Volume ! La revue des musiques populaires

9 : 2 | 2012 Contre-cultures n°2

Scream from the Heart: Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution Scream from the Heart : la révolution rock and roll de Yoko Ono

Shelina Brown

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/volume/3415 DOI: 10.4000/volume.3415 ISSN: 1950-568X

Printed version Date of publication: 15 December 2012 Number of pages: 107-123 ISBN: 978-2-913169-33-3 ISSN: 1634-5495

Electronic reference Shelina Brown, « Scream from the Heart: Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution », Volume ! [Online], 9 : 2 | 2012, Online since 15 June 2016, connection on 10 December 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/volume/3415 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/volume.3415

L'auteur & les Éd. Mélanie Seteun 107

Scream from the Heart: Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution

par Shelina Brown

UCLA

Abstract: While most academic scholarship on Yoko Ono Résumé : Alors que la majorité de la littérature universi- focuses on her work as a pioneering conceptual and perfor- taire traitant de Yoko Ono se concentre sur son rôle pion- mance artist, little has been devoted to her accomplishments nier en tant qu’artiste conceptuelle et performeuse, peu de as an experimental rock vocalist. In this paper, I will discuss recherches ont porté sur ce qu’elle a accompli en tant que Yoko Ono’s searing vocalizations, or screams, as politically chanteuse rock expérimentale. Dans cet article, je traiterai charged instances of abject sonic art, situated within the de la virulence de son expression vocale – ses cris – en tant tumultuous socio-political context of 1960’s U.S. coun- qu’exemples politiquement signi"ants d’un art sonore abject, terculture. Interpreting Yoko Ono’s pioneering vocal situés dans le contexte sociopolitique tumultueux de la con- performances from the albums, Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono tre-culture américaine des années 1960. À partir de l’analyse Band (1970) and Fly (1971), Ono’s revolutionary impulse de ses performances vocales sur les albums Yoko Ono: Plastic to ‘shout from the heart’ will be treated as a move to rede"ne Ono Band (1970) et Fly (1971), l’élan révolutionnaire d’Ono musical expression through gendered processes of abjection – son « cri du cœur » – sera considéré comme un geste de and cultural resistance. redé"nition de l’expression musicale par des processus genrés d’abjection et de résistance culturelle. Keywords : Gender – rock ’n’ roll – counterculture – avant- garde – Free Speech Movement (FSM) – abjection – body Mots-clés : Genre – rock ’n’ roll – contre-culture – avant- Volume politics garde – Free Speech Movement – abjection – politique du corps

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108 Shelina Brown

Sisters, O sisters Fluxus movement in 1950s and 1960s New York. Lets stand up right now During this period, New York was emerging as the It’s never too late center of what would later come to be termed con- To shout from the heart Yoko O#$, ‘Sisters, O Sisters’, Sometime ceptual art and performance art – art forms that in New York City (1972) disputed the humanistic ideal of ‘art as historical object’, demanding that art be rede"ned as a pro- Yoko breaks through more barriers with one scream cessual encounter unfolding between a work and its than most musicians do in a lifetime audience. Bill M%A&&'()*+, Record Mirror (1971) -is radical reconceptualisation of art was nothing less than revolutionary. Susan Sontag, in her in,u- most academic scholarship on ential essay, ‘One Culture and the New Sensibility’, While Yoko Ono focuses on her work rightly observed a drastic ‘transformation of the func- as a pioneering conceptual and performance artist, tion of art’ occurring throughout the 1960s (Sontag little has been devoted to her accomplishments as an 1966: 296). According to the identi"ed ‘new sensi- experimental rock vocalist who revolutionised wom- bility’, artistic praxis was to be (re)conceived as an en’s vocal practice in the late twentieth century. In extension of life rather than a detached commentary this paper, I will discuss Yoko Ono’s searing vocalisa- upon life. As an artist who actively established her- tions, or screams – for lack of a more re"ned terminol- self as a leading international "gure in the art world ogy – as politically charged instances of abject sonic during this time period, it follows that Ono’s own art 1, situated within the tumultuous socio-political works espouse this revolutionary ‘new sensibility’ context of 1960s U.S. counterculture. As a feminist – infusing a life-a.rming energy into the rare"ed performer, Yoko Ono’s revolutionary impulse to world of ‘high’ art. ‘shout from the heart’ will be treated as a move to A key aspect of the ‘new sensibility’, as de"ned by rede"ne musical expression through gendered pro- Sontag, was the move to include all art forms, both cesses of abjection and cultural resistance – her vocal ‘high’ and ‘low’, within an egalitarian, inclusive de"- performances constituting an impassioned response nition of ‘art’.3 Exemplifying this practice of the ‘new to contemporary movements in art and politics. sensibility’, Yoko Ono, the avant-garde conceptual Whether working in the media of conceptual art, artist, opened herself to the possibility of carrying performance art, or popular music, Yoko Ono’s cre- out her artistic experimentations within the world of ative output re,ects one woman’s drive to challenge rock and roll. -rough her creative partnership with the socially constructed boundaries that prescribe John Lennon, Yoko Ono gained access to some of ! n° 9-2 and delimit the acceptable parameters of artistic the most in,uential popular musicians of the 1960s. experience.2 To this end, the impetus behind Ono’s Her arrival on the rock and roll scene was welcomed subversive work is in part derived from her early by the more discerning, forward-thinking record-

Volume involvement in avant-garde art scenes, primarily the ing artists of the time. -roughout the 1960s, there 109 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution was an increased interest in avant-garde or ‘high’ art artistic processes as a means of ‘surviving’ within musical experimentation amongst popular musicians, the world at large. As a Japanese woman active two notable examples of this phenomenon being the in white male-dominated avant-garde art circles in,uence of Stockhausen’s tape compositions upon as well as the notoriously androcentric world of the Beatles’ studio practices, as well as Robert Sche/’s rock and roll, Ono was faced with the challenge of noise experiments at the Ann Arbor ONCE festivals inserting herself into powerful, hegemonic cultural taking hold of a young Iggy Pop. Prior to joining milieux that discouraged the participation of inde- forces with John Lennon, Yoko Ono was involved in pendent, creative women – and moreover, women avant-garde, Cagean experimental music circles, and identi"ed as racially ‘other’. Indeed, Ono’s will to her familiarity with electroacoustic music contributed ‘survive’ through art was initiated in response to to her unique interpretation of rock and roll accord- the oppressive forces that sought to silence her cre- ing to a ‘new sensibility’. Ono’s experimentation in ative voice, and relegate her to the margins. popular music was thus initiated at a time when the In response to such silencing forces, Yoko Ono’s socio-cultural function of rock and roll was shift- feminist anthem, ‘Sisters, O Sisters’ (1972), calls ing from that of ‘relaxation and diversion’, towards for women to vocalise their demand for equal- ful"lling a more artistic, re,exive, and often overtly ity – to ‘shout from the heart’. Given Ono’s native political function (Sontag 1966: 303). Japanese cultural background, her usage of the term, By the late 1960s, Yoko Ono thus occupied a ‘heart’ can be interpreted in terms of the Japanese borderline position within the U.S. cultural Buddhistic notion of kokoro, an expression encom- sphere, working coterminously within the realms passing Western conceptions of heart and spirit, of avant-garde conceptual art and rock and roll. pointing to the deepest reaches of human feeling Embracing the transformative, ‘new sensibil- and interiority. According to the revolutionary sen- ity’ of the era, Ono’s musical experimentations timent expressed in ‘Sisters, O Sisters’, then, the were undergirded by her countercultural politi- most e/ective expressions of feminist cultural and cal convictions, particularly her commitment to political resistance emerge from the ‘deepest reaches’ the Women’s Movement. -roughout her exten- of the gendered, female body. In her more experi- sive career, Yoko Ono has constituted a powerful mental musical works predating ‘Sisters, O Sisters’, feminist voice within global popular culture. Her such as the searing, ‘Why?’ (1970), and ‘Don’t Worry musical output often deals explicitly with themes Kyoko (Mommy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in Volume of gender inequality, oppression, and the need the Snow’ (1969/1971), Ono’s screams emerge from for feminist cultural resistance. According to art the depths of her body, unleashing a subversive vocal- historian Midori Yoshimoto, Ono has repeatedly ity that threatens to destabilise not only the bound- ! n° 9-2 claimed that for her, ‘art is a means of survival’ ary between music and noise, but also the gendered (Yoshimoto 2005: 79). Ono’s creative urgency and racialised sonic codes that delineate acceptable thus points to a wider political aim of employing modes of vocal musical expression. In their politicised 110 Shelina Brown

interpretation, Ono’s unruly vocalisations thus point The Scream as Sonic Abjection back to the deepest reaches of her own unique, albeit In the "eld of academic musicology, Tamara Levitz gendered and racialised body. stands as one of the few scholars to date who has In this paper, Yoko Ono’s extreme vocalisations will engaged with the music, and revolutionary vocal thus be treated as revolutionary cultural expressions practices of Yoko Ono. In her article, ‘-e Un"nished that constitute visceral responses to 1960s and early Music of John and Yoko: Imagining Gender and 1970s political movements and countercultural Racial Equality in the Late 1960s’, Levitz provides practices. Taking as a starting point the assertion an insightful, even poetic, interpretation of the musi- that the power of Ono’s ‘scream’ lies in its violent, cal nuances of Ono’s oeuvre, taking into account jarring evocation of an intense bodily immediacy, the gendered discourses of eastern philosophy and I would like to argue that this ‘bodily immediacy’ Cagean avant-gardism that come to be challenged that is produced by her ‘scream’ is also bound to and reinterpreted through Ono’s performances. In paradoxical process of bodily abjection. My central her discussion of Ono’s work, Levitz puts forward the contention is that in the context of Yoko Ono’s notion that Ono’s extreme vocalisations give rise to vocal performances, the scream functions as an act an increased awareness of the performer’s body – in of sonic abjection, and brings to the fore a mar- Levitz’s view, Ono’s ‘screams’ thus constitute extreme ginalised body negotiating, and defying, its own acts of corporeal expression that cannot be achieved liminal borders within the wider socio-political through more conventional, lyrical practices of ‘sing- formation. -e following discussion is structured ing’. Levitz writes: in two parts: "rst, I will provide a psycho-social “[Ono’s] voice is not beautiful, lyrical, or accompa- interpretation of Kristeva’s theory of abjection as a nimental, and thus does not inspire daydreaming or means of understanding the scream as an embod- nostalgia. Rather, it forces an awareness of Yoko’s very real existence, as it relates imaginatively with listeners’ ied, revolutionary vocalisation and a politicised own inner sounds and the emotions attached to them” mode of artistic expression; second, I will contex- (Levitz, 2005: 223). tualise Yoko Ono’s screams as extreme vocalisations that straddle the liminal boundaries of numerous For Levitz, Ono’s vocal performance communicates contemporary, revolutionary and countercultural a sense of her bodily interiority that in turn resonates with listeners’ own experience of their bodies. -is discourses and practices. Each section will inte- visceral, embodied connection between performer grate interpretive musical observations; Yoko Ono’s and listener is thus distinguished from the wistful extreme vocal works from the albums, Yoko Ono: ‘daydreams’ inspired by lyrical singing. Following

! n° 9-2 Plastic Ono Band (1970) and Fly (1971) will be Levitz’ interpretation, we might infer that in order for considered as evocations of an immediate, revolu- a vocal performance to inspire a ‘daydream’, or any tionary, abject body politics. form of escapist fantasy, it must follow an established

Volume semiotic code that in turn garners a pre-conceived 111 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution aesthetic response in the listener. Ono’s performance thus enables ‘the critique and renewal of discourse’ of her sonic bodily interiority, however, gives rise to a (Barrett, 2011:13). Turning to the realm of musi- shared experience of the ‘inner sounds’ that precede cal practice, then, one can say that Levitz’ identi"ed symbolisation. Further, Levitz proposes that these modes of acceptable singing – ‘beautiful, lyrical, ‘inner sounds’ are tied to ‘emotions’, thereby imply- accompanimental’ – each conform to abstract, ‘sym- ing that it is possible that human a/ective experience bolic’ systems and standard conventions that guaran- precedes the codi"ed realm of semiotic abstraction. tee and maintain musical ‘meaning’ within a given Such an affective experience would no doubt be social order. On the other hand, Ono’s ‘inner sounds’ distinguished from the codi"ed a/ects transmitted suggest a semiotic disposition dangerously encroach- through standardised musical practices. ing on the threshold of the ‘symbolic’ – embodied, visceral vocalisations that promise a Kristevan revo- As a means of theorizing Levitz’ above-mentioned lution in ‘musical language’. proposition, I will turn to the work of French revi- sionist psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva, whose work pro- -e Kristevan model of the ‘semiotic’ and the ‘sym- vides a critical exploration of the embodied aspect bolic’ is not a dialectical binary, but rather marks informing linguistic and artistic processes. Kristeva’s an attempt to formulate a relational dynamic that Revolution in Poetic Language (1984) o/ers a psy- accounts for the often conflictual relationship choanalytic perspective on the embodied, material between the materiality of human lived experience processes that undergird discursive formations, and and the abstractions of human consciousness that the development of human subjectivity. Within this forms subjectivity, language, and discursive mean- in,uential work, Kristeva develops a unique mode of ing. While Ono’s ‘screams’ thus occupy a Kristevan semiotic analysis, identifying two oppositional, yet ‘semiotic disposition’, it is also true that her ‘semiotic’ coterminous properties of discourse: the symbolic vocalisations often simultaneously occupy a liminal and the semiotic. While the ‘symbolic’ refers to all space both within and without a ‘symbolic’, codi"ed extant linguistic and cultural systems that construct range of vocal expression. Ono’s extreme vocalisations meaning, the ‘semiotic’ points to the sonorous qual- often slip into ranges of codi"able musical expression, ities of language, and the material, embodied expe- sometimes even pronouncing discernible words and rience that lies beyond (or within the "ssures of) phrases, or repeating melodic patterns – but Ono the ‘symbolic’. According to the Kristevan model, refuses to linger in the realm of the symbolic. a ‘revolution’ in language occurs in the enunciative Listening to a piece such as ‘Why?’, the opening Volume moment when the semiotic collides with the sym- track from Yoko Ono’s "rst solo record, Yoko Ono/ bolic – that is, when language assumes its embodied Plastic Ono Band (1970), the listener is assaulted manifestation. According to a Kristevan perspective, with a series of brutal ‘screams’ presenting a fraught ! n° 9-2 the revolutionary potential of artistic practice lies in imbroglio of bodily ‘noises’ that disrupt, defy, and its capacity to bring about such a collision within a ultimately trans"gure various musico-symbolic codes. politicised context; the artist’s ‘semiotic disposition’ Interpreted solely in terms of its lyrical ‘symbolic’ 112 Shelina Brown

content, this piece consists of a repetition of the electric guitar, Yoko Ono’s maniacal vocal acrobatics word, ‘why’. While the contour of the word, ‘why’, compete with John Lennon’s shrieking guitar slides. is repeatedly conjured, however, the searing ebb and -e vocal techniques that Ono employs in the per- ,ow of screams brutally deconstruct the word to the formance are mainly derived from her avant-garde point of collapsing its symbolic manifestation. -e experimentations with the Nagra recorder. Utilizing choice of the word, ‘why’, is signi"cant, in that it this technology, Ono would practise singing along constitutes a highly polysemous utterance. Based on to her voice played backwards, and at high frequen- the in,ection of the speaker/singer’s voice, as well as cies (Woo 2006: 286). In liberating her singing voice the semantic context, the meaning of ‘why’ changes from a linguistic intonation, Ono is able to veer into drastically. ‘Why’ might alternately function as a a liminal sonic space that is at once music and noise. question, an answer (‘that is why’), a demand, or as Feminist rock historian Gillian Gaar describes the an expression of insurmountable grief or rage. In the sonic context of this piece as ‘a harsh, confrontational course of Ono’s performance, the many meanings of barrage of noise in which the instrumentation and ‘why’ are rendered and rent in turn, giving rise to a vocals were just barely restrained form tumbling over vocal persona in con,ict with a verbal symbolic order. into complete chaos’ (Gaar, 1992: 234). Although academic musicology has yet to fully Taking into account the often jarring juxtapositions explore the implications of applying a Kristevan that constitute any one of Ono’s extreme vocal works, conception of the ‘symbolic’ and ‘semiotic’ to a it is possible to consider these as expressions of a musical context, in the context of my interpretation fragmented bodily interiority. While such ‘screams’ of ‘Why?’, I will propose that the ‘symbolic’ musi- challenge the border between music and bodily noise, cal content can be heard in the performance of the the disjunctive, jarring succession of vocalisations rhythm section. After a chaotic intro of merely 17 also simultaneously challenge the listener’s ability seconds, Ringo Starr settles into an almost ironically to construe Ono’s own performative persona as a regular 4/4 beat, and Klaus Voorman grooves on an uni"ed subjectivity, and indeed, whether her bodily ascending scalar bass ri/. While the drums provide a interiority is in fact a singular material reality, or a straight rock and roll backbeat, the bass ri/ empha- performed amalgam of bodily interiorities. Lennon’s sises the "rst beat of the measure, suggesting a funk famous characterisation of Ono as ‘the woman with in,uence; linked together, these two highly repetitive the 16 track voice’, indicates that her experimental rhythmic phrases construct a bouncy, driving cross- vocal techniques had the e/ect of not only causing rhythm that sounds ‘unbreakable’, endlessly chugging a rupture within standard musical practice, but also along a steady course. A strong sense of rhythmic rupturing her own vocal subjectivity. Rather than a ! n° 9-2 regularity is thus established early on in the piece, and uni"ed bodily interiority, Ono’s vocal contortions it is against this order, a kind of musical ‘symbolic’, point to a bodily interiority-in-process, that is, a body that Yoko Ono’s vocal performance exerts a disrup- consisting of multiple, fragmented, often opposing,

Volume tive in,uence. Mimicking the timbre of the distorted material ‘interiorities’ vying for sonic existence. 113 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution

Considering Yoko Ono’s performance of ‘Don’t cal models thus enable a connection to be forged Worry Kyoko (Mommy’s Only Looking for her Hand between embodied processes of artistic expression in the Snow)’ included on her 1971 album, Fly, her and wider political aims of socio-cultural subversion, vocal subjectivity shifts radically, suggesting the pres- and revolt. In her in,uential work, Kristeva and the ence of multiple ‘voices’ within the singing subject. Political (2005), Cecilia Sjöholm provides the fol- In my interpretation, ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’ unfolds lowing assessment: as a competitive timbral tug-of-war between at least “The writings of Kristeva were, already from the start, three distinct voices: that of the kabuki vibrato, the politically motivated. Rather than project has consisted alto voice repeatedly intoning the words ‘don’t worry’, of a systematic displacement of politics from the public and a high-pitched, cyborgian vocality that suggests a to the intimate domain of signification.” (Sjöholm machine-like, synthesised quality – one that vacillates 2005: 3) between arti"cial and hyper-feminine. As an avant- Always critical of second-wave feminist identity garde artist who was interested in incorporating aural politics that put forward the individual as a uni"ed experimentation into her conceptual art throughout subjectivity, Kristeva proposes a mode of approach- the 1960s, Yoko Ono was highly in,uenced by ‘John ing human expression and individuality as radically Cage’s decision to widen the range of sounds available embodied, heteregeneous processes. In every instance for purposes of musical composition’ (Danto 2005: of human expression, the ‘semiotic’ and ‘symbolic’ are 70). Indeed, Yoko’s performances reveal a host of brought into dialogue, resulting in a dynamic process vocal in,uences, ranging from animalistic noises, to of meaning formation whereby bodily noise, silence, the highly re"ned art of kabuki, and Second Viennese and non-language are expelled in order to re-establish School opera. Her ability to shift between these rad- symbolic codes that guarantee meaning. -e political ical vocal subjectivities with such visceral power is dimension of artistic practice lies in its capacity to a testament to Yoko Ono’s early training in opera bring about a revolutionary recon"guration of the performance.4 symbolic order through creatively enacting moments Ono’s subversive, transformative vocalisations thus of semiotic rupture. resist categorisation according to the widely adopted -e Kristevan theory of the abject, expounded in her musical ‘symbolic’ codes that would render them 1982 work, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, ‘beautiful, lyrical, or accompanimental’; instead, thematically anticipates the concepts of border-cross- Ono’s ‘screams’ are violent, revolutionary expul- ing and liminality central to Revolution in Poetic Volume sions emerging from an unstable body, an interi- Language. In Powers of Horror, however, Kristeva ority-in-process. -e ‘semiotic rupture’ that results chooses to theorise processes of subject formation as the visceral origins of the ‘scream’ collide with rather than linguistic expression, focussing on the ! n° 9-2 the threshold of the ‘symbolic’ can be understood negative drive to expulsion that undergirds subjec- as a subversive instance of border-crossing. As a tive individuation. -e trauma of birth, and one’s mode of psycho-social critique, Kristeva’s theoreti- separation from the mother’s body, lies at the heart 114 Shelina Brown

of Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of abjection – and that both challenge and (in their expulsion) serve to this fear-inspiring moment of expulsion is thought maintain the borders of the uni"ed body, and the to form the basis of later psychological processes of uni"ed subject. Our ‘horrifying’ bodily emissions subject formation. are relegated to the realm of the abject, that ever Considered in the context of human development, present reminder of the uncertainty of our position the "rst experience of abjection occurs at the moment within the symbolic order. -e negative, foreboding of birth: the child emerges as a discrete individual, a/ects evoked by the abject are closely linked with while still maintaining a connection to the mother’s those fearful, threatening qualities associated with the body. In this scenario, the mother is not an ‘object’ feminine in Western patriarchal cultures – the power distinguished by the child, rather, the maternal body of this abject ‘horror’ lies in its latent potential to is abject, occupying a liminal space that is at once self dismantle a symbolic order that is undergirded by a and other. Within a Western patriarchal context, as necessary expulsion of the feminine. In Kristeva’s oft- the child matures, the abject space of the maternal quoted words, the abject ‘pulls us towards the point must be repressed in favour of the law of the Father, where meaning collapses’ (1980: 3). For Kristeva, represented by the symbolic order. -e unspeakable then, the abject can be interpreted as the body’s insis- ‘horror’ that underlies abjection, and subject forma- tent presence revolting against a repressive symbolic tion, can thus be interpreted, from a feminist per- order, threatening to rupture patriarchal ‘meaning’. spective, as the horror of gendered repression. What Returning to the discussion of Yoko Ono’s extreme renders this form of repression, or expulsion of the vocalisations, I would like to interpret these as abject maternal, particularly unsettling, is that it can never sonic expressions. As a vocal expulsion unleashed be complete. In Kristeva’s words, ‘the abject is some- from the deepest reaches of Ono’s body, the scream thing rejected from which one does not part’ (1980: points to a violent abjection that conjures the pangs 4). -e individuated subject always maintains an of birth. Indeed, Ono has been quoted as referring embodied connection with the pre-verbal authority to her vocalisations as inspired by her experiences of the abject maternal body. in labour. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, critics Beyond the mother-child relationship in early devel- frequently referred to Ono’s vocal performances in opmental stages, considered within a broader con- terms of ‘sickness, su/ering, and unintelligibility’, text, abjection comes to signify all of the processes responding to a particularly disturbing quality iden- of expulsion that serve to maintain our bodily, and ti"ed therein (Woo, 2006: 280-281). Because of its subjective boundaries. According to Kristeva scholar, subject matter that directly thematises motherhood, S.K. Keltner, ‘abjection is an ambiguous threshold Ono’s lament for her lost daughter, ‘Don’t Worry ! n° 9-2 both essential to and threatening of the tenuous Kyoko (Mommy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in individuation of the subject’ (2011: 45). -e expul- the Snow)’, provides an apt example of Ono’s extreme sions of our bodies, be they bodily ,uids, or visceral vocal repertoire evoking processes of abjection. Ono’s

Volume ‘inner noises’, are thus ‘birthed’, or abjected entities daughter, Kyoko, was abducted in 1969 by her father, 115 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution art promoter Anthony Cox. While the moment of The Scream in socio-historical context: birth and the subsequent early stages of development 1960s revolutionary movements and might be considered to be the time when mother rock and roll counterculture and child develop an awareness of their abject bond, In my discussion of Yoko Ono’s experimental vocal the mother’s loss of a child later in life could be said works thus far, I have o/ered a possible means of to constitute a traumatic, secondary abjection – the theorizing her performances as ‘revolutionary’ from intense corporeal bond between mother and daugh- the perspective of Kristevan psychoanalytic critique; ter still lingers despite physical separation. -rough I would like to now take a step back from the more abjection of the maternal, the symbolic order, or the intimate processes of her vocal practice, to re,ect law of the Father is reinforced; or, in Ono’s case, the upon her vocalisations as musical responses to the division between mother and daughter is perpetrated wider socio-cultural revolutionary movements of the by the illegal intervention of Kyoko’s biological father. 1960s. An avant-garde artist who crossed over into -e multiple vocal ‘interiorities-in-process’ that were the world of rock and roll as John Lennon’s musical previously discussed in the context of this vocal per- partner, Yoko Ono assumed a highly public position formance also point to a ruptured maternal body in in the late 1960s US popular cultural sphere, one crisis. As the abject grapples for a ‘voice’, she is met that often resonated with the countercultural realms with a symbolic order guaranteed by her exclusion. of underground music and youth culture. According -e wavering, maniacal scream that ensues is one of to cultural historian and feminist critic, Marianne desperation, horror, trauma – but most of all, it sug- Dekoven, the late 1960s socio-cultural landscape gests the radical possibility of a sonic ‘other’ "nding was a highly transformative, dynamic terrain, char- expression.5 acterised by a shift away from modernity towards a postmodern, post-industrial social framework. For -e horror of the scream thus alerts us to a body in Dekoven, the emergence of the postmodern marked crisis, a body being ruptured, fragmented – a pre-ver- ‘the end of modernity’s totalizing, grandly synthesiz- bal, transformative body that resists co-optation ing utopianism... and the shift of modernity’s democ- within the symbolic order. As Ono’s screams twist in ratizing, capitalist, and individualist impulses to a and out of comprehensible semiotic codes, we hear commercial, popular, populist, subjectivist, multiple a sonic breakdown of her performative subjectivity, and di/use, unevenly critical or resistant, egalitarian- and the emergence of a bodily ‘interiority-in-pro- ism’ (2004: xvi). Yoko Ono’s entrance into the fore- Volume cess’. Given the fear of the feminine that comes to front of 1960s US music culture thus transpired at a be ascribed to the abject, Ono’s vocal performances time when the utopic, radical, revolutionary move- can be interpreted as a direct sonic challenge to the ments of the decade were at their peak – soon, how- ! n° 9-2 boundaries that anxiously prescribe and reinforce ever, these ‘grandly synthesizing’ modernist causes patriarchal order – the scream in this context thus would give way to postmodern fragmentation and marks a revolutionary, abject vocal expulsion. depoliticisation. 116 Shelina Brown

Initiating their experimental musical collaboration in pied a liminal status as a woman who straddled two 1968, the year that marked a critical, if not somewhat cultural spheres: that of avant-garde, or ‘high’ art, ominous turning point for 1960s countercultural and rock and roll counterculture. To further com- movements, Yoko Ono and John Lennon emerged plicate her position, Ono was often relegated to the as a celebrity ‘spokes-couple’ for various contem- margins of each of these disparate spheres of cultural porary causes such as the Anti-War Movement and production. As a member of the Fluxus conceptual the Women’s Movement.6 Considering the vari- art group in New York City, Yoko Ono faced a con- ous human rights campaigns that surfaced during siderable amount of gender-based discrimination. In the 1960s, one can say that this era in US history her own words: marked the entrance of formerly marginalised peo- “Being a woman and doing my thing in the [Fluxus] ples into the hegemonic realm of national politics – days was especially hard because I was a woman. Most the onset of the ‘populist, subjectivist, multiple and of my friends were all male and they tried to stop me di/use’ postmodern political landscape characterised from being an artist. They tried to shut my mouth and by Dekoven. It is "tting, then, that Yoko Ono, a tried to get me as an owner of the loft who helped in Japanese woman, would surface as a powerful public concerts” (Ono quoted in Woo, 232). "gure in the US at this historical moment. As the In the context of Fluxus, Ono’s male colleagues thus voices of formerly silenced, marginal social "gures persisted in viewing her as a salonnière-type "gure encroached upon the dominant order of middle-class within their art world instead of a bona "de artist in white culture, however, the year 1968 witnessed the her own right. As a Japanese woman, Ono also faced violent aftermath of the Summer of Love – race riots the additional burden of being type-cast as a ‘Zen’ broke out across the eastern US, and wide-spread artist by contemporary art critics, despite the criti- mistrust in the US government grew amongst the cal distance that she carefully maintained from such youth of the nation in response to the intensi"cation an artistic disposition. While Yoko Ono was indeed of violence in Vietnam. In many ways the tumul- instrumental in introducing John Cage to Zen phi- tuous political milieu of the late 1960s marked an losophy, within her artist’s manifesto, ‘-e Word of a historical moment of rupture. -e fraught border- Fabricator’ (1962), she clearly distinguishes her own lines between self and other, center and periphery, artistic project from that of the Cageian, Zen-inspired white and black, man and woman, were now being artist. Likening Zen enlightenment to a ‘plant-like’ called into question on a larger scale than ever before. state, Ono declares that she has no desire to attain -e revolutionary political movements of 1960s US such a stultifying mode of artistic ‘being’; instead, thus opened up a host of transformative social spaces, she proclaims that she will remain actively ‘groping

! n° 9-2 many of which were shaped by unfolding processes in the world of stickiness.’ -is disquieting image of of rupture and abjection. the ‘world of stickiness’ evokes a space of the abject, A politically-charged artist active within such a a womb-like world coated in the sticky residue of

Volume tumultuous, transformative era, Yoko Ono occu- life, its viscous borders blurring the boundaries of 117 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution self and other. As a doubly marginal "gure within of Ono, which caused the artist great anxiety, to the the world of 1960s art, facing discrimination as a point where she claims she developed a slight stutter. result of her racial and gender-based di/erence, Yoko Yoko Ono thus occupied a contradictory position Ono no doubt sorely felt the ‘stickiness’ of her abject within the counterculture that was simultaneously situation. both marginal and central. As John Lennon’s collabo- Upon entering the world of rock and roll, however, rator, she was very much at the centre of the world of Ono experienced a host of antagonistic reactions to rock music; as an Asian woman whose musical prac- her person and her musical work. While rock and roll tice was strongly in,uenced by the avant-garde, how- promised liberation from the oppressive socio-cul- ever, she remained a troublesome anomaly that could tural milieu of the post-war era, it was still a highly not be easily integrated into the androcentric, ‘low- androcentric cultural sphere, which allowed relatively art’ world of rock and roll. At a time when cultural few women into its folds. -roughout the 1960s, and social roles were being challenged and rede"ned, the majority of women musicians continued to be Yoko Ono was a highly visible public "gure who was objecti"ed within popular music genres, often rel- simultaneously ‘apart of’ as well as ‘expelled from’ egated to the role of the highly commodi"ed pop the identi"catory categories of artist, musician, and singer. -e general public, and the media’s backlash rock star. Her cultural positioning was thus abject against Yoko Ono no doubt stemmed from gendered – and through re-enacting processes of abjection in and racial anxieties that were evoked as a result of an her musical output, she was able to transform the independent-minded, Asian woman asserting herself reigning symbolic order that denied her inclusion as equal to her partner, John Lennon, the ‘hero’ of within its folds. In historical hindsight, then, it can be the counterculture. As is often the case in transforma- said that Ono’s abject, borderline cultural positioning tive historical periods, we see that despite the winds perhaps rendered her a "gure that was most keenly of change blowing in a new direction, certain key attuned to the transformative Zeitgeist of the times. aspects of the former ‘regime’ still linger. Nonetheless, -roughout the course of their highly public careers, within this countercultural milieu, Yoko Ono man- Yoko Ono and John Lennon were noted for their aged to actualise her experimental musical projects. passionate involvement in contemporary revolu- Her strongest advocate was of course, John Lennon, tionary political movements, publicly advocating who was convinced of the revolutionary potential of the end of the Vietnam War, and penning countless Ono’s music; John proudly proclaimed that Ono’s songs thematizing women’s equality, social injustice, Volume music was ‘20 years ahead of its time’ (Gaar 1992: and the need for social change. In the aftermath of 233). Notably, countercultural publications of the the Free Speech Movement (FSM) of 1964, youth day such as Rolling Stone magazine also strongly cultural protests of the 1960s placed a great deal of ! n° 9-2 supported Ono’s avant-garde rock and roll experi- importance on ‘raising one’s voice’ to bring about mentations. -e overwhelming majority of media revolutionary change – in the context of late 1960s publications, did, however, promote a negative view counterculture, vocalisation was thus considered a 118 Shelina Brown

key means of social, cultural, and indeed, individual, activity at the Telegraph and Bancroft intersection on liberation. As popular recording artists whose works the Berkeley campus. -is relatively small area was were informed by revolutionary politics, Yoko Ono the center of political speech-making at Berkeley; on and John Lennon’s musical output from this time the afternoon of October 1st, however, a civil rights was largely driven by a need to vocalise their desire activist, Jack Weinberg, was arrested for violating the for a better world. In this sense, the success of the newly instituted campus ban. According to historian FSM forged a powerful link between the vocalisation Max Heinrich, supporters of the FSM ‘view[ed] the and the actualisation of utopic ideals in the minds of triggering events [of the student protests, such as the socio-cultural activists and artists in the 1960s. campus ban on political activity, and the arrest of Jack According to historian M.J. Heale, public life in the Weinberg] as a moment of ‘truth’ when the exploit- late 1960s was characterised by a ‘pervasive activ- ative nature of power alliances in higher education ism, and this energy was grounded in part in the became visible – and intolerable to anyone with a realisation that the country was being fundamen- sensitive conscience’ (1968: 4). -e police car hold- tally transformed’ (2001: 9). -is ‘activism’ was not ing Jack Weinberg was soon surrounded by a mob restricted to the realm of politics; rather, it infused of non-violent student protestors, whose fervor was many contemporary US socio-cultural discourses. brought to a head by student activist Mario Savio’s -e transformative ‘new sensibility’ that Sontag iden- impassioned speech delivered atop the roof of the ti"ed in the art world could be characterised as one police car. Re,ecting on the importance of Savio’s aspect of the ‘activism’ that pervaded US culture at speech, historian Robert Cohen states that Savio’s the time. As well, the newly emergent discourse of address to the crowd ‘not only set the tone for the humanistic psychology had a wide-reaching impact non-violent occupation of the administration build- on 1960s US culture, promoting a positive view of ing – which culminated in the largest mass arrest of the transformative potential of the individual (Heale, students in American history – but also became the 2001: 15). -e discourse of humanistic psychology most famous oration in the early history of the New no doubt in,uenced the youth counterculture of the Left’ (2002: 1). Although the FSM began as a liberal day, for whom the desire for self-expression, and the movement aimed at ‘… restor[ing] the traditional expansion of one’s consciousness, was paramount. In political values that had been destroyed by bureau- the 1960s US, the active drive towards social trans- cracy, consumerism, and conformity’, in the after- formation was thus rooted in a widely held belief in math of the FSM, the late 1960s saw an increasing the capacity for individual transformation. radicalisation of public speech (DeGroot, 2008: 188). -e FSM can be considered a key, transformative With the onset of the Vietnam War, and mounting ! n° 9-2 historical moment that galvanised many US white racial tension within the nation, US students’ grew middle-class youth to embrace political activism, increasingly disillusioned with their government, and the power of political speech, or vocalisation. and the establishment in general. At such a time,

Volume On October 1, 1964, a ban was enacted on political the success of the FSM inspired the hope of a youth 119 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution cultural revolution. Most importantly, the power of moreover, the FSM marked a moment of historical youth culture was consolidated in a dramatic oration rupture characterised by the emergence of the ‘voice delivered by a young student activist. of the youth’. -e Berkeley student riots served to Mario Savio, however, was not the only orator who reinforce the importance of free speech – and the bravely vocalised his political convictions atop a need for vocalisation as a means of liberation from police car on October 1st, 1964. Bettina Aptheker, social oppression. a highly in,uential "gure in the FSM protests, also Several years after the success of the FSM, US psychi- mounted the historic police car on that day. Aptheker atrist, Arthur Janov, published his in,uential work, recounts her experiences as the only female student "e Primal Scream, which spurred wide-spread inter- involved in the FSM as follows: ‘[it] was a moment est in a unique mode of psychotherapy that hinged of great personal liberation for me. It gave me a taste of power – not in the sense of power over but in the on the release of repressed feelings through the sense of self-empowerment’ (2002: 131). -e sight practice of screaming. Primal -erapy – or ‘Scream’ of Aptheker atop the infamous police car was broad- -erapy, as it came to be known – gained a great cast across the nation, and had a powerful impact on deal of popularity in the early 1970s, owing to the many women viewers. Aptheker recalls that despite fact that numerous celebrities, including Yoko Ono the progressive values espoused by the FSM, the and John Lennon, took part in this unconventional movement remained male-dominated. course of treatment. Janov’s monograph, "e Primal “[It] was men who dominated our meetings and dis- Scream, carefully outlines his mode of psychotherapy; cussions. Women did most of the clerical work and his central contention is that neurosis is a side-e/ect fund-raising and provided food. None of this was parti- of a culture that encourages its subjects to repress cularly recognised as work, and I never questioned this their emotions as a means of assuming the guise of division of labor or even saw it as an issue!” (2002: 130) controlled, adult social subjects. -e release of the Aptheker’s incredulous exclamation point reveals the scream is thus an outpouring of unbridled feeling enormity of the social change that occurred between that Janov considers to be the dialectical opposite of 1964 and 2002, the publication date of her article neurosis and repression. Janov writes: remembering the FSM. Despite the male-dominated constitution of the FSM, in climbing the police car, “Primal therapy is essentially a dialectical process in

which one matures as he feels his childish needs, in Volume and having her voice heard, Aptheker inspired a gen- which a person becomes warm when he feels coldness, eration of women to ‘speak up and be heard’ – her in which one becomes strong when they feel weak, in oration thus served as one of the many catalysts for which feeling the past brings one wholly into the pres- the growth of the Women’s Movement throughout ent, and in which feeling the death of the unreal system ! n° 9-2 the 1960s and early 1970s. -e FSM thus laid the brings one back into life. It is the reverse of neurosis, in foundation for the successes of later political move- which one is afraid and acts big, and continually acts ments that gained momentum in the late 1960s; out the past in the present.” (1970: 412) 120 Shelina Brown

-e dialectical binaries that Janov de"nes suggest a sation, as a means of bringing about a more harmoni- dualistic structure of human consciousness; liberation ous re-ordering of society and the individual. form repression – the ultimate ‘maturation’ of the sub- ject, in Janovian terms – is brought about when the two oppositional states of mind are brought into con- Conclusion ,ict, and the subject is able to synthesise a healthy bal- Considering the many avenues of inquiry that have ance between the two. -e stimulus for this dialectical yet to be thoroughly explored in relation to Yoko process is the scream, a ‘primal’ vocalisation that opens Ono’s musical oeuvre, my aim in this article is to the ,oodgates to our childhood, pre-neurotic state. raise certain key issues pertaining to her vocal perfor- Just as the FSM advocated the need for public speech, mance, and the socio-historical context of said per- and political vocalisation as a means of combating formance, in order to arrive at some useful insights social oppression, the contemporary psychotherapeu- for future feminist analysis. Abjection, in its Kristevan tic practice of Primal -erapy also called for individu- interpretation, is not a theoretical concept that can als to tap into an extreme, powerful vocality in order be explained in a few paragraphs; however, the enig- to ward o/ the strictures of a repressive social order. matic nature of this concept serves as a source of In the case of both the FSM and Primal -erapy, inspiration for those of us who are drawn to the more then, vocalisation is perceived as an extreme expulsion challenging pieces of music that colour the landscape that holds the power to bring about transformation of of late twentieth century experimentation. -e power society as well as the individual psyche. Reframed in of horror – of that which disturbs, and unsettles – Kristevan terms, the transformative potential of vocal- ultimately rests in its capacity to suggest an alternative isation can be considered the enunciative moment to the naturalised arbitrary, and in so doing, to allow that brings about a ‘semiotic rupture’ of the symbolic us a momentary glimpse into (and respite from) the order. As Mario Savio and Bettina Aptheker shout oppressive operations of a symbolic order. Because of out to the masses of protestors, and as Yoko Ono her spirited urge to shout from the heart, in the late unleashes primal screams for her lost daughter, vocali- 1960s and early 1970s, Yoko Ono produced a series sation assumes a meaning beyond ‘giving voice to’ the of screams that linger in the popular soundscape as symbolic, rather, vocalisation serves the function of abject expulsions of a woman’s body. -e horrors of rede"ning the parameters of the symbolic. According this body come to symbolise ‘unspeakable’ aspects of to such a Kristevan analysis, the transformative poten- material existence that tug at the boundaries of sym- tial of the extreme vocalisation is rooted in the per- bolisation, and thereby suggest the possibility of an sistent presence of the abject body. As the source of alternate reality. As we engage with her vocalisations, ! n° 9-2 the revolutionary, semiotic content, the body lingers and tackle the interpretation of that which de"es in the scream that is expels; Yoko Ono’s extreme vocal meaning, is it possible that we, too, are transformed? music is a product of a cultural milieu that viewed In this way, Yoko Ono’s rock and roll revolution can

Volume vocalisation, and in particular, forms of abject vocali- only gain momentum from this point onward. 121 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution

Bibliography A0)1*2*+, Bettina (2002), “Gender Politics and the G')&'#, Todd (1987), "e Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of FSM: A Meditation on Women and Freedom of Rage, New York: Bantam Books. Speech”, In "e Free Speech Movement: Re#ections H*5&*, M.J. (2001), "e Sixties in America: History, on Berkeley in the 1960s, Eds. Robert Cohen Politics and Protest, Chicago and London, Fitzroy and Reginald E. Zelnik, Berkeley: University of Dearborn Publishers. California Press, p. 129-139. H*'#+'%1, Max (1968), "e Beginning: Berkeley 1964, A34'#, Stephanie (2003), “-e 1960’s: World Wide New York and London: Columbia UP. Waves”, In Global Village: "e 1960’s, Ed. Stephanie Aquin. Montreal: Snoeck Publishers. H*#6+'%2(, Jon ed. (1990), Yoko Ono: To See the Skies, Milan: Mazzotta. B5++*)), Estelle (2011), Kristeva Reframed: Interpreting Key "inkers for the Arts. London: I.B.Tauris. J5#$:, Arthur (1970), Primal Scream: Primal "erapy: "e Cure for Neurosis, New York: Dell Publishing B$4++'546, Nicolas (2005), “Yoko Ono and Gentle Co. Energy”, In Yoko Ono: Horizontal Memories, Ed. Grete Arbu, Oslo: Astrup Museum of Modern Art, J5#$:, Arthur (1991), "e New Primal Scream: Primal p. 39-46. "erapy 20 Years On, Wilmington, DE: Enterprise Publishing Inc. C$1*#, Robert (2002), “T1* M5#7 M*5#'#8( $9 )1* FSM”, "e Free Speech Movement: Re#ections K*&)#*+, S. K. (2011), Kristeva: "resholds, on Berkeley in the 1960s, Eds. Robert Cohen and Cambridge: Polity Press. Reginald Zelnik, Berkeley: University of California K+'()*:5, Julia (1980), Powers of Horror: Essays on Press, p. 1-53. Abjection, Trans. Margaret Waller, New York: D5#)$, Arthur C. (2005), Unnatural Wonders: Essays Columbia UP. from the Gap Between Art and Life, New York: K+'()*:5, Julia (1974), Revolution in Poetic Language, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Trans. Margaret Waller, New York: Columbia UP. Utopia Limited: "e Sixties DeKoven, Marianne (2004), K:5+5#, Gunnar B. (2005), “Yoko Ono: Horizontal and the Emergence of the Postmodern, Durham and Memories”, In Yoko Ono: Horizontal Memories, Ed. London: Duke UP. Grete Arbu, Oslo: Astrup Museum of Modern Art, Volume D*G+$$), Gerard J. (2008), "e Sixties Unplugged: p. 7-12. A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade, L*:');, Tamara (2005), “-e Un"nished Music of

London: Harvard UP. ! n° 9-2 John and Yoko”, In Impossible to Hold: Women and G55+, Gillian G. (1992), “Punk Revolution”, in She’s a Culture in the 1960’s, Eds. Avital H. Bloch and Rebel: "e History of Women in Rock & Roll, Seattle: Lauri Umansky, New York and London: New York Seal Press. UP, p. 217-239. 122 Shelina Brown

M4#+$*, Alexandra (2000), “-e Spirit of YES: -e S$#)58, Susan (1966), “One Culture and the New Art and Life of Yoko Ono”, Munroe, Alexandra Sensibility”, In Against Interpretation. and Jon Hendricks, Yes: Yoko Ono, New York: U*&5#6, Hanne Beate (2005), “Yoko Ono: Horizontal Japan Society and Harry N. Abrams Inc., p. 10-37. Memories”, In Yoko Ono: Horizontal Memories, Ed. O#$ Yoko, 1971, Fly, London: Apple. Grete Arbu, Oslo: Astrup Museum of Modern Art, p. 125-132. O#$ Yoko, (1992), “Preface”, In She’s a Rebel: "e History of Women in Rock & Roll. Gillian G. Gaar, W*##*+, Jann S. (2000), Lennon Remembers, London Seattle: Seal Press. & New York: Verso. O#$ Yoko and John Lennon (1972), Sometime in New W'*#*+, Jon (1989), “Pop and Avant-Garde: -e Case of John and Yoko”, Popular Music and Society, 22, York City, London: Apple/EMI. p. 1-16. R$(;72, -eodore (1969), "e Making of a W$$, Jung Ah (2006), "e Post-War Art of On Kawara Counterculture: Re#ections on the Technocratic and Yoko Ono: As If Nothing Happened, Doctoral Society and its Youthful Opposition, Garden City, Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles. NY: Doubleday. Y$(1'=$)$, Midori (2005), Into Performance: Japanese S<$1$&=, Cecilia (2005), Kristeva and the Political, Women Artists in New York, New Brunswick, New New York: Routledge. Jersey and London: Rutgers UP. ! n° 9-2

Volume 123 Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution

Endnotes of their individual perspective, whereas ‘low’ art was marked by mass production and impersonality. Matthew Arnold’s seminal work on ‘high’ art, Culture and Anarchy (1869), 1. -e term ‘Abject Art’ is typically employed to refer to a de"nes ‘high’ art as that which serves the purpose of ele- tradition of radical performance art that involves the use vating the morality of society. In contrast to Arnold’s thesis, of bodily ,uids and excretions as a means of conveying Sontag observes that the increasing tendency to incorporate the often disturbing processes of abjection. Julia Kristeva’s modern technologies into all forms of art has resulted in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982) articulates a blurring of the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’. As a theory of abjection that gained prominence within aca- avant-garde musics come to be more specialised and scien- demia and experimental "ne art scenes throughout the tistic, popular musics, too, seek inspiration in technological 1980s and 1990s. To brie,y capsulate Kristeva’s psycho- innovations. analytic perspective, abjection refers to the cultural and 4. In her seminal article on Yoko Ono, ‘-e Spirit of YES: linguistic processes of exclusion that function to expel and -e Art and Life of Yoko Ono’ (2000), Alexandra Munroe marginalise that which cannot be symbolised within a pater- observes that Yoko Ono’s foundation in classical training nalistic economy of signi"cation. In my discussion of Yoko directly contributed to her later revolutionary vocal style. Ono’s extreme vocalisations, I hope to demonstrate that the unsettling ‘screams’ that Ono unleashes can be interpreted 5. In applying a western feminist psychoanalytic framework to as abject vocal emissions that both disturb and challenge the Yoko Ono’s vocal works, one runs the risk of putting under listening audience. erasure her unique cultural positioning as a borderline "gure whose feminist music constitutes a response to both 2. As a pioneering conceptual artist active within both Japanese Japanese and Western forms of patriarchy. In order to aug- and New York art worlds, Yoko Ono’s works aimed to chal- ment my Kristevan analysis, in the context of my extended lenge conventional notions of art and artistic experience. Dissertation project, I will provide a cross-cultural, compar- One of her most renowned feminist art works, Cut Piece ative interpretation of Japanese and Western context, in this (1964), required audience members to cut o/ a piece of the article I have chosen to focus on these works as responses to artist’s garments, gradually exposing her nude body. Cut a Western paternalistic economy of signi"cation. Piece invited audience participation in its realisation, and evoked a powerful feminist message concerning the role of 6. Yoko Ono and John Lennon released Un$nished Music No.1: Two Virgins women in society as objects of a male visual hegemony. in 1968. -e work consisted of avant-garde tape music that was spliced together by Yoko and John over the 3. Sontag distinguishes ‘high’ and ‘low’ art in terms of the course of a night-long acid trip. -is work stands as one uniqueness of the art produced. In Sontag’s view, tradi- of the "rst instances of avant-garde musical practice being tional ‘high’ art was characterised by the artists’ expression made available to the general public. Volume

! n° 9-2