Shannon Novak: Acoustic Synergy
It is an ineffable notation, a sensation of time travel. 11:47 p.m., and I try to do the calculus to determine where Shannon may be in his work, or simply just in his day. Where he is, in New Zealand, it is already tomorrow. Perhaps he has already completed what he had hoped to tackle for the day. He has heard a new shape or seen a new note. Seventeen hours earlier, I am racing to finish out my Wednesday. Battling midnight, hoping to claim another hundred words before the clock turns. I think of Shannon and I wonder what he’s doing and I wonder where he is.
Most anyone will understand the feeling. The 3:00 a.m. of the soul, as F. Scott Fitzgerald might have known it. A dark, quiet moment when one is awakened, scales falling from one’s eyes, and the notion of singularity becomes all-consuming and undeniably evident. It is a realization of separation and disconnect. And, a deep yearning to reach out across space and time and to feel the hand of someone loved.
But, this is not a story of loss.
If anything, it is a path of regeneration. 7,500 miles away, Shannon Novak has orchestrated this room, just for you. He has watched your reactions in his mind eye. He has imagined the swelling in your chest – the moment your heart begins to race as his work strikes a deep nerve, resonating throughout your body, cascading through your limbs to the farthest reaches of your fingertips and toes. And, from his distance, he hears you. He knows your voice.
Novak has created a world for you – a Metatronic Cube – in which you are asked to feel and experience and play. He wants your poetry and prose, your raising voice and the lithe steps of your dance. He wants to collaborate, time and space be damned. Shannon Novak’s Acoustic Synergy is a realization of interconnection, “revealed like a burst of radiant harmony.”
-- Brentney Hamilton
Brentney Hamilton holds an MTS from Harvard University and a BA from Southern Methodist University. Hamilton writes independently for a number of publications including the 'Dallas Observer' and 'Addison Magazine.'
