#John cage cactus music tv

So the show looked different at every gallery. We then numbered their walls and used formulae to situate each work. We numbered them and asked each venue how many they would like. Instead of putting his works in chronological order, which he would have disliked, we used chance to determine what would hang where. When I was asked by the Hayward gallery to pick a subject for a travelling exhibition, I suggested Cage's visual art. For example, 4'33', his three-movement silent work, is him cupping his ear to the world and inviting you to do the same. I know a lot of artists who take a similar line, even though they may not like his music at all. He once said: 'Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind, so that it is in accord with what happens.' I find those words a challenge and a consolation. There's a seriousness to the way he pushes things into the bath, or stuffs them into a liquidiser, yet he seems to recognise that what he's doing is somewhat ridiculous.

#John cage cactus music tv

He performs Water Walk вЂ“ which featured a jug, an iron pipe and a goose call вЂ“ in front of the TV audience. There's a clip on YouTube from 1960 showing Cage on a US game show called I've Got a Secret. A jug, a pipe and a goose callДЄrtist Jeremy Millar, whose Cage-related video Preparations is currently showing at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge When I compose, he's there in my head, challenging myВ preconceptions. If he's not the most important composer of the 20th century, then he is at least among the top three вЂ“ not just because of his own music, but because of his ways of thinking. That's the point about this work: instead of rejecting something, you should find a way of reclaiming it.Д¬age opened a door that showed me a world no one thought possible. Helium-filled balloons will be released into the air, too, as if the music is escaping.Д¬age once said that if music bores you, you should listen to it again and again until you're no longer bored. Discarded manuscripts will be thrown from the college's third floor window by one of my students, and I'll be dressed as a roadsweeper, sweeping them up. Since Cage liked to borrow sounds he found around him, you can also hear nocturnal animals: cats, mice, rats.ДЄs that piece is played, I will also be performing. My four-minute piece has samples of these rejects, each no longer than six seconds, except they've been transformed to sound as if they're actually living inside bin bags. ItВ got me thinking about what music musicians would put in their own Room 101. The one thatВ appealed to me was a dumping ground in the Royal College of Music's basement. When I was offered this commission, IВ was shown some sites where the workВ could be performed.