HPSCHD: Cage as Social Activist, Anarchist, Wagnerian, and Anti-Wagnerian

On May 16, 1969, John Cage's event work HPSCHD occurred for the first time, in the Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois (an arena generally used for the university's basketball team).  This was one of his largest undertakings to date, if not his largest, encompassing a vast array of harpsichords, electronic recordings and fixed media, projections, and more.  The audience moved as they wished around the performance space for the four hour duration, such that each person experienced the work differently, and took his or her own ideas to it and away from it.  In Sara Heimbecker's article "HPSCHD, Gesamtkunstwerk, and Utopia," she (hereafter referred to as Sara Haefeli, her present name) argues that the work was an example of both Cage's peaceful anarchist beliefs and activism, and of a full-on Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, albeit with minor differences.

In general, I agree with most of her assertions, and would like to take this blog post to pull out some points from the article for discussion, argument, etc.  For better or worse, these thoughts will run generally stream-of-consciousness in terms of organization, but hopefully different thoughts will be separated enough to avoid confusion.

Haefeli notes that the "narrative," in a broad, modern sense of the term, revolves around space travel.  This is certainly true, and links in with the avant garde's long-held fascination with science--from Cowell's piano tinkering to Varese's electronics to Partch's inventions.  This work occurred in the midst of the highest point of tensions in the space race, and its timing could not have been better.  In fact, only two months and four days after the HPSCHD event, the following event occurred:

Apollo 11, the mission that brought the first landing of humans on the moon, followed only 65 days after HPSCHD.  Indeed, it took off from Cape Canaveral exactly 2 months after Cage's work.  So this is one case of the avant-garde being highly in tune with major world events (even if Cage was not in tune with every major issue in the world--more on that later).

Cage described himself as a "Thoreauvian anarchist." He believed in a peaceful road to peaceful anarchy, wherein people live in such a way that everyone is free to live however he or she wishes, and experience life and the world however he or she wishes.  This requires the end of human-imposed ethical systems, such that all are free from judgment by others.  Toward that end, Cage said the following in an interview in the Chicago Daily News, 5/10/69:

Haas: But until people are ready for it, aren’t ethical systems needed?

Cage: Yes, but if we wait until that time, that time will never come.  Therefore we begin with that time in the fields where it is possible to do without such standards, such value judgments, to prepare the way—and art is one of them.

At first, I looked at this and thought, "Yes, that makes perfect sense."  Indeed, it's one of the first times I've been swayed to view art as something that could effect any real change with legitimacy.  Then, after some thought, all I could find was a question: In what other fields is it possible to remove value judgments?  One could argue for science, but in modern society it is inextricably linked with the attached ethics guiding every move.  I cannot think of any field other than art in which value judgments and ethical systems can be removed, and I do not think that doing so in art paved the way to allow for any other fields to follow suit.  As a result, while this quote seems soundly logical on the surface, it argues for paving the way for events that cannot follow.

That said, I'm all for removing value judgments in art.  It creates further uniqueness of individual experiences interfacing with the artwork.  It just doesn't seem to accomplish a goal set forth by Cage, to lead the way in removing ethical judgment from any other fields.  In art, such removal of imposed judgment can be seen in Cage's earlier collaborations with Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg.  In these collaborations, he would write a piece, Cunningham would create a dance, and Rauschenberg would create an art installation (such as the one below).  The dancer(s) would dance near and around Rauschenberg's artwork, set to Cage's music.

one such art installation by Rauschenberg

The three artists would not consult with each other regarding their individual works or artistic processes.  They simply created their works separately, then put them in the same place at the same time for the performance.  It was up to audience members to see connections (or not) between the works, which were all unintentional and dependent on the viewer's psyche to add to the scene.  In this way, they remove judgment of each other's work, as each one would make his or her part of the creation without judging how to connect it or disconnect it with the other two's works.  The pieces simply existed together, instead of containing built-in intention of artistic connection.

HPSCHD differs drastically from these artworks, as it was constructed under the overseeing and guidance of one artist, Cage, and every part centered around common themes.  It's a giant artwork where every piece of the puzzle comes together to say or be something about space.  This is antithetical to the nature of the Cage-Cunningham-Rauschenberg experiments, as everything has built-in intention from one artist's standpoint.  Even though he uses chance operations, they are chance operations of his devising in order to determine how exactly the details of the space theme should come together.  This is where we reach the beginning of the conclusion that Cage is creating his own Gesamtkunstwerk, as every facet of this massive multimedia work is working together toward one common goal.

Haefeli notes that one of the major differences between HPSCHD and the classic German Gesamtkunstwerk is that such works isolated people in a dark room and gave them all nearly identical perspectives on the work, whereas Cage's work allowed everyone to walk around individually to shape their own experience.  In this way, Cage was creating his artistic "anarchy," as all were free to live the experience as they saw fit.  As Charles Hamm noted,

“Each person made what he wanted of the piece and, thus, it was a different event for everyone who attended; each saw and heard it from the standpoint of when he was there, where he was in the hall, how long he stayed, whom he saw and talked with while there, what mood he was in, and what attitude he had about such events.”

I appreciate the Hamm is bringing into the equation an aspect of experience that I think members of the artistic community often ignore: "what mood he was in."  Too often we forget that a huge part of experiencing art is contingent upon what mood you are in already before the art is presented.  For example, I know that when I am in a bad mood, some works can clear that away, but usually it has a large effect on the art, either causing me to have a more aggressive or depressing interpretation of the work, or just causing me to pay less attention, as my mind is filled with other, negative thoughts.  I find that artists rarely ever discuss this in their studying of art, and this is an issue, as it is a huge part of how I experience the world of art.

That said, I disagree that any true anarchy of experience was achieved in HPSCHD--close, but not quite.  As Haefeli paraphrases of Yvonne Rainer, "The meaning of [the] work is set by the artist--not the audience, as participatory as that audience may be--'just as surely as any monolithic, unassailable, and properly validated masterpiece.' "  Indeed, Cage is controlling everything here, and guiding it toward certain vague messages (glorifying science, vaguely utopianizing space, etc.).  Cage's guiding motive in composing, in Haefeli's words, is as follows: "Instead of creating works that communicate a given message, Cage created opportunities for experience, opportunities to explore the multiplicity of intersections in which we live."  How can HPSCHD be true anarchy when it is not only a set of preconceived preconditions, but preconditions set by one man with messages in mind?  Can it really be truly, fully unique to each experiencer when Cage is behind every facet of it with preconceptions in his mind?  All are not free to have whatever experience they create--all are free to have whatever experience they create that concludes in the glorification of space as seen by John Cage.

Cage may have been aiming at true, full anarchy, but I think he missed his mark a bit.  I'd bet he could have reached it if he had made several more works of this scale and general formula (large, multimedia, wandering audience); however, this one does not truly reach the true anarchy of experience he may have envisioned.