Page 71 - Studio International - July August 1974

of technical invention, but an ambition that was Scratching Cage
practically part of the programme of Western John Cage, edited by Richard Kostelanetz. 44 Modern
Civilization. The end product was distantly in 237 pp, 6o b & w illustrations. Allen Lane,
view from the 184os, clearly visualized by the London. Paperback, £2.00.
time H. G. Wells wrote The Sleeper Awakes. Japanese
If ever there was a 'surprise-free scenario' John Cage, born 1912, American composer
(in Herman Kahn's terminology) it was surely and writer, has emerged as one of the two
the rise of TV, and the only real shocks along leading figures (with Stockhausen) in modern Print Artists
the way are the attempts of ravers like John bourgeois music.
Logie Baird to force television to happen before Here is a book by Richard Kostelanetz which
the necessary hardware was at hand, and the makes Cage out to be a sort of Leonardo of the GASTON PETIT
pathetic determination of the educated public to twentieth century: a multi-faceted genius World-wide interest has grown during
believe that he had done it. All very unlike the whose exploratory mind ranges far beyond the the last decade among artists and
collectors for prints and print-making.
rise of the transistor, where Shockley's confines of his chosen profession, etc. He The influence and output of Japanese
unforeseen invention/discovery caught both presents Cage to us like a quirky printmakers has been particularly
culture and technology with their pants down ventriloquist's dummy, points out countless conspicuous because of the high
and still looking embarrassed twenty years idiosyncrasies of physique, wardrobe and quality of their innovative and dramatic
later! manner, apologizes for him, hotly defends him work. Gaston Petit, himself a print
artist of international reputation, has
Williams, in fact, is not impressed by and recommends him to our tender mercies, collected the information for these two
technological explanations of TV, and almost at the same time warning us not to be volumes since 1960. His up-to-date
the only part of the book where he resorts to `philistine' with him, whatever that means. study of 44 key figures in modern
strong language is not when describing Criticize him, I suppose. Japanese print describes the
personalities of the artists as well as
programme-content (as one might expect), but Parasitically dependent on the 'Master the aesthetic value and development
in anathematizing McLuhan for his 'ludicrous' Minds' (title of a book by Kostelanetz) he is of their works. A separate supplement
technological determinism. He may be right promoting, Kostelanetz goes all out to gives detailed explanations of their
about McLuhan, but there seems to be some romanticize and mystify Cage's career and prints and the two volumes contain
failure of empathy about the impact of exaggerate his influence : . . . there is no 90 colour and over 250 black and
McLuhan's words. To dismiss the-medium-is- standard ladder to intellectual or artistic white plates.
the-message as more formalism seems to over- eminence (in USA) . . . The only common Boxed set £42.50
rate the power of formalism in bourgeois outline for a propitious career seems to Kodansha International
society. involve some relevant training or self-
Could it not also be that we had been so education, a lonely break with convention, a
culturally prepared and conditioned for period of intense and exploratory work, a
television that we badly wanted there to be product that others can scrutinize, and then the
some inherent 'magic' in its technology ? surprise when total strangers hail it as
It may be the failure to feel this fully that excellent and persuasive. It is all but impossible Oratorical Contest with a speech entitled
accounts for a certain deficiency in Williams's to set out to contribute to the house of `Other People Think'. The speech deals with
concluding chapter, on alternative uses for Western Culture; but a man who does US Imperialism's expansionist policies in
television. Although he alludes briefly (eight extraordinary work may learn, before he leaves, Latin America.
lines) to low-cost video-tape recording used in that a brick or two on top bears his name.' Cage deplores the money-grabbing character
'community experiments and radical cultural Pious rubbish. Intellectual corruptibility is the of the US capitalists; his pious wish is that the
enterprises' he seems to have little sense of the basic qualification for achieving eminence in United States should come to a total halt, and
feelings of liberation and power that clearly the bourgeois cultural establishment, just as in that quiet moment of truth something will
come to those who can hold this magic machine plain, ordinary financial corruptibility is the be born: a 'Pan-American Conscience'. He
in their own hands, take TV to the people, into basic qualification for achieving eminence in goes on to outline the neo-colonialist policy
the street or community and feel they are the bourgeois state hierarchy. (Nixon's not the that doubtless won him the prize: 'Our
breaking the monopoly of the networks, and only one.) southern neighbours must learn to accept our
groovy stuff like that. Williams, contrariwise, The bourgeois state has a number of organs help in making themselves fit for self-
sees TV still as being something that is for exercising its dictatorship over the government.' Waves of hypocrisy lap around
purveyed essentially by large centralized working people. It has its courts, its army and his final unblushing demand for US hegemony
organizations, even if these have been modified police, its prisons, its universities and schools, over the entire world, both materially and
to be reactive and interactive, and even insists its Boy Scout movements and its Arts Councils. `spiritually' : . . . for only when we cleanse our
that do-it-yourself TV will 'have to exist in a Through all these organs the bourgeoisie hands of gold-dust and share with the Latins
world in which all the other technical tendencies implements its political line. Those who grasp of this continent an unselfish handclasp will the
are in an opposite direction'. this political line rise, those who don't are sun of Pan-Americanism illuminate the
We shall see, no doubt . . . equally, we shall forced to struggle. There is no such thing as art horizon. Healed by the soothing rays of this
see further volumes in this 'Technosphere' which is detached from or independent of sun, the Americans will prosper as never before.
series of Jonathan Benthall's — Peter Wollen on politics. Economically, they will govern the world . . .
film, Michale Hales on operational research, Cage has risen (despite the fact that only a Spiritually, the Americans will teach all
others on computers, drugs, photography, tiny handful of people are interested in his mankind.'
bombs (bombs?!). The intention is promising, work). What is his political line ? In 1968, 41 years later, a request to
the seam between art and technology is always This is where this book comes in handy. It contribute to a symposium on 'Alternatives to
worth unpicking and knitting up again, but on contains two articles by Cage that deal Violence' drew from Cage the fascist article
the showing of these first two titles there is a specifically with political subject matter, one entitled 'These Days'. Cage's recipe for what
real risk of the series settling heavily just on the at either end of his career. he calls 'world violence' is 'pacification'. And
academic side of radical chic. In 1927, aged 15, Cage had the dubious he doesn't leave you in the dark as to what that
REYNER BANHAM honour of winning the Southern California might mean: if people don't have the 'strength'