Nottingham Contemporary

In August 1952, the ground of western music subtly shifted. When David Tudor walked onto the stage of the Maverick Concert Hall in upstate New York, opened the score to his friend John Cage's newest composition 4'33'' and proceeded to play no notes at all for the duration of the piece, a space was opened up for a new understanding of what music might be.

The work heralded a conception of composing that was less about receiving gifts from the muses or sending messages to god, no longer a moulding of the emotions or even really an organising of sounds; more like a directing of one’s attention. 4’33’’ proved to be just the first of several works from a number of different artists which added nothing new to their respective soundscapes – no notes played, no noises produced – but simply gestured to something already there (or at least, presumed to be there), like a guidebook for tourists or a signpost in a nature reserve pointing out the distinctive flora and fauna.

The composer becomes a listener and the chaperone to other acts of listening. Cage's work has sometimes been seen as the ultimate act of musical anarchism, but in recent years a strange note of piety has crept into performances of the work, and a peculiar kind of mystification has entered the discourse around silence and listening.

In this informal workshop, we will question the limits of Cage's approach – as well as taking a look at a few alternative approaches to silence in the work of contemporary composers, sound artists, and protest movements.

About the Seeing Through Flames: Of Dubbing 2023 Series

The study sessions are informal discussion groups. Seeing Through Flames is a series of auditory assemblages that turn listening into a collective channel of exchange. These sessions open out the ideas and themes of our research strand, Emergency & Emergence, and survey different possibilities of forming solidarity through sonic ecologies.

Knowing that historiography occasionally reduces history writing to social systems of power in the time and place of a particular experience and does not obey the facts, how can the narrative of the facts be opened up to speculation? If dub is understood as a way of producing a version in the existence, in the wake of, ”the original”, and the idea of history is not as static or settled, dubbing as an act becomes a work of witnessing and of filling in historical gaps with dub imaginary. The space of sound and acoustic experimentation responds to the in-between of what is confined to history, preserved and abandoned.

By lending an emphatic ear to relational tempos, acoustics, beats and frequencies of historical formations and sonic world-making, this season’s Seeing Through Flames: Of Dubbing brings together a pluriverse of interdependent speculations that confronts the production and writing of history to underscore a condition of possibility for solidarity, beyond ‘the event’ in history, beyond cultural specificity and its locality.

About the event

Free for all.

Limited Capacity.

Booking is required.

The duration of the event is one hour and a half. Seating is available.

Access

Find information about getting here and our building access and facilities here.

There are no audio descriptions for this event.

If you have any questions around access or have specific access requirements we can accommodate, please get in touch with us by emailing info@nottinghamcontemporary.org or phoning 0115 948 9750.

Safety during your visit

Due to COVID precautions, please do not attend this event if you/someone in your household is currently COVID-19 positive, has suspected symptoms, or is awaiting test results.

Staff and visitors are welcome to wear a face mask in all areas.