Homage to Nothing

Homage to Nothing

59:39 min musical performance

Set of headphones, stack of musical notation, 210 x 297mm, 2015

Homage to Nothing is a sound art piece which is a musical translation of a lecture given by writer, American composer, music theorist, and artist John Cage entitled ‘Lecture on Nothing’.

This lecture was part of a talk that Cage had given along with ‘Lecture on Something’ at the Artists Club in New York in 1950. Cage’s lecture is notable for being structured as a piece of music demonstrating his poetic and witty style of composing with the text still being relevant sixty years after its performance and publication. Both lectures were published in his collected writings entitled Silence. All of these lectures were rarely performed.

The work consists of the artist’s voice, making a spoken musical performance of the lecture, in keeping as much as possible within rhythmic structure of the work. The work also features  a stack of musical notation from the recording which allows the audience to reproduce part of the lecture in a musically as well as being able to examine more closely the content of the lecture, which has also been printed.

Cage’s Lecture on Nothing was a powerful source of inspiration for a translative piece of this nature.