Presenting Absence Constitutive silences in music and sound art since the 1950s Juliana Hodkinson Ph.D. thesis Department of Musicology Faculty of Humanities University of Copenhagen 2007 Contents (summary) Preface Introduction PART I PRETEXTS Chapter 1: Literary, historical and theoretical pretexts PART II MIDCENTURY CAGEAN SILENCE Chapter 2: Cagean silence Chapter 3: Midcentury sensibilities and the empty artwork PART III LATE-20TH CENTURY SCORED SILENCES Chapter 4: Schweigen Chapter 5: Hören PART IV NEW-MILLENNIUM DIGITAL SILENCES Chapter 6: Negative presentation Chapter 7: Subliminal sound art CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS Bibliography and appendices 4 Contents Preface . 7 Introduction . 10 PART I PRETEXTS Chapter 1: Literary, historical and theoretical pretexts . 18 1.1 Literature review. 18 1.2 Conclusions from the literature review . 22 1.3 Some historical pretexts . 22 1.4 Historical overview . 24 1.5 Comments on the use of terms and theory . 37 PART II MIDCENTURY CAGEAN SILENCE 2.0 Introduction to Part II . 46 Chapter 2: Cagean silence. 49 2.1 Presentation of 4’33” . 49 2.2 Polyphonic ‘tacet’ . 49 2.3 Silence and decorum . 51 2.4 What is 4’33”? . 52 2.5 The compositional genesis of 4’33” . 55 2.6 Sound and intention . 59 2.7 The ethics of (sm)all sounds . 62 2.8 Cage and the work-concept . 64 Chapter 3: Midcentury sensibilities and the empty artwork. 73 3.1 Introduction . 73 3.2 Midcentury: a historical period . 74 3.3 New York: the new sensibility . 78 3.4 Sontag’s aesthetics of silence . 81 3.5 Mysticism . 82 3.6 The fi gure of the artist in the empty artwork . 84 3.7 The empty artwork . 86 3.8 Negative and affi rmative . 88 3.9 Several silences . 90 3.10 The affi rmative postmodern . 95 3.11 Klein and Lucier . 98 5 PART III LATE-20TH CENTURY SCORED SILENCES 4.0 Introduction to Part III . 102 Chapter 4: Schweigen . 105 4.1 Introduction . 105 4.2 Formal notation . 106 4.3 Notational surplus . 109 4.4 Fragment and absence . 113 4.5 History and referentiality . 116 4.6 Sound and idea . 118 4.7 The postmodern and the fragment . 120 4.8 Hermeneutics and musica negativa . 122 Chapter 5: Hören . 126 5.1 Introduction . 126 5.2 Formal notation . 127 5.3 The drama of listening: a classical style . 128 5.4 Prescription for action . 132 5.5 Resetting perception to zero . 133 5.6 Hermeneutics and performativity . 136 5.7 Phenomenology and performativity . 137 5.8 Performative listening and presence . 139 PART IV NEW-MILLENNIUM DIGITAL SILENCES 6.0 Introduction to Part IV . 142 Chapter 6: Negative presentation . 145 6.1 Introduction . 145 6.2 The sublime and the postmodern . 146 6.3 Silence and the sublime . 149 6.4 The artless aesthetic of the sublime . 150 6.5 The sublime as differend . 152 6.6 Negative presentation . 154 6.7 The too-much and the almost-nothing . 156 6.8 The subliminal sublime . 158 Chapter 7: Subliminal sound art . 159 7.1 Characterisations of the empirical fi eld . 159 7.2 Christof Migone’s Quieting . 162 7.3 Twins and mirrors . 166 7.4 Track 18 . 167 7.5 Tracks 22 and 36 . 169 7.6 Francisco López’ Untitled series . ..