The year is 1951. John Cage visits the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. He steps inside and sits, expecting to hear silence, but instead two sounds can be heard. One high and one low. As the engineer in charge explains to Cage later on, those are the sounds of his nervous system in operation and of his blood in circulation.
This is how Cage realizes that "Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music."

From this experience, and from the realization that silence is impossible, his most famous piece is born.

Four minutes, thirty-three seconds. Four thirty-three. 4'33''.
It's the day of the premiere. A crowd sits in Maverick Concert Hall, Woodstock, New York, eagerly awaiting for the music to start. David Tudor appears and approaches the piano in the middle of the stage. He sits down, opens the lid and quickly closes it back down again. He repeats this movement several times during the following four minutes and thirty-three seconds, to mark the beginnings and endings of each movement, as composed by Cage. No music can be heard. Or can it?

The crowd grows impatient, mad. In response Cage says: "They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn't know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out."

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This project attempts to encapsulate this scene, this piece of music. A stream of silence, a white square. But is it silence? Is this a white square? Look closer and you might find texture.
The packaging for this fictitious 70th anniversary deluxe edition of 4'33'' plays with color, layer and opacities to achieve this final look. 

Inside it contains: a two sided vinyl (with the original recording in one side, and various reinterpretations of the piece by several modern artists and bands, including New Order, Depeche Mode, Frank Zappa, etc.) and one of two posters.
"Everything we do is music.  Everywhere is the best seat."

- John Cage.
4'33''
Published:

4'33''

Published: