David Behrman

Knots and Fields examines the aesthetic debates and tensions that have animated the Darmstadt courses over six decades, exploring their relevance today in an increasingly globalised environment.

A history of the work of Merce Cunningham.

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.

In 1975 the composer Robert Ashley embarked on an ambitious work titled Music With Roots in the Aether. He called it an Opera (or piece of theater depending on the case) for television. The work is comprised of seven, two hours sections. Each “episode” is dedicated to investigations, interviews, and performances of his one of his peers – David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley respectively, with the final reserved for himself.

Part of a collection of restored early works by Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut, this piece is historically significant as well as remarkably prescient. Video Tape Study No.3 is a direct media intervention, in which Paik distorts and manipulates footage from news conferences by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and New York Mayor Lindsey.