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"Don't
Start Me to Talkin' or I'll tell you everythin'
I know." - Sonny Boy Williamson.
In the early sixties my schoolfriend, and flatmate,
hornplayer John Surman with whom I had sung
in the school choir, invited me to do my debut
public speaking lecture at the Royal College
of Music, while I was at the R.C. of Art. He
had an idea that visual artists and musicians
might have something to learn from each other.
He already was frustrated with the extant Victorianisms
he was having to deal with in the eye of the
Academy. I presented my architectonic three-dimensional
works, as scores, and we debated the finer points
of possible interpretation. At this time I was
already gigging with Cornelius Cardew and AMM
music, as my other friends from art school in
Plymouth, had split-up. Mike Westbrook to proceed
in an increasingly original, post-Ellington
mode. Keith Rowe the other flatmate, and Eddie
Provost meeting up with Cornelius.
The seeds of improvisation and trans-media
adventure in technology were sown well and truly
when I joined Yoko Ono on a whole set of different
adventures. We went to the first John Cage /
David Tudor performance at the Jeannette Cochran
Theatre - and there observed and met the man
behind the infra-red relay production of dance
and sound - who never once used the word interactive.
I ran into Cage a few times after that and others
of his circle became intense and critical mentors,
to my evolving philosophy. Robert Morris, Donald
Judd in particular. Naum Gabo for whom I fabricated
work in the later sixties taught me indelibly
that technologies exist through their particularity,
causality and efficiency.
The University of Los Angeles in 1969/70,
was interesting. Robert Rauschenberg seemed
to have subverted the aerospace industries totally
and Experiments with Art and Technology, were
the dominant creative goad and carrot, at least
in California at that time. Works at that time
(mine and collaborative) exploited the possibilities
of Laundromats as sites and all forms of plastics
becoming available at that time. We also used
the Anechoic and Echo chambers, and other facilities
available to us on the UCLA campus. The last
time I saw John Cage was at a mild talk in the
Pasadena Art museum. More stories. More conundrums.
And sublime grace. It might have been a blessing.
He together with the proxy spirit of Duchamp,
imported through Gabo with whom he played chess
regularly and carped about incessently, lives
yet within my soul.
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