John Cage

The "music" that John Cage claims to create seems to fit in with any other art that is extremely controversial at the time. He creates scores on the basis that harmony is not important, which does not follow traditional ways of writing music. He has "little feeling for harmony", even though it is predetermined as one of the basic elements of music. His music does not necessarily make sense to me, nor do I enjoy it as real art as it takes no real skill, however I believe that his ideas are important as with any other ideas that protest against traditional ways.

When Cage is asked how he feels about his work being viewed as comical, he responds that he does not mean to be funny, however, "if something funny happened, it would be acceptable... better laughter than tears." His response is pretty great, as I find his work to be mildly funny. His notorious piece "4:33" in which he merely sits on a chair in front of a piano and does nothing, is funny in the sense that it takes no real skill, work, or seriousness. The only possible thing that I can appreciate about this piece is that it is ambient in a way, as it forces the audience to listen to silence which, naturally, brings relaxation. It allows the audience to listen to sounds all around them that would otherwise go unnoticed or unappreciated, not that random coughs or chairs creaking need to be appreciated.

Fluxus Art

Drip...Drip. Drip. Drip...Dripdripdrip. Drip.
As I sit here listening to my leaky kitchen faucet all I can think about is George Brecht's Drip Music, which leads to my concentrating on other random and normally unnoticed sounds that may be considered art by Fluxus artists.
The counter-cultural anti-art idea that is imposed by Fluxus artists is rather appealing in a sense that they really don't care to stick to any specific predefined rules about how to make art, or how to define it. They do not conform to the orthodox, unconventional idea of art and go about making it in ways that have not really been done before. Before the Fluxus movement was really defined by George Maciunas, art was always about sticking to its labels and conforming to a specific idea. Their rebellious avante-garde movement in art especially fits into its time period, during the 60's when rebellion was becoming a large and important aspect in the U.S.
Out of the many Fluxus artists, I especially enjoy the work done by Nam June Paik, due to his innovative use of video as art. His piece with the woman screaming with a live video of her on each of her breasts is one of his most intriguing pieces, for me. I also highly enjoy his piece "Magnet Tv" in which he sticks a very strong magnet on top of a tube TV so the picture becomes irritated and disturbed. His idea of taking a video that is supposed to be viewed one way as previously determined by someone else and controlling the way it is portrayed and creating his own picture is exciting.
I find the irony that comes with Fluxus art to be rather comical. As this type of art is much about involvement of people and portrayal of an idea rather than a business, many Fluxus artists are now relatively famous whose pieces sell for large sums of money.

Rist. I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much

I'm not quite sure if this short film by Pipilotti Rist, Als der Bruder meiner Mutter geboren wurde, duftete es nach wilden Birnenbluten vor dem braungebrannten Sims, is supposed to be funny, however within the first 2 minutes I found it to be quite comical. The woman, whose identity is not portrayed as she is blurry throughout the film, sings the repeated lyrics of "I'm not the girl who misses much" dances around with her breasts hanging out, in a fast motion as the tape is fast-forwarded. Her voice, along with the speed of the film, becomes high pitched and childish. After about 2 minutes, Rist slows down the video to normal speed, and we see that the woman is actually quite melancholy and singing depressingly, and my mood towards it changed, as I understand now that she is very emotional and not trying to act silly. The film is sped up once again, until finally it stops and the real song that she is singing is played. The color of everything switches to blue, adding to the depressing feel. The short video is rather beautiful in technique and portrayal of emotion.

Matthew Blarney and his Cremaster series

After finally seeing one of Matthew Barney’s notorious “Cremaster” films, I stand strong behind my opinion that he is complete bullshit. I’m sure that somewhere in that crazy mind of his he can validate and back up everything about his film(s). I do see the whole symbolic side of each scene, how his ascension and descention of each level, each representing different social statures, relates to that of a man’s testicles rising and lowering in accordance to external stimuli, etc. In the end the symbolic side of his films almost means nothing to me as it was so painful to watch. It was boring, creepy, and highly and annoyingly unenjoyable. There are abstract videos that I do enjoy watching, ones where the point is not straightforward, however this is not true when it comes to Matthew Barney’s films.