A Pharmacopeia of Sound: Prescribing a New Notational Ontology

A Pharmacopeia of Sound: Prescribing a New Notational Ontology

In my latest work, musical notation takes an unprecedented turn into the pharmacological. A series of circular, color-centric diagrams – each one a concentric pharmacological bullseye – anchors this newly emergent prescriptive notational ontology. At first glance, these polished visuals resemble scientific targets or mandalas, ringed with vibrant hues and radial symmetry. Around each bullseye, dense blocks of text read like entries from an otherworldly Physicians’ Desk Reference: drug names, indications, dosages, and elaborate administration protocols. Yet nothing here is merely pharmaceutical.

The diagrams present a hybrid syntax – part medical classification, part poetic disruption – that invites us to experience notation as a wholly new discovery rather than a continuation of his prior compositions. In this curatorial commentary, we will explore the dual nature of this body of work: first, its visual/pharmacological language – the layers of color, clinical tone, and inventive jargon that collide in each diagram – and second, the performative or musical ramifications of these notational structures as a system of command, interpretation, or score.

Through themes of recursive logic, medical epistemology, semiotic overload, synesthetic transfer, and metaphoric decomposition, we encounter an ontology that challenges how we think about scores and the very nature of musical instruction. This text unfolds as a speculative analysis and philosophical inquiry, treating Smith’s project not as a subset of his past oeuvre but as a standalone ontological blueprint – a pharmaco-notational cosmos of its own.

Viewed through a curatorial lens, this pharmacological notational system stands as a speculative artwork in its own right. It transforms the score into a conceptual installation, not unlike a gallery of pill cabinets. The notation’s visual elements – its grids, shapes, and invented labels – can be appreciated aesthetically, even before a note is played. In fact, one could exhibit the scores on a wall and invite viewers to experience them much as they would a contemporary art piece, decoding the interplay of text and image, science and art. This underscores a key point: I bridges disciplines to provoke a deeper exploration of how we create and consume meaning. By appropriating the language of pharmacology, it prompts us to consider how musical performance, like medicine, is bound up with trust, experimentation, and the human desire to be transformed.