John Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis: Paving the Way to Anthropocentric Processual Creation

Abstract

The bulk of artistic and philosophical discussion generated by our intellectual fascination with John Cage’s orchestral work Atlas Eclipticalis (1961–62) centres around its application of aleatoric processes such as the elements of chance and indeterminacy in the stages of composition and performance. That which underlies Cage’s advocacy for and championship of aleatoric explorations is his musical philosophy of nonintentionality. In his views, intentionality stood against genuine artistic expression, or rather, the true expression of the Self through music. This resistance against prevailing musical convention remains relevant in contemporary practices. However, we have often overlooked the role and implications of Cage’s employment of an arbitrary graphical source in the composition of Atlas. The use of a graphical source to determine musical parameters draws tantalisingly close to the creative notions behind graphical scores, graphical notation and musical imageries. Common to all of these notions is the relation between any given musical artefacts and any graphical representation or visual imageries they may invoke. Although the graphical elements of the star chart are static and held in place by fixed relations, Cage’s act of mapping them into musical elements eventually brought about the processual unfolding of musical events. What can be read from the conception of Atlas is more than the concern about intentionality; it also extends an inextricable link to process philosophy and phenomenology. Hence, in this work we find a unique converge nce of several li nes of creat ive inqu ir y – the deploym ent of an analogous graphical counterpart for producing the musical score, aleatoric devices, and the philosophical back-story of non-intentionality and beyond, in the act of music composition and performance. The utilisation of a graphical source from which the music is being ‘drawn’ out deserves particular attention relevant to the graphical or imagerial incarnation of music, as found in graphical scores. A dissection of the peculiar traits of graphical scores under the context of visual music leads one to speculate if music that more precisely operates on a tight correspondence between musical and visual elements can be conceived, in order to give rise to anthropomorphic visual imageries in particular. There seems to be no lack of intellectual substantiation from evolutionary, musicological and creative viewpoints in shoring up a compelling case for musical hermeneutics in terms of anthropocentric narratives. Furthermore, in some of the contemporary graphical scores compiled by Cage himself in Notations (196 9), we be gan to witn ess an impending inatio n o f anthropomorphi c images onto conventional musical staves, occupying and sharing the role and status formerly belonging to standard musical notation. Supported by technological advances, the musical score complex today extends to encompass reconble score environments, live interactive music systems, and even mixed-media immersive installations, that allow for more substantial multimodal and philosophical creative engagement. Theauthor sees that Cage’s artistic and philosophical quests embodied in the creation of Atlas 50 years ago inevitably pointed forward to a mode of musical composition and complex score environment that draws on the simultaneous processual constitution of musical entities along with anthropomorphic graphical elements.