Date of Submission
Spring 2012
Academic Program
Music
Project Advisor 1
Christopher Gibbs
Project Advisor 2
Laura Kuhn
Abstract/Artist's Statement
“Not Wanting To Say Anything About John” is a music composition inspired by the physical act of processing the manuscript collection at the John Cage Trust. Now being called “The John Cage Literary Archive”, the collection is now processed and catalogued in the archival finding aid which comprises the second half of this document.
The composition is a hybridization of the three artistic mediums in which Cage worked: music, text, and visual art. Musically, the piece instructs the exchange of sound between a performer and an audience. The content is test-based, characterized by language, words and syllables. The title of the piece is a reference to one of Cage's visual artworks titled "Not Wanting To Say Anything About Marcel".
It has been said of this artwork that, while not wanting to say anything, Cage said everything and paid the ultimate homage to Duchamp. It is my intention that "Not Wanting To Say Anything About John" should convey the same effect.
Distribution Options
Access restricted to On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Preiss, Robin E., "Not Wanting To Say Anything About John: Writing Through the Creation of the John Cage Literary Archive" (2012). Senior Projects Spring 2012. 43.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2012/43
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
Bard Off-campus DownloadBard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.