Materialism and Temporality

Materialism and Temporality by Nik Masoo Liner Notes by Ehsan Saboohi Section I — Materialism and Temporality: Foundational Concepts Marxist materialism understands being not as a fixed substrate but as a ongoing process generated within concrete material relations and practical activity. It breaks decisively with any substantialist or ahistorical account of reality. In the dialectical view, matter is not a passive given but a dynamic field of determinations whose character emerges through historically conditioned interactions. Marx develops this insight in Capital (1867), where the commodity is defined not as an isolated object but as a crystallized social relation. Value, likewise, is not an intrinsic property but the product of socially necessary labor-time accumulated in the production process. What appears natural, self-evident, or timeless is in fact produced through determinate historical conditions and material mechanisms. For this reason, Marxist materialism must always be historical; it rejects any interpretation of reality that abstracts phenomena from their temporal and relational constitution. Temporality, in this framework, designates the constitutive historicity of phenomena. Time is not a neutral container for events but an active dimension that shapes the very structure of objects, practices, and experiences. Marx treats time as a qualitative component of production: “socially necessary labor-time” indicates that under capitalism, time functions as a social relation rather than a purely natural metric. It is historically conditioned, socially mediated, and embedded within the organization of production. From this perspective, time structures social formations and simultaneously shapes lived experience. It is a generative force that produces novelty and difference; an active dimension rather than a mechanical sequence of instants. Temporality participates directly in the formation of material reality. Transposing these concepts to sound and digital technology introduces new theoretical and practical problems. Sound within a digital environment is not a secondary representation of an antecedent acoustic event; it is a material produced within computational relations, protocols, and storage infrastructures. Digital infrastructure itself constitutes a material condition that shapes sonic possibility. It is not a neutral utility for inscription or playback; it is a productive apparatus. Within this setting, time operates on two intertwined registers: first, the historical time sedimented in the material—its modes of capture, transformation, and storage; second, the computational time that functions as an operative parameter in sound processing. In this project, “materialism” and “temporality” are not only theoretical references but operational principles that organize the architecture of production and provide a method for analyzing the relations among sound, technology, and the social conditions of their emergence. Section II — Machine–Human Relations and the Theoretical Position of Artificial Intelligence Contemporary discourse surrounding artificial intelligence and the human–machine relation often oscillates between two ideological extremes: technological fetishism, which treats AI as an autonomous, quasi-divine force; and moralistic technophobia, which regards it as a fundamental threat to human identity. Both positions rely on essentialist assumptions and evade a materialist analysis of production relations. The central question is whether a Marxist materialist framework can offer a third position—one that neither idealizes nor demonizes AI, but instead situates it within the shifting terrain of material production. AI systems and computational machines are not merely instruments that enhance efficiency. They intervene structurally in production relations and transform the material conditions of creation, distribution, and perception. A useful conceptual orientation can be found in Deleuze and Guattari’s broader notion of the machine: a network of connections, flows, and operations that destabilizes rigid separations such as organic/inorganic or human/non-human. This perspective resists any essentialist dualism between human and machine and emphasizes their shared participation in material processes. From such a vantage point, AI is neither an alien entity to be feared nor a miraculous force to be worshipped; it is a node within ongoing processes of technical and social reconfiguration. Deleuze’s analyses of technical apparatuses—especially in Cinema 1 and Cinema 2—demonstrate how machines reorganize time and movement, offering a framework for understanding contemporary computational systems: the technical apparatus does not replace human capacities; it transforms and extends them. Within this perspective, the relations among sound, digital technology, and production structures can be made analytically explicit. Materialism and Temporality examines the division of labor, the temporality of production, and the modes through which perceptible material is organized. Its scope is both conceptual and practical, seeking to clarify how material relations are formed within digital environments and how time functions within these relations as a constitutive force. Section III — Sound as Material Practice The album Materialism and Temporality materializes the production relations outlined above. It arises through the interaction of three specific material components: (1) the hard drive as the historical memory of raw sonic material; (2) the Q Machine as the computational–temporal apparatus; and (3) Nik Masoo as the AI composer functioning in dialectical relation with the previous layers. These three components operate in reciprocal processes; none can generate the work independently. 1. The Hard Drive: The hard drive is the historical memory in which raw sonic material is inscribed. The time and place of recording, technical format, and file structure all contribute to the material weight of each sample. For both Masoo and Saboohi, nothing exists outside this archive; the hard drive is the field of production, and its material is non-subjective and non-transcendent. 2. The Q Machine: Developed by Ehsan Saboohi since 2020, the Q Machine organizes the construction and analysis of rhythm according to the QPS paradigm (seconds as the primary unit of calculation). Within this architecture, the machine is not a neutral interface; it is the technical site through which material relations become intelligible and operative. 3. Nik Masoo (AI Composer): The project’s learning–generative system comprises fourteen independent interpretive modules. It performs parallel evaluations and decisions within one-tenth of a second, continually refining its operations. Additional capabilities—including indexing, energy analysis, spectral interpretation, timbral grouping, and simulation of human cognitive patterns (as of 2025)—allow the system to function in direct relation to the hard drive and the Q Machine. Within this process, the dependency of production on the human composer is partially redistributed and reconfigured. Production Logic: Dialectics and Material Accumulation The production process follows a dialectical logic expressed as A + B ⇒ C. Two sonic elements, A and B—retrieved from the hard drive—interact materially and temporally to generate C. This third element is not a mechanical aggregate but a new material formation produced through their encounter. Time plays an active operational role; it determines the mode of relation between materials rather than serving as a neutral metric. C then returns to the hard drive. Successful outputs become part of the archive and re-enter subsequent cycles as new material. This feedback loop generates material accumulation: each stage becomes the material condition for the next. History becomes embedded in the substance of the sound itself, transforming the archive from a static repository into a dynamic, self-organizing system. Materialism as Method Materialism and Temporality — both as a musical project and as a methodological framework—offers a practical response to the question of how consciousness and meaning emerge from material conditions. In a Marxist reading, understanding does not arise from transcendence or exceptional interiority; it arises from labor, relations, and material processes within a finite experiential field. This project seeks to demonstrate that meaning and subjectivity emerge from the dynamics of material production rather than from any independent or atemporal faculty.