Experimental Music and the Political: Performativity in the art of John Cage

Abstract

This text aims to explore some of the philosophical inquiries that arise from experimental music, focusing on the following question: How is music, without words, capable of producing and enacting political thought? Focusing on John Cage's art an exploration of the performativity of music is proposed, understanding performativity both as the effects that music has on its audience, and its “theatrical” quality. Cage’s work is especially well suited for this objective, inasmuch as it is based upon both an explicit desire to modify the perception of its audience, and an interest in developing an art form that is closer to “theatre” (in a broad sense). As Alejandro L. Madrid has suggested, using performativity as a lens of analysis to study music shifts the question “What is music?” to “What does music do?” and “What does it allow people to do?” Through a revision and discussion of Cage’s art pieces, the author of this text argues that Cage’s work supposes a destabilization of traditional notions and roles, allowing people to listen to their surroundings with greater attention and pleasure (thus questioning Eurocentric and anthropocentric conceptual and sensorial frameworks inherited from the past), and to perform atypical social relations of an anarchist nature.