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NODE

♐NODE is a video posted to the 3rd youtube channel account on January 22, 2018. It is 2:19:20 long and contains a series of moving images. It was posted 18 days after ♐RUN. ♐SERN would be posted four days later.

Audio

The audio track is mostly silent, except for 5 sound-bursts:

• a “subway brake squeal” (similar to ♐LIMIT) at 8:04
• a similar sound to the first at 20:40
• a high-pitched (pitch-shifted?) noise that could be a modified version of the above sounds at 23:28
• a 34-second crunchy noise at 58:49 (with what sounds like a shorter sound hidden under the noise)
• an 11-second melodic burst (distorted piano or some sort of keyboard?) at 2:16:59

Those sounds, with the silence between them removed can be heard here.

The “Melody”

The final audio section has a clear melody and is the subject of continued investigation.

(audio transcription by discord user A Hidden Waffle — listenable here)

Discord user alexander later provided a more elaborate transcription of the melody:

alexander has also confirmed that “the melody is written in the 432hz tuning.”

• 432hz is considered significant in certain musical/mystical communities. See [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xywy74/the-fringe-audiophiles-who-want-to-topple-standard-tuning| here] (or [https://attunedvibrations.com/432hz/| here] for a less skeptical take).

Similarities to “the Windowlicker”

It has been noted by Discord user scottywiththebody that the “subway brake squeal” bares some striking resemblance to the screeching limo in Aphex Twin’s “the Windowlicker” music video. Discord user Ryallin further noted that the crunchy noise also bares some resemblance to the mechanical groans of the limo. Noises start at 3:50.

alexander’s later analysis concurs that “it is 100% a blatant sample of windowlicker”.

Additional Analysis

Discord user alexbassguy notes that the audio “contains a few distorted passages of synthesizer. However, the nature of the distortion isn’t the same as ‘old’ ufsc. It’s just clipped really badly, not… altered, in that beautiful real UFSC way that I’ve always been fascinated by. I can also easily recreate those artifacts pretty quickly and simply.”

Title

please elaborate

Composites

2-D Composite

(composite by discord user extra)

It has been noted by Discord user Raketemensch that there are visual similarities between this composite and certain paintings by Wassily Kandinsky.

Details in composite

• As with other recent composites, there are a series of black/white dots in the top corner of the ♐NODE composite.

This has been the subject of further research — see “morse code” section below.

• Similar to ♐HARVEST, there is a “flag”/striped banner image in the top left corner of the image.

(“flag” from ♐NODE on the left, “flag” (a.k.a. “the lasagne”) from ♐HARVEST on the right)

It’s possible that these were meant for vertical calibration when selecting composite widths.

3-D Composite

(composite by discord user tukkek)

• there are no immediately-discernible patterns in this “not terribly interesting” 3-D composite.

“Morse code”

Discord user NKC1982 performed analysis of the “Morse code” in the top left of the composite. Their method and conclusions:

• There’s definitely some meaning in the “Morse Code” section, because it can be decoded to 7-bit ASCII. And if one assumes it’s OK for there to be a 1-bit error, it even spells something.
• The sets of symbols (disregarding the grey ones and using only the white and black) are each 9 to 10 pixels across, so it seemed likely to be some kind of 7 or 8 bit code with parity or timing marks. I also noticed each group started with a black pixel, so I initially took that as a “start bit” like in serial/RS-232 communication
• I got “11001000 11000101 11011100 11110000 11110011 11101111 11001110 11000111 “ [which is] not ASCII. I then realized they ALL started with a 1, so in fact each was starting with a black-then-white PAIR. A-Ha!
• Removing the leading 1, this gave me 7 bit ASCII which decoded to “1001000 1000101 1011100 1110000 1110011 1101111 1001110 1000111” which decodes to “HE\psoNG”. Assuming a small encoding error, changing just the 5th bit of the 3rd byte gives you “HELpsoNG”.
• NODE contains “the melody” so maybe the binary message is meant to say “HELP SONG” and is trying to lead us somewhere. Food for thought at least.

(see also NKC1982’s observations for ♐RUN.)