جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "جان کیج" در نشریات گروه "هنر و معماری"

John Cage, the leading post-war and one of the most influential musicians of the second half of the 20th century, for several decades was in the center of the avant-garde movement in America. By separating from the musical traditions of the past and utilizing a wide range of initiatives and innovations, he influenced a larger discussion on the role of music and work of a musician. There are two fundamental factors in many of Cage’s works; first, his ever-searching mind that severely responds to the changes of his surroundings and has had many innovations under the influence of them. Second, his concentration on a series of nonstop attempts to criticize Western art and music, this one is considered as the central point of his professional career. Cage's lack of interest in harmony and counterpoint redirected him to choose a path which was different from Schoenberg and his predecessors and while other musicians believed that harmonic structure pays attention to the musical sounds, he not only recognized structure as time divisions, but appointed everyday noise and silence as equivocal important factors as tonal sounds. Although there have been many biographies and researches on Cage, few studies have investigated the subject of this paper which explores the historical process of his music at the three levels of composition, notation, and audience to explain the course of these changes and their influence on the alternation of the dominant concepts of Western music in each phase. Therefore, the present study from a historical perspective tries to clarify the structural changes of Cage’s musical works to understand his view toward the mentioned transformations. In other words, the paper has raised this question that along with different ideas of Cage, how has the musical structure of his works changed? For this purpose, in the current research, two methods, historical and descriptive-analytical, have been used; the historical trend tries to explore the process and the way that ideas have been applied and depicts the milestones of his musical practice. The descriptive-analytical method aims at surveying structural changes of Cage’s musical works during the most important periods of his work. From a structural perspective and in a historical course, this research shows three milestones in applying Cage’s innovative ideas; the first one (late 1930s to late 1940s): Percussion and Prepared Piano; the second milestone (1950s): chance operation and graphic notation; the third milestone (late 1960s): elements of acting and theatrical performance. These three turning points in a historical course reveal a gradual and hierarchal change of a structure with a closed and solid space to a structure with an open and flexible space. In addition, in the analytical aspect, applying daily sounds and tools as the musical materials, putting aside the professional skills in producing and performing pieces, removing notation and score, replacing the oral presentation of musical ideas and generating audience are examined and justified as the central thesis of this research. By deconstruction of the generality of composition structures, notation, and audience status, Cage found a unique and personal structure that besides changing the dominant concepts in the Western music, presents a new definition for their meaning.

The present study surveys the origins of the formation of Graphic Notation in John Cage’s works, the avant-garde composer of the twentieth century, and the reasons for the replacement of the visual and Prosy aspects instead of the traditional notation. This changes of the music notation system begin in his works from the early 1950 and his landmark is in the late 1960 and in his “Song Book”. Although, Cage’s famous composition of “Silence” or “4′33″ for any Instrument or Combination of Instruments”, is The beginning of the very important changes in his music and notation. In his notation methods, we can distinguish two major aspects: the first aspect, there is still the traditional notation, such as the staff, beat, time and duration, but, he has changed it in his notation methods, so, a performer is able to decide on some parts and to perform his interpretation of the scores. But, in the second aspects, started with time delay to his early notation, he relinquish all methods of the traditional notation and replace the picture or text elements instead of them. In this aspect, a performer interprets the totality of the scores.
The reasons of the present research is his attention to the contemporary and previous artists in the field of Graphic Notation and collect them in “Notation”, and his reference to the impact of the painters, poets and artists in the formation of his music in the collection of his writings and lectures. The purpose is to clarify the chronological trend of this impact and the achievement to the reasons of his tendency to the new ideas of his contemporary and previous movements. This research uses two methodes: Chronological and Descriptive-Analytic methodes, based on library resources, especially, reference to the writings and the remainder interviews of Cage. The chronological trend depicts on Cage’s influence of Futurism, Dada, and especially, Marinetti’s Futurist manifesto, called ” Destruction of Syntax- Imagination without strings-Words-in-Freedom” and his poetry book ,“Zang Tumb Tumb”, and the ideas raised by Russolo in his manifesto “The Art of Noises”, as well as, Mallarmé’s Concrete Poetry , Apollinaire’s ideas in Visual Poetry, the experiences of Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars, and his collaboration with Fluxus movement that tried to eliminate the boundaries between the arts.
The reasons for these tendency was the efforts to achieve the expressive manners proportional to his new musical ideas that its motivations hide in Futurism movement and the changes of the modern music. So, the changes of his notation can be divided into two periods: the first period represents the visual expression that reflected in the attitude of Mallarmé and Marinetti and includes the collection of the scores that have distorted graphically in order to convey the feelings. The second period, in addition to complete the first period, declares the concept of the Simultaneity in the Visual Poetry that influenced by the attitude of Apollinaire, and tries to reflect the concept of the music in his visual manifesto.

This research examines the development of the blending of arts and the blurring of their boundaries in Fluxus International Art Movement. Fluxus, the core of which was formed in the experimental composition classes of John Cage, included artists who employed diverse artistic media based on similarities of arts, to create various works with infinite possible interpretations. This collage-like and blended character, which dominates all Fluxus works, is evident in first Fluxus festivals and concerts conducted by George Maciunas, the self-proclaimed leader of the group, as well as in wide activities by other members in various fields. Dick Higgins considers this character the central feature of Fluxus works and refers to it as intermedia. Higgins’ intermedia schema conveys the view of Fluxus that there are no limitations neither on blending experiences from artistic fields with different levels nor on presenting a classification of the blending of arts itself, as the presence of Action Music in the center of this schema emphasizes its importance in the views of Fluxus. Thus, the present study intends to highlight the legacy inherited by Fluxus and the influence of early twentieth-century artistic traditions such as Futurism and Dadaism on Fluxus in the manifestos and diagrams of George Maciunas as well as on Higgins’ intermedia classifications of Fluxus activities. This paper seeks to identify the concepts that have influenced the necessity and possibility of blending arts in Fluxus and explore their evolution with the gradual development of Fluxus. The objective is revealing the perspective of Fluxus on the blending of arts and the development of this perspective during 1950s and 1960s. The research employs a descriptive-analytical method. It relies on library resources specially the writings and records of Fluxus activities.
The history of Fluxus involves two periods in the blending of arts. From late 1950s to the first half of 1960s, we can see the formation and flourishing of the idea of blending arts with a focus on Action Music that involves blends with simple, general, and concise actions. Therefore, the boundaries between arts are still clear. The blending of arts in this period, considering the tendency of Fluxus toward organization of sound and audio-visual elements, indicates the influence “simultaneity” from Cage’s first period. Starting from the second half of 1960s, the blending of arts inclines toward large-scale blending of modern media and technologies, and toward deep and global concepts. Therefore, it seems impossible to distinguish arts. The blending of arts in this period coincides with the development of “simultaneity” during Cage’s second period and in some cases, such as large-scale performance and use of some modern media, its impact on Cage’s concept of simultaneity should be acknowledged. We also witness an inverse interplay in the transformation of the scores of Fluxus and Cage. So that the text scores of Fluxus in the second period, under the influence of Cage, tend toward visual scores, while Cage’s graphic scores tend toward the text scores of Song Book where the impact of Fluxus on Cage is visible.

Catharsis is construed as the moral affair in Aristotle’s thought, the emotionalsomatic discharge and cognitive awareness in Brecht’s theater and the informative conflict around the life experience in Vygotsky’s writing. John Cage, a prominent musician in the 20th century, also considers the core of his artistic thought to be the creation of a challenge for the audience’s perception in terms of the identification of musical experiences and performances. This paper aims to investigate the existence and concept of the cathartic experience in Cage’s works, and concerning this, employs a chronological and descriptive-analytical method and relies on library resources. The findings indicate three stages of changes in his thought, from distancing to motivating audience for intervention and finally, influenced by Zen, promoting the audience to the artist’s position as his own special method. In this way, Cage makes Catharsis as audience’s permanent experience in life.