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It's pretty silly IMO. Extreme Concept™ isn't difficult to do, and it's even less difficult to imagine. It's trivial to make extremely long time-based pieces o

It's pretty silly IMO. Extreme Concept™ isn't difficult to do, and it's even less difficult to imagine. It's trivial to make extremely long time-based pieces on the web. You load the page, it works out the time/date, and it plays whatever the algorithm says is right for the time date. With the right algo you can make pieces that last for millions of years. And so on. There is a sense in which it's an interesting idea, but it's also a cultural dead end. You can only make it bigger and more extreme, and that's more about spectacle than music.

Honga 5y ago
The work doesn't necessarily argue against you. It may have been the intention, or it may be the effect of the work that ideas like yours come into existence. One idea of conceptual art is that the work plays out in your mind, and the physical creation is secondary, utilitarian even. The authenticity of the piece and it's validity is reinforced by our conversation and replay. On this measure the timeline is arbitrary, and trumping it is a second work all together, creating a new conversation.
- blenderdt 5y ago
  What good does this work of Cage bring the world? Most people think it is uninteresting and a total waste of time. I can also understand the aggression a lot of Cage's work got in the past. It's very destructive for people to listen a long time to a man who is only speaking letters. Almost like torture. Is a waste of time art?
  - Bud 5y ago
    I think the best response to your claim that "most people" find Cage uninteresting is this book intro that e. e. cummings wrote. He had a few things to say about "mostpeople": https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/introduction-from-new-poems/ https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/introduction-...
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    IMO the point is to question the limits of what can be considered music. There's precedent (way too much in fact) in visual arts. Is a signed toilet art? Mona Lisa with a mustache? Banana taped to a wall? None of these things are meant to be enjoyed in the traditional sense. But they might make you think, or make you angry. So what good do these things bring the world? I don't know, probably none.
  - Honga 5y ago
    It's not the job of the work to bring good to the world, nor to interest people in the slightest, as can be said for yourself, or myself. Though you're right that the success of the work is probably intrinsically tied to it's interest. Art, and media in general are productions of culture which celebrate our humanity. That is, they rejoice in all of our abilities to perceive, conceive and enact upon the world. Wasting people's time in this light makes people aware of their time, and allows for further interrogations of our humanities to arise. Just as we're doing now. It's good to remember that art only gains it's status through a production being named art by an exhibitor. IMO there's no special purpose to the term. Consuming art is just another form of recreation, and people are right to hate it for any reason, just that tyranny of what is useful is usually not in the human spirits best interest.
Bud 5y ago
No, it's not trivial to make extremely long time-based pieces on the web. Because you have to keep the computer running continuously. That turns out to be extremely difficult. So there is no spectacle, here. Part of the magic of Cage's piece, in this incarnation, is that someone actually built the special organ, in a suitable space that might plausibly remain undisturbed for several centuries. It requires some maintenance and some care and feeding, of course, but not much. So one doesn't have to suspend disbelief too much, here—this performance may actually occur as planned. It's been going for over 20 years so far, after all.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
NoOneNew 5y ago
Agreed, extreme concepts are not hard. But I think the fascinating part is the salesmanship involved. Something I've noticed, really high concept artists are fantastic salesmen... and really shitty artists (80% of the time). They can convince people that a duct taped banana on the wall or just splatter paint can emotionally transcend you. Dont get me wrong, I like some abstract art when there is an aesthetic quality to it. But the worship status given to something like this, one incredibly slow note every however months... come on. You could do the same with Vanilla Ice's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 song from the 90s. Doesnt mean anything... other than that song still slaps :) I'll take listening to an amateur messing with guitar chords while drunk in a shitty bar over something like this. Because I can actually experience the shitty bar music. You literally cannot experience this "art project".
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  The artist as messenger - through inspiration or otherwise to bring us a new way of looking at things; the artist as theoretician - to build on work that has gone on before and progressively expand our horizons; the artist as performer - acting out a role in society. I'd suggest all three are present in artists across the ages, but in recent times the last seems to have become more prominent.
enduser384729 5y ago
This is a bad take, but unsurprising when most Western culture still lauds virtuosity playing and "skill" over most other things. If it's a cultural dead end it's because of the culture not the idea. That aside, John Cage was having these ideas when they weren't as obvious as they are today and we have the benefit of hindsight. Dismissing that is also a pretty ignorant mistake.
- dahart 5y ago
  Would you mind elaborating on what you mean? Why is that a bad take? What is culturally relevant about this? I’m not saying it isn’t, but I don’t know what it is, and tearing down others doesn’t help me. John Cage didn’t intend this piece to last 639 years, right? What ideas of his are you referring to? This long running organ piece was conceived by someone in Germany and is intended to highlight the history of Halberstadt, right? The question @TheOtherHobbes is raising seems relevant: how does this performance contribute to musical culture, or even to Cage’s work? It can’t be enjoyed as music, it’s more of a logistical piece intended to create a mythology. In that sense, this performance is, in a way, very much lauding a sort of skill over most other things about the music - the skill of pure perseverance. Like other conceptual art, it’s the story of this work that is interesting, but not really the work itself. You seem to suggest otherwise, would you mind coloring that in for me, so I can appreciate it more?
  - Bud 5y ago
    The best guide is probably Cage's book, "Silence". Contains a lot of Cage's interaction with Zen, random change procedures, silence, form and time in music, and all the ideas that are contained within his various experiments. It would be hard to explain in an easy sentence or two on here. If I thought I could do it, I'd try. It might end up looking like a Zen koan. :)
    - dahart 5y ago
      That ignores the fact that this Halberstadt project wasn’t designed by Cage, and the timing is for reasons specific to Halberstadt. Do you feel like Cage’s ideas call for a piece to last hundreds of years? It seems like all the ideas you just mentioned are thrown out the window when a single note lasts for years at a time, and zero people are present to witness the full performance, or even the full playing of a single note. This isn’t being done for music reasons, it’s being done explicitly for spectacle reasons, as described by the project page.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Honga 5y ago

The work doesn't necessarily argue against you. It may have been the intention, or it may be the effect of the work that ideas like yours come into existence. One idea of conceptual art is that the work plays out in your mind, and the physical creation is secondary, utilitarian even. The authenticity of the piece and it's validity is reinforced by our conversation and replay. On this measure the timeline is arbitrary, and trumping it is a second work all together, creating a new conversation.

blenderdt 5y ago
What good does this work of Cage bring the world? Most people think it is uninteresting and a total waste of time. I can also understand the aggression a lot of Cage's work got in the past. It's very destructive for people to listen a long time to a man who is only speaking letters. Almost like torture. Is a waste of time art?
- Bud 5y ago
  I think the best response to your claim that "most people" find Cage uninteresting is this book intro that e. e. cummings wrote. He had a few things to say about "mostpeople": https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/introduction-from-new-poems/ https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/introduction-...
- vlunkr 5y ago
  IMO the point is to question the limits of what can be considered music. There's precedent (way too much in fact) in visual arts. Is a signed toilet art? Mona Lisa with a mustache? Banana taped to a wall? None of these things are meant to be enjoyed in the traditional sense. But they might make you think, or make you angry. So what good do these things bring the world? I don't know, probably none.
- Honga 5y ago
  It's not the job of the work to bring good to the world, nor to interest people in the slightest, as can be said for yourself, or myself. Though you're right that the success of the work is probably intrinsically tied to it's interest. Art, and media in general are productions of culture which celebrate our humanity. That is, they rejoice in all of our abilities to perceive, conceive and enact upon the world. Wasting people's time in this light makes people aware of their time, and allows for further interrogations of our humanities to arise. Just as we're doing now. It's good to remember that art only gains it's status through a production being named art by an exhibitor. IMO there's no special purpose to the term. Consuming art is just another form of recreation, and people are right to hate it for any reason, just that tyranny of what is useful is usually not in the human spirits best interest.

Bud 5y ago

No, it's not trivial to make extremely long time-based pieces on the web. Because you have to keep the computer running continuously. That turns out to be extremely difficult. So there is no spectacle, here. Part of the magic of Cage's piece, in this incarnation, is that someone actually built the special organ, in a suitable space that might plausibly remain undisturbed for several centuries. It requires some maintenance and some care and feeding, of course, but not much. So one doesn't have to suspend disbelief too much, here—this performance may actually occur as planned. It's been going for over 20 years so far, after all.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

NoOneNew 5y ago

Agreed, extreme concepts are not hard. But I think the fascinating part is the salesmanship involved. Something I've noticed, really high concept artists are fantastic salesmen... and really shitty artists (80% of the time). They can convince people that a duct taped banana on the wall or just splatter paint can emotionally transcend you. Dont get me wrong, I like some abstract art when there is an aesthetic quality to it. But the worship status given to something like this, one incredibly slow note every however months... come on. You could do the same with Vanilla Ice's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 song from the 90s. Doesnt mean anything... other than that song still slaps :) I'll take listening to an amateur messing with guitar chords while drunk in a shitty bar over something like this. Because I can actually experience the shitty bar music. You literally cannot experience this "art project".

somewhereoutth 5y ago
The artist as messenger - through inspiration or otherwise to bring us a new way of looking at things; the artist as theoretician - to build on work that has gone on before and progressively expand our horizons; the artist as performer - acting out a role in society. I'd suggest all three are present in artists across the ages, but in recent times the last seems to have become more prominent.

enduser384729 5y ago

This is a bad take, but unsurprising when most Western culture still lauds virtuosity playing and "skill" over most other things. If it's a cultural dead end it's because of the culture not the idea. That aside, John Cage was having these ideas when they weren't as obvious as they are today and we have the benefit of hindsight. Dismissing that is also a pretty ignorant mistake.

dahart 5y ago
Would you mind elaborating on what you mean? Why is that a bad take? What is culturally relevant about this? I’m not saying it isn’t, but I don’t know what it is, and tearing down others doesn’t help me. John Cage didn’t intend this piece to last 639 years, right? What ideas of his are you referring to? This long running organ piece was conceived by someone in Germany and is intended to highlight the history of Halberstadt, right? The question @TheOtherHobbes is raising seems relevant: how does this performance contribute to musical culture, or even to Cage’s work? It can’t be enjoyed as music, it’s more of a logistical piece intended to create a mythology. In that sense, this performance is, in a way, very much lauding a sort of skill over most other things about the music - the skill of pure perseverance. Like other conceptual art, it’s the story of this work that is interesting, but not really the work itself. You seem to suggest otherwise, would you mind coloring that in for me, so I can appreciate it more?
- Bud 5y ago
  The best guide is probably Cage's book, "Silence". Contains a lot of Cage's interaction with Zen, random change procedures, silence, form and time in music, and all the ideas that are contained within his various experiments. It would be hard to explain in an easy sentence or two on here. If I thought I could do it, I'd try. It might end up looking like a Zen koan. :)
  - dahart 5y ago
    That ignores the fact that this Halberstadt project wasn’t designed by Cage, and the timing is for reasons specific to Halberstadt. Do you feel like Cage’s ideas call for a piece to last hundreds of years? It seems like all the ideas you just mentioned are thrown out the window when a single note lasts for years at a time, and zero people are present to witness the full performance, or even the full playing of a single note. This isn’t being done for music reasons, it’s being done explicitly for spectacle reasons, as described by the project page.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]