Kanoon’s research on artists, Bruce Nauman and John Cage

Bruce Nauman

“If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product.”

Playful and funny

-          Vivid colour

-          Advertisement board- liked

-          Pop-culture

But sometimes, they have serious meaning behind…

Clown Torture (1987)

-         Repetitive performance actions

-          Clown as a symbol of funny, creepy, and also referred to the artist too

-          Produce painful sensory for both clown and viewers like they are locked in an endless loop of failure, the initial fun soon turns to horror.

-          To get the viewers involve the same feeling

Finding self-position

Self Portrait as a Fountain (1966)

-          Finding his role as an artist

-          Referred himself as an art object

BESIDE/YOURSELF/BEHIND/YOURSELF (1989)

The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967)

-          believes that language is "a very powerful tool"

Physical experience and Psychological state of human

-          the experience of extreme

-          the experience of being locked in and of being abandoned

-          Frustration at not being able to more fully "control the situation."

-          Dynamic experience space (unlike “pour your body out”, the participants have to walk along to get the experience)

Performance Corridor (1969)
Green Light Corridor (1970)
Live-Taped Video Corridor (1970)

Body pressure (1974)

-           physical experience and mental journey

-          think about limitations of their own bodies and travel beyond these limitations in their minds

John Cage

“Until I die there will be sound”

Music Experiment

 Prepared piano

Activity of sound

Unpredictable/ unable to control

4’33” (Four minutes, thirty-three seconds)

-          Noise = Activity of sound

-          Atmosphere sound is unpredictable and always different

-          uses the "silence" of the piece as an aural "blank canvas" to reflect the dynamic flux of ambient sounds surrounding each performance

-          Audience’s reaction

Others research

Whispering

-          “An unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords do not vibrate”

-          To limit the hearing of speech to listeners who are nearby

-          Secret information

-          Avoid being overheard or disturbing the others

-          Senses of privacy

Whispering Gallery

-          A phenomenon which normally takes place at a concave surface, by whispering against the wall at any point, the voice is audible to a listener with an ear hold to the wall at any other point around the gallery.

-          The sound bounces along the wall of the gallery with very little loss.

-          For example, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London

Cocktail Party Effect (Selective attention)

-          An ability to focus one’s auditory attention while filtering out a range of other sounds

-          Like how when people in a party can focus talking a single conversation in a noisy room

-          Requires hearing with both ears