John Cage

"Symphony of the Invisible" is a reflection on creation and how through art, poetry and images you can break the limits that have been imposed on language and life itself.

In 1971, Margaret Leng Tan was the first woman to earn a Doctorate degree from the Juilliard School. Since then, her five-decade career has made the musician a figurehead of avant-garde music, owing predominantly to her incorporation of the toy piano in her performances. We meet Leng Tan at the age of 71 as she embarks on an iconic collaboration with George Crumb, one of the last remaining avant-garde composers of his era. "Twinkle Dammit!" gives access to the rarely-seen creative process between two musical geniuses, peeling back the public-facing surface of the world's greatest toy-piano-virtuoso to explore the private obsessions that have lead to a life committed to the avant-garde.

When Howard Brookner lost his life to AIDS in 1989, the 35-year-old director had completed two feature documentaries and was in post-production on his narrative debut, Bloodhounds of Broadway. Twenty-five years later, his nephew, Aaron, sets out on a quest to find the lost negative of Burroughs: The Movie, his uncle's critically-acclaimed portrait of legendary author William S. Burroughs. When Aaron uncovers Howard's extensive archive in Burroughs’ bunker, it not only revives the film for a new generation, but also opens a vibrant window on New York City’s creative culture from the 1970s and ‘80s, and inspires a wide-ranging exploration of his beloved uncle's legacy.

In “Everybody’s Cage”, German film artist Sandra Trostel turns John Cage and his approach to art into a tangible fascination, without giving in to explain just a single bit of it.

A sonic innovator or an expert on chance? This documentary by Oscar-winning director Allan Miller and Emmy-winner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, 'Journeys in Sound' premieres rare archival footage and features associates of John Cage and contemporary artists.

2012 documentary on John Cage celebrating his 100th birthday in the form of a re-edit of partially unused film material shot for the film 'Time is Music’ in 1987. Includes interviews and recordings of performances with the influential zen composer.

Present in nearly all cultures and used for many purposes, drums have unique shapes, sounds, names and accents in each region of the world. Behind this vast legacy are individuals who play them and are touched by these ancestral instruments. From the rare budimas used by Tonga people in Zambia to the large drums of the Chinese temples, from the religious festivals of Brazil to the rhythmic richness of the Arab World, these men and women keep this tradition alive.

John Cage’s original concept of Ocean, in 1991, was for a dance to be performed in a circular space, with the audience surrounding the dancers, and the musicians (112 of them) surrounding the audience. The last performance was in the Rainbow Quarry in Minnesota, September 2008, at which time the piece was filmed by Charles Atlas.

A brief overview and focus on composers Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, John Cage, Steve Reich, Elliott Carter and their contemporaries.

Lin Hwai-min's Cursive II is inspired by the aesthetics of calligraphy. Set to music by John Cage, it is an exquisite meditation on the balancing of opposites presented in delicate simplicity, allowing no distraction from the details of the dance.

Trying to describe oneself is a movie about representation. How it is possible, through film, to describe oneself and describe others. With the camera as mirror and third eye. At first, a collage-like combination of letter-writing, investigation and journey, something between documentary and feature film. Finally, a portrait of Boris Lehman from 1989 to 1995, part II of BABEL.

One11 is a 1993 monochrome art film by John Cage and Henning Lohner. It is the only feature-length film production Cage was ever involved in.

One11 is a 1993 monochrome art film by John Cage and Henning Lohner. It is the only feature-length film production Cage was ever involved in.

Avant-garde composer John Cage is famous for his experimental pieces and "chance music" but temporarily branched into video in 1992 with this art film about meaningless activity. The work is composed of two segments that are supposed to be played simultaneously: "One 11" contains the artistic statement, and "103" is a 17-part orchestral piece. Also included is a revealing documentary about Cage and director Henning Lohner.

Avant-garde composer John Cage is famous for his experimental pieces and "chance music" but temporarily branched into video in 1992 with this art film about meaningless activity. The work is composed of two segments that are supposed to be played simultaneously: "One 11" contains the artistic statement, and "103" is a 17-part orchestral piece. Also included is a revealing documentary about Cage and director Henning Lohner.

A compilation tape of performances including John Cage Performs James Joyce, Arakawa, and Iimura's first AIUEONN and As I See You You See Me shot mostly 1980s. All deals with the relationships of words and performance in image-making.

This 56-minute documentary on America's most controversial and unique composer manages to cover a great many aspects of Cage's work and thought. His love for mushrooms, his Zen beliefs and use of the I Ching, and basic bio details are all explained intelligently and dynamically. Black Mountain, Buckminster Fuller, Rauschenberg, Duchamp are mentioned. Yoko Ono, John Rockwell, Laurie Anderson, Richard Kostelanetz make appearances. Fascinating performance sequences include Margaret Leng-Tan performing on prepared piano, Merce Cunningham and company, and performances of Credo In Us, Water Music, and Third Construction. Demystifies the man who made music from silence, from all sounds, from life.

Celebrated documentary filmmaker Emile DeAntonio discusses his comtempt for J Edgar Hoover, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and American political intolerance in general.

A compilation of avant-garde artwork and talent of the mid to late 20th century hosted by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

In his book "1984", George Orwell saw the television of the future as a control instrument in the hands of Big Brother. Right at the start of the much-anticipated Orwellian year, Paik and Co. were keen to demonstrate satellite TV's ability to serve positive ends-- Namely, the intercontinental exchange of culture, combining both highbrow and entertainment elements. A live broadcast shared between WNET TV in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, linked up with broadcasters in Germany and South Korea, reached a worldwide audience of over 10 or even 25 million (including the later repeat transmissions).

A television documentary produced for British Television directed by Peter Greenaway

More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.

A Tribute to John Cage is Paik's homage to avant-garde composer John Cage. A major figure in contemporary art and music, Cage was one of the primary influences on Paik's work, as well as his friend and frequent collaborator. In this multifaceted portrait, Paik creates a pastiche of Cage's performances and anecdotes, interviews with friends and colleagues, and examples of Paik's participatory music and television works that parallel Cage's strategies and concerns. The methodology and philosophies that inform Cage's radical musical aesthetic — chance, randomness, the democratization of sounds — are evident as he performs such seminal pieces as 4'33" (of complete silence) in Harvard Square, or throws the I Ching to determine performance sites. Among the collage of elements included in this work are segments from Paik's Zen for TV; Paik and Charlotte Moorman in early performances, including the TV Bra; and anecdotes from composer Alvin Lucier.

“Westbeth” was Cunningham’s first video collaboration with Charles Atlas, and the first video project to be made at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio on the eleventh floor of Westbeth.

"Filmic impressions of composer John Cage, mushroom hunting on his home ground of Stony Point, New York; visiting his home for the last time; radiating love towards his friends; and buying fruits and vegetables at the farm market before returning to New York City." —Jud Yalkut

Global Groove was a collaborative piece by Nam June Paik and John Godfrey. Paik, amongst other artists who shared the same vision in the 1960s, saw the potential in the television beyond it being a one-sided medium to present programs and commercials. Instead, he saw it more as a place to facilitate a free flow of information exchange. He wanted to strip away the limitations from copyright system and network restrictions and bring in a new TV culture where information could be accessed inexpensively and conveniently. The full length of the piece ran 28 minutes and was first broadcasted in January 30, 1974 on WNET.

During this critical decade in American life, artists built on the styles of the 1950s. An explosion of artistic energy produced Pop Art, Minimalism, color-field painting, and hard-edged abstraction. Sculptors and painters on both coasts explored new methods and new subject matter. American Art in the Sixties examines the key figures of that decade including Rauschenberg and Johns, two crucial transitional figures between Abstract Expressionism and the sensibilities of the new decade. The art of that time mirrors the optimism and the affluence, and the technology and the vulgarity of those boom years.

This is the debut documentary made by Alexis Krasilovsky, author of "Women Behind The Camera" (Praeger, 1997). Shot on 16mm in 1971, the film covers much of the New York avant-garde of the time.

Catch 44, co-produced by Nam June Paik, fuses Cage's compositional precepts with the immediacy and real time of video. Cage is seen performing and preparing for the program "WGBX: A Telecast for Composers and Technicians," presented by the Boston public television station WGBX-TV (Channel 44). Subverting audience expectations and underlining Cage's belief that improvisation is a critical element of composition, here the act of scoring music becomes the performance. For Cage, whose work embraces paradox, the ambient noise of the broadcast studio and the alternation of sound and silence determine the nature and direction of the performance from moment to moment. Through his use of repetition, absurdity, found sound and silence, Cage compels the audience to rethink traditional assumptions of musical theory and composition.

Experimental composer John Cage tours Europe with The Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1966.

Experimental composer John Cage tours Europe with The Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1966.

Although Rahsaan Roland Kirk and John Cage never actually meet in this film (Cage's enigmatic questions about sound are intercut with some of Kirk's more ambitious experiments with it) these two very different musical iconoclasts share a similar vision of the boundless possibilities of music.

A multi-media event with choreographed dance, mobile decor, variable lighting, multiple film projection, and live-electronic music activated by the dancers' movements.

The choreographer Merce Cunningham working with the musician John Cage and the painter Robert Rauschenberg.

Portrait of Jesse Collins: a daydream nightmare in the surrealist tradition.

The film begins with a sun materializing out of the emptiness of space. In the first of three sequences we see various images from nature against music: the sky, trees, leaves, a bird, water, sand, a beach. A little boy wanders along the beach observing the natural world around him. He walks and presently comes to a house and peers inside. The second sequence has no music. The narrator speaks of sculptor Alexander Calder and his work, as we see Calder in his workshop, cutting and creating unusual shapes, and seeing the resultant artworks. The last sequence has music as we view images of Calder's work. However, now they are intercut with images from nature so that we understand that Calder's inspiration is the natural world around him. The film ends as it began, with an image of the sun, now fading into the sky.

A choreographic interpretation of a dancer's anxiety before starting her theater routine.

An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.

A woman lies on the sand, left there by the tides and waves (and in a pose that would be copied in From Here to Eternity). She reaches up across tree roots and makes a difficult climb. Only to discover herself climbing horizontally along a long dinner table as bourgeoise black-tie guests chat and drink and smoke, oblivious to her. At the top of the table, a man is playing chess but abandons the game. Fascinated, she gazes at board, the pieces moving unaided. The woman chases a pawn as it falls to the floor. Falls down a waterfall. Is lost.

The happening Alla ricerca del silenzio perduto - Cage's Train has lingered in the memory of all the people who took part in it, and the echoes left behind by the American composer's “prepared train” have spread through time. This rare document, edited by Oderso Rubini and Massimo Simonini.

Inverting the form, style and time frame of commercial television advertising, Logue has produced a unique series of dynamic video portraits of avant-garde artists, writers, musicians and performers. In 30 Second Spots: New York, which Logue terms "commercials for artists," each of the succinct vignettes conveys the artistic essence of her subject with clarity, wit, and an elegant economy of means. John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray and Steve Reich are among the artists who are captured here with concise drama. Each subject performs in close-up before a stationary camera.

Chessfilmnoise is a experimental film, the first directed by John Cage, produced by Frank Scheffer. From 1982 to 1992 Frank Scheffer worked with John Cage on numerous occasions, which resulted in a unique archive of historical audio-visual material like this.