Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (After this, therefore because of this) is an opera that takes a logical fallacy as its point of departure to construct a sonic territory of radical inquiry. The Latin expression—“after this, therefore because of this”—names the error of attributing causality simply because one event follows another in time. The work appropriates this fragility of reason and transforms it into poetic material.

Here, sound does not confirm cause-and-effect relationships; it destabilizes them. Each musical event seems to generate the next—but never guarantees it. An electric guitar erupts, a silence settles, an electronic layer emerges, and the listener is led to assume an inevitable connection. Yet the work suggests that this connection may be nothing more than a projection of our need for order.

The structure unfolds as a succession of intensive states. Sonic fragments appear as autonomous particles: they intersect, cancel each other out, merge. The performative gesture takes on a philosophical dimension—it does not demonstrate, it questions. The stage becomes a laboratory in which time is experienced as an uncertain flow, and where each vibration may be both consequence and coincidence.

The music oscillates between tension and suspension. Moments of electrical density confront near-meditative rarefaction. Electronics expand the auditory field, creating extensions and echoes that blur the perception of before and after. The listener is compelled to constantly reassess the narrative they construct internally.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc does not seek to provide answers. On the contrary, it exposes the fragility of the causal structures that organize human thought. After sixty minutes, one essential question remains: are we hearing real relationships, or projecting meaning onto the indeterminate? The work ends—but the doubt continues to resonate.