Works » By Title » C » Conversation with John Cage — A Work Untitled In Advance (12:00 / 1987)

This piece uses as source material a radio broadcast of John Cage’s lecture “James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Érik Satie: An Alphabet”. I randomly cut the original performance of Cage’s lecture into short segments, both physically and electronically, along with recordings of other radio broadcasts. I subsequently recombined this material, in no particular order, into six two-channel tapes, each of approximately twelve minutes in duration. These tapes were then digitally modified using generative processes which ‘feed back’ upon themselves (what comes out of the speaker is the starting point for the processes’ next decision about what comes out of the speaker). These recursive processes controlled spatial placements, selection of sound modifying algorithms, and timbral density. The result is a metaphorical conversation with John Cage. My part of the conversation, so to speak, is the modifications I have made to Cage’s part of the dialog. The title comes from the following section of Cage’s lecture: “in the first place alMost/immediAtely/duchamp caRries a whisk broom/and if a Critic/drops somEthing he whisks it up/and puts it in a vaLise//markeD/Unsigned memorabilia/he is thinking of investing in a Cuisinart/to cHop up this collection/to mAke it into a large single work untitled/in advance later to be know as infraMation/sPatial” JF