Mikel Rouse Video Wall Installation of John Cage’s 4’33”
This February, the New World Symphony will present Making the Right Choices: A John Cage Centennial Celebration, a spectacular three-day festival dedicated to the music and ideas of John Cage. As part of the festival, NWS will host a new video installation entitled NWS: 4’33”, created by New York-based composer, director, performer and recording artist Mikel Rouse; which will consist of video performances contributed by Cage fans.
4’33” is John Cage’s most famous-and controversial-work. Composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), the three-movement score instructs the performer NOT to play the instrument for the entire duration of the piece. The work, commonly referred to as “four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence,” consists only of the sounds of the performance environment.
To create the video installation NWS: 4’33”, Mr. Rouse worked with programmer Austin Lin, The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Illinois eDream Institute. Mr. Rouse is the first Visiting Research Artist of NCSA, an organization that is dedicated to promoting arts that are conceived, created and conveyed through digital technologies.
The public is invited to record and submit their own video, and visit the installation during the festival to see their work in the SunTrust Pavilion at the New World Center. These videos will be included in an online Archive of the event, a lasting tribute to this defining and seminal artist.
For more information, visit www.nws.edu/johncagefest/index.html.
NWS: 4’33” will be on view February 8-10, 2013. Submissions are due February 1, 2013.
HOW:
– Create a video-recording of your own performance, adhering to Cage’s original timing for each of this work’s three movements: 30″, 2’23”, and 1’40”, keeping the performance as close to 4’33” as possible. (Please do not incorporate any sort of verbal introduction.)
– Upload the video to YouTube. (For instructions: How to Upload to YouTube)
– Once the video is live on YouTube, visit NWS: 4’33” YouTube and click on the “Subscribe” button. The video will be screened and added to the NWS Playlist.
NWS: 4’33” Installation by Mikel Rouse
Installation Programing: Austin Lin
with the support of the eDream Institute and
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Worldwide Representation for Mikel Rouse
ArKtype
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