Since the rise of social media platforms in the late-1990s, human-to-human communication has never been easier. In fact, many believe that it has become too easy. We can scroll and scroll through our social media pages all day and never see anything new. Each day on social media is a re-permutation the same statuses, the same memes, the same pictures, and the same comments; it is a simulacrum of superficiality. The virtual world is a closed circuit, and we are all stuck in it; blissfully circulating.

 

Based on a simple, somewhat satirical, whole-tone melody (first heard clearly in the cello at A; subsequently used as a theme for

a chain of mensuration canons), this piece perpetually loops round and around itself in both its large-scale and local structures, continually re-orchestrating, re-permutating, and transposing itself as it gradually (almost imperceptibly) slows down throughout its duration.

 

Always in a state of forward motion, it continually tries to develop. However, it is stuck in a maze of its own creation; all progression is ultimately proven futile as it grinds to a stuttered halt.