Variations V notes

The interest I have in this piece stems from the date, 1965 and the manner in which it incorporates many different art forms. Wagner talked about the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk . This simply put means,' total work of art' or 'complete artwork'. Wagner used it to 'refers to an operatic performance encompassing music, theater, and the visual arts.' 1 It can also be translated as a synthesis of arts. The fusing of art forms into a continuous whole. This can also be looked at in terms of the Inter-disciplinary and the Multidisciplinary. The inter-disciplinary is the fusing of artistic elements so that they become one. The multidisciplinary approach is described in Wikipedia as, 'examining multiple subjects from different disciplines but only uses the methods of one discipline in its examination.'2 To me the multiple subjects are the individual art forms and the one method of discipline in its examination can be the framework and facilitation created for the work. It allows a distance between the artistic forms whilst maintaining a a common framework or format within the piece. Rudolf Frieling in his essay Reality/Mediality Hybrid Processes Between Art and Life3
puts forward the idea that John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg, "...placed their stakes not on holistic aspirations but on artistic autonomy and difference." He goes on to say that this is an extension of Bertolt Brecht's argument against the Wagner idea of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' in 'Notes on the Opera (1930):

So long as the expression ‹Gesamtkunstwerk› (or ‹integrated work of art›) means that the integration is a muddle, so long as the arts are supposed to be ‹fused› together, the various elements will all be equally degraded, and each will act as a mere ‹feed› to the rest.… Words, music, and setting must become more independent of one another.4

If we look at the performance Variations V and the framework constructed for it we can see this exemplified. The dancers perform in a media constructed space in that there movement within the performance space generates and triggers sound. This is then filtered and constructed by the audio artists. On the back drops mixed television images and film are projected but unaffected by the performers other than there placement within the physical space. The dance and music score was decided by using a coin to determine the position of each element. The elements consisted of 35 remarks dealing with structure, components and methodology. This randomness combined with a selection of predefined structural elements including the physical space fits into the idea of separation of the art forms whilst contributing to a constructed whole.

The reactive performance space isn't constructed to allow the dancers to have total control of the musical score. It hasn't become a direct instrument in the traditional sense. The music triggered by the dancers is controlled and filtered by the audio artists and the selection of the sounds that form the bases of the electronic score. There is however an element of control for the performers in that they have the feed back from their movement in the form of music, therefor allowing them to repeat actions that generate specific sounds or effects. The sound triggered by the dancers is controlled and filtered by the audio artists and the selection of the sounds that form the bases of the electronic score.

This control of the sound by the performers is an element in the overall control of the music artists and engineers. Equally the dancers movement and expressio is still controlled by the initial movement vocabulary and choreography of Merce Cunnnigham. The elements of chance in the consruction of the score and in the movements relationship to the sound acts as both a connectino between the forms and a disruption. The staginbg of the film and vidoe work has an influence on the other art forms by being part of the pre constructed placement and framework thus becoming part of the physical and 'collaberative' space. There is however an overall control of the enviroment and framework of the work that is to me static in it's nature. The elements within it are able to interchange to an extend but there seems to me to be a strong elemnt of control and individual, in Merce Cunnignham, John Cage and David Tudor.

On the artmuseum; web site the blurb for the piece states:

'The anarchic nature of Cage's work, with its bold acceptance of indeterminacy (chance) as an integral part of its composition, later encouraged the composer to extend this new found freedom to include the participation of the audience. Cage, inspired by Zen Buddhism, revels in an anarchy that dethrones the artist as the heroic, all-powerful arbiter of creative expression. He proposes instead a shift to an inclusive, participatory art that encourages interaction between artist, performer and audience.'5

I would argue that the Cunningham, Cage and Tudor are in fact the opposite. The rigidity of the overlying framework allows a meeting and transference between forms but does not allow for the individual forms to feed, pick up and alter the framework it's self. You are therefor left with a space that promotes multi-disaplinary actions it is the prescribed framework that is the result of an, 'all-powerful arbiter of creative expression' or in this case three arbiters.

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-disciplinary
3.Need to refrence for now: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/performance/print/
4. Bertolt Brecht, «Anmerkungen zur Oper ‹Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny›,» in Gesammelte Werke 17, Schriften zum Theater 3, Frankfurt/ Main 1967, pp. 1010f. (Brecht quoted after Henry M. Sayre, The Object of Performance. The American Avant-garde since 1970, Chicago, 1992, p. 108).
5. http://www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/timeline/Cage.html