Joan Rothfuss Reflection

I knew briefly of Paik's work before coming to the talk, namely his Electronic Superhighway. I had no idea his real background was in music though. I was a little confused at first with the "new ontology of music", but once the Dadaist inspirations and connections to John Cage were explained, things made a lot more sense...or rather the nonsense was put into perspective. Turning piano performances on its head by playing in the nude, using a dildo connected to a record player to experience sound orally, multi-room symphonies, though very avant-garde, did actually make sense; it wasn't merely reacting to the status quo of music, perception could really be altered by experiencing sound in this way. What really solidified his whole journey for me, too, was the fact that he did his thesis on Schoenberg specifically, that is the composer who was obsessed with creating atonal pieces and fighting against the dominance of classical notions of tonality. I don't know much about Schoenberg but the intent, like Paik's work, seemed two-fold: One reason was political and the other aesthetic/perceptual. I love the melding of the two. Having something just to be different for difference's sake seems pretty artificial and over-dependent on the thoughts of others. Overall, the talk was fascinating and just kind of left me in awe half the time. I wish i could have heard a snippet of his pieces, since the talk was so musically focused, but Rothfuss did a perfect job of filling in those blanks.

dude was weird though
like he cut john cage's tie and showered him in shampoo

a legend