Tannhäuser Gate by Serhiy Barhamon

Welp, the label that asked me for a twelve-minute audio/video piece never responded. I hope they are ok.

Anyway, I did a thing and liked it a lot, so I self-released it.

I also prepared for the interview we planned. That’s the first time I've collected the things that inspired me into words, and it required a lot of effort. Words are very hard.

#The Gate

The first time I heard about the gate was in the Tears in the Rain monologue from the Blade Runner movie.

Sometime later, I learned that Tannhäuser is a hero from German folklore. The story goes like this: Tannhäuser went to the other world under the mountain where Venus/the underworld Queen, lived. After a few years, he decided to return and marry the woman he loved, and even though the queen had promised him everything a man could desire, he did not change his mind. Before marriage, he went to the Pope for forgiveness. However, the Pope was angry about him living in the underworld and said he would be forgiven when the Pope’s staff bloomed with roses (never). After Tannhäuser went home, the staff bloomed.

Honestly, I did not understand the exact moral of the story. I suppose it's about God’s forgiveness.

#Resurrection

I find it fascinating that some time ago, traveling to a faraway destination was the same as dying. One will disappear from the lives of people who were near them their whole life. Others will disappear from one's life. Imagine you are a viking or a member of the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition, boarding your ship. How long will people you know think that you are alive? A month? A year?

Sometimes, people come back. Tannhäuser definitely did. A handful of Greeks returned from Hades. Jesus did not exactly travel to the other world but managed to return from there anyway. My personal hero, Shackleton, and his team returned from the realm of the dead.

We no longer have that, at least not to that extent. We always have a choice. Even if you work really hard and go to the moon, you will be within a few taps from everyone you know and don’t. That makes resurrection impossible, unless you disconnect voluntarily. But, IDK, “Jesus killed himself for your sins” does not carry the same message.

For some unknown reason I hope Goddard was correct, and in not too far away future we will have that again. We will travel beyond our ability to communicate, and new Greeks will come back from Hades.

#Video

To make the video I made Stages - a tool to make animations. The main idea was to replicate my music-making workflow. Here is a write up about first version.

I released second version that has more modules, color, resolution control and playback/record control but didn’t find the time to write about it yet.

Here is how the source for the video looks like: Stages