1. Our symposium is - if I am not wrong - for several reasons a sort of a turning point in the history of the Slovak electronic music so far. Not only because it is the first event of this kind in CSFR - and this, curiously, at a time of evident agony of this state. It also takes place at a time when the "changing of the guards" of generations has been undoubtedly achieved. A matter of course, I should like to add, considering that 35 years have elapsed since our first attempts, often rather naive and awkward ones, made with primitive "Sonet" recorders, which were at the beginning of this electronic adventure in this - as I mentioned before - dying republic, that I shared then with Ilja Zeljenka. I see this development as kind of biological macro-biorhythm.
It would be tempting to look from a distance at the obviously closed chapter of the old generation and at a chapter of younger generation now being in its full objectives swing and try to define trends, compare horizons or hidden aims in both sets of compositions. It would be possible to compare the aesthetics of individual authors or of individual periods, an analysis of relation between aesthetics and political climate with its ups and downs would be also called for, an analysis that would help to clarify the share of fear, of anxiety or simply of the weakness of character involved in changes of seemingly autonomous artistic structures.
It would be possible to explore whether - and to what extent - it is a valid assumption that the quality of compositions depends on technical equipment of the studios - I for myself don't believe it and I have strong suspicions that the partisans of this approach mistake the artistic quality with the technical one and do this for a simple reason: they don't know much about art.
However, I prefer to leave these - and a whole range of other aspects and problems - to specialists. I would rather like to turn my attention to a question of little concern for the specialists either in musicology or in the history of arts. It is, however, a relevant question in the attempt to do the reconnaissance or to define the bearings. (I use military terms because I am convinced that the culture I care for is in fact always a battle for the culture.)
I would like to draw your attention to the problem of sense. I would like to ask a primitive, naive question - which is, moreover, an impractical one (completely stupid and obsolete in the eyes of today's "pragmatists"): What sense has electronic music today? Today, literally "here and now", November 5, 1992, less than two months before the break-up of the state "on the way to Europe", after 30 years of the "totalitarian system" and 3 years after the "victory over totality" - in my opinion a very dubious victory...
To get closer to the hypothetical answer we must examine the present status quo of electronic music worldwide. Just as the Club of Rome and the Greens say: "Think globally - act locally". Perhaps I am somewhat presumptuous, especially if I admit that I consider myself an outsider. Anyway, I would like to give that answer simply because I have kept an sympathy for electronic music ... and I feel nostalgy for the time I spent in the Bratislava and later in the Warsaw studios ...
... allow me a small digression now:
It is not the medium and the machines themselves that evoke liking and nostalgia - some might use the word "love" - it is also people that were able not only to withstand the pressures of this time but created at their workplaces perfect oases of calm and creative thinking as well; it is first of all people (and not machines) that I worked with: Janko Backstuber, "Pierre" - Peter Janik, later on "Dudo" - Juraj Ďuriš, and our common nice "bosses": Peter Kolman and Jozef Malovec; then came broad-minded and nice friends from the Warsaw studio: Jozef Patkowski and Krzysztof Szlifirski (here I would like to add that the role of Jozef Patkowski in the context of the Slovak electronic music asks for a separate study) - and I will finish list with those who were at the beginnings: Ivan Stadtrucker and the late Janko Rúčka, who was both "enfant terrible" and "spiritus movens" for all of us in one - and so fragile, as we realized later - person.

Thank You!

2. Before attempting to present the outsider's view, let me construct two hypothetical diagnoses of the "involved" ones - a view of an imaginary professional, a fanatic of electronic music and a view of another imaginary professional, a dogged antagonist of electronic music.
I won't try to be concrete and go into the details; my aim is a theoretical construction, which I'll express in a few lines: - The professional-fanatic of electronic music will offer us the picture of a really explosive development, he will enumerate various innovations and successes. All of this would be often true and would put the "normal" music into a relative perspective. - The professional-opponent would recall all known counter arguments, perhaps some new ones, such as capitulation in front of technology, alienation, etc.
The first one would plan, organize and work with optimism; the second would leave with an inner certainty that "all this" is a mistake, an error, a manifestation of paranoid tendencies - as we went through all of this before, during the "totalitarian" period: destruction of the socialist culture, sabotages, etc.
The certainty of the first ones is fed by two sources: two families were born in the beginnings of electronic music - the Cologne method family and the Paris studio family.
The Cologne family was dominated by the idea of abstraction, expressed by Stockhausen: Die elementaren Mikrostrukturen und die Makrostrukturen einer Komposition werden von den einen, totalen Werkidee abgeleitet: Werkstruktur und Materialstruktur sind eins.
P. Schaeffer in Paris specified the objectives of the group by defining five rules of the concrete method (a kind of work algorithm): a) to learn to listen; b) to practice the realization of various - if possible original - sounds; c) to model sound objects d) to create etudes before concepting the consequent composition e) to devote as much time and work to all things as necessary for real assimilation.
The first solution is based on the tradition of German philosophy. The French solution found adequate expression of its substance in the term of concrete music - the aim consisted in recovering of the contact to the sources of experience.
This means, that we face a confrontation between rationalism and empirism here. As we know, both methods melted later into one just as the electronic medium melted with instrumental music. Boulez foresaw this in his text An der Grenze des Fruchtlandes (At the frontier of fertile ground). Let's complete the picture by saying that this new frontier was soon occupied by computers, followed by multitudes of new zealots. A question I can't answer is whether and on which occasions was this frontier crossed.

At this point I will come to the third view, that of an outsider.

A short remark: B. Russell declares in his reflections on linguistics that there are two basic modalities of speech: One is represented by a shout "hot!" ("cold!"), the other is a statement: "it is hot" ("it is cold"). We have been talking about shouts so far - the things were seen through the optics of an immediate contact, however, the statement of an outsider implies a certain distance from the subject.

3. What does the outsider see from a distance? A golden middle road? Would he like to reach a "consensus"? - a compromise between the uncritical affirmation and seemingly critical navigation? Does he want to mix hot and cold to get a "tepid beer"?
No. From his distance the outsider hopes to recognize global aspects that are lost for those who are in immediate contact with the matter. And what he perceives suggests that the matter of a whole - which doesn't necessarily mean all the details! - is in a state of crisis.
The first aspect is the explosion of electronics; the "electronic sound" - once a sign of the avant-garde and of the anti-establishment tendencies, even considered (cf. the "normalization" period in Czechoslovakia in the 70s) as an anti-state, counter-socialist activity, has become a symptom of our times. Transformation of the sign into a symptom is not just a formal or quantitative change.
In my eyes, the second aspect of the crisis lies in the fact the electronic music is facing inflation of the same kind as in the vocal or instrumental music. Along with original, exclusive activities of the highest quality there is a sort of "electronic folklore". In itself it is probably a positive thing but implies some negative phenomena as well.
And this constitutes the third aspect of the crisis: a kind of equalization; everything is situated on the same level. We could say that the crisis lies above all in a "general half-heartedness".
The fourth aspect of the crisis lies in the danger that electronic music, unseparable from technology, marked by "the sound of the times", menaced by the virus of mental and especially moral AIDS might become a powerless tool in the hands of the new "man without scruples" (V. Belohradsky), and of the new totalitarian ideology - totalitarianism of the market. We were able to get rid of the "tchastoushka" (soviet "folklore" songs), but we are facing the invasion of the "Mickey Mouse". Banality and kitsch are flooding the arena of music submerged in the "iconosphere" (M. Porebski) of an aggressive civilization.
The evident decline of ability to differentiate is related to overall changes in the intellectual climate, whereas before, in the period of "modernity", the above mentioned centres - Paris and Cologne - were taking the strictly defined noetic principles for granted, the present is characterized by resignation to principles, categories and dialectics, which are the prerequisites of critical thinking - although the term post-modernism is in frequent use. Things are happening in a calm, half-hearted way; if we would put it more resolutely, we should have to say: Chaos, Labyrinth, the Babylon Tower, "Brownian Motion". I don't know whether a distinction is being made between the production of music and the creation of a work of art. As if music and art would be synonyms. If we would use the optics of TAO, we would see the domination of the Yin principle, while the Yang principle is being suppressed; we are in an unbalanced situation.

4. This lack of principles and of critical thinking makes it possible to use misleading notions and ad hoc created terminology. In the atmosphere of general chaos the doors of purely commercial criteria are wide open. There is a real danger that the above mentioned "man without scruples" will be the final winner in music just as it is the case anywhere else and that the free, authentic artistic expression will simply be labeled as "anti-commercial", which would mean "anti-consumer", i.e. useless (and maybe even noxious).
The so-called "serious music" as a whole, including the ambitious part of electronic music will be obviously severely tested in the near future. Its fate will depend on success of re-integration of respective sub-systems of culture into a unified body; on the question to which the isolated parts of the culture will realize their common identity opposed to the so-called civilization processes. In other words, the contemporary art should get past its "belated age of puberty" and realize its true message for the world of today. For the world of the "first global revolution" as is defined in the latest publication of the Club of Rome; for the world on the verge of disaster.
I shall try to prove that only principles, categories or criteria of a higher order than those based on the hitherto "games and shows" are able to create prerequisites for necessary change. That part of artistic music which had its raison d'etre in the avant-garde assiduity, has found itself - in my opinion - at a stage where the former orientation on new aspects of sound is positively out of date. "A supreme objective once - an obstacle today" (Sri Aurobindo). Things tend to repeat themselves. The universe of sound was only mapped out so far; now the time has come to begin building on those chartered grounds; no use to build colossi - because "small is beautiful!" (E. F. Schumacher). In the first row we should cultivate "living organisms". Definitely that: it is not satisfying today to create grammar, playing rules or algorithms; it is necessary to cross the barrier of "necro-" sphere, to go from the paradigm of architecture to patterns of bionics, from cybernetics to synergetic systems of morphogenesis, from rationalistic scenario to the codex of evolution.
If this doesn't happen, we could end up like those cartographers from a fairy tale about the kingdom the ruler of which wished to have "the most precise maps"; the maps he got were certainly precise enough, so detailed and so large ... so they did not fit in, beeing larger than the kingdom itself (J. L. Borges: The General History of Infamy).

5. Is this diagnosis - in case I didn't commit cardinal errors - justified? And if it is - isn't it too pessimistic? Would I consider it too pessimistic I wouldn't find the courage to formulate it aloud. In other words, I am convinced there is a way out.
What does "crisis" exactly mean ?
Rene Thom - "Newton of our times" according to some, author of the theory of catastrophes assumes that every crisis is caused by insufficient regulation.
Ross Ashby in his cybernetics shows that there is always a possibility to strengthen regulation by means of introducing a more efficient regulator.
Herman Haken, the creator of synergetics proved that the "morphogenesis" of a new system-phenomena-state of things is possible even in an extremely unbalanced state ("bifurcation"); a "suitable impulse" is needed to trigger interaction between "the old language" - a deterministic system and the new stochastic processes, fluctuations; then "a miracle" can happen.
D. R. Hofstadter reassuming the famous Goedel sentence, declares that if the problems become insolvable in a given system, it is necessary to jump out of the system in order to apply a system of a higher order.
I think that the model of things in a state of crisis is a state of positive disintegration - a term used in identically named theory of professor K. Dambrowski; this doyen of Polish psychology came to the conclusion that the mental disintegration - which happens to most of us - has a positive solution on the condition that the individual in question is able to interiorize the principles or categories of a higher order, immanent to "organisms of higher order"; the disintegration then becomes a condition of further mental development and is "positive". What is the sense of "strengthening of regulation" or "interiorizing the principles or categories of a higher order", or of a "suitable impulse"? What system should we jump out of? - and which is the higher one to apply?

6. I shall begin by the end: a) It is necessary to "jump out of the system" of classical science and philosophy paradigm (mechanicism, reductionism, Cartesian opposition subject vs. object, ideology connected with the term homo sapiens, etc.).
b) A "suitable impulse" seem to consist in elements of wisdom contained in the non-classical science - sub-atomary physics, post-Jungian psychology, contained in what A. Huxley reminds by his term philosphia perennis.
c) The sources of the "strengthening of the regulation" are - probably - contained within the transpersonal psychology.
Briefly: We need to shift our attention to non-classical paradigm of thought. The ideologies such as positivism, mechancism, historicism, aestheticism or technicism keep the contemporary music in a circulus vitiosus, they keep up the illusion that music represents a sui generis system - an isolated system.
It is therefore necessary to formulate the question of art - of artistic creation once more and to define it by means of modern knowledge drawn from non-classical science and the consequent philosophical reflection. Not forgetting the paradox appeal by M. Heidegger - The end of philosophy - The target: to think! In this context it would be possible that a completely new sense of contemporary art could crystallize. And on the other hand this would be connected with independence on systems and processes of materialistic civilization, the ideology of market and "consumer culture" - the pseudo culture.
The contemporary New Music, the avant-garde, including electronic music, tended to experiment in the spirit of classical science. The important Czech critic and thinker of the 20s and the 30s F. X. ?alda wrote in an essay on experiment that "the philistine can at most tolerate an experiment concerning the sphere of matter but hates experiments concerning spirit". Herman Hesse in the same period thought that the philistine sees himself as a "psychical monolith". The situation of contemporary music is even now marked by these anachronisms. It is obvious that a radical break is needed - a shift from experiments with the matter, with reified music to experiments in the realm of spirit. I. Stravinski wrote that "higher mathematics" in music is a concern of "integral personality". We could add today that it concerns the dynamic integration of the paleobrain and of the cortex, an integration of male and female pole of mentality (cf. C. G. Jung: anima, animus); prof. S. Grof drew recently our attention (during the World congress of transpersonal psychology, Prague, June 1992) at the importance of the re-integration of the "shadow" to the realm of consciousness. We could say, paraphrasing the American researcher J. Lilly, that the heart of the problem lies in "meta-programming" the psyche - in regulation of a higher order.

7. What am I aiming at? I mentioned at the beginning two pillars of electronic music: Paris and Cologne. Nevertheless, the history of electronic music records other initiatives as well; their uniqueness and importance from the point of view of sense of art in today's world is lost in the context of the professionalistic paradigm. I would like to mention two names-paroles-symbols: Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis. What they both have in common is an inspiring imperative of historical responsibility. The first stresses the political, the second the philosophical - ontological aspect (obvious in the musical substance itself, in the treatment of statistical sound units, consciously correlated with similar phenomena in the contemporary human world - mass movements, riots, revolutions, wars or in the Nature itself - cf. R. Frisius: Konstruktion als chiffrierte Information).
According to M. Heidegger the history is accessible to human beings only as "the present". In art it doesn't mean, of course, to handle simply "topical events". The problem is to participate in drama, or tragedies of today's world, of "the world on the verge of disaster". And more than that: an artist has to handle those tragedies sub specie aeternitatis: they must resonate in the sphere of the "arche-psyche" - they must stimulate the archetypes and structures of the mythic thinking (different from the concrete mythic stories!). It is the only way to create a chance for artistic relevance. I think that the above mentioned "experiments in the realm of spirit" or "meta-programming" should be aimed in this direction.
This is the prerequisite of a qualitatively new approach to the endless amorphous material. We could say, paraphrasing the mentioned Sri Aurobindo, that "professionalism based on the classical paradigm was the aim - it became an obstacle". Or: "Experiments concerning the sound matter were the aim - they became obstacles". We need to stress that they are not obstacles on the journey to "progress", but on the journey to the suspected substance of art, nota bene of the art "besieged and in jeopardy".

8. It seems that the abstract idea by K. H. Stockhausen on the one hand and the sensitive ear of P. Shaeffer on the other hand are not the only possibilities. The man is "a being of transcendence" (R. PalouŠ). We could translate this into "our" terminology: A man is able to jump out of the system - f. e. that one, created by the two poles: idea - ear. It also means that he has a chance - at least from time to time - to have a vision (we shouldn't forget that a good example here is K. H. Stockhausen himself, his whole work consists of goals achieved and over fulfilled; of ideas put into practice; even in his beginnings he consciously postulated the uniqueness-unrepeatability of materials, structures and technical methods, etc.).
Under "vision" I mean "image" surpassing our daily experience and routine, not a mere "dreaming", I mean "an active image"-"an embryo"-"a hologram" causing "an explosion" of spontaneous associations-analogies-generalizations, nota bene full of expression-sense, enabling later on abstract operations regulated by the category of meaning (cf. the difference between the sense and the meaning in the analysis by R. Ruyer).
A possible hypothesis is that a "vision" is - as far as its genesis is concerned - a result of "oscillation" of energy-information between a sphere of archetypes (paleobrain?) and a sphere of ideas (neocortex?) triggered by events of the "present" historical process, happening "here and now". It is probable that the "morphogenesis of the vision" supposes some kind of "sensibility for the history" in this sense, i.e. emotional sensibility combined with the moral one and not the moral insanity enabling undisturbed evasions to the past. They threaten to follow the fate of "Lothar's wife".
Vision - "active image" becomes in this form then "Ariadne thread" in the Labyrinth, "Logos" in the Tower of Babylon. It prevents the primitive trial and error method as well as attempts to achieve complexity-synthesis-heterogenesis based on a sort of "Esperanto". It enables the man - the microcosm - to enter the Cosmos for a fraction of time in order to discover its hidden dynamic dialectics. And thanks to vision paradoxically alives the anticipation, that only behind of it exists the sphere of unity.

9. What really matters is essentially mysticism. The good "bon-ton" of the old paradigm had just a haughty contempt for this age-old human experience. This contempt is out of place today; F. Capra proved that non-classical physics and mysticism bring the same message. They are simply complementary methods of lore.
Another great physicist, D. Bohm, created an ontological method based on the concept of "implicate" and "explicate" order. In the mysterious spheres of the first notion a kind of "holograms" are "rolled up" of all that is accessible to us in the field of "explicate order". We might then talk - in the case of artistic creation - about the transformation of the "hologram" hidden in the sphere of Arche.
And thirdly: another great physicist and thinker C. F. von WeizsÉcker maintains that the crisis of culture also has its roots in the absence of Askesis - i.e. in the absence of training enabling to transcend the natural egoistic and egocentric orientation of man ("the primary integrity" of K. Dabrowski).
All of these are manifestations of cosmic thinking, reminding us of the same thing as the "holy-books" of the past: that man is not homo sapiens, but rather homo demens (E. Morin), very often homo patiens (V. Frankl). And he certainly is - against his own will - homo viator, his way leads - according to Dante - from Inferno through Purgatory to the confines of Paradise.
This way is - in my opinion - a binding archetype for the arts as well. A hidden premise of its sensuousness. It is important especially today when we are running the risk - after a period of political totalitarianism - to mistake the "market totalitarianism" with the "paradise of the heart" of Comenius.

10. Following conclusions can be drawn from this rough "reconnaissance in the field":
1) It is always necessary to consider the invariant criteria of the artistic process; this process is anchored in inner psychical integrity which represents itself in a "vision" - in units transcending the "normal music", the everyday experience, stereotypes, conventions, etc.; the sign of the authentic art expresses itself as fascinans.
2) It is necessary to overstep the bounds of the classical paradigm, of the traditional professionalism which tends to reproduce one's own patterns from the past and thus leads to an impasse; it creates an "ecological problem" sui generis.
3) We need an authentic commitment springing from authentic existence and the resulting evidence (apodictic evidence of E. Husserl) of what is today happening in the world - "global village" of M. McLuhan; a direct evidence which is not blurred by external interpretations, suggestions of sociotechnology, etc..
4) We need to get back to experiments, especially of the kind transcending existing stereotypes resulting from reductionist-materialistic ideas; one of the main factors of the present crisis of art is the in-compatibility of the classical paradigm with Art; experiments could take into account the psychological category of J. Piaget's "activity" and its ontological consequences (the relativisation of the Cartesian schism subject vs. object).
5) We acutely need reflection in the Heidegger sense; reflections in musical thinking and reflections in thinking about music.
6) We have to take into consideration and research the consequences of the above mentioned duality of speech manifestations - according to B. Russell - distinguish basic modalities and their functions in the creative process; it has to do obviously with such methods as "brain-storming", etc.
7) In the new historical situation (transformation of the paradigms of human knowledge!), it is necessary to investigate the transformation possibilities of signs of the present "iconosphere" to symbols that transcend the historical timespace. That would be the only chance for the artifact itself to be able to enter the category of the art - whose vocation has always been, and will always be the same thing: to revitalize our sensitiveness to the superhistorical, universal and invariable aspects of our Existence: Infinity, Eternity, Mystery.

One and the same thing: crossing the borders - transgression of the usual, egocentric level of our consciousness.
One and the same thing: making possible the ecstatic states of mind - moments of unification with the Existence - "The Truth".
One and the same thing: heading for the catarsion.
One and the same thing: until the mutation is complete, until the real Homo sapiens is born.

The Art - remaining faithful to this mission and transcending the historical causality - proves its own purposefulness, its meaning within the context of the History. In that way, the art accomplishes its own independence from pressures, requests, caprices of the actual situation, constellation of the power, terror. It acquires freedom - disclaiming not only the privileges of the lackeyship, but also the alluring perspectives of the wilfulness.
It acquires freedom - increasing the regulation. It becomes a matter of the spirit - it represents the PRIMUM MOVENS.