Leaving and Re-Entering Punctuating Einstein on the Beach

If time is a central concern in Einstein on the Beach – the opera by Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, and Lucinda Childs – the machine and the machinic seem to be even greater obsessions. In this study, I will analyze the relation between these two, starting with the vocal typewriter in Knee Play 5. What does the machinic counting in this section – and by extension in other sections of the opera – come to mean if we take into consideration the media history of the discrete? From Leibniz to Kittler, we find an awareness of the discontinuity of time, of the essential act of counting and list-making as ways of creating the world. How does Einstein operate on the basis of its own discrete process? As I will argue, we need to look into time axis manipulation, time code ambiguities, syncopes, dead spots, and other redundancies in order to join the Eigenfrequenz of this giant discrete machine posing as an opera.