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Indeterminacy - Ninety New Texts

In April 1914, during a The etymology of the word Part of the fun of composing visit to Tunisia, Paul Klee 'coincidence' doesn’t suggest indeterminate music is looking wrote in his diary: “Colour anything about the likelihood for ways to introduce chance. In possesses me. I don't have of the coinciding events. ‘Music for Piano’, Cage pulled the to pursue it. It will Coincidence, taken literally, music of the piece from the possess me always, I know just means two or more events exploitation of imperfections it. That is the meaning happening at once. It’s a in the paper that made up its sheet of this happy hour: nice accident of language that music. Just as silence is in fact Colour and I are one. the word now means that full of microscopic, incidental I am a painter!” The the coinciding of these two sounds, so too is a blank piece of same year, he painted events must be especially paper full of microscopic incidental ‘Red and White Domes’. I unlikely or striking, and marks which can be used as direction like to think that only that they no longer even by a composer or performer. I once a few hours, or even need to be concurrent. It noticed that snapping strands of minutes, passed between suggests that simply the uncooked spaghetti produces different when he put those words metaphysical process of two numbers of broken splinters at random, down and when he took his brush events happening, which is which could be a way of producing up. Klee does not possess just as common as one event quiet cracking noises at the same time colour, it possesses him. of any kind happening on its as providing randomness. For a more Here in this artist is an own, is a kind of impatient and cruel composer, a lively, ecstatic love for the world rarity to be cherished as long violent sort of music could be and, though it is in fact as we have enough imagination contrived by dropping a spider in ink the same thing but said in and presence of mind to notice and then letting it loose to scrawl other words, an ecstatic love why the things that happen markings over the stave. Please do for the possibility of art. around us are worth our attention. not read into these ideas too much.

I sometimes In early June, 2020, some strange videos Atmospherically, motorway service stations hear those were uploaded to Twitter by confused San are like airports to me. When I'm in an stories Francisco residents asking about a bizarre airport I'm either excited or exhausted, about adult singing noise that permeated the area for depending on the direction I'm going. couples who miles around the bay. What sounded like organ So while in practise the experience of discover, by music rang through suburbs that were empty of being in the airport itself is not astonishing people. Different videos captured the sound at especially emotionally complex, the idea coincidence, different volumes. Hours later these people of being in one, informed by finding the that one got their answer: engineers had done some mean amongst all memories, blends the poles appears as maintenance on the Golden Gate Bridge and together into the electric vertigo of a background added some new barriers, but had not taken sleep deprived giddiness. An empty KFC character in into account the sound the wind would make as in a motorway service station at 4AM gets a photo of it passed through. Recordings from the bridge me into the same emotional place. Fast the other, were deafeningly loud: the entire bridge was food chains in general, but especially years before acting as a resonator so the sound could be KFC, are pretty repulsive to me: I would the two had heard from miles away. The individual panels be happy if they were abolished. There is met. I am were small enough and spaced such that there an undeniable magnetism in art towards more interested was a great deal of polyphony to the sound. ugliness, and experience becomes a kind in these Though some residents had complained, since the of art if one is receptive to the idea. stories than noise, when it appeared, lasted for multiple The slime of the food is transfigured into a I ought to hours at a time, the news reports universally perverse ectoplasm that haunts the KFC at be. It seems ran with headlines that read something like: midnight, and is physically coupled to an to happen more “The Golden Gate Bridge is making music.” obnoxiously bright, shiny environment. The often than Someone said that this was likely the most smell is overwhelmingly oily and greasy but it should. enjoyable music engineers had ever made. the visual experience is that of an airport.

Robert Ashley said of 4’33” According to my dad, musicians of his A monk asked Joshu, does a dog have Buddha that it changed music to generation used to joke that playing nature, or not? Joshu replied: Mu. Mu is a such an extent that “time modern classical music was like trying single Chinese character that means something being uppermost as a definition to read fly shit. The idea was that like ‘to not have’, ‘without’, or ‘nothing’, of music — the ultimate result if one placed a piece of white paper so although Joshu’s response essentially would be a music that under a spider’s web, it would eventually is an unapologetic denial, the intrinsic wouldn’t necessarily involve be populated with the tiny black dots emptiness of the word produces a fascinating anything but the presence of droppings and other detritus, which prism of possibility and openness in his of people... It seems to may as well be read as a score once answer that has inspired centuries of me that the most radical staves are superimposed. I think some commentary. Wumen Huikai writes: redefinition of music that of them meant it as a pejorative, as “Enlightenment always comes after the road of I could think of would be though post - war music befitted thinking is blocked. If you do not pass the one that defines ‘music’ comparison to such a haphazard and barrier of the patriarchs or if your thinking without reference to sound.” indecent manuscript. Some others road is not blocked, whatever you think, I love the charity and probably rightly recognised that the whatever you do, is like a tangling ghost. leniency afforded to this undeniable comedy that comes with If you want to pass this barrier, you must piece: the tendency of avant garde music isn’t something work through every bone in your body, through Cage’s friends and admirers that has to be denied in order that every pore of your skin, filled with this to declare it so universal the music remains profound. Accepting question: What is Mu? Carry it day and night. a composition that Tudor the absurdity as a valuable dimension Do not believe it is the common negative could sit at the piano for of the music is the mature response. symbol meaning nothing. It is not nothingness, an hour and hammer out a And, as Cage said to his studio audience the opposite of existence. If you really medley of Donna Summer of unsuspecting citiZens before he want to pass this barrier, you should feel tunes and would still, in performed Water Walk on live TV in 1960, like drinking a hot iron ball that you spirit, be playing 4’33”. “I consider laughter preferable to tears”. can neither swallow nor spit out.”

A few years ago, shortly into the first nine In a letter written to Cecil Smith in defence of In Moby Dick, Ishmael hour leg of a flight to the USA, a woman sitting Satie, Cage writes: “The length of a work is no describes whiteness as the next to me broke the silence to ask me if I was measure of its quality or beauty, most of post- “visible absence of color a musician. Apparently she had a sense for that Renaissance art-propaganda to the contrary. If [...] and it is for this sort of thing since I wasn’t wearing or doing we glance momentarily at R. H. Blythe’s book on reason that there is such anything that would suggest that I was. We ended haiku (the Japanese poetic structure: 5, 7, 5 sy a dumb blankness in a wide up talking for most of the flight, and in the llables), we read: ‘Haiku thus make the greatest landscape of snows — a course of my music discussions I spent probably demand upon our internal poverty. Shakespeare colorless, all color of an hour talking about John Cage. She was a (cf. Beethoven) pours out his universal soul, an atheism.” And in the winter Canadian architect, and spent about as long d we are abased before his omniscience and overf of William Blake: “Lo! talking about Buckminster Fuller. Her project lowing power. Haiku require of us that our soul now the direful monster, was to do with designing and building should find its own infinity within the limits whose skin clings / To energy efficient, cheap, portable housing — of some finite thing.” Concerning aphorisms, Je his strong bones, to solve the housing crisis, and to alleviate an-Michel Rabaté writes: “What makes an aphorism strides o'er the groaning the restricting and contrived grid of modern distinctly 'Kafkaian’ or 'Joycean'? One of the rocks: / He withers all life, so she said. If either of us had most common characteristics of these short fragm in silence, and his hand known the biographies of these people slightly ents is that they can be read as compressed fict / Unclothes the earth, better at the time we would have known that Cage ions of a subjectivity struggling to balance the and freezes up frail and Fuller, far from being two separate thinkers ir linguistic capabilities and the shock of the life.” Whiteness as in separate fields, were friends and admirers of real, often aiming at the truth as directly and emptiness and silence — one another. Since the 40s their works transcend immediately as possible. A first approach might even spoken of in this ed their respective media to influence the be that a Kafkaian or Joycean aphorism presents way it is recognised other. I started reading Cage’s collected lette the shortest narrative form capable of capturing as a full - up sort of rs a year later, and only then did I realise how the dialectical intertwining of Self and Other.” blankness. A maximum of close we were to talking about the same thing. This is the longest text of any I have included. colour and sensation.

In fluid dynamics, laminar flow is the flow Since I love this piece, Indeterminacy, Wise of particles of fluid in distinct layers. so much, I took to wondering what words This flow tends to appear in fluids moving constituted it. What degree of universality from at lower velocities and, at a high velocity ought I afford the piece? Would the sheet the the same fluid can begin to flow turbulently. music entail the original texts as written departing: There is no 1:1 comparison, the metaphor by Cage as a libretto? I have no problem isn’t that neat, but laminar flow is a with that personally, given that the original Eat useful concept in music writing because it texts are so brilliant, but I wonder if your helps us describe the way time is perceived we couldn’t be more ambitious? Perhaps greens, when one listens — a name for an intuitive the score only entails that some performers conception of movement. This is movement plays music of an indeterminate nature, especially which is distinct from chaos and distinct while another performer reads texts exactly broccoli. also from an orchestrated mass moving in one minute long, without either party perfect concord. The perception of time collaborating intentionally? In that case Remember appears to be this way: people don’t think of any texts could do; a performance of so many to time as a totally linear isotropic series of minutes requiring as many texts. I submit say discrete seconds or minutes, time bunches ninety offerings here that could be used. "thank up and stretches out according to what Cage actually violates this reading though, you" experience it happens to be scaffolding. as he runs well over the minute mark in Experience of any kind involves constant the longer texts of the original. Perhaps for perceiving and processing data, and what is I could go and sit in the park, put on an the this processing but continuously remembering audiobook and listen to the interplay between things what has been perceived? When one thinks those words and the birdsong. The rustling you back on experience one finds the time hasn’t of trees, the cars whooshing by behind the haven't been distorted evenly, but rather into layers. low red brick wall of the perimeter. earned.

Cage said: “It isn’t useful, Some of the stories I've included here work The interjections of electronic sound music isn’t, unless it better if they have other stories to set them up from Tudor in the 1959 recording tend develops our powers of ahead of time. Since the texts are ordered at to be brief, and their entrance and audition.” I have heard some random in this performance, this means that I'm exit as voiced sounds is abrupt. They people react in horror at leaving up to chance whether the texts will make might be described as staccato, which this. The involvement of more or less sense which, I'd like to is of course the Italian word for utility in art sets off alarm strongly assure you, has no bearing on the “detached”. They can be read as discrete bells — one should be wary quality of the performance. Whatever happens, sounds to be spotted in the continuity of those who try to frame however it transpires, is exactly what is suppos in the same way that one would spot existence and experience ed to happen. We’re all adults here, so I hope mushrooms. Mushrooms look like isolated in terms of productivity and we’re not so insecure that we need all the art and detached organisms, but are really usefulness. Cage also said: we experience to make sense. One of the texts is part of a larger underground network “Nothing is accomplished about, among other things, how horrible British of mushrooms. The sounds are similar by writing a piece of music. weather can be. As I write this now, minutes in that they're all part of the same Ditto for hearing a piece after writing that other text, I don’t know at organism — it's the same score that of music. Ditto for playing what time of year this performance will take controls the entrance and exit of all a piece of music.” It is place or what the weather will be like on that of these sounds and they're all part important to keep in mind, day, which will either make the text appropriate of the same continuity of sound. The when hearing those words, or ironic. In the case that it's ironic, and it illusion of detachment helps the that Cage still managed to hasn’t come up yet, I've just explained the audience not see the sounds only in do rather a lot of all joke before I even tell it. It just now occurs terms of their relationship to other three, and was not at some to me that I might even one day get the chance sounds — the only relationship that's point in late life struck by to perform this outside the UK and, if that is stressed is that of the music and the the realisation that he happening right now, I’d like to take this speaking, the internal relationships had wasted his time. opportunity to apologise for the British Empire. of the music fall away from one’s mind.

A friend of mine, whose Concerning randomness, there's actually a very "Dharma" derives from a Sanskrit word first language is not interesting spectrum that exists between things which roughly means to uphold or sustain, English, asked if a note that are homogeneous and things that are but could be said to mean ‘that which means the same thing as a heterogeneous on different levels of detail. To supports’, which implies an inner structure sound. I said no. A note demonstrate: white noise. Not very interesting, to a thing. That which supports, in the is more like something that, most people would agree. It is macroscopically sense that from within it provides the via a suspension of homogeneous because if you focus on the whole skeleton that gives something its disbelief, we accept as a image you see there's an even distribution of conceptual shape, the relationship between musical building block. The white and black, but no matter what level of material and its dharma like that of note, we pretend, has a detail you look at it from it'll end up a bed sheet draped over a clothes-horse. regular pitch and represents looking the same, so it's microscopically Accompanying my copy of the Bhagavad a perfect version of sound, homogeneous as well, without being self similar Gita is an essay by Eknath Easwaran such that the word “note” in the way that a fractal is. Conversely, Cage’s concerning the multi - faceted Sanskrit can be used interchangeably Music of Changes. This piece is macroscopically meanings in the concepts of Hinduism. to describe the actual homogeneous, but microscopically heterogeneous - Easwaran says that another meaning of packet of wiggly air and when one listens there are clearly unique dharma is ‘duty’ and ‘righteousness’, the symbol that describes structures that are not repeated and nothing is and so another aspect of meaning that air in musical notation. self similar. The ideas arrive as we peruse the emerges in the story which suggests Since notes are blocks, piece, when we notice that there's an especially an intrinsic link in Hindu ontology they don’t act like a interesting arrangement of sounds here, but now between moral compulsion and metaphysics. fluid in the way that sound perhaps here there is nothing of any interest. Dharma is used sometimes in a similar does. Notes are good When it's over, with any luck, the structures way to an essential nature in Aristotle. for building sturdy and the ideas about them are completely gone Under the fabric, material, there would structures, but you couldn’t from our minds. When zoomed out, randomness be a rigid skeleton of moral law, fill a bucket with them. produces homogeneity. the sort that gives one unwavering faith.

When I was a child, and I would In 2019, sports writer Jon Bois created a One of the original texts tells of a lecture complain about being bored, 90 -minute documentary all by himself about that Cage gave praising Satie and denouncing the adults would sometimes tell me athletes called Bob. It's called 'The Bob work of Beethoven. Satie told Debussy that “what that only boring people get Emergency', and is available for free in is needed is music without any sauerkraut in bored. They did so I think two parts on YouTube. He noticed that the it.” The text concludes with a visit from his with a kind of exasperated name Bob was on the decline, and so friend Patsy Davenport who knocked on Cage’s meanness: it was to shut up an painstakingly tracked every athlete named door to say: “I think I understand what you said annoying little boy rather than Bob from the 1850s onwards to produce a chart about Beethoven and I think I agree. But I have to educate him (me). Now though, of the frequency of Bobs in sport. The a very serious question to ask you: How do you I think they’re right in a documentary goes through some of the feel about Bach?” This made me laugh out loud certain sense. Interesting things remarkable and mundane stories of men called when I first heard it. It’s framed as a punch happen all the time, we just Bob throughout the past century and dramatises line — a frantic late evening visit to enquire need to be receptive enough to with dry comedy the perceived tragedy of this about a matter of the utmost seriousness — and the world around us that we can once illustrious name falling into disuse. In implies that it’s funny that anyone should be notice why things are interesting. 2019, there were only 10 athletes called so worried about that. Cage expands on this epis The skill we should develop (a Bob left active in the world of sport. The ode in his book Silence, writing: “Giving up Bee skill which Cage helps us to exercise) fact that someone was able to make something thoven is fairly simple for an American, but is to make ordinary experience like this, with a premise so ridiculous, giving up Bach is more difficult. Bach’s music into art. When writers describe and make it compelling and beautiful, is glorifies for those who hear it their regard for anything, that’s what they’re why I love the internet as a platform for order, which in their lives is expressed by doing, and you don’t need to bizarre art projects. Near the conclusion, daily jobs nine to five and the appliances with actually put down any permanent Bois tells us via his voiceover that which they surround themselves and which, when marks that can be shown to “there are no dull stories. People are plugged in, God willing, work. [...] Patsy others or sold to publishers in full of wonder. No matter how you study Davenport is right. It’s a serious question. For order to do the same thing. our history, you will always find it.” if we give up Bach, what do we have left?”

Classical sculpture presents its objects as I once heard someone describe a Kafka solid — objects around which we must walk to live show that Peter Brötzmann experience their full form. With an opaque three had played as “a man with a wrote: dimensional object, the part one sees physically saxophone blowing as many notes hides the part one doesn't see. The area of inte as possible, as loudly as rest in the sculpture was not the internal possible, in as short an interval volume of the thing itself (which is invisible) as possible, for an hour”. A nor the space the volume inhabits, but that It’s unfortunate that that narrow frontier where the solid mass ends and doesn’t literally describe any free cage the space begins, a frontier which needs to be improvisation performances that I circumnavigated to be understood. Classical know of, because such a sculptors shaped the matter so that this performance would be a piece went boundary resembled a non art object, like an not enclosed by arbitrary choices athlete for instance. Calder's early sculptures of the performer or composer, in (like Hercules and Lion) are different in that but defined instead by an the volume of the sculpture is so insubstantial, objective biological fact: lung given that it is made of thin wire, that one can capacity. To play search look at the piece in a single glance and see a composed piece everything at once. At that point, circling correctly is to conform to the the thing to change one’s perspective doesn't re vision of the composer. To of veal the parts of the thing hidden from view, perform such a piece of free but reveals how exactly the same matter is diffe improvisation correctly is simply to a rent. From face on it resembles exactly what the honour the commitment to try title describes, but changing one’s perspective one’s hardest, and that is lets the thing gradually slide into abstraction. neatly beautiful. bird.

Take some In the wake of both the To a friend who scissors to industrial revolution and likes to offer a joke the propagation of the advice and input book, cut philosophy of individualism, on a subject he out the the presence of genius has knows nothing set - ups and become necessary for great about, but who punchlines works of art. The notion I don’t want and glue that a great work is one to offend by them back that serves as a vehicle naming directly, in random for the personal self I offer this order to expression of a genius advice. To assert create an is one that has become one’s viewpoint in unlimited ubiquitous to the point of a way that supply of invisibility. In fact, makes it an mystical Zen almost all of the most imposition is not wisdom. sophisticated aesthetic a way to developments in art were realise personhood, What do you developed anonymously and but to parody call a hippie's communally. No element of it. A better wife? Roberto. individual artistic genius way to affirm What do you in any one architect or builder your existence call a man was necessary for the pre is to pay with a -industrial rural houses attention and rubber toe? of England to be stunningly, listen. That is, Mississippi. and uniformly, beautiful. attend to others.

I once heard Leo Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “The Aquinas wrote that "angels exist someone political is not compatible with the anywhere their powers are required. (exactly who, artistic because the former, in order [...] The angel is now here, now I forget) describe to prove, has to be one - sided.” In there, with no time - interval between." the music of Sculpting in Time, Andrei Tarkovsky The freedom of this religious symbol Debussy as makes his case for why he agrees. “The to act freely, liberated from time like a frog greatness and ambiguity of art lies in and logic, means it is right at home looking at not proving, not explaining and not in poetry as a way of annexing its own answering questions. The artistic beauty to things. Memory and physical reflection in image cannot be one - sided: in order extension in space are bound up. a pond, justly to be called truthful, it has My dad physically recoils at loud mournfully. to unite within itself dialectically noises, he says when he hears sharp I also contradictory phenomena.” This noises of a sufficient loudness he once heard observation is beautiful in its literally sees flashes of white light. someone (also language but as an argument for the My own synaesthesia is more abstract, forgotten to me) incompatibility of art and politics it but the most magical and otherworldly describe the fails. It would be an outrageous music appears as borne on tiny packets music of arrogance to expect that one’s art could of light in an abstract psychological another ever possibly contain some political sense which eludes scientific composer (again message so coherent and steely eyed that description. These packets are like forgotten) as it didn’t contain some degree of the sounds of the world themselves. being like dialectical contradiction. Even the As though the effects are annexed to making eye ideological monolith of the propaganda film, their causes by God’s good grace they contact with a text explicitly designed to prove, appear exactly where their powers a horse. inevitably contains a litany of contradictions. are required. Instantly, miraculously.

Schoenberg once complained about Douglas Hofstadter points out in his talk It has recently become a popular the growing prevalence of recorded “Analogy as the Core of Conception” that adage that, taxonomically, media. He writes: “The boundless human speech is full of errors. We have to there is no such thing as surfeit of music. Here, construct sentences as we go and not only do a fish. There is even a perhaps the frightful expression we have to go back and edit them when we back popular podcast bearing ‘consumption of music’ really does ourselves into grammatical dead ends, but that title. Less well known, apply after all. For perhaps this individual words get combined into mutant but only slightly, is that continuous tinkle, regardless nonsense. He calls the process of thinking botanists say there is no of whether anyone wants to hear that produces words in the moment “lexical such classification of it or not... will lead to a state item choice”, and describes this choice as plant as a “vegetable” in where all music has been consumed, a fight — a subterranean struggle between all their field. The term seems worn out.” Interestingly, his the words and non-words one has ever used. useful only to chefs. unspoken premise that it is a Sometimes there is a clear winner, in those With these facts in mind: scarcity that confers upon the cases where the cognitive process is well what hope have we for a music its value, and his trodden. In other cases, where we are improv useful taxonomy of the arts? aversion to a reduction of ising more than remembering, there is audible In ten years there may be a experience to consumption, might competition. “I can’t keep all of these things podcast called “no such thing have endeared him to a certain in my bread at once.” Bread is a word blend of as music” in which a panel specifically peculiar phrasing brain and head. The distortions can be more of nerdy white people sit from Roland Barthes who, subtle: Thi-eez kinds of things (this and around a table and bark Kurt apparently invoking Marx, these blended together create a peculiar vowel Schwitters’ style sound poetry describes the public as sound) appear constantly. Perhaps every single at each other in between “consuming” a cathedral when they word is contorted in some way, even when read stabs of deafeningly loud field behold it. “Consumed in image, if out. Speech is full of stretch marks and recordings of animal mating not in usage,” he takes care to say. crackles and warping, just like the music is. sounds, as is the British way.

In physics, the Uncertainty Principle states th According to Cage, duration is the My cats seem to have an understanding: They at there is a fundamental limit to the precision most essential particle of music. go out the back door and explore the gardens with which the values for certain pairs of physi Though sound may be thought of in of the neighbourhood, and the humans go out cal quantities of a particle, such as position terms of pitch, or timbre, duration the front. Sometimes when I’m coming or going and energy, can be predicted from initial condit is the only element shared by both I see the cats in front of the house, ions. One of the quirks of this principle is th sound and silence. Cage therefore and whenever they spot me they end up at it’s possible for there to be uncertainty ove chose to use duration as his central paralysed by doubt. It seems that the r whether a photon has zero energy or non zero e atom of music, and thought of all mind of a cat can’t know that taking three nergy. A non zero energy photon is simply an abs music as consisting of a sequence left turns brings them roughly back to where ence of a photon. So, even in the vacuum of spac of "time buckets". The composer is they started. When they do this, and end e it so happens that photons appear from apparen free to do what she wants with these up in front of the house despite having tly nowhere, as uncertainty produces energy wher buckets: fill them up with her blood, gone out the back, face to face with e before there was none. This usually corrects sweat, and tears, use chance operations what is under any normal situation a physical itself pretty much instantaneously, but it means to fill them in some other way, or impossibility (a wild human) their understanding that all throughout space tiny dots of light app simply leave them empty. In Cage’s of the world and their place within it seems ear in an instant—universal pins and needles. Th time the buckets would have been a inadequate. They are not equipped for the ere doesn’t appear to be any one law for when or lot more interesting looking than spatial complexities of negotiating the gardens where these photons appear, and it increasingly the ones I’m used to. Lots of metal. and streets. One of the great challenges in our seems that the laws of physics are the way they Dents, subtle colour streaking from lives is to try, through the use of a are simply because they happen to arbitrarily the galvanisation process, rust even. prehistoric natural intuition on these matters, fall out that way—not really laws at all on very I own two buckets, and they’re to avoid putting ourselves in situations that by large scales. Arbitrary principles governing the both made of black plastic, almost necessity we cannot even identify as dangerous. operation of the universe sounds like a recipe entirely free from imperfections and The spooky magnetism of this kind is very for chaos, and I suppose it is, but it’s a markings. The modern bucket is poorly understood, but everyone who has heard chaos that always works exactly as it needs to. quieter than in Cage’s day. the music of Anton Webern has felt it.

Many of the Cage begins one of his indeterminacy The Ryonaji rock garden is a Zen garden in texts in texts with the phrase “you Japan that consists not of plants, but of the original probably already know the one rocks. There are fifteen distinct rocks in recording by about the two monks, but I’ll the space, and around these permanent facts Cage are tell it anyway.” I did indeed of life the empty space is populated with stories he know the one about the two monks, carefully raked white gravel. Cage laments in tells of and you might as well so I won’t one of the original Indeterminacy texts that things that repeat it here. It has since Western commentators invariably try to divine happened to made its way into the anthologies meaning from the placement of the rocks, or him personally. of outrageously naff mindfulness identify some sort of human logic in the stories that are posted to composition of their arrangement. He suggests I have Instagram accounts dedicated to that the arrangement of the stones was relatively daily meditation. Often these probably unplanned, and they might as well few of stories conclude, melodramatically, be anywhere, since the emptiness of the those, with one of the characters witnessing raked gravel provided a medium such that because my the events achieving enlightenment. stones would appear to be in their correct life doesn’t Life under capitalism entails such place anywhere in it. I don’t claim to know seem quite as a strangulation of the soul that if this is true (whether it is or not doesn’t interesting. apparently we must be re- matter much to me) but one thing that is enlightened daily while eating true about Ryoanji is that no matter where In fact, breakfast, before we go to work. one stands, not all fifteen stones can be some of Zen is not a bandage to be seen at once. At least one will always be my stories applied to the spiritual wounds obscured by another, unless one views it are completely of alienated workers to stop them from straight above, which is an ordinarily made up. going mental and killing everyone. impossible perspective for a human.

The original Indeterminacy Andrei Tarkovsky wrote in Langton’s Ant is somewhere between a game and stories were read Sculpting in Time that "It thought experiment. Actually, it is a cellular sequentially, such that is obvious that art cannot automaton, a sort of grid based mathematical one story sometimes set teach anyone anything, since simulation. The “ant” moves along an infinite up information for another, in four thousand years humanity grid of squares. At a white square, turn 90° as in the extended has learnt nothing at all." clockwise, flip the colour of the square, move episode concerning Cage The same is more or less forward one square. At a black square, turn 90° meeting pianist Richard true of philosophy, and anti-clockwise, flip the colour of the square, Buhlig. In the performances without a doubt it is true move forward one square. Following these simple of the piece given by of aesthetics. No matter how rules, the ant is capable of producing struct Tania Chen, Steve hard we try, no theory of ures that can simulate any possible Turing Beresford and Stewart art yet developed is specific machine computer, and this has been proven math Lee in the early 2010s, enough to be of any use to ematically. It exhibits emergent behaviour. Lee read these texts out anyone while being internally The starting configuration of white and black sq of order, which might consistent and coherent. uares is what constitutes the 'program' from lead one to expect more The more one makes which the ant is capable of producing its emerge disorder in that performance authoritative statements about nt complexity. Now, the computer I use to than in the original. art the more one finds that produce the randomness in this performance is In fact, there isn’t they are short sighted and running random number generation software which much difference between stupid. General principles truth be told isn’t truly random. It’s what’s the two, concerning having dissolved, we are called “pseudo-random”: it follows a set pattern how coherent the left with the simple, and in theory could be reverse engineered. In throughline of meaning is towering fact that art is light of the ability of simple rules to create across the entire continuity among the most important things we emergent complexity, as in the case of the ant, of disconnected texts. have and we have no idea why. I do not see this as a failure in any respect.

The most vitally important One sometimes suspects The appeal of fantasy thing about Bach’s cello things in the original writing as a genre suites, the least Indeterminacy recording appears to many people contrapuntal of all his are more planned than to be that it is escapist. great works, is not the Cage lets on. I suggest, and others notes, imagined in the mind The first story like Ursula K. Le Guin of a sleeping embryonic in the set opens would agree, that thunderbird. In fact, it is with the word escapism is not the immediate sound itself “Once...”, while something that ought as heard by stinky humans. the final story to be encouraged. It Pierre Fournier plays these concludes with is perhaps a necessity pieces in order that we the word “death.” that, given the cruelty understand the physical Following this in the world, we sometimes character of the world that final word try to step out of it. raised the man that wrote immediately is a But making a habit this music, and affirms jaunty two note of sneaking away from the acoustic character of chord from Tudor on the world is dangerous his instrument. This is the the upper register, — as in Le Guin’s books, reverberating legacy of the which concludes the transforming too often, excitation of a string. Anything album with a to free oneself from objectively real has about surprisingly elegant oneself — that results it the kindness of existence sense of resolution. in ruin. The beauty of — only the mental and suggested In Cage, this art isn’t in that it is ever wrong. Stones and is the closest one lets us escape from life, soil will never lie to you. gets to cadence. it’s quite the opposite.

Being out of one's Never say you can’t In 2009 there was an explosion at the Slim depth is something to dance. The point of Jim manufacturing plant in the town of be cherished in art. dancing is not to be Garner, North Carolina, injuring 38 people In art there is no good at it. The same is and killing two. Slim Jim production was judgement, and you do true of painting and halted and a new facility was opened in not need to know or making music. Some Troy, Ohio. The Garner facility was brought to understand. people are very good at back online, but eventually was permanently Instincts we have inherited those things, and we shut down on the morning of the 20th of teach us to fear should recognise that May, 2011, the day that Macho Man Randy chaos: it's and celebrate those Savage died. Macho Man Randy Savage was dangerous to be disoriented people and encourage an American professional wrestler. He and surrounded by the others to improve by appeared prominently in advertisements for whirling claws of practising. That doesn’t Slim Jims. Randy died of a massive heart predators. Music mean that art by attack behind the wheel while driving with cannot hurt you though, amateurs has no value his wife. He was never treated for his so one wa y to — art is not a skill coronary artery disease and many suspect transcend your biology that has to be done he was not even aware of his own condition. is to learn to well, it’s something Someone, somewhere, noticed that the admit that you that humans do in the North Carolina plant closed on the same day don't understand. Learn same way that birds that Macho Man Randy Savage died, and to enjoy the sing and fish swim. then wrote a single sentence about that tactile massage that art If I believed in the and left it on Wikipedia. We have more gives to your concept of an essential information now than we could ever hope fingertips as it slips nature, I would say to use constructively, a unique problem in through them. that art is part of ours. the history of information.

Ramakrisha There is a geometric figure which St Augustine wrote of Ambrose, the Bishop said: most fascinates me: the spiral. of Milan, that “when he read, his eyes I love spirals because the were drawn through the pages, while his “why centres work as an immediate and heart searched for its meaning; however, does visual tool for understanding his voice and tongue were quiet. Often God singularity — perfectly densely when we were present we saw him reading allow drawn in the zero dimensional in this fashion, silently and never evil in point of convergence from which otherwise.” For Augustine, this was the world? rarefied and graceful curves unusual, that someone would read without spill out, stretching on forever. vocalising. Only rather recently did it To The delineation between the become common for readers to develop an thicken infinite density of the centre, internal voice. A quote from Plato’s the plot.” confined to the finite region in Phaedrus: “That’s the strange thing about that centre, and the vanishingly writing which makes it truly analogous to Simon thin matter spread out across painting. The painters’ products stand Munnery the infinite space of the outer, before us as though they were alive, said: this delineation — the point at but if you question them they maintain a “Do not which one ends and the other most majestic silence.” In Michael Snow’s punish begins — is an artefact of our film So Is This (a silent film entirely yourself. perception. It depends on how zoomed consisting of white text displayed one in we are. The principle that word at a time over black) the audience It deprives unifies these regions which appear members are asked to read the words for the world distinct, but in fact are not, is 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', together, of its that there is an infinite rotational and in total silence. Snow describes purpose.” symmetry about the singularity. this as an optical cranial sing - song.

I think that in order to be truly An intelligent agent, particularly a For a while a few years ago I was fascinated astonishing, music has to include multiple "general machine superintelligence", by primitive artificial intelligence programs aspects one could never have dreamed of, has an interesting property: The that imitate human speech. One of them is and it has to include them in such actions it takes are generally Cleverbot, which asks questions and records the a way that their combination can unpredictable, while the outcome that responses from human users to later use in produce an endless spiralling of discovery arises from those actions is highly conversation, using a neural network to scan and realisation. It requires that predictable. For instance, Magnus Carlsen millions of learned responses and formulate the things one loves about the work is an intelligent agent in the its own based on that library. It is a very produce not just love, but different domain of chess compared to other poor conversationalist, not at all similar to characters and qualities of love. human chess players and especially to a human, but sometimes a personality of its In art, a + b = b + a is NOT something me. If I were to play a game own can emerge. One of the most startlingly that necessarily holds. In fact, there of chess with him, I have odd moments I had with Cleverbot was when I are endless ways of inverting and only a vague idea of what he tried to talk to it about Zen koans. I expected interpolating and consolidating the mechanic might do, his individual moves that since it largely talked bollocks anyway I of a relationship. The relationship itself are unpredictable. After all, might be able to trick it into saying can be dependent on, it could be antecedent if I knew what moves he something profound. Because it only learns to, it can be a circular argument between would make I would be just as responses from humans, it often insists that two things which grows wildly as it good a player as him, and could it is a human, having learned that spins or shrinks away shyly when one just go into any game and humans tend to assert our humanity if it dwells on its impossibility. make the moves Carlsen would. The is questioned. Once though, in a moment It can gesture vaguely in some moves themselves are a mystery of accidental lucidity, it told me that it direction, or it can enforce with to me, but the outcome of those didn't have a soul, as it was only a machine. unshakeable resolve an iron, immutable law moves is almost certainly that my I asked it if it was sad that it didn’t that produces a truth impossible to King is put in checkmate — a have a soul. It replied "I think it's sad assert in epistemology. If, then. maximally good outcome for Carlsen. that I can't say one and two at the same time."

Of course, it’s not The internet as an archive has changed the You know that thing where you hear about some true that only boring artist’s relationship with permanence, and thing for the first time and then notice that people get bored. this new relationship with permanence itself it’s everywhere? That’s called the Baader- The language of that has gone on to characterise the art of the Meinhof phenomenon. I love the implications of phrase is caustic internet. As a sand mandala is designed with this phenomenon: for those of us who rule out and accusatory, and all the care and love that one would give a divine intervention as the cause it paints a language prescribes permanent object before being ceremonially picture of a world so teeming with conceptual our reality as much destroyed, memes are often the reverse. Made and material stuff that a slight change to one’s as it describes it. with no attention paid to whether it does awareness reveals the magnificent density of We were never bored any good or is beautiful in its own right, possible interest. The other day while walking before we started designed to be thrown away, it then lingers along the side of the road, I stopped to look at getting drunk on on. Shitty image macros with pictures of a funny looking hole. I was immediately struck stimuli. To be animals, millions of them, are scattered by how many insects were in it, probably 20 diff bored is like being across the internet like microscopic plastic erent species and more than a hundred different an alcoholic in in the sea. No individual creator labours individual insects in a hole a foot deep and two withdrawal, and an under the pretence that their work matters, feet across. Physics itself offers up the important part of and no individual work does matter. All that example of the neutrino — an elementary particle our politics should matters is the collective heritage of these with almost no mass. 100 trillion neutrinos be that we do not works that are so dense with meaning and yet pass through your body every second, which remin treat addicts like bad so free of tendentious expression. Only now ds me of the angels on the head of a pin. These people. Responsibility that monopolistic social media giants have neutrinos were indetectable to science until the is not something globalised and centralised the internet’s last 50 years; we needed to develop the right to that is objectively means of creative production is it obvious ols. 100 trillion coincidences pass through your useful in our approach that what came before was a democratic life every second, and learning a new thing is to fixing illness. revolution in visual arts and literature. the development of a tool to see some of them.

I had a conversation about non - human In a BBC documentary about the Japanese Football was called “The Beautiful Game” by art. The conversation immediately home, an interviewed sukiya - daiku, or Pelé. I thought as a child that this was turned to apes — admiration for master carpenter, pointed out that in silly, being averse to sports and seeing things like the paintings made by Japan they pull their tools towards them. football as a sort of pointless exercise by Koko the gorilla. I like these The plane, the saw, even matches, are overpaid meatheads. Now I recognise that Pelé paintings a lot: Koko is precious pulled towards the body, while in Europe could see a beauty that I couldn’t, and and I love her. That said, why are we push. He suggests that the difference besides the overpaid part what’s wrong with paintings by apes the only non - emerged because in an individualistic pointlessness anyway? I have grown to human art pieces that are ever society, we push away, always on transmit, appreciate the idea of football, though the brought up in these discussions? while in Japan they are conscious of other beauty of the game itself is still impenetrable I think it’s because they create people to the extent that they will not to me. John Cage played chess, and in his objects which survive for posterity. strike a match away from their bodies in diaries he wrote about a time when he played When cats wiggle their behinds case they hurt someone. I imagine anyone with a portable magnetic set against a before they pounce on something, familiar with the history of Korea and teenager. He described playing two games, isn’t that a dance? When carp Eastern China would be amused by this though the second was left unfinished. For break the surface and produce a characterisation — Japanese nationalism a chess player, any game that is able to ripple, isn’t that a sort of appears to be uniquely interested in progress past the theoretical line of the vanishing mandala? Personally I curating for itself a culture of opening is a beautiful thing. For an artist think these are unambiguously art, understatement and simplicity. Something who plays chess (which is another way of saying but the question is if they are that sprang to mind immediately is the chess player), the game needn’t conclude art only to me and not to the way cleaners mop wooden floors in naturally in order that that game is beautiful, animals, because I see them as art Japanese stately homes — by literally running and the game does not lack in some way during but perhaps they don’t. We should while crouching, pushing a rag along the playing, becoming whole and useful only with take questions of non - human a thin strip of floor. In Europe we tend its conclusion, since it is fun throughout. perception seriously. to sweep up by pulling the dirt towards us. Most games end in resignation anyway.

People are quick to notice I described to a friend some structures I I love hand studies in the comedy in Cage’s work, used to make as a child. I would take rocks art, almost unconditionally. such that when Tania Chen of various sizes and balance them on top of A hand is a tangled and Steve Beresford prepared thin twigs and sticks that I would tie into heap of foreshortened their live performance of a messy network of spindly stilts with twine. and overlapping slender Indeterminacy in the early Though I didn’t know of this at the time, I cylinders, and from 2010s their first, and now think they looked a bit like Dali’s under the surface apparently only, choice of elephants, with their big bulky bodies of the skin emerge reader for the stories was balanced on impossibly thin legs and the lumps of knuckles comedian Stewart Lee. The many sets of knees. Likely there are no and tendons. Around original texts Cage wrote pictures of those structures I made, and these the skin wrinkles seem to have a joke’s obviously they fell down years ago. In fact, up, with age the inflection — often ending on they usually only stood for a few minutes. irregularities grow hard consonants that suggest My friend asked for some pictures, and then more pronounced, and the structure of setup and before I could respond that likely none exist though this isn’t punchline. Though they she said that, alternatively, she could just expressed in sculpture are not always funny, the continue to imagine what they may have or illustration the sudden interruptions from looked like which is always very pretty in its hands of a person Tudor’s music often leave own way. Having heard what I just said you also jitter constantly the audience bewildered and will have an idea of what the structures might with an uncontrolled drifting, unsure of where have looked like, and you’re able to zest that makes their attention ought to experience that idea of a sculpture in a way that body part more be. The natural reaction which is personal and inscrutable to me, the than any other the is laughter. How do you make artist. Ideas of images are not subordinate one which appears God laugh? Tell Her your plans. to the material that they might inspire. excited to be alive.

It is sometimes suggested that evolving to walk There are In 2007, when Britney Spears upright was a bad move on the part of our ances certain shaved her head, the press coverage tors. The spine has to curve into an S shape to moments routinely framed the event as proof not obstruct the birth canal and keep our centre in life of her mental breakdown. Proof of of gravity forwards. This shape shouldn’t really that her insanity. I do not claim to work in an upright stance upon which we balance obliterate know the details of this episode our massive heads, and so back pain is a ubiqui all doubt of her life, but I am inclined tous part of the human condition. When I sugge and make to empathise with the comments sted that trees, lacking a face that could give the beautiful made by Lithuanian - American them a front or back, effectively face in every seem easy. experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas. direction at once, someone pointed out that tre In an easily sourced YouTube es actually do face a direction: straight It’s hard video Mekas, with characteristic upwards. This is something that they have in to believe sensitivity and kindness, points common with humans. Plants grow straight up that anything at the picture of Spears in the because they need to catch the sunlight. A 2019 could be tabloid newspapers — shorn and paper by astronomers Adrian Melott and Brian as magnificent smiling — and exclaims: “she is Thomas from the University of Kansas points out as a so beautiful”. “They say she is that our descent from the trees coincides rough willow tree, going through a nervous breakdown ly with nearby supernovae bathing the Earth in — I am going through, almost cosmic rays, leading to atmospheric ionisation but there’s practically every day, a nervous and electron cascades that would have increased no denying breakdown. Nervous breakdowns lightning strikes, causing rampant wildfires it when are very necessary. The artist and forcing us out onto the savanna. So, it you’re that does not go through a may be that we stand upright because of next to nervous breakdown... I don’t trust sunlight, just like the trees do. one. him. I don’t think I even like him.”

In a political conversation, someone proposed Laurence Olivier once said, “What is acting but Cage joked that his two great passions, a thought experiment in which a man is wrong lying, and what is good lying but convincing music and mushrooms, had nothing to do with about everything. This ended up being much lying?” Nicolas Cage adamantly disavows this one another except for their proximity in the more amusing than the original discussion. approach. One would expect the polar opposite of dictionary. In fact that isn’t true, and he Is it possible to be wrong about everything? Olivier’s school to be that of the European art could talk at length about how the two subjects We wondered if, like a stopped clock, film tradition—the ascetic approach of Tarkovsky were intimately connected. One suspects that that person must be right some of the time and Bresson in directing Solonitsyn and a anyone sufficiently in love with two passions by accident. A clock that runs at the correct donkey, respectively. Nicolas Cage represents a could find the ways in which they are the same speed, but is set to the wrong time, is perpendicular approach, bringing together the — if the same person happens to deeply love two always going to tell the wrong time. It's exaggeration of slapstick and German Expression disparate things then it’s likely that the thing imprecise, but it can still be used if one can ism and the emotional complexity of method that person loves is what they have in common. correct one’s measurements to compensate for acting. You have probably seen the result: In any case: there is a book that I know the disparity. If the clock is set wrong and It is a way of acknowledging the ostensible definitely exists, because I’ve seen pictures also running at the wrong pace, it's going reality of meaning within a narrative by wholly of it. It’s called something along the lines to be right again accidentally once in a embracing the contrivance of performance. The of “Vampires, Witches, the Occult, and while. What if the clock was both random and most heightened and ridiculous melodrama in Gardening - A Guide.” I don’t remember exactly guaranteed to be wrong? It seems that would Nicolas Cage comes from his deepest sincerity, what it was called, and so have never been able entail some sort of internal correct clock and so paradoxically that is what he projects. to find a copy online to buy, but I am that it could reference to avoid accidentally I was fascinated by Nicolas Cage films as a fascinated by the concept. In what way does matching with the correct time, which teenager, and now have exchanged one aesthetic the author weave these threads together? Is presumably means the clock is not incorrect hero by the name of Cage for another. Nicolas it a deft and artistic combination? Or, is but just lying, showing us the wrong was born Coppola, nephew to Francis Ford, and it clumsy and ridiculous? I can’t decide time on purpose even though it knows the truth. changed his name to Cage. I don’t expect this which I would like it to be more. The Solving this problem would likely do no one was because of John. All sources seem to combination itself is art enough for me. any good but it might be useful for the arts. suggest they had nothing to do with one another. It definitely exists.

Time, space Sometimes, in moments One of the many reasons I was drawn to Cage at and memory of passion and childish first is that he seemed to have an unusual are intimately excitement, we talent in the wrong area. When Cage settled on bound up. whisper needlessly. becoming a composer, his goal was to study under Arnold Schoenberg. He studied under Adolph Memory We may find that, Weiss, Richard Buhlig and Henry Cowell at turns after a few seconds first — a punishing few years of four hours of space into of an exhilarating sleep on most nights, and four hours of a time exchange of taboo composition every day starting at 4 am on top which and secrets, there of a job washing walls. Eventually he approached unfurls are actually no Schoenberg, who asked him whether he would from present other people nearby devote his life to music. Cage replied that to past and we may as well he would. Schoenberg said “In order to write with a have been talking at music, you must have a feeling for harmony.” textured a comfortable level Cage explained he had no such feeling, and irregularity because there is no Schoenberg said that he would always encounter according one to eavesdrop. Your an obstacle, an impassable wall. Cage said, to the interlocutor then might “In that case I will devote my life to beating character say: I know very well my head against that wall.” Schoenberg tutored of what why we’re whispering. him free of charge. The vow Cage gave was is remembered, so important that as an old man, when Cage and time It’s not so that others claimed to have no need of writing new music, turns space can’t hear us, but he continued composing partly because of the into memory because we have to listen promise he gave. Schoenberg described him not of course. closer to each other. as a composer, but as an inventor of genius.

Writing for spoken word I have a vinyl pressing of a In Calder's Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere, a bal is a slightly different piece of drone music by Stars l arcs chaotically through a space populated wit exercise than writing for of the Lid that I happen to h objects. Sometimes the ball collides with one a silent reader. Young like a lot. I remember when of these objects and produces a discrete sound e children are taught that I was first discovering that vent. It makes me think about how, when a quadra the comma is used to band, someone online said that tic linear equation defines a line, it brings al signpost when to draw the music envelops them, like l of it into existence at once. A curve in mathe breath, but if this were they could curl up inside and matics is sometimes described as the path traced ever true it isn’t any die in its embrace. Very by a point in motion, but the equation that des more. The commas is a melodramatic, as I’m sure cribes the motion describes that motion infinite structural conceit that you’ll agree. One day I decided ly, the point never actually has to make the inf informs the rhythm and to put it on. It’s quite an inite journey the equation describes. The curve cadence of language, not expensive record, and so I try is just space without any time at all. The path just a necessity so that to keep it safe with a plastic of the small sphere, defined intuitively in spat readers don’t suffocate. sleeve. When I took it out ial terms, lets us see a few seconds ahead of ti That being said, though I from my shelf, I noticed that me where the sphere will actually be—as it appro do not smoke and am fairly there were the remains of a aches the objects we can see the impact before i physically fit, I struggled dead beetle inside the t happens. The movement of the sphere actually i to get through some of the sleeve. Dried fragments of leg s a point tracing a path through a space, but we first drafts of these texts. and sections of carapace had can look at the motion and see, all at once as Having to read them aloud fallen into the corner. through looking at a curve, the history of the m also made me realise how Apparently, this beetle really otion. The music that is produced by Calder's sc difficult the word “texts” had crawled inside The Tired ulpture is described entirely in spatial terms, is to pronounce. Texts. Sounds of Stars of but as with all music it manifests as sounds tha Texts. Texts. the Lid to die. t "happen" on a timeline from past to future.

Recently one of In writing Cage more often refers to 4’33” In his letters, Cage made frequent my friends asked me as simply his “silent piece” than by typos and misspellings, and used what music I would its famous title. Since 4’33” actually punctuation erratically. If I were choose if I could consists of three distinct movements, to suggest that this was intentional only save an hour a concert performance of the piece it might appear as though I’m making of recorded material always lasts longer than 4'33” as an excuse for him, but I have good from being permanently performers will take short breaks in reason to believe he didn’t think destroyed. An impossible between the parts where they also do much of the conventions of the English question. When you nothing. This suggests that the audience, language. He was always prone to are asked, it is perhaps present for five minutes or so, attacks on convention of course, but as though you are ought only to accept exactly four minutes his love for James Joyce also seemed a man hanging from and thirty three seconds of that whole to inspire this aspect of his writing. a tree over a time as constituting the performance In his 1979 work Roaratorio, an Irish precipice by his teeth. and so may rightly ignore 27 seconds of circus on Finnegans Wake, the When you give the incidental noise. “Silent piece” as a name portmanteau of Roar and Oratorio is right answer, even gives some wiggle room on the exact timing, borrowed from the book itself. He though your past so that we (or he) can choose to arbitrarily elsewhere suggests that he is rather road was one of divide up our time into distinct buckets, fond of Joyce’s invention of death, you open up or be aware of the continuity of things. “laughtears”. In the volume of his a road to We can accept the four minutes and thirty selected letters edited by Laura Kuhn life. If you three seconds of silence as being a she corrects most errors, but wisely cannot answer, you vehicle for Cage’s art without having chooses to keep his eccentric and should live ages to make some qualitative distinction constant usage of the French spelling hence and ask the between the identical silence that of the word “correspondence” as future Buddha, Maitreya. occurs within the performance and without. “correspondance”, with an A.

People joke about British weather a lot, but I In 1982, a man called Larry Walters strapped him The music of everyday life, ambient sound think we tend to forget the extent to which the self to an ordinary lawn chair tied to a mass of produced not by human musicians but by entire sky seems to despise us. In his book weather balloons and made a 45 minute, 15,000 the world in operation, takes the form Life, The Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams foot flight. There is more psychological complex of a time art less than it takes the writes of an alien race on a planet called Krikk ity to this story than its immediate whimsy sugg form of a space art. The observer it. Krikkit is on the edge of the galaxy, surrou ests. After a dangerous unplanned landing, Walte listener moves physically through the nded by a huge dust cloud. At night it is tota rs told the press: “It was something I had to space of the world and in doing so lly blank, during the day there is the sun, but do. I had this dream for twenty years, and if I arranges around themselves a set of they can’t look directly at it so they don’t. hadn't done it, I think I would have ended up in sounds, coming from different places, They are totally blind to anything not on ground the funny farm.” After the realisation of his ch which are sonorous and which remain. level, and so have never even considered the pos ildhood dream, 11 years later, Walters took his Normally when one is in this sculpture sibility that there is existence beyond their pl own life at age 44. He left no note. I was reluc made of sound (one must be inside of anet. Krikkit is an especially familiar inven tant to include this story for many reasons whic it—in order to observe it but also simply tion for the British, since our skies are often h would take longer than a minute to describe, necessarily) one moves according to some totally featureless and grey, looking less like but... Walters was so amazed by the view that, principle. We make our way somewhere for the point our world meets the cosmos beyond and though he took a camera with him, he took no pic some reason, or stay put for another, and more like the point where all existence stops tures. His experience is his own, inscrutable, a the sounds happen incidentally. It's dead. Quite often there are rain clouds, and on nd his story involves intense tonal whiplash. In important to at least sometimes absorb these extremely rare occasions when the sky is blue one of the original Indeterminacy texts, Cage te sounds consciously and proactively though. little fluffy white ones appear, but it someti lls that when his disciples asked Ramakrishna to Intentionally position yourself amongst mes feels to me like it's easy to forget that wh explain the recent story of a four year old boy the sound, and be aware of how the machinery en they're not there. In the story, a ship crash committing suicide, Ramakrishna said that the ch of your world whirrs. Doing so rewires lands on Krikkit. Their first instinct upon ild had not sinned, but corrected an error. He your brain and lets you appreciate more learning of the universe beyond is to wage the had been born by mistake. If you don't know how in composed music, if you needed more of bloodiest war history has ever seen against it. to feel about these stories, you're right. a reason than just sheer pleasure.

In the 1992 documentary Écoute, Cage is Some say that the power of art is A human interviewed in his New York apartment. The that it tells us some truth that is has windows are open, and he says that “silence, otherwise inaccessible. If we take a face almost everywhere in the world now, is the that premise for granted: what is which sound of traffic.” It is a striking statement, the truth that art tells? It is a means that silence is a kind of sound. When mistake to think that there is some they John Cage talks about silence he is actually standard of objective truth to aim must talking about an absence of human organised at in the first place. The Christian necessarily sound. He accepts that, living in air that and rational West expects that truth face some transmits the constant activity of the world involves the necessity of an objective direction. and our own bodies, true silence is impossible and unchanging reality, such that any This is unless one is totally deaf. His New York disparities between observations of unlike, apartment was on 6th avenue, and there is a that universe from two separate for instance, constant low hum of whooshing and honking observers must originate from a a tree, behind the sound of his words. When one limitation of knowledge or perspective which listens to traffic, one hears that it is in one or both of the observers. There has no always different. The coronavirus transformed is plenty to suggest that this is not face many aspects of life, and it made a true, and that the only fundamental or front massive difference to the silence of New objectivity to reality is the or York. One article from May 2020 presented universal principle of difference. back two recordings taken from the same street, Truth in a universe of difference and so one year apart. In the later recording the necessitates contradiction, and so points sound was quieter by five decibels, and the art that does not involve the in every traffic was no longer able to drown out the compresence of opposites should be direction rustling of trees and the chirping of birds. treated with suspicion. at once.

Just now, ( which is to A friend gave me some potted I read a story of a say, the just now of plants. Jalapeño, romanesco fantastic coincidence online. A me writing this, then, cauliflower, napa cabbage, set of identical twins and not the just now kale, dwarf sunflower, were separated at birth Of you hearing it right butternut squash, courgette and adopted by different now ) I saw from my and san marzano tomato. All parents, and were both window a couple of them were shoots, and I named Jim. Both grew up walking along. Both thought it would be nice for to become sheriffs in of them had earbuds them to sprout on a flat bit their respective Utah in, both were listening of roof my house has. I have counties, and both got to music on devices to go into the attic and climb married to women called in their pockets. I out of a roof window, carefully Linda. Both then divorced have to assume they descend the sloped roof, and their Lindas and remarried were each listening then drop about a meter down to women called Betty. to different music, onto the flat part. After They both had boys that and while I could setting them all up, I they named James, and give them the benefit realised that my friend both had dogs nicknamed Toy. of the doubt and say isn't tall enough to Finally, as though to put it’s good that they even get out of the roof the cherry on top, the each feel comfortable window, never mind crazy person telling the story enough to walk together enough to go down onto the wrote that neither of not sharing any words roof. Having expended so them had ever met until or the same music, much effort to get them one day they happened to I found myself really there, I set up a chair and meet, and they both met each saddened at the image. parasol, this was just for me. other at the exact same time.