John Cage – Indeterminacy

Composer John Cage's Indeterminacy (1959), involved the reading aloud of a series of stories or anecdotes – some about the history of music, some with Zen ideas expressed, some about mycology (the study of mushrooms, in which Cage was an expert), some about ordinary life – all a minute long. Each is chosen at random and takes a minute to read. At the same time random musical segments were played – though in the original recording of the work, the two performers could not hear each other. If the music and text worked together (or clashed), this would be entirely serendipitous.

Here's an attempt at performing a section of the work, by Jack Goldstein, and Gloria Lin, in conjunction with the Faculty of Music at Oxford University and The Ashmolean Museum:

Here's a selection of the texts, in visual form:
http://johncage.org/indeterminacy.html

Here's comedian Stewart Lee on Cage's Indeterminacy:
http://thequietus.com/articles/09907-stewart-lee-john-cage-indeterminacy