Chapter 15 4. Modern stripes (19th-20th century)-5

From traces to signs The relationship between stripes and music is ancient, deep and varied.Socially, it is first expressed through clothing.As early as ancient Rome, musicians wore striped clothes, just like bards in later feudal times, musical angels in Gothic paintings, or jazz musicians in the first half of this century[103].Musicians have always been on the fringes of society, and it is not at all surprising to see them in striped clothing, as we have already said about all the outcasts and outcasts.Plus, playing music is reminiscent of striped trim.Isn't a simple sheet of music, the strings of a violin or harp, the pipes of an organ, the keyboard of a piano itself like some sort of stripe?

Streaks, though, are more intimately and fundamentally related to music, almost ontologically.Stripe is essentially a "musica" in the full sense that medieval Latin gave to the word, which is extremely rich in meaning, far richer than the French word "music."Like "musica", stripes are timbre, tempo, rhythm, harmony, proportion; like "musica", stripes are mode, flow, timing, excitement, joy.They have a common vocabulary: scales, pitches, degrees, strings, crescendos, intervals, intervals, etc., and in particular they are all related to the notion of order, whether categorical or ordering [104].Music establishes order between people and time, stripes establish order between people and space, both geometric and social.

Stripes are rarely seen in nature.Once people encounter it, they will marvel at the strange thing, or be afraid (this is the attitude of medieval people), or admire it (this is the attitude of modern people).This is the case with veins on certain minerals or plants.This is especially true of the fur of some animals, such as the tiger or the zebra, which were formerly considered fearsome beasts and are today considered the most beautiful creations.Things that used to be horrific or repulsive are now seductively pleasing[105] because they are different. In fact, stripes are not natural marks but cultural marks. They are marks imprinted in the environment, engraved on objects, and imposed on other people or things.In landscape painting, streaks begin on plowshares, continue on rake tines and wheel tracks, and finally emerge as railroad tracks, utility poles, wires, highways.Landscape paintings always show human traces and activities in the form of stripes.On objects, the presence of stripes is not only a mark, but also a control.Drawing lines on one surface—such as the corner of an airmail envelope—is used to distinguish, label, contrast, or combine with another surface, thereby classifying, monitoring, checking, or even banning it.All stripes pretty much have the post office and philately "stamped off" connotation.It is no accident that today letters, transport tickets, admission tickets, labels, invoices, all markings of control are coded stripes and no longer stenciled or letterpressed letters to denote such controls.Typical examples of this are the "bar codes" on items sold in supermarkets, where the labels bearing the numerical prices have disappeared and been replaced by vertical parallel lines [106].

The stripes worn on a person serve the same purpose: to label, to classify, to control, to grade, whether it is the striped tattoo of some African tribe, or the striped fabric of a people in America or Oceania, or what we talk about when we discuss Western culture. All clothing, coat of arms, ensign regulations, stripes are always a tool of social classification.It places the individual in the group and the group in the social whole. The comb[107] and the rake, both products of streaking, are symbols of this ordering which passes from trace to mark.To line is to mark out, to order, to register and orient, to mark and arrange.The underlining is also the output, for all organization, all orchestration of a score is, in poetic terms, an element of creation.Combs, rakes and plows, which leave lines in their path, have been symbols of fertility and affluence since time immemorial.Like rain, like fingers, like other fertility symbols associated with marks and streaks.The function of stripes is not only to mark and classify, but also to create, construct, such as fabrics and imitation structures of all textiles, such as planks [108], fences, ladders or shelves, such as writing: the ordering of knowledge, the fertile plow of thought Grooves, writing is often nothing more than a series of streaks on the carrier.

One can now better understand why, for centuries, Westerners have consistently marked everything associated with disorder with stripes.This involves pointing out the disorder, avoiding it, sounding the alarm, bringing order back into it, purifying it, rebuilding it.The striped clothes forced to wear on lunatics and convicts served as bars to separate them from others, protection, support, and straight roads to guide them back on the "right path."Stripes are not disorder, they are a sign of disorder and a means of restoring order.Stripes are not exclusion, it is a sign of exclusion and an attempt to restore rights.In medieval society, outcasts considered "incorrigible" (such as heretics) were rarely forced to wear striped clothing.Conversely, those expected to convert, such as heretics or even Jews or Muslims, may be dressed in stripes.

It can be said, "it is people who plan things, and success depends on stripes".Its inherent nature and function can only be subject to rules according to the will of society.There is always something in the stripes that resists the establishment of a system, something that brings chaos and ambiguity, something that "creates disorder."The stripe not only shows and hides, but it is pattern and background, finite and infinite, part and whole.Thus, any striated surface seems uncontrollable, almost ungraspable: where does it start and where does it end?Where is empty and where is full?Where is open and where is closed?Where is the dense area and where is the unsaturated area [109]?Where is the foreground and where is the background?Where is up and where is down?Are zebras white with black stripes, as Europeans have long believed, or black with white stripes, as Africans have long believed[110]?

The first is the visual problem of stripes [111].Why do stripes stand out more than solid colors in most cultures?Why does it act as a blindfold?The eye sees more clearly what deceives it?Compared with monochrome, stripes are a distinction, an emphasis, a mark, but when used alone, it becomes an illusion [112], obstructing the view, seeming to flicker, jump, dodge, where structure and There is no longer a distinction between form factors.Structure becomes shape, and shape no longer seems to be able to rest on any background, not even to belong to Euclidean geometry.It is too turbulent, it illuminates and blinds the eye, it disturbs the spirit and disturbs the intellect.

Too many stripes can end up being crazy.