Listen to John Cage’s 5 Hour Art Piece: Diary: How To Improve The World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)

in Art, Music | April 8th, 2014

JohnCage_Diary

John Cage was born in 1915 and died in 1992. Dur­ing that inter­ven­ing time, he changed the face of avant-garde music and art.

An ear­ly dis­ci­ple of Arnold Schoen­berg, Cage made his biggest cre­ative break­through by study­ing the I Ching, Zen Bud­dhism and the art of Mar­cel Duchamp. The com­pos­er decid­ed to let ele­ments of chance into his work. He start­ed to write pieces for a “pre­pared piano” where things like thumb­tacks, nails and forks were placed into the instrument’s strings to alter its sound in unex­pect­ed ways.

Cage’s most famous work, 4’33”, took con­cep­tu­al music about as far as it could go. A musi­cian walks out onto the stage, sits in front of a piano and does absolute­ly noth­ing for four min­utes and thir­ty sec­onds. The sounds of the audi­ence rustling, the traf­fic out­side and any oth­er ambi­ent noise that might hap­pen dur­ing that time peri­od become a part of the piece. Watch a per­for­mance here.

The folks over at Ubu.com have placed online anoth­er one of Cage’s work, Diary: How To Improve The World (You Will Only Make Mat­ters Worse) (1991). Clock­ing in at over 5 hours total, the piece is some­thing of a Mount Ever­est of sound art.

Record­ed in Switzer­land a lit­tle over a year before his death, Diary fea­tures thoughts, obser­va­tions and insights along with quotes from the likes of Buck­min­ster Fuller, Hen­ry David Thore­au and Mao Zedong. You can lis­ten to Part 1 below, and click these links to lis­ten to the remain­ing parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

Cage’s diaries appeared pre­vi­ous­ly in print as M: Writ­ings, 1967–72. On the page, the text ran­dom­ly changed both font and let­ter size. You can see what this looks like here. Cage and com­pa­ny repro­duced this effect in the audio ver­sion by chang­ing the posi­tion of the micro­phone and the record­ing vol­ume. If you lis­ten to Diary on head­phones (which I rec­om­mend), you’ll hear Cage’s silken voice first behind your left ear, then in front of you and then, dis­con­cert­ing­ly, inside your head.

Much of the time, Cage’s words will feel obscure and poet­ic. And then, as you’re lulled by the rhythm of his voice, he’ll hit you with some­thing as pro­found as a Zen koan. (“The goal is not to have a goal.”) Just sit back and let the words flow over you.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Joey Ramone Sing a Piece by John Cage Adapt­ed from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

Watch a Sur­pris­ing­ly Mov­ing Per­for­mance of John Cage’s 1948 “Suite for Toy Piano”

Woody Guthrie’s Fan Let­ter To John Cage and Alan Hov­haness (1947)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

 

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Soviet Artists Envision a Communist Utopia in Outer Space

in Art, Astronomy | April 7th, 2014

SovietCitiesontheMoon

Sovi­et artists had been toil­ing for years on a cre­ative, col­lec­tive future vision by the time David Bowie got around to launch­ing Major Tom into out­er space.

As Vincze Mik­lós reports on io9, their efforts extend­ed the hope of a “work­er’s Utopia on Earth” to des­ti­na­tions in the solar sys­tem.

MoonConstruction

In 1965, film­mak­er Pavel Klushant­sev’s Stantsi­ia “Luna” (Sta­tion Moon) treat­ed chil­dren to a high­ly sat­is­fy­ing vision of the lunar sur­face as a bustling con­struc­tion site.

SovietMoonInterior

Work­ers, hell. It’s not hard to imag­ine Andrei Sokolov, whose paint­ings were exhib­it­ed aboard the Mir sta­tion, pro­duc­ing high qual­i­ty ren­der­ings for Mad Men’s Don Drap­er to show high-rolling Mar­t­ian clients.

SovietMoonCityCrossSection

And pop sci­ence mag Tekhni­ka Molodezhi (“Tech­nol­o­gy for the Youth”) pro­mot­ed the space race with pages of intrigu­ing four-col­or images. The doll­house-like cross sec­tion (above) of a com­mu­nal res­i­dence below the moon’s crust is prac­ti­cal­ly scream­ing Wes Ander­son’s name.

Those who’ve nev­er had much stom­ach for the Jet­sons’ prim­i­tive aes­thet­ic might find this lush Sovi­et vision much eas­i­er to swal­low.

More images can be found at io9.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Glo­ry to the Con­querors of the Uni­verse!”: Pro­pa­gan­da Posters from the Sovi­et Space Race (1958–1963)

Watch Dzi­ga Vertov’s Unset­tling Sovi­et Toys: The First Sovi­et Ani­mat­ed Movie Ever (1924)

Enjoy 15+ Hours of the Weird and Won­der­ful World of Post Sovi­et Russ­ian Ani­ma­tion

“Moon Hoax Not”: Short Film Explains Why It Was Impos­si­ble to Fake the Moon Land­ing

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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35 Years of Prince’s Hairstyles in 15 Glorious Seconds!

in Art, Comedy, Life, Music | April 5th, 2014

Any­one who’s suf­fered through the hell of grow­ing out a short style or spent a pre-awards show after­noon get­ting sewn into exten­sions will appre­ci­ate the brisk pace of Lon­don-based illus­tra­tor Gary Card’s “Prince Hair Chart” slideshow.

It’s only 15 sec­onds long, but seri­ous­ly, can you name anoth­er Prince with coif­fures amor­phous enough to mer­it such pro­longed gaze?  Cer­tain­ly, not Charles, or even the com­pelling­ly flame-haired Har­ry.

As this chrono­log­i­cal speed-through of 35 years of hair­dos attests, musi­cal chameleon Prince (aka  Love Sym­bol #2, Prince Rogers Nel­son) has nev­er shied from stand­ing out in a crowd. Thir­ty-six looks shim­mer and writhe atop his laven­der pate, as he stares cooly ahead, more man­tis than Medusa.

Not all of them worked. If we were play­ing Who Wore It Bet­ter, I’d have to go with Liza Minel­li (1985) and  Jen­nifer Anis­ton (1990), but the slideshow is rich­er (and a cou­ple of frac­tions of a sec­ond longer) due to such silli­ness.

Doubt­less Prince will have rearranged his locks before the doves can cry again. His lat­est look, as evi­denced by a recent guest cameo oppo­site Zooey Deschanel on the TV com­e­dy, ‘New Girl’, is a return to roots, a la 1978.

via Kot­tke

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Prince tweet­ed about Gary Card’s hair­do overview… so per­haps it’s in the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty that he’ll be the next to squawk in her direc­tion  @AyunHalliday

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10 Wonderful Illustrations from the Original Manuscript of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

in Art, K-12 | April 3rd, 2014

little prince manuscripts

From Jan­u­ary 24 through April 27, 2014, The Mor­gan Library and Muse­um is stag­ing an exhi­bi­tion on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Lit­tle Prince, a sto­ry that speaks to the hearts and minds of chil­dren and adults alike. Though Saint-Exupéry was French, he wrote and pub­lished his great tale while liv­ing in New York City in 1943. Twen­ty five years lat­er, in 1968, the Mor­gan acquired the orig­i­nal man­u­script, which is now on dis­play.

petit prince cigarette

If you can’t trav­el to New York, you can vir­tu­al­ly pore over ten orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions from Le Petit Prince online. We’d rec­om­mend click­ing here, and then click­ing on the Full Screen icon in the bot­tom right-hand side of the first illus­tra­tion you see. Then start flip­ping through the pages and enjoy. As the Mor­gan notes, the pages are “replete with crossed-out words, cig­a­rette burns, and cof­fee stains.” You’ll find one such burn on the illus­tra­tion imme­di­ate­ly above.

via Metafil­ter/Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Watch Ani­ma­tions of Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ries “The Hap­py Prince” and “The Self­ish Giant”

The Inter­na­tion­al Children’s Dig­i­tal Library Offers Free eBooks for Kids in Over 40 Lan­guages

Mark Twain Cre­ates a List of His Favorite Books For Adults & Kids (1887)

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Jorge Luis Borges, After Going Blind, Draws a Self-Portrait

in Art | March 31st, 2014

borges self portrait blind

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), one of the great writ­ers to come out of Argenti­na, went blind when he was  only 55 years old. As unset­tling as it must have been, it was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly a sur­prise. He once told The New York Times, “I knew I would go blind, because my father, my pater­nal grand­moth­er, my great-grand­fa­ther, they had all gone blind.”

In the years fol­low­ing that life-chang­ing moment, Borges nev­er learned braille and could no longer read. But he did con­tin­ue to write; he served as the direc­tor of Argenti­na’s Nation­al Library; he trav­eled and deliv­ered an impor­tant series of lec­tures at Har­vard on poet­ry (click to lis­ten); and he even took a stab at draw­ing — some­thing he did fair­ly well ear­li­er in life. (See our pre­vi­ous post: Two Draw­ings by Jorge Luis Borges Illus­trate the Author’s Obses­sions.)

Above, you can see a self por­trait that Borges drew in the base­ment of the famous Strand Book­store in New York City. Accord­ing to the Times, he did this “using one fin­ger to guide the pen he was hold­ing with his oth­er hand.” After mak­ing the sketch, Borges entered the main part of the book­store and start­ed “lis­ten­ing to the room, the stacks, the books,” and made the remark­able obser­va­tion “You have as many books as we have in our nation­al library.”

If you’ve ever been to The Strand, you know how many books it holds. Indeed, the store boasts of being “New York City’s leg­endary home of 18 Miles of new, used and rare books.” My guess is that Argenti­na’s nation­al library might have a few more vol­umes than that. But who is real­ly count­ing?

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Borges: Pro­file of a Writer Presents the Life and Writ­ings of Argentina’s Favorite Son, Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges Chats with William F. Buck­ley on Fir­ing Line (1977)

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Big Bang Big Boom: Graffiti Stop-Motion Animation Creatively Depicts the Evolution of Life

in Animation, Art, Biology, Science | March 27th, 2014

There’s a rapa­cious, run-amok ener­gy to Ital­ian street artist Blu’s stop motion ani­ma­tion, “BIG BANG BIG BOOM.” How­ev­er long it took him, assist­ed by a slew of local artists, to ren­der a host of paint­ed large-scale char­ac­ters across a pri­mar­i­ly indus­tri­al land­scape in Argenti­na and Uruguay, it takes less than ten, glo­ri­ous­ly grit­ty min­utes for his just-dawned world to destroy itself.

This is evo­lu­tion at its most apoc­ryphal (and least sci­en­tif­ic). Crus­taceans and giant lizards who mere decades ago would have ter­ror­ized the streets of Tokyo are here no match for man. In fact, man is no match for man, rapid­ly engi­neer­ing his own demise as he chas­es about an appro­pri­ate­ly cir­cu­lar, aban­doned-look­ing silo.

The nec­es­sary demise of his murals—animation frames, if you like—serves as a nifty reminder of the evo­lu­tion­ary fate of most street art. A Banksy care­ful­ly pre­served beneath Plexi is the excep­tion, and even that is no guar­an­tee of per­ma­nence. Case in point, New York City’s leg­endary “insti­tute of high­er burn­ing,” 5 Pointz, whose 200,000-square-feet were recent­ly white­washed into noth­ing­ness overnight.

Boom indeed.

 Relat­ed Con­tent:

Banksy Cre­ates a Tiny Repli­ca of The Great Sphinx Of Giza In Queens

Obey the Giant: Short Film Presents the True Sto­ry of Shep­ard Fairey’s First Act of Street Art

Artists Paint Paris, Berlin and Lon­don with High-Tech Video Graf­fi­ti

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the long run­ning zine, The East Vil­lage Inky. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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1923 Photo of Claude Monet Colorized: See the Painter in the Same Color as His Paintings

in Art, Photography | March 20th, 2014

monet in color

On the His­to­ry in Col­or Face­book page, artist Dana Keller presents a series of col­orized his­tor­i­cal pho­tographs, help­ing to “remove that bar­ri­er between the past and our mod­ern eyes, draw­ing us a lit­tle bit clos­er to the real­i­ty in which the pho­to was tak­en.” In the exam­ple above, we see impres­sion­ist painter Claude Mon­et stand­ing next to paint­ings from his famous Water Lilies series. Giv­en what he did with col­or in his paint­ings, it seems only fit­ting that we should see the man him­self in col­or.

If you care to see Mon­et paint­ing in his gar­den in Giverny (cir­ca 1915) in some impres­sive grainy black and white video, click this link and take a lit­tle his­tor­i­cal jour­ney with us. More col­orized his­tor­i­cal pho­tos can be viewed here: Col­orized Pho­tos Bring Walt Whit­man, Char­lie Chap­lin, Helen Keller & Mark Twain Back to Life.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Striking French, Russian & Polish Posters for the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky

in Art, Film | March 20th, 2014

Stalker_France_MPOTW

Near­ly thir­ty years after his death, Andrei Tarkovsky (many of whose films you can watch free online) con­tin­ues to win devot­ed fans by what some describe as his still-unpar­al­leled mas­tery of aes­thet­ics. Not only do all his pic­tures — and espe­cial­ly his lat­er works like Solaris, Mir­ror, and Stalk­er — present images of the deep­est rich­ness in a man­ner of the high­est refine­ment, but in so doing they come out look­ing and feel­ing like no oth­er films cre­at­ed before or since. So many cinephiles claim that one can iden­ti­fy their favorite direc­tor’s work by only a sin­gle shot, but for Tarkovsky this boast actu­al­ly seems to hold true (espe­cial­ly in the case of the nine-minute can­dle-car­ry­ing shot from Nos­tal­ghia). When we talk about Tarkovsky, we talk about aes­thet­ics, whether we talk about his films, his Polaroid pho­tos, or his posters.

Sacrifice_Russia_MPOTW

Not that Tarkovsky’s per­fec­tion­ism had him exer­cis­ing total con­trol over the one-sheets that adver­tise his films, nor did he actu­al­ly com­mand every visu­al detail of every frame of the films them­selves. I would sub­mit, how­ev­er, that all who worked in the orbit of a Tarkovsky pro­duc­tion, from cin­e­matog­ra­phers to set builders, right down to the graph­ic design­ers, entered his thor­ough­ly real­ized and affect­ing aes­thet­ic real­i­ty. “Tarkovsky is one film­mak­er for whom I’d glad­ly have posters that sim­ply fea­ture gor­geous images from his films (of which there are an unlim­it­ed sup­ply)” writes Adri­an Cur­ry at MUBI, “but there are so many ter­rif­ic illus­trat­ed posters that I thought I’d just fea­ture my favorite for each film.” His selec­tions include the French one for Stalk­er, the Pol­ish one for Mir­ror (because you can nev­er ignore Pol­ish movie poster design), and the Russ­ian one for The Sac­ri­fice. It pays Tarkovsky one of the high­est pos­si­ble com­pli­ments: he cre­at­ed not only beau­ty, but works that inspire oth­ers to cre­ate beau­ty.

Mirror_Poland_MPOTW

A col­lec­tion of the inter­na­tion­al movie posters for each of Tarkovsky’s major films can be found at Nostalghia.com.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Film­mak­ers: Sac­ri­fice Your­self for Cin­e­ma

Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revis­it­ed

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Very First Films: Three Stu­dent Films, 1956–1960

The Mas­ter­ful Polaroid Pic­tures Tak­en by Film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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