Digging in the Archives: Alan Rath

Viewpoints: Alan Rath

on view at the

Walker Art Center

July 21 - September 29, 1991

Digging in the Archives: John Cage, Williams Mix

John Cage

Williams Mix for magnetic tape

1952

manuscript excerpt

pencil on graph paper, 8.5 x 11 inches

signed in pencil

This is a work for eight tracks of 1/4” magnetic tape. The score is a pattern for the cutting and splicing of sounds recorded on tape. Its rhythmic structure is 5-6-16-3-11-5. Sounds fall into 6 categories: A (city sounds), B (country sounds), C (electronic sounds), D (manually produced sounds), E (wind produced sounds), and F ("small" sounds, requiring amplification). Pitch, timbre, and loudness are notated as well. Approximately 600 recordings are necessary to make a version of this piece. The compositional means were I Ching chance operations. Cage made a realization of the work in 1952/53 (starting in May 1952) with the assistance of Earle Brown, Louis and Bebe Barron, David Tudor, Ben Johnston, and others. Duration: 4 minutes.

Digging in the Archives: Charlotte Moorman

Charlotte Moorman:

From Weaponry to Livingry, A Performance at Art Chicago,1984

The title for Moorman's performance is based on an article by Buckminster Fuller 

written in 1983.

Photographs by Cal Kowal

Photograph by Peter Moore