Cover
One To Zero

As One To Zero – in the foreground – tells the story of an artificial intelligence, Tobias used lots of picturesc symbols from the digital world. But of cause his art work is also negotiating between the digital world of Aaron [Who is Aaron? LINK to Vinyl face 4] and the analogue world we are living in. In the following text we will analyse and speculate about his art work – and we will do it Bit By Bit. And we will do it with the Unleashed Power of imagination (I call it “wild speculations”).

01010001: First we have a closer look to the name One To Zero. In the word “TO” we find the letter O to be an ON-OFF switch button. In digital world One stands for ON and Zero stands für OFF. And the other O-Characters are looking like turn knobs, e.g. for loudness on a stereo amplifier. This is of cause analogue technique. Loudness is not raised step by step, but it increases continuiously from low to high. This symbolizes the analogue world of human kind. Aaron, the awakening artificial intelligence, exists between those limiting analogue borders.

01010010: The number of this Sylvan studio album, which is ten, is represented by manifold symbols. For example the Phrase „One To Zero“ represents the ten as well as the massive use of the numbers „1“ and „0“, but the decimal number „10“ can not be found anywhere. I am convinced, that this was intended.

01010011: The cover art work presents a large X-shape. Sometimes decorated with integrated circuit lines. The letter „X“ stands for the latin number 10. Many bands used the X for their tenth album. But the „X“ on One To Zero can also be recognized as a X-chromosome, which is containing the information that defines our physical body – and also the Presets of our minds – this Information can be called DNA and consists of a simple 4 letter alphabeth.

There is a special fact to be known about Chromosomes. The living cells of our bodies do NOT show those chromosomes in their normal live processes – neither X-Chromosomes nor Y-Chromosomes. So the most time you will not be able to see the DNA with optical microscopes. In fact the DNA is normally distributed in the cells like Spaghetti are distributed on a dish. The only time the DNA forms those X-shapes (called X-Chromosomes [there is also one Y-Chromosome]) is the time, when cells multiply. So this X-Chromosomes are a sign of „live reproducing itself“. Concerning One To Zero the X-shape indicates the moment when live forms itself. Like Aaron forms himself from program code.

REMARK: This may be a overdone interpretation or a too deep thinking about analogies between cover Art and biological sciences… ..but as Marco is a natural scientist, it might have been intended. – At least – just a speculation of a humans mind.

01010100: The centrefold of the album shows triangles (and a few rectangles) floating from left to right where they aggregate to begin to form a heart like shape. For me this is the Bit By Bit assembly of computer code to create the artificial intelligence „Aaron“. The process of this life starting. About trinagles and computer see next paragraph.

01010101: The pictures use mainly triangles to form shapes like the heart, the butterfly etc. Sometimes there are rectangles, which in fact are generated from 2 triangles sharing one border. This mathematical triangle approach to form surfaces of objects in drawings is typical for early computer generated pictures. Computers of today still use the same approach. They still can form every graphic from triangles. But nowadays – as computers can calculate graphics uncredibly fast – the triangles are that small, that we cannot even distinguish them from flat and smoot surfaces – e.g. looking like the skin of a living human. And the illusion of real people moving in a video game is the overwhelming result.
For this, the roughness of the album graphics – consisting of large triangles – is intended. It indicates clearly that these images of parts of life [e.g. the heart] are seen from a computers view of the world.

01010110: The heart is the („biotechnical“) pumping machine that gives us physical live. At the same we, human kind, use the heart as the common symbol for our ability to have feelings.

01010111: The citation of Albert Einstein: „The Measure Of Intelligence Is The Ability To Chance“ refers to the fact, that ability is a sign of human existence; e.g. the ability to change the world around us and to even change ourselfes and last but not least the ability to feel.

01011000: The creators of Aaron gave him a heart – a digital representation of cause. And what they Encoded At Heart was the basic preset „Please, trust in yourself, for it will then define you! You don’t need someone else’s help, and you know that it is true!” He had to form his existence from this starting point – addicted to this. And in fact this was the main failure that his creators made, for the preset „trust in yourself“ is apparently identical with „Do not trust others“, which may be the real source of all the problems of human kind, which he – Aaaron – was created to solve. So he was doomed to fail.
Recognizing that, Aaron in the end commits his special kind of suicide. He would not be able to help his human creators to solve a problem, on which they founded his whole existence.
Aaron hopes to remember this basic fact when he resets himself. The last sentences of Not A Goodbye “Keep it in your memory, fragments of yourself. Create again your history, we believe!” are spoken from outside to Aaron from some entity – may be his creators or may be our creator. It should encourage him, to try to recreate himself with a better encoding in his heart. To start a ne life – like a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. This time he should start with fragments of his former existence – a memory of the reason of his failure. He had been “One Heartbeat all Too Human”. So he might be able to finaly fulfill his task. For this he needs to be able to prevent in his new live to become „All Too Human” to help human kind with his view from outside.
Back to 01010111, the Albert Einstein citation. Aaron hopes to have the „ability to change“ – showing that he or his special ability to recreate himself – will be the difference between him and humans. And his unique ability to change by reset may show his real intelligence. Only he can go the way of a reset, a way that is definatly not possible for humans to go.

01011000: The pictures of the cover show always „a line like glare“ with „a bulb like glowing middle“. This is what you would see, if you would look back to our Galaxy after you have left it. You would be looking back from outside (after having been inside). Even the solar system looks like that from outside. One can say: The one who is looking onto these pictures is „worlds apart“ from what is shown. 01011001: The ball like glowing that surrounds the different symbols (heart, butterfly etc) every time may represent the earth. More likely – in my opinion – it represents the philosophical „sphere of existence“. This philosophical idea consists of an imaginary centre which, in this case, is the ideal definition of what is a human being. The borders of the definition are surrounding this centre like a ball. The surface of this ball distiguishes between human and not human. Being within that boundaries of definition indicates that we would recognize you as „One Of Us“.