1 A Space for Assembly and Concurrent Activity
In 1961, the planning committee of Southern Illinois University asked R. Buckminster Fuller how it might build a university campus from the ground up in Edwardsville, Illinois. The self-declared âcomprehensive anticipatory design scientistâ advised that the university should disregard all static curricular and architectural models; rather, he encouraged the committee to prioritize curricular, technological, and architectural mobility.1 Toward these ends, Fuller suggested that it should eschew uniform, progressively staged curricula; and that it should invest in the âmost comprehensive generalized computer setup with network connections,â in âlots of real estate and lots of airplanes and helicopters,â and in a lightweight one-half-mile diameter geodesic dome
This kind of spaceâan all-purpose âtransformable environmentâ for assembly and concurrent (yet disparate) activityâwas like that of a circus, where âtrapeses, platforms, rings, [and] netsâ are gathered under the swiftly erected, portable architecture of a circus tent (Fuller, 1964, pp. 86â88). It also served a pedagogical imperative; a flexible, ever-changing environment would help students to co-ordinate their spontaneous comprehension of the whole (Fuller, 1964, p. 83). In Fullerâs view, âoldâ educational structures that prioritized âspecializationâ hindered and perhaps even discouraged the kind of large-scale, socially relevant innovation brought about by those who recognize patterns of thought and activity across disciplines. The old institutional paradigm encouraged the monopolization and control of intellectual resources in siloed academic disciplines comprised of experts. This model ought to be replaced by systems and structures that facilitate the âcomprehensive thinkingâ necessary to anticipate and meet societal needsâhence Fullerâs proposal for a networked university with asynchronous curriculum housed in an enormous soap bubble-filled geodesic dome (Fuller, 1964, pp. 64, 81â88).
Fullerâs scheme for the campus of Southern Illinois University was not achieved.2 Yet it was significant to John Cage, whose composition Musicircus (1967) for any number of performers âwilling to perform at once (in the same place and time)â as well as the nonhierarchical educational situations he convened in the late-1960s are in keeping with Fullerâs educational vision (Kostelanetz, 1980, p. 194).3 Fuller and Cage shared a commitment to radical educational reform, which they first explored together in 1948 during the Black Mountain College summer session. That summer, Fuller taught a course called âComprehensive Design,â was unsuccessful in his attempt to erect a large geodesic dome out of venetian blind slats, and played the role of Baron Medusa in a production of Erik Satieâs play Le Piège de Méduse (1913). Cage gave several recitals of Satieâs piano music, presented a community lecture entitled âDefense of Satie,â and taught a course called âStructure of Music.â As Fuller recalled, he and Cage also imagined together a âfinishing schoolâ that would âfinishâ or âbreak down all of the conventional ways of approaching school.â It was to assume the form of a âcaravanâ that travelled from city to city and thus, as Fuller stressed in his subsequent proposal for the campus of Southern Illinois University, was mobile by design.4
Fullerâs and Cageâs respective educational thought would remain aligned for years to come. The design scientist and composer shared views with respect to how to marshal educational resources: Fuller generally observed that (nationalist) concerns with resource scarcity were factually unfounded, while Cage
2 At Black Mountain College
Cageâs work as an educator to this point had been diverse: it included teaching children at the UCLA Demonstration School and for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s; offering a course on âsound experimentsâ at the School of Design in the 1940s; and, among other courses, teaching âExperimental Compositionâ and âMushroom Identificationâ at The New School for Social Research in the 1950s (Saletnik, 2009, pp. 147â166). Perhaps most widely known, however, is his teaching at Black Mountain during the summer sessions of 1948 and 1952, aspects of which prefigured his nonhierarchical pedagogy of the late 1960s. When reflecting upon the summers he taught at Black Mountain, the composer remarked: âI think what actually happened at Black Mountain was that many things were taught without there being any assigned times for that exchange to take placeâ (Cage, 1979, p. 77). Indeed, this happenedâbut there were scheduled classes (Cageâs students recalled that they met with him privately more often than as a group) as well as conventional lessons, educational presentations, and performances (Patterson, 1996, p. 202). For his course âStructure of Music,â a student recalled that Cage âwould have [students] beat out rhythms, or clap them; and we
The manner in which Cage presented his recitals of Satieâs compositions for piano, however, are significant in terms of how his pedagogy developed. When asked to reflect upon memorable experiences at Black Mountain, a student recalled âthe nights John Cage played [Satie] to us from inside his home while we listened under sky and trees.â5 Rather than perform in a traditional concert setting, with pianist visible to an assembled audience, Cage simply played his piano at home with windows open and allowed Satieâs music to lilt about in night air and amidst all sounds. He introduced Satieâs music to the community and simultaneously demonstrated how music could be understood as a continuity of all of the sounds (and silences) that occurred within established durational parameters. Aspects of Cageâs work at the College in the summer of 1952 were similarly demonstrative. Although he had been hired to teach the course âComposition,â Cage claimed to have had no students; rather, he organized readings of the Huang-Po Doctrine of Universal Mind (1947); performed his Sonatas and Interludes (1946â1948) for prepared piano; and he conceived of a performance later known as Theater Piece No. 1 or Black Mountain Piece (1952) (Patterson, 1996, p. 224). Cage used chance operations to establish the durational parameters of the work as well as those in which each performer was to present their contribution to it, yet he did not know in advance what content the performers would contribute. David Tudor played the piano, Robert Rauschenberg played records and had suspended an array of his White Paintings (1951) from above the audience, Merce Cunningham and others danced, M. C. Richards and Charles Olsen operated slide projectors and read poetry, Nicholas Cernovich projected a film (Fetterman, 1996, pp. 97â104), and Cage recalled that he read his âJuilliard Lectureâ (Cage, 1961, p. x).6 Insofar as some of the activities that occurred within the compositional framework Cage established took place concurrently, they anticipate Cageâs Musicircus and the composerâs embrace of simultaneity in the 1960s more generally.
3 A Music of Reality
Cageâs Musicircus was conceived of as a musical work and an educational form; it is consistent with the composerâs description of music that is âat one
Cage sought to circumvent and, to varying degrees, worked to apply pressure to the university apparatus at each educational institution with which he was associated in the late 1960s. At the University of Cincinnati, where he was composer-in-residence during the winter and spring quarters of 1967, Cage offered a seminar featuring discussions of various topics related to his interests (like Zen Buddhism and world improvement) that he thought also might be of interest to students. He presented public lecture-demonstrations and performances, including a presentation of his 1961 lecture âWhere Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?â (Yang, 2013, pp. 49â63). The lecture, which notably had been first presented at an educational institution, is composed for four voices, three of which are pre-recorded by the speaker and amplified in performance and one of which could be spoken in real time by the speaker.7 All voices are superimposed in performance, thereby making it difficult for one to follow any single voice. The result was meant to be an equalizing chaos (Cage, 1961, p. 195).
During fall 1969, as artist-in-residence at the University of California, Davis, Cage gave a course based upon the premise that he did not know what the students would study that semester (Cage & Charles, 1981, p. 89). He offered suggestions regarding what he and his one-hundred-twenty students might do together, including that they create a map of all things that had been done before and then use this to determine what things had yet to be done and might need doing. Ultimately, they determined that each student would use chance operations to select the number of and which books they would read in the university library. The first task (and the subject of an entire class session) was how to subject the libraryâs card catalogue to chance operations. Chance-determined groups of students would meet in subsequent weeks to exchange information about the books they had read, which included texts on firefighting and Islamic art. Should a group decide that something they found interesting about their conversation that might be of interest to their classmates, it was the groupâs responsibility to determine how to share this with them: one group of students used chance operations to compose a poem based upon texts read as part of the course, another group made a film, etc. (Dinwiddie, 1969, pp. 21â26).
4 Toward Equality
At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where Cage was an Associate of the Center for Advanced Studies and Visiting Professor of Music from fall 1967 through spring 1969, and where his Musicircus first was performed on 17 November 1967, the composer had no formal teaching responsibilities and thus held no classes. He gave lectures when invited to do so and made himself available to students in person or on the telephone, posting a sign saying, âAnyone who wants to see me, may.â The students âknow that Iâm here,â he recalled, âand if they wish to see me, they can, and if they donât need to, they donât have toâ (Cage, 1969b, p. 14). When students would come to see him, his approach was to âtry to discover who the student is and what the student can doâ and thereby making himself the studentâthe one who is learningâin the end (Cage & Charles, 1981, p. 88).
Cage composed Musicircus in conjunction with an arts festival entitled âUniversity in Motion: Matrix for the Arts,â in the context of which, in the course five days, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performed; Saul Bellow, Harold Rosenberg, Gunther Schuller, and Harry Weese spoke; and Fuller gave a two-and-a-half-hour unscripted keynote address on the topic of âintuitionâ (UI Hosts Arts Matrix, 1967; Willis, 1967). The Musicircus took place
Photographer unknown, Musicircus, 1967. Contact sheet. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Archives
If, as Cage held in the late-1960s, the only kinds of ideas that were of real interest to him in the arts were âideas that also work in livesâ (Cage, 1969a, p. 10), then what work does Cageâs emphasis on abundanceâon âquantity not qualityââin his Musicircus do in the world? Its profusion of indeterminately occurring sound is in keeping with Cageâs âecologicalâ approach to his work. He aspired to write music, give lectures, and educate in a manner that allowed one âto live in the world in its entirety [rather than] separate fragments or parts of the world.â As he said, âWe must construct, that is, gather together what exists in a dispersed state. As soon as we give it a try, we realize that everything already goes togetherâ (Cage & Charles, 1981, pp. 215â216). Cageâs Musicircus makes this premise manifest in its leveling abundanceâeverything goes together. Moreover, in eradicating the possibility of assigning value to anyoneâs distinct contribution to a Musicircus, the work challenges structures of power (related to cultural production and consumption, but also more broadly) by radically insisting upon equality.
That the composition of Musicircusâa work conceived of for an educational institution in the late 1960sâcoincided with student unrest and calls for education reform is significant. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron articulated in 1970 how educational structures were forms of symbolic violence among a broad socio-educational nexus that replicated inequality (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, pp. 11â31). Ivan Illich, who advocated for âself-motivated learningâ rather than âschooling,â argued that a latent curriculum in all schools fostered the myth that âbureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolentâ and the myth that âincreased production will provide a better lifeâ (Illich, 1971, p. 74). Traditional schools, for Illich, were âdesigned on
Writing some years later and as Kristin Ross has elaborated, Jacques Rancière described this conditionâof informed teachers and uninformed studentsâas a pedagogical fiction based upon a false assumption that the student progresses from ignorance to knowledge, or from a position of inequality to one of equality (Ross, 1991, p. 67). For Rancièreâas for Freire, and as for Cageâthe teacher must admit their ignorance; they must admit that they know no more or less than the student, who is capable of learning without having anything explained. One must thus begin from a position of equalityâin which no one is knowledgeable, and no one is ignorantâinstead of casting equality as a promise to be later enjoyed by those who have been educated sufficiently. Cageâs Musicircusâin its abundanceâin demanding parityâmakes equality a practice rather than a goal. Perhaps this is what it can do as a model for living in and with the world and one another.
Notes
Fuller and other consultants, including critic Sybil Moholy-Nagy, architect Paolo Soleri, sociologist Howard Becker, and urban planner Edmund Bacon, were invited to make presentations at the planning committeeâs weekly meetings in the spring of 1961.
Gyo Obata designed a campus of six permanent structures situated around an oblong greenspace. Educational activity was thus separated in a library, student center, and in classroom, communications, science, and administration buildings.
Musicircus was not scored; however, a manuscript provides details about its first performance on November 17, 1967. See John Cage Collection, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York, NY.
R. Buckminster Fuller interview with Mary Emma Harris (1971), 61.12.4, North Carolina Museum of Art, Black Mountain College Research Project, Interviews, State Archives of North Carolina, Western Regional Archives, Asheville, NC.
Lubroth, Irwin, 61.12.3, North Carolina Museum of Art, Black Mountain College Research Project, Questionnaires, State Archives of North Carolina, Western Regional Archives, Asheville, NC.
Cage wrote the lecture for its first presentation at the Evening School of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
For an account of the event, see Zumstein (1967) and Kostelanetz (1980).
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