Re: Re: Re: Perloff on Cage/Cunningham

I'm also coming late to this discussion, and I haven't read Perloff's
article thoroughly myself--but one remark Stefano makes struck a chord with
me and I thought I'd address it  briefly. I might have more to say about
Perloff's article later.

Stefano writes,


What's interesting about that piece is its theme, the "constructed anarchy"
> issue. I might sound a bit naive on this but one of the things that keeps me
> hooked on Cage's works and writings is the apparent paradox of the rules he
> followed to practice anarchy.


I studied Cage's interest in anarchism in my dissertation, and haven't yet
written up the results in a proper article, but I hope to do this. Briefly,
anarchism for Cage does not, I think, mean a state of total chaos, but
rather a political affiliation in which the individuals involved mutually
work out how they will live together in an action of continual negotiation
and renegotiation. There  is, then, no paradox between rules rigorously
followed and a resulting constructed anarchism. What Cage aimed to do in his
music was to allow all the instruments and voices (the sounds) the
opportunity to seem equally important, and (for the audience) the
possibility that all those various sounds could be heard in a multiplicity
of ways. Cage's music is indeed a model of anarchistic communities, and the
act of listening to them a kind of participation within those communities.
(Joan Retallack makes this point brilliantly in, I think, "Poethics of a
Complex Realism.")
To this I would add that Cage's discipline and rigor relate not so much to
his anarchistic beliefs as they do to his peculiar appropriation of Zen
principles into his work. I believe it's very difficult (and probably
unproductive) to try completely to disentangle the various strands that make
up his aesthetic practice but rather, to maintain a more synthetic approach
when thinking critically about his ideas. (As indeed Cage himself did in his
vast appropriations of disparate thinkers.)


All best,

Rob

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 5:18 AM, Stefano Pocci <[email protected]>wrote:

> On 01/08/2011 01:41 AM, Semih Firincioglu wrote:
>
>> Hi Daniel, I read the article. It has been a very long time now but I
>> think
>> you are right, I don't remember seeing synthesizers with ugly wiring, etc.
>> There used to be a table in the middle, by the little forest, and kitchen
>> on
>> the side, where a big pot of soup simmered at all times (and tasted
>> absolutely awful from my point of view). All these can be answered by
>> Andrew
>> Culver of course, if he is on this list.
>>
>> Perloff's article seems to be shifty, I couldn't figure out her point. She
>> refers to Carolyn Brown's book a lot. Frankly, I have a hard time
>> understanding why Brown was bitter about Cunningham's matter-of-factness
>> and
>> why Perloff is making a big deal out of it. It was very well known that
>> his
>> mind was obsessively occupied by bodies moving in space and everything
>> else
>> was a distraction to him. I have heard from so many people that dancers
>> were
>> just bodies for him and he could bring them in or out just like that. Good
>> or bad, but I am a bit surprised that Brown was surprised by this ‹
>> although
>> I don't know anything about the dynamics in the old days.
>>
>> Similarly, Perloff seems to be surprised about Cage's meticulousness in
>> the
>> execution of his chance-determined work. I also read in a review of
>> Brown's
>> book that she says she was annoyed when Cage scolded her about not doing
>> something as instructed, which was randomly decided after all. Didn't
>> Brown
>> know that this was Cage 101?
>>
>> Perloff writes that a couple with a baby were asked to leave and a woman
>> in
>> high heels was asked to take them off during the 1992 Standford
>> performance.
>> I just can't imagine John stopping his performance to tell someone to
>> leave
>> or to take her shoes off, but I can imagine people in the audience telling
>> all sorts of things to each other. Indeed, Cage's performances, especially
>> his readings turned the audiences into spectacles: I remember watching
>> furious people ready to strangle those who were talking or giggling or
>> leaving when he did Muoyce at the Whitney in 1984.
>>
>> Semih
>>
>>
>> On 11/23/10 6:31 AM, "Daniel Wolf"<[email protected]>  wrote:
>>
>>  Marjorie Perloff has an article online, "Constructed Anarchy", here:
>>> http://www.lanaturnerjournal.**com/index.php?option=com_**
>>> content&view=article&id=<http://www.lanaturnerjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=>
>>> 52:perloffconstructedanarchy&**catid=37:issue34&Itemid=54
>>> While the topic is close to my own interests, I'd like to hold off on
>>> comment until I've digested it better.  In the meantime, however, there
>>> is
>>> one sentence that strikes me as odd. Perloff writes about the
>>> Cage/Cunningham apartment that:
>>>
>>> "This ³living area² was complemented by two others:  one, a kind of
>>> technology center, was full of synthesizers, tape recorders, and computer
>>> equipment, with much ugly wiring:  here Cage worked out his now
>>> electronically chance-generated compositions."
>>>
>>>
>>> Is this description accurate?  The computers were there for sure, but
>>> synthesizers and tape recorders?  Could anyone on this list verify this?
>>>
>>> Daniel Wolf
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> Hi there, I'm really late on this one but I stumbled upon Perloff's article
> only a week ago. I had overlooked the Silence mail containing that link, I
> apologize for that.
>
> What's interesting about that piece is its theme, the "constructed anarchy"
> issue. I might sound a bit naive on this but one of the things that keeps me
> hooked on Cage's works and writings is the apparent paradox of the rules he
> followed to practice anarchy. I remember Jackson Mac Low being very sure on
> this point: "Cage was very rigid" he said. And I think, if I recall this
> quotation exactly, he was referring to his devotion to his anarchic
> principles.
>
> This oxymoron, that is a flexible anarchy obtained by a strict application
> of rules, fascinates me; however the meaning of these words (rigid, strict,
> rules) blur and become fuzzy when Cage is in play.
>
> Given that Cage aimed at purposelessness, he was then still aiming at
> "something" (which is actually a "nothing") whereas the ideal absence of
> purpose might be related to the so called "nothing-in-between" he later
> spoke of. Please forgive my approximate and perhaps disordered vision of
> these much studied and analyzed topics which stems from Daniel Charles'
> gloss on the "living on water" mesostic written for Meister Eckhart in 1991
> (that I'm still trying to fully "figure out":-)
>
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> --
>
> Stefano
>
> "When we separate music from
>  life what we get is art
>  (a compendium of masterpieces)" - John Cage
>
>


-- 
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
     Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>