TIME / DURATION

 

"In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all but very interesting"

 

John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats.  John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press (2012), p. 385.  

KEEPING THINGS MYSTERIOUS (JOHN CAGE)

"I think it was Steve Reich who said it was clear I was  involved in process, but it was a process the audience didn't participate in because they couldn't understand it. I'm on the side of keeping things mysterious, and I have never enjoyed understanding things. If I understand something, I have no further use for it. So I try to make a music which I don't understand and which will be difficult for other people to understand too." 

 

John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press, 2012. 

ABOUT EXPERIMENTAL (AND AMBIENT) MUSIC

"It seems now that what started as an esoteric bubble at the very edges of music had become transmuted into a mainstream"

 

 

BRIAN ENO (quoted by Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Cambridge University Press 1974/1999, p. xiii)

 

THE MUSIC OF FLIGHT AND LEVITATION

 In Denis Villeneuve's films, certain sequences and images are extraordinarily beautiful and powerful.  Take, for example, the brief sequence at the beginning of Dune Part Two, where Harkonnen soldiers levitate to the top of a rocky peak in the surreal light of an orange dawn.

(Villeneuve's predilection for the color orange is also evident in the magnificent Las Vegas episode in Blade Runner 2049).

The Harkonnens' weightless ascent is a dreamlike scene that defies the imagination.

I have no idea how it was done. The actors were probably suspended from cables against a green screen before being superimposed onto this desert landscape.

This image, like the entire scene, is related to my musical universe, to the music I like to listen to (I'm thinking of Brian Eno's Apollo) and that I try to create.

A dream of slowness and lightness, of flying in an almost aquatic atmosphere, of effortless floating ascension.

Watching this sequence, this image, makes me dream of the music that could accompany it.

Not just Hans Zimmer's synthetic, grainy layers.

But others, more fluid and airy, more minimal and subliminal...

But perhaps silence is the best soundtrack.

Silence, the music of dreams of flight and levitation... 

CHANCE

John Cage during his 1966 concert at the opening of the National Arts Foundation in Washington, D.C.

 

"Most people who believe that I'm interested in chance don't realize that I use chance as a discipline — they think I use it — I don't know — as a way of giving up making choices. But my choices consist in choosing what questions to ask...

If I ask the I Ching a question as though it were a book of wisdom, which it is,  I generally say, "What do you have to say about this?" and then I just listen to what it says and see if some bells ring or not"

 

John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press, 2012, p. 213. 

LOOKING TO COLLABORATE WITH EXPERIMENTAL FILMAKERS ON ATMOSPHERIC, SOUND-DRIVEN WORKS.

I’m looking to connect with filmmakers or visual and video artists creating experimental or conceptual short films — works that challenge form and perception. My aim is to create immersive audiovisual pieces where sound and image interact as equal elements, shaping mood and meaning together.

 

This is a creative and non-commercial initiative, focused on exploration, dialogue, and artistic process. 

 

If your visual practice moves through atmosphere, concept, abstraction, or emotional resonance, I’d love to hear from you. 

 

contact: DM or mail: wittman.christian [@] gmail.com

 

some links to my recent albums: 

 

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/album/acheron

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/.../music-to-listen...

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/album/akousmata

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/.../music-for-sound...

THE SOUND CHARTS OF JOHN CAGE

John Cage "Music of Changes" Manuscript Fragment 

Courtesy the John Cage Trust

 "Until that time, my music had been based on the traditional idea that you had to say something. The charts gave me my first indication of the possibility of saying nothing"

John Cage 

 

"(These elaborate sound charts) resemble checkerboards laid out with combinations of sounds. In composing, Cage makes "moves" by drawing lines — diagonals, horizontals, verticals — on the chart to determine which sound comes next" 

 

Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, Penguin Books, 2013, p. 168.