Lecture On Nothing

Recorded at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art Fall 2007. From release notes: John Cage's "Lecture on Nothing," published in his collection Silence in 1961, is scored to a rigorous regularity: 48 units of 12 lines and 48 measures each. The text itself is repetitive and at times excruciatingly boring, dwelling in Section IV on the tonic phrase "If anybody is sleepy, let him go to sleep." A reading for voice and metronome, this audio rendition intermingles with the ambient noises of Christian Marclay's sound work medley in the 2007 exhibition Ensemble at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art. The text is intoned in time, as per Cage's incongruous instructions: "(not) in an artificial manner...but with the rubato which one uses in everyday speech."