John Cage: A Mycological Foray – Variations on Mushrooms, 2 vols. (1972/2020)
Filed under artist publishing, book | Tags: · chance, composing, composition, ecology, mushrooms, music, sound
“John Cage: A Mycological Foray draws readers across the idiosyncratic, mushroom-suffused, innermost landscape of celebrated American composer John Cage. Upon the remarkable journey with Cage, one encounters assorted photographs, compositions, and contemplations; all in the very same unexpected fashion one encounters various flora and fungi species while mushroom foraging.
Volume I encompasses Cage’s mycological-oriented Indeterminacy stories, Diary excerpts, and essays; and the complete transcript of Cage’s 1983 performance, MUSHROOMS et Variationes.”
Volume II offers the inaugural reproduction of Cage’s 1972 portfolio, Mushroom Book, printed in 1972 in the limited run of 75 copies. The book is a study of fifteen different species of mushrooms, and each folio includes Cage’s poetry, sketches, and drawings (placed on the page by chance operations); scientific information about the mushrooms by Alexander H. Smith; and botanical illustrations by Lois Long.
John Cage: A Mycological Foray is developed in collaboration with the John Cage Trust.
With essay by Kingston Trinder and texts by Isabelle Bucklow.
Edited by Ananda Pellerin
Publisher Atelier Éditions, New York, 2020
ISBN 1733622004, 9781733622004
224 pages
via Alexandra Fanning, HT Georges Vantongerloo
PDF (watermarked file from publisher’s Dropbox, contains both volumes; no longer available as of 2 July 2020)
Comments (9)Stefan Szczelkun: Improvisation Rites: from John Cage’s Song Books to The Scratch Orchestra’s Nature Study Notes (2018)
Filed under book | Tags: · composition, graphic score, improvisation, music
“Documentation of an inter-generational exploration of two seminal improvisation scores of the mid-20th century leading to four large ensemble performances.”
Includes photo and/or text contributions (not including quoted ‘rites’ or ‘songs’) from Ali Warner, Portia Winters, John Tilbury, Jane Alden, Ben Harper, Carolyn, Phil England, Michael Parsons, Bron Jones, Hugh Shrapnel, George Chambers, Penny Homer, Geraldine McEwan, Emmanuelle Waeckerle, Matt Scott, Robert Barry, Carol Finer, Martin Dixon, Deirdre McGale, Stathis Mamalakis, John Hails, Charles Hutchins, Petri Hurinainen, Richard Duckworth, Robbie Lockwood, Howard Slater, Alexandra Dami, and Achilleas Karagiannidis.
Publisher Routine Art Co, London, 2018
ISBN 9781870736961, 1870736966
167 pages
Reviews: Julian Cowley (The Wire, 2018), Michael Kemp (2018).
PDF (9 MB)
Internet Archive
John Cage: How To Get Started (2010)
Filed under booklet | Tags: · creativity, improvisation, performance
“John Cage’s first and only performance of How to Get Started on 31 Aug 1989 was conceived of almost as an afterthought–a performance substituting for another that had been previously planned. In his performance, delivered at a sound design conference in Nicasio, California, Cage talks about the difficulty of initiating the creative process, and about improvisation, a subject about which he had long been deeply ambivalent. He proposes a collaborative framework in which sound engineers capture and subsequently layer his extemporized monologue, which consisted of ten brief commentaries on topics then of interest. This amounted to an experiment having to do with thinking in public before a live audience.”
The publication also features commentaries by Laura Kuhn, Aaron Levy and Arthur J. Sabatini.
Publisher Slought Books, Philadelphia, and John Cage Trust, 2010
Open access
ISBN 0981540961, 9780981540962
19 pages