A Tribute to John Cage is Nam June Paik's homage to avant-garde composer John Cage. Paik created the work as an approach to contemporary society by devising it as a television programme in which documentaries alternate with commercial sequences; by developing specific links between video content and the medium of video; and by presenting performance videos that both exemplified the contemporary world's overriding focus on television, and defined the concept of antimusic as developed by John Cage and Fluxus.

Nam June Paik met John Cage in 1958. At the time, he was composing music in an approach similar to Bartok and Schoenberg while working at a WDR electronic music studio in Cologne. The two men took part in Fluxus happenings, the spirit of which pervades this homage. Nam June Paik was influenced by the concepts and concerts of John Cage, from whom he borrowed certain creative strategies such as theatricality and destruction, collage, electronics, the displaying of medium and context, performance, public participation and chance.

The tape begins by associating the two personalities through the parallel playing of the soundtrack and images. A biographical account of John Cage's life is heard in voiceover, while sequences from the First Accident of the 21st century happening appear onscreen. This organised accident of Nam June Paik's first robot in 1963-64 displays a violence that the artist often showed towards John Cage in his happenings. Robot 456 was created in the image of both man and society: on the one hand the robot defecates, quotes politicians and walks; on the other, it's built from mechanical and electronic parts. The accident emphasises the transitory nature of art and the symbols inherent in this new genre of sculptural work. Later in the tape, Nam June Paik breaks a piano with a pickaxe, giving a forceful presentation, in the Fluxus spirit, of the relation of avant-garde thought to tradition.

Interviews, concert recordings and theoretical presentations present media coverage of the key aspects of John Cage's oeuvre. During an interview, musician and professor Alvin Lucier presents John Cage's theory. His words are accompanied by a stuttering that he plays on musically, following a suggestion from the composer. Shots of Woodstock in 1952 refer to the first performance of the concert 4'33'', shown here in New York's Harvard Square. This concert is silent; the piano is opened merely to mark the timed length of the piece's movements, which were titled 33”, 2'40” and 1'20”. The silence focuses the audience on surrounding sounds. The theory of chance, presented by the composer as he squats on a sidewalk in New York, was based on the I-Ching, a Chinese game, and on an interpretation of the configurations produced by throwing coins or twigs. Also shown are a repetitive music concert, a story then a song by John Cage and images suggesting electronic music (a series of tape recorders and a mixing console with computer). This exploration of the composer's works is interrupted by a commercial for Pepsi-Cola and music videos of popular and traditional, Western and Asian music videos that Nam June Paik reworked visually (using superimposition, solarisation, insertion, etc.)

Nam June Paik encourages television viewers to define their position with regards to experiences that appear in these videos. During the 4'33'' concert recording in Harvard Square, the artist reverses John Cage's proposal by overloading the screen with messages. He writes: “This is Zen for TV” in reference to the composer's concept of Zen Music, which is based on relaxing the listener's mind instead of adding sensations and emotions. Then he creates tensions and forces perception. On the Harvard Square urban stage, he conjures up the countryside: “Do you hear a cricket… or a mouse?” and questions behaviours with: “Open the window ant the stars” and a question from Robert Filliou: “Why did you get up this morning?” The spectators are redirected onto their context and environment, understanding both their reality and the reality of television that enables them to access the concert and escape this experience of silence. Finally, Nam June Paik mocks his own homage: “Dear Mr Cage, would you like to be a cow in Switzerland or a cow in Holland?”

TV Bra, one of Nam June Paik's video performances, is both a parody of a television-focused world, and of antimusic. Charlotte Moorman, who played Cage's works in the 1960s, is its principal figure. She wears a bra made of television sets and plays the cello, after which she enters a very tall container of water with her image projected onto it. The video derisively substitutes itself for reality, doubling first a clothing item and then the body that disappeared into water.

Nam June Paik made several homages to John Cage. The first, in the 1960s, involved the falling and destruction of a piano onstage. The next was the concert Etude for Piano (Forte), where the artist began by playing a piece by Chopin with conspicuous distaste, then leaped into a piano that lay open behind him, after which he went into the audience where he cut John Cage's shirt and poured shampoo on his head, as well as on David Tudor's. Then he left and telephoned to announce that the concert was over. Less theatrically, homages predating A Tribute to John Cage include two sculptures: Cage in Cage in Cage (1989) and John Cage Robot (1990).

Thérèse Beyler
Translated by Anna Knight