‘The Adjacent Possible’ Is the Sound of Possibility Made Real (Review)
The interactive experience explores our shadow futures through music
“These pieces can only be understood by those who believe that sound can say things which can only be expressed through sound.”
— Arnold Schoenberg, in his preface to the score of Anton Webern’s Six Bagatelles, 1913
I’m in an orchestra. I’m an ensemble member. I’m not a musician.
Those are all true statements. I cannot play an instrument or read music. The orchestra I’m now forever a part of is The Adjacent Possible, an interactive, theatrical experience by Joshua-Michéle Ross, Adam Brick, and Adam Lucas. Ross describes it as “mix[ing] music, improvisational performance, storytelling, and technology to transform its audience into an orchestra. The experience culminates in the performance of a piece of music — the first and last ever to take place.”
(Minor spoilers follow.)
Currently sponsored by Grand Central Art Center CSUF and free to the public, the experience requires no musical knowledge or skills. Participants join via Zoom, which supplies the audio, and remain offscreen and anonymous the entire time. Later on they are led into a “virtual theatre” by way of a separate website. Once there, they select their “instruments,” rehearse, and compose an original, singular musical work.
With names such as “Murmuration” and “Lightning Fields,” the presented instruments were unconventional and poetic. Selection was based on name alone. Only after making our choices did we transition into rehearsal and hear the sounds of our instruments, which were also atypical and challenged ideas of how we classify musicality. As ‘The Conductor,’ Ross’ voice was an auditory weighted blanket: comforting, enveloping, and robust. He’s an expert facilitator, issuing thoughtful insight and delightful observations; our rehearsal was praised as a “disordered, beautiful mess.”
Although the production launched as an in-person event (with just a few pre-COVID performances), the pandemic-adapted, remote version works so well because of its sensory limitations, participant anonymity, and the unique intimacy yielded as a result. Productions such as This Great Plague and Tales by Candlelight harnessed scent as a key driver to great effect. The uncanny binaural sound of DARKFIELD RADIO is a feast for the ears. The Adjacent Possible carves out new sensory territory as an audio-centric, interactive, and communal experience, one that explores musical co-creation within an environment of unspoken trust.
The title is adapted from an original phrase by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. Although the “adjacent possible” was coined as a biological term, relating to the evolutionary processes of living organisms, it refers broadly to the existence of “shadow futures,” as outlined by writer and media theorist Steven Johnson; how even our smallest choices impact our lives and have the potential to manifest unimaginable possibilities. Physicist Vittorio Loreto further explained that the adjacent possible “could be ideas, it could be molecules, it could be technological products that are one step away from what actually exists… It’s something that gets continuously shaped and reshaped by our actions and our choices.”
For The Adjacent Possible, Ross uses “music as a metaphor to explore how we perceive possibility, work from constraints, and make choices in life.” At one point during the show, Ross offered a statement, which is a cornerstone of The Adjacent Possible and could serve as a life credo:
“There are no disappointments, only choices, limitations, and more choices.”
When asked about the seemingly simple design, creators Ross and Brick explained in an interview that their approach was “to support this as an immersive, audio-first experience and to allow the imagination to really cast itself into the space, rather than have it all pushed to you on the screen. So you would kind of sink into it.” This sinking sensation is counterbalanced by buoyancy generated from the show’s connectivity. The Adjacent Possible raises important questions around how we define intimacy, express connection, and the role equity plays. Only through experiencing the show did I realize how much I needed this particular kind of connection, one which I couldn’t have even articulated before joining the orchestra.
What’s so compelling is the exploration of intuition, trust, and consequence through communal listening. Supported by harmonious technological design, the production’s restrictions created a distinctive framework: participants worked together with minimal distractions in anonymity and without knowledge of one another. We lacked any information about gender, race, age, sexuality, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, family composition, or political affiliations. We didn’t know each other’s talents, fears, dreams, future plans, or past regrets. Outside of our main goal and responsibility there was no option for verbal, paraverbal, or nonverbal communication between orchestra members; our interaction was siphoned into the single, spontaneous, co-creation of a musical work. This composition process fostered a focused, compressed environment. Life felt paused and in its place was a delicious effect of hovering in pure sensation — without thought, without worry, without a sense of time passing.
Years ago I took art classes with a brilliant teacher. He reminded the students that we weren’t learning how to draw; we were learning how to see. The Adjacent Possible isn’t about understanding how to make music; it’s about understanding how to listen. And through that deep listening, to ourselves and to each other, it’s about committing to our individual and collective decisions, and the weight of their effects.
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[Original publication: No Proscenium, 4/6/21]