have called the Transformation Economy—an evolution of the Experience Economy they first described 25 years ago. 'They predicted the rise of groups like Meow Wolf long before it happened,' he noted. Now, as experiential businesses move beyond offering just memorable moments, the next wave is about creating experiences that catalyze lasting personal growth and well-being. 'If Meow Wolf is the poster child for the Experience Economy, I believe Submersive will be that of the Transformation Economy,' Brinkerhoff said. In this new paradigm, businesses aren't just entertaining—they're helping people change their lives in meaningful ways. That kind of impact, Brinkerhoff believes, requires more than inspiration—it demands a foundation in science. 'The emotion of awe, through art and music, lowers your blood pressure, makes you more open to change and connecting to others,' he explained. Heat and cold exposure provide wide-ranging benefits to the circulatory, nervous, muscular, digestive, and immune systems, while also supporting the production of mood-regulating neurotransmitters. Specific wavelengths of light can enhance cellular function and energy production. Certain sound techniques have been shown to improve cognitive performance, memory, and reaction time. 'We all have these phenomenal sensory systems that go so much further than just sight and sound,' he said. 'We have deep awareness, intelligence, and sensitivity within our bodies, facilitated by hundreds of millions of nerve endings.' That depth is often overlooked in experience design, but when engaged intentionally—especially through multi-sensory environments—it offers powerful leverage over the internal state of the individual. 'You can think of an immersive wellness experience as a giant state-change device,' Brinkerhoff said. Submersive is intentionally designed to harness those systems—using light, sound, temperature, architecture, and water—within a framework guided by the emerging field of Neuroaesthetics, which explores how multisensory environments affect us physiologically, neurologically, and behaviorally. Advisors Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen, authors of Your Brain on Art, are helping guide Submersive's science-informed design process to ensure each experience is not only beautiful, but truly beneficial. Submersive Rendering Submersive's model is ambitious and research-driven. The company plans to incorporate wearables like mobile EKGs and heart rate sensors to track the real-time effects of its environments on visitors. The resulting biofeedback data will inform both audiovisual systems and future designs, effectively turning each location into a living R&D lab. The company's first flagship location—a 25,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor facility—is set to open in Austin, Texas in 2026, featuring otherworldly baths, waterfalls, saunas, grottos, and immersive art installations. While Meow Wolf embraces surrealist escapism, Submersive takes a more intentional, therapeutic approach. 'Our offering will be extremely novel, but our aim is to be the opposite of an escapist entertainment experience,' Brinkerhoff emphasized. Submersive uses many of the same creative tools—light, sound, architecture, and art—but applies them with a different purpose: to initiate meaningful emotional and physical shifts. Rather than offering escape, it aims to guide visitors into deeper states of awe, wonder, euphoria, transcendence, and connectedness. As Submersive moves closer to launch, Brinkerhoff encourages others to follow the journey as the vision continues to take shape. With its ambitious blend of art, science, and wellness, Submersive isn't just introducing a new kind of space—it's helping define a new era of experiences designed to transform how we feel, connect, and heal.
