John Cage: Actions |Remarks is an exhibition of scores and materials from the Decibel new music ensemble “Complete John Cage Variations Project” curated by artistic director of Decibel, Cat Hope. It is currently showing at Wallace, 346 Williams St, Northbridge, Perth until 19 July 2024. There is a review of the performances at the opening of the exhibition here.
To celebrate the centenary of American composer John Cage’s birth, Perth new music ensemble Decibel devised a performance of the composer’s Variations. These are 8 unique works that reflect the most productive ten years of Cage’s compositional life between 1958 and 1968. They encapsulate the evolution of aleatoric, multimedia and improvised approaches to music, it’s conception and communication. It was the first time all the Variations have been performed in a single concert, and performances took place across Australia and Europe from 2012 to 2015.
The exhibit has been curated to reflect a range of outputs from the project – excerpts of score iterations, equipment for the performance, an edited book and studio recording. These are extracts and interpretations of Cage’s plans for structured sound making in space that are malleable, interactive and representational – making them ideal for display in an architecture studio.
The majority of the Variations required cutting, dropping, arranging and measuring of the paper and transparencies included in the published scores, often taking hours to create a ‘version’ for the performers to play. Cage was interested in different approaches to musical organisation, sound production and score making, and was experimenting with giving many compositional decisions away to chance. To facilitate these aims, Decibel developed a digital score generator for the works, resulting in accurate, coordinated and automated scores generated in real time for the musicians to read on networked iPads. They work alongside Cage’s instructions, but do not replace them.
Works in the exhibition
- Variations I (1958). Screenshot of a performer’s digital score.
An iteration of Variations I
The first two Variations use similar notation to describe the elements measured in Cage’s chance processes – pitch (height of graphics on the page), events (the number on the figure), loudness (thickness of the horizontal line) and sound texture (shade). The graphics used to describe these elements are designed by Decibel, based on notations that were common to the group of composers Cage worked amongst at the time, known as the New York School. This included Earl Brown, Morton Feldman, David Tudor and others. Each performer has a different score iteration, of which this is an extract. Decibel performs Variation I as an acoustic trio, referencing the more ‘classical’ roots of Cage’s early work.
- Variations V (1965). Photo electric light sensors. Sensor design and build: Karl Ockelford.
Variations VI (1966). Battery operated a.m. radio with built in speaker.
The light boxes feature adjustable light sensitive diodes that change the sound when obscured. They were constructed for Variation V, which features dancers whose movement in front of the sensors interferes with the sound. They originally featured coloured stickers on the front face, but after being taped to tables show after show, they have been torn away. The a.m. radio was a favourite tool of Cage’s: he wrote a work entitled Radio Music (1956) which featured only radios. This a.m. radio was used in the Decibel performances of Variations V and VI. Decibel’s performances of Variations VI feature electric bass with analogue effects, and cello with digital effects. The damage visible on the top side is created by dragging it on the strings of a bass guitar.
- Actions|Remarks: John Cage’s Variations and the expansion of the score, sonic materials, space, and the environment (2024). Edited book and listening station.
This book features articles by leading Cage scholars such as Leta E. Miller, James Pritchet, Atau Tanaka, Warren Burt, Paul Van Emmerik, David P. Miller, Thomas DeLio, Vincent Bonin and members of Decibel ensemble. It includes a CD recording of the complete set of 8 Variations performed by Decibel, which can be listened to via the headphones provided. The book and CD were published by the New York label, MODE. The listing of tracks is provided on the last page of the book.
- Variations II (1961). Arrangement of digital score iteration.
If you could flatten out the scrolling score for Variations II onto a single page, it looks like this. This score provides an idea of how a complete iteration of a single part generated by the ‘Decibel John Cage Variations’ iPad score player application looks. Coordinating the performance of this score would be almost impossible without the assistance of the scrolling functionality in the application, where a vertical ‘playhead’ is provided on screen. As with Variations I, pitch is represented by the height of figures on the page, the numbers represent events (notes/phrases etc), the thickness of the horizontal line represents loudness and the shade represents and texture. Decibel performs this as a quartet.
- Variations III (1962). Screenshot of digital score iteration during transition.
Variations III was often performed solo by Cage himself. The original score consists of two sheets: one is blank, the other is a transparency with 42 identical circles which are to be cut out and dropped onto the blank page. The area where the most circles are linked is the score to be read. This screenshot shows the circles in blue as they disappear, leaving the most linked circles for the performer to read as notation. Decibel performs this work on solo snare, bass drum and a.m. radio. The performer can generate any number of scores until they settle on one to play.
- Decibel John Cage Variations. An iteration of the iPad score player application. Video loop.
This video is a screen capture of a singular iteration of the 8 Variations in sequence, as they appear to the musicians on their iPads. Most Variations begin with generating several iterations before one is settled on and performed. The scores are presented in different ways: Variations I and II are read as scrolling scores, Variations III and VI present and organise shapes provided by Cage, Variations IV puts instructions over a map of the performance space (in this case, Wallace), Variations V features a ‘star map’ to be read as music notation, where Decibel uses coloured circles to orient musicians, and Variations VII and VIII appear as the original, handwritten scores.
The John Cage: Action | Remarks exhibit opened on May 17th with a performance of Variations I, III and VIII by members of Decibel. Special thanks to Jon Tarry, Laura Beingel and Tristen Parr for thier support of this exhibition, which is open 9 – 5pm Monday – Friday, until 19 July, and free to enter.
