Jan van Eyck Academie

The first event in the project took place here in Maastricht on Sunday night. A link to the audio recording can be found here.

The event raised more questions than it answered. I began by discussing the question of the lecture format, and its relationship to determination. Cage was opposed to determinate structures, which he called "inhuman." Determinism in his sense meant anything that was not open to "no matter what eventuality," that is, anything that demanded a movement from point a to point be in a specific pattern. The lecture I was focusing on, "Indeterminacy," from "Composition as Process," begins with the grammatically ambiguous phrase, "This is a lecture on composition which is indeterminate with respect to its performance," that is, again, that the composition does not demand a teleology, but rather lets itself unfold through chance. (This is not, as I will be discussing in the future, simply haphazard, but is a very precise practice for Cage. See the anonymously published thoughts on precision in this issue of Machete for a theoretical exposition, which is close to but not entirely the same as Cage's practice.)

If we look closely at this sentence which begins Cage's lecture, we notice a grammatical ambiguity. Does the "which" modify the lecture, or other "composition(s)"? In other words, is Cage's lecture itself indeterminate, or is he discussing other indeterminate compositions? It becomes clear once we start reading that the latter is the case, but it is also clear from a note that Cage wants to critique himself for the lecture itself not being indeterminate. A note before the lecture reads, "The excessively small type [indeed it is! (see link to Cage's articles below)] in the following pages is an attempt to emphasize the intentionally pontifical character of this lecture . But it is exactly such determining sovereign figures as the Pope, the dictator and the composer that Cage is trying to free us from with indeterminacy. The lecture as a determinate event therefore goes against this very aim.

After beginning my lecture with these thoughts, I asked to audience to feel free to interrupt me, or ask questions, or engage in some dialogue. But I also noted Cage's own problem - that I was still trying to impart some specific information. And, like lecture at this moment in his career, my lecture remained pontifical. Later on, Cage would give less specific lectures and rely mostly on assemblages of quotes or anecdotes rather than specific information. The How to Get Started project (see below) is also about such concerns. I am still looking for my own method here, and this talk remained pontifical.

The other attempt I made was to speak from notes, and not from a pre-written paper. I worry that in so doing I may have not fully explained certain terms. What has been nice in the past few days is the opportunity to have conversations with people after the lecture, where we have discussed quite a bit about precision, compassion, critique, transparency, and the subject. Thoughts on these topics will follow on the blog over the next few days. And, in a nice way, this slightly abstract first lecture, conjoined with the blog, will allow for a kind of unfolding of ideas for which the first audio recording is just the beginning.

One anecdote:
I met a psychoanalyst yesterday who told me I should do less. At least one day a week to do nothing, he said. I asked him if writing about people who wrote about doing nothing (Cage, Suzuki) counted? He laughed.