From Body to Sound: Geometry as a Shared Truth Table Across Media

Abstract  摘要

Most cross-medial performance work treats sound and light as accompaniment — parallel tracks designed after the fact to support a body that has already been choreographed. This paper argues that such parallelism, however sophisticated, remains a form of illustration rather than generation, and proposes an alternative: that sound's spatial geometry — point, line, plane, and volume — is not a metaphor borrowed from outside the body's quality table, but a projection that already exists within it. Building on Laban's Effort theory and its extension into a sixty-four-cell "dictionary of qualities," this paper demonstrates that geometry is fully determined by the orthogonal combination of Time and Space, while polarity (light/heavy) is determined independently by Weight — and that this same two-axis structure can be read directly as sound's point/line/plane/volume identity. Because body, sound, and light are shown to derive from one Qimen Dunjia chart at one moment through one truth table, the paper argues for a stronger claim than "multi-media coherence": not that the media are merely coordinated after the fact, but that they share a single causal origin and follow isomorphic generative logics, so that what the audience perceives as three media is one structure read through three different sensory channels. The paper concludes by examining the three timeline routes through which the same nine-palace chart can be read, showing that dramaturgical tension is not designed after generation but is a property of which route is chosen through an already-existing structure.

多數跨媒介表演作品，將聲音與燈光視為配樂——在身體已經編排完成之後，另行設計、事後對齊的並行軌道。本文論證，這種並行關係，無論設計得多麼精巧，本質上仍是一種「圖解」而非「生成」，並提出另一種可能：聲音的空間幾何——點、線、面、體——並非從身體之外借來的比喻，而是身體質感真值表本身已經存在、等待被讀取的一個投影。本文以拉班力效理論及其擴展出的六十四格「質感字典」為基礎，論證幾何完全由時間與空間兩個正交因子的組合決定，而陰陽（輕重）則獨立由重量因子決定——而這同一套二維結構，可以直接被讀作聲音的點／線／面／體身份。由於身體、聲音與燈光皆源自同一張奇門盤、於同一時刻、經同一張真值表推導而出，本文提出一項比「跨媒介協調」更強的主張：這些媒介不僅是事後被協調的，而是共享同一個因果起源、遵循同構的生成邏輯——觀眾感知到的三種媒介，實為同一結構經三種不同感知通道被讀出。本文最後考察同一套九宮系統可被讀取的三條時間軸路線，論證戲劇張力並非在生成之後被設計出來，而是選擇何種路線穿越一個已然存在的結構所產生的性質。

Keywords — sound geometry · Laban Effort theory · Qimen Dunjia · cross-medial generation · truth table · dramaturgy of route

關鍵詞 — 聲音幾何 · 拉班力效理論 · 奇門遁甲 · 跨媒介生成 · 真值表 · 路線戲劇法

1 · The Limits of the Soundtrack Paradigm

配樂範式的理論局限

Contemporary cross-medial theatre, however technically advanced, still overwhelmingly follows a default division of labor: the choreographer completes the body's movement structure first, and sound and light designers subsequently intervene to "accompany" that structure. Even immersive theatre that emphasizes cross-medial parity typically only compresses this time lag to a minimum, having sound and light designed "in sync" during rehearsal — without ever truly questioning the premise of the division itself: that body, sound, and light remain three independently generated sources, merely coordinated tightly enough after the fact that audiences cannot perceive their separation.

當代跨媒介劇場的絕大多數實踐，無論其技術如何先進，依然遵循一種默認的分工模式：編舞者先完成身體的動作結構，聲音設計師與燈光設計師隨後介入，為這一結構「配上」聲音與光。即便是強調沉浸感、強調多媒介等權的沉浸式劇場，其常見的處理方式也僅僅是把這一分工的時間差壓縮到最小，讓聲音與燈光在排練過程中「同步」設計，卻並未真正質疑分工本身的前提——即身體、聲音、燈光三者在本體論上是三個獨立的生成源，只是被創作者事後協調得足夠緊密，使觀眾在感知層面難以察覺其分離。

This paper's central claim challenges precisely this default premise. If it can be shown that sound's spatial geometric form is not a metaphorical device layered onto the body's quality after the fact, but a structure already existing within the body's quality truth table — one that only needs to be read through the correct projection — then body and sound are no longer two independently coordinated generative sources, but two readings of a structure with a single shared origin. If this claim holds, it elevates "cross-medial coherence" from a practical question of design coordination technique to a theoretical proposition about shared generative origin.

本文的核心論點是：這一默認前提本身值得被挑戰。如果可以證明聲音的空間幾何形態，並非一套外加於身體質感之上的比喻裝置，而是身體質感真值表內部本就存在、只需被正確投影方式讀出的既有結構，那麼身體與聲音就不再是兩個被協調的獨立生成源，而是同一個共享起源之結構的兩種不同讀法。這一論點如果成立，將把「跨媒介一致性」這一命題，從一個關於設計協調技巧的實踐問題，提升為一個關於共享生成起源的理論命題。

Section 2 establishes the core axiom of geometric projection, demonstrating how sound's four spatial geometric forms — point, line, plane, volume — can be read directly from Laban's three Effort factors of Time, Space, and Weight. Section 3 addresses the unity of the generative source, showing how body and sound share a single nine-palace truth table determined by one Qimen Dunjia casting. Section 4 discusses how the choice among three timeline routes determines the distribution of dramaturgical tension, arguing that this distribution is itself a property of an already-existing structure rather than a product of post-hoc design. Section 5 concludes by considering the methodological increment this cross-medial coherence proposition may offer to performance theory.

本文第二節建立幾何投影的核心公理，論證聲音的點線面體四種幾何形態如何直接從拉班力效的時間、空間、重量三因子中被讀出。第三節處理生成源的統一性問題，說明身體與聲音如何共享同一張由奇門遁甲確定生成的九宮真值表。第四節討論三條時間軸路線的選擇如何決定戲劇張力的分布，論證這一分布本身也是既有結構的性質，而非事後設計的產物。第五節總結這一跨媒介一致性命題對表演理論可能帶來的方法論增量。

2 · The Axiom of Geometric Projection

幾何投影公理：點線面體如何從力效因子中被讀出

Sound's four spatial geometric forms — point, line, plane, volume — must first be understood as modes of existing in time, rather than as a classification of timbre. A point is an instantaneous event, with a beginning and an end, not persisting; a line is the trace left when a point is rapidly drawn through space, from which direction is born; a plane is the texture formed by many lines laid out together, perceived as "a sheet" rather than "a sound"; a volume occupies space, without boundary. The very definitions of these four modes of existence already hint at their close relation to the Time and Space factors within Laban's Effort theory.

聲音的四種空間幾何形態——點、線、面、體——首先必須被理解為時間中的存在方式，而非音色分類。點是瞬間事件，有開始、有結束，不持續存在；線是點在空間中被迅速劃開所留下的軌跡，方向由此而生；面是許多條線鋪陳而成的紋理，聽感上是「一片」而非「一個聲音」；體占據空間，沒有邊界。這四種存在方式的定義本身，已經暗示了它們與拉班力效理論中時間、空間兩個因子之間的密切關聯。

Formalizing this intuition yields a clean axiom: geometric category is fully determined by the combination of Time and Space, polarity (light/heavy) is determined independently by the single factor of Weight, and the two axes are orthogonal, never interfering with each other. Specifically, when Space is direct and Time is instantaneous, the corresponding geometric form is a point, with an Effort identity of Dab or Punch; when Space is indirect and Time is instantaneous, it corresponds to a line, with an identity of Flick or Slash; when Space is direct and Time is sustained, it corresponds to a plane, with an identity of Glide or Press; when Space is indirect and Time is sustained, it corresponds to a volume, with an identity of Float or Wring. The Weight factor is then independently superimposed onto this geometric classification, determining whether that cell is light (Float, Glide, Flick, Dab) or heavy (Punch, Press, Slash, Wring).

將這一直覺形式化，可以得到一條乾淨的公理：幾何類別完全由時間乘空間這一組合決定，陰陽(輕重)完全由重量這一因子獨立決定，兩軸彼此正交，互不干涉。具體而言，當空間為直接、時間為瞬間時，對應的幾何形態是點，其力效身份為點拍或沖打；當空間為間接、時間為瞬間時，對應的是線，其力效身份為彈拂或劈砍；當空間為直接、時間為持續時，對應的是面，其力效身份為滑抹或推壓；當空間為間接、時間為持續時，對應的是體，其力效身份為漂浮或擰絞。重量因子則獨立疊加於這一幾何分類之上，決定該格是輕(漂浮、滑抹、彈拂、點拍)還是重(沖打、推壓、劈砍、擰絞)。

The most important theoretical implication of this axiom is that sound geometry is not an externally attached layer of metaphor, but a projection that already exists within the body's quality truth table. Any Effort combination can have its point/line/plane/volume identity read directly from its Time-plus-Space position, with polarity independently superimposed — no separate sound-specific classification system needs to be designed and then laboriously aligned after the fact with the body's quality system. In other words, once a choreographer has determined the Effort combination for a given moment, a sound designer theoretically need not make any additional aesthetic judgment to determine which geometric category — point, line, plane, or volume — that moment's sound should belong to; that categorical assignment follows directly from the axiom. This is precisely the meaning of "projection" here: not creating new content, but reading out a dimension within an already-existing structure that had not yet been read. The concrete sonic realization within a given category — which instrument, which texture, which specific gesture of sound — remains a further design act, addressed in Section 3 below; what the axiom removes is only the question of which category a moment belongs to, not the question of how that category should sound.

這一公理最重要的理論意涵在於：聲音幾何不是外掛的比喻層，而是身體質感真值表本來就存在的一個投影。任何一個力效組合，都可以直接從其時間加空間位讀出對應的點、線、面、體身份，陰陽獨立疊加其上，不需要另外設計一套聲音專屬的分類系統，再費力地與身體質感系統做事後對齊。換言之，如果編舞者已經確定了某一時刻的力效組合，聲音設計者理論上不需要再做任何額外的美學判斷，就可以直接確定這一時刻的聲音應歸屬於點、線、面、體中的哪一類——這一類別歸屬直接由公理推得。這正是「投影」一詞在此處的精確含義：不是創造新的內容，而是從既有結構中讀出一個此前未被讀取的維度。至於某一類別之內具體該用什麼樂器、什麼質地、什麼樣的聲音手勢去實現，仍是一項有待進一步完成的設計行為，見下文第三節；公理消去的只是「這一刻該歸屬於哪一類」的判斷，而非「這一類該聽起來如何」的判斷。

3 · A Unified Generative Source: How the Qimen Dunjia Nine-Palace Truth Table Drives Body and Sound Alike

統一的生成源：奇門遁甲九宮真值表如何同時驅動身體與聲音

The axiom of geometric projection resolves the question of where sound's formal categories originate, but proving that body and sound truly share a single generative source requires addressing a more concrete question: in a given performance, which cells of sound are activated when and with what intensity, and whether this decision, too, derives from exactly the same upstream input as bodily action.

幾何投影公理解決的是「聲音的形式類別從何而來」這一問題，但要真正證明身體與聲音共享同一生成源，還需要處理另一個更具體的問題：在一場具體的演出中，聲音的哪些格子在何時被激活、以何種強度被激活，這一決策是否也源自與身體行動完全相同的上游輸入。

The answer rests on a concrete engineering design — the drum-machine skeleton. The instrument itself uses a base-position table of the Eight Doors — Kan/Rest, Kun/Death, Zhen/Injury, Xun/Blockage, Qian/Opening, Dui/Alarm, Gen/Life, Li/View — a skeleton not bound to any specific hourly chart, and therefore reusable across works; while in a given performance, it is that hour's Qimen configuration that determines which cells are activated, and at what intensity. The eight sound streams (Float, Glide, Flick, Dab, Wring, Press, Slash, Punch) combine with the Eight Doors to form a sixty-four-cell matrix, isomorphic with the sixty-four hexagrams — this matrix structure is itself a direct application, in the sound domain, of the dictionary of qualities from Section 2, rather than an independently designed system. Each cell carries two independent attributes simultaneously: the geometry of that sound stream itself, and the stem-relation of that door itself. Where the two coincide, the cell reads as a base cell, purer in sensation; where they cross, it reads as a fused cell, carrying structural friction — this distinction determines which cells are suited as a stable texture layer and which as a layer of anomaly or resistance, a judgment criterion entirely identical to that used for row-column coincidence and intersection in the body's dictionary of qualities.

樂器本身使用八門的本位表——坎休、坤死、震傷、巽杜、乾開、兌驚、艮生、離景——這一骨架不綁定任何具體時辰盤，因此得以跨作品復用；而在具體演出時，由該時辰的奇門格局決定哪些格子被激活、以何種強度被激活。八種聲音流(漂浮、滑抹、彈拂、點拍、擰絞、推壓、劈砍、沖打)與八門構成六十四格矩陣，與六十四卦同構——這一矩陣結構本身，正是第二節質感字典在聲音領域的直接應用，而非另行設計的獨立系統。每一格同時攜帶兩個獨立屬性：該聲音流本身的幾何，與該門本身的干合。二者重合之處讀作本體格，聽感更純；二者交叉之處讀作融合格，帶有結構性摩擦——這一區分決定了哪些格子適合作為穩定質感層，哪些適合作為異常或抵抗層，而這一判斷標準與身體質感字典中行列重合與交叉所對應的判斷標準完全一致。

It follows that body and sound, in the same performance, are in fact reading the same nine-palace chart generated by that night's casting — the energy trajectory determined by the sovereign's march, the position of its stillness, the volume peaks brought by five-phase relations — these structural elements simultaneously drive the Effort chord of bodily movement and the density distribution of the sound system, and are not separately interpreted by choreographer and sound designer before being aligned after the fact, but co-generated by the same machine, reading the same chart, at the same moment. This is precisely the core claim this paper advances: the coherence of body and sound is not the result of coordination at the level of design technique, but a same-origin, isomorphically-derived relation — two structurally parallel readings of one chart, disassembled into two different sensory channels presented to the audience.

由此可見，身體與聲音在同一場演出中，實際上是在讀取同一張由當晚起局所生成的九宮盤面——值符行進路線決定的能量走向、伏吟靜滯的位置、五行生克帶來的音量峰值，這些結構性要素同時驅動身體動作的力效和弦與聲音系統的密度分布，二者並非分別由編導與聲音設計師各自解讀後再事後對齊，而是由同一台機器、讀同一張盤、在同一個時刻共同生成。這正是本文提出的核心論點所在：身體與聲音的一致性，不是設計技巧層面的協調結果，而是一種同源、且經同構邏輯推導而成的關係——是同一張盤的兩種結構上平行的讀法，被拆解為兩個不同的感知通道呈現給觀眾。

It is further worth noting that the temporal distribution of multiple sound materials within a single palace does not adopt the arbitrary, separately-designed method of equally dividing measures, but instead uses the equally ancient, equally deterministic pitch-generation method of three-part loss-and-gain, alternately reducing and augmenting along the Luoshu palace sequence to generate ratios, then converting these into concrete measure offsets. Because the alternation is between gain and loss rather than monotonic decrease, the order of generation diverges from temporal order; once reordered by time, all materials generated by gain naturally cluster in the first half, and all generated by loss naturally cluster in the second half — this two-part structure is not the result of manual design, but an emergent product of the alternation rule itself. This finding further reinforces the paper's argument: even the micro-level temporal distribution within sound materials is not left to the sound designer's subjective judgment, but determined by another equally deterministic, equally ancient generative rule, sharing an isomorphic methodological character with the generative logic bodily action follows.

進一步值得指出的是，同一宮內多個聲音素材的時間排布，並非採用等分小節這種任意的、需要另行設計的時間分配方式，而是使用三分損益這一同樣古老的、確定性的生律方法，沿洛書宮位順序交替損益生成比值，再轉換為具體的小節偏移量。由於損益交替而非單調遞減，生成順序與時間順序產生分歧，按時間重新排序後，所有由益生成的素材自然聚集在前半段，所有由損生成的素材自然聚集在後半段——這一二段體結構並非手動設計的結果，而是交替規則本身的湧現產物。這一發現進一步強化了本文的論點：即便是聲音素材內部微觀層面的時間分配，也並非交由聲音設計者的主觀判斷，而是由另一套同樣確定性、同樣古老的生成規則所決定，與身體行動所依循的生成邏輯保持著同構的方法論品格。

4 · The Dramaturgy of Route: Tension Distribution as a Property of an Already-Existing Structure

路線的戲劇法：張力分布作為既有結構的性質

If body and sound do indeed share the same nine-palace truth table, a natural question follows: whether this truth table itself allows for only one way of being read. The answer is no — the same nine-palace system permits at least three distinct reading routes, each serving a different dramaturgical function, and the choice of route is itself the choice of how dramaturgical tension is to be distributed across the entire performance.

如果身體與聲音確實共享同一張九宮真值表，一個自然引出的問題是：這張真值表本身是否只有一種被讀取的方式。答案是否定的——同一套九宮系統至少允許三種截然不同的讀取路線，每一種路線服務不同的戲劇功能，而路線的選擇本身，就是對整場演出戲劇張力分布方式的選擇。

The first route is the ritual path of "sovereign through the three auspicious doors to envoy," whose trajectory naturally tends toward harmony and avoids conflict, keeping the entire performance in a state of sustained harmony. The second route is the flying-palace Luoshu sequence, circulating according to the structural Luoshu order, which necessarily passes through the single, unique palace of conflict-in-combat found anywhere in the chart. The third route is the rotating-plate leap sequence, likewise structural but following a leaping order, placing the palace of conflict at the midpoint of the sequence rather than at its close. The difference among these three routes deserves particular emphasis: the choice of route is the choice of dramaturgical tension distribution — the first route keeps the work in a state of sustained harmony throughout, while the second and third guarantee that the work necessarily passes through that single, unique palace of conflict-in-combat — and the blockage mechanism originally designed within the sound system only carries genuine structural meaning under the latter two routes; were the first route chosen, however ingeniously that blockage mechanism were designed, it would never actually be experienced by the audience in performance.

第一條路線是「值符經三吉門至值使」的儀式性路線，其路徑天然傾向協和、避開衝突，使整場演出始終處於一種持續的協和狀態。第二條路線是飛盤洛書序，依循結構性的洛書順序流轉，必然經過全局唯一的克戰之宮。第三條路線是轉盤跳躍序，同樣是結構性的、但依循跳躍式的順序，使衝突之宮出現在序列的中段，而非收尾處。這三條路線的差異值得特別強調：路線的選擇即是戲劇張力分布的選擇，第一條路線讓作品始終處於協和狀態，第二、三條路線則保證作品必然經歷那唯一的克戰之宮——而聲音系統中原本設計的阻滯機制，也只有在後兩條路線中才具有真實的結構意義，若選擇第一條路線，這一阻滯機制設計得再精巧，也不會在實際演出中被觀眾經歷到。

This finding forms an important complement to the paper's central claim: that body, sound, and light share the same generative source does not mean the entire performance's dramaturgical trajectory is completely determined with no room for choice whatsoever. Quite the contrary — the creator retains a crucial and highly dramaturgically meaningful choice: which route to use in reading this same, already-generated truth table. This choice differs from the choreographer's freedom, in the traditional sense, to "design the placement of the climax," because the route itself creates no new content — it only determines the order and the stage of the performance at which the audience will experience the structural elements already present within that chart. This freedom, confined to "manner of reading" rather than "creation of content," is precisely the concrete manifestation, at the level of cross-medial generation, of the "wrestling between necessity and freedom" argued for in this paper's first companion piece.

這一發現對本文的核心命題構成了重要補充：身體、聲音、燈光共享同一生成源，並不意味著整場演出的戲劇性走向是完全被決定、沒有任何選擇空間的。恰恰相反，創作者仍然保有一個關鍵的、且極具戲劇法意涵的選擇——選擇用哪一條路線去讀取這同一張已經生成的真值表。這一選擇不同於編導在傳統意義上「設計高潮位置」的自由，因為路線本身並不創造新的內容，只是決定觀眾將以何種順序、在演出的哪個階段，經歷這張盤面中已經存在的結構性要素。這種被限定在「讀取方式」而非「內容創造」範圍內的自由，恰恰是本文第一篇論文所論證的「必然與自由之間的搏鬥」在跨媒介生成層面的具體體現。

5 · Conclusion

結語

This paper has argued for a theoretical claim stronger than the usual sense of "cross-medial coordination." Sound's spatial geometry — point, line, plane, volume — is not a metaphorical device layered onto the body's quality after the fact, but an existing structure that can be projected and read directly from the Time and Space factors of Laban's Effort theory, a projection relation that requires no additional aesthetic judgment to determine which geometric category a moment belongs to, only the correct manner of reading — the further question of how that category should concretely sound remains a design act, addressed by the drum-machine skeleton below. On this basis, this paper further argues that the coherence of body and sound in a given performance derives from their sharing a single nine-palace truth table, determined and generated by Qimen Dunjia at the same moment — the sixty-four-cell matrix of the drum-machine skeleton and the sixty-four-cell matrix of the body's dictionary of qualities follow an entirely identical constructive logic, rather than being independently designed and then laboriously aligned; body and sound are same-origin, isomorphically-derived readings of one chart, not two ontologically fused phenomena. Finally, this paper has argued for the crucial freedom the creator retains within this deterministic framework: the choice of which route to use in reading the same truth table, a choice that determines the concrete distribution of dramaturgical tension across the performance, yet creates no content that does not already exist within the truth table itself.

本文論證了一項比通常意義上「跨媒介協調」更強的理論主張。聲音的空間幾何——點、線、面、體——並非外加於身體質感之上的比喻裝置，而是可以直接從拉班力效理論的時間與空間因子中投影讀出的既有結構，這一投影關係本身不需要額外的美學判斷去決定某一時刻該歸屬於哪一幾何類別，只需要正確的讀取方式——至於該類別具體該聽起來如何，仍是一項設計行為，由下文的鼓機骨架處理。在此基礎上，本文進一步論證，身體與聲音在具體演出中的一致性，源自二者共享同一張由奇門遁甲於同一時刻確定生成的九宮真值表——鼓機骨架的六十四格矩陣與身體質感字典的六十四格矩陣，遵循完全相同的構造邏輯，而非各自獨立設計後再費力對齊;身體與聲音是同一張盤的同源、同構推導讀法，而非兩個在本體上融為一體的現象。最後，本文論證了創作者在這一確定性框架下依然保有的關鍵自由：選擇以何種路線讀取同一張真值表，這一選擇決定了戲劇張力在演出中的具體分布方式，卻並不創造真值表本身尚不存在的內容。

This cross-medial coherence proposition has already received a preliminary engineering realization and theoretical elaboration in the concrete work *Salome.exe*, in which body, sound, and light, under this framework, are co-generated by the same machine, reading the same chart, at the same moment — no longer three independently coordinated systems arranged after the fact. The broader methodological increment this proposition may offer to performance theory — particularly whether it can be further extended to other sensory media, and what challenge it may pose to the existing theoretical category of "cross-medial theatre" itself — is left to subsequent research.

這一跨媒介一致性命題，已於《莎樂美.exe》這一具體作品中獲得初步的工程實現與理論闊述，身體、聲音與燈光在此框架下，由同一台機器、讀同一張盤、在同一時刻共同生成，不再是三個被事後協調的獨立系統。這一命題對錶演理論可能帶來的更廣泛方法論增量——尤其是它是否可以進一步擴展至其他感知媒介，以及它對「跨媒介劇場」這一既有理論範疇本身可能構成的挑戰——留待後續研究進一步展開。