A Strange Loop II: drink your tea the kids are dead!..

for Accordion and Clarinet in Bb

The piece is dedicated to the children, who were brutally murdered during the revolutionary movements in iran. 

A strange loop is a case of self-referential where the starting point object is affected or even

damaged. A paradox can arise in this regard.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, in his book “I Am a Strange

Loop” (2007), defines "I" as a product of consciousness through a strange loop:

“The most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call “I”. An

“I” is a strange loop in a brain where symbolic and physical levels feed back into each other

and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the

paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.”

This piece is the second in a series aimed at demonstrating the interaction between our

thinking process and the physical movement of our bodies. It explores how the abstraction of

self-referentiality in our thinking can create a disconnect from reality.


Performed by Zöllner-Roche Duo - 31.01.2023 Montabauer

Eva Zöllner, Accordion

Heather Roche, Clarinet