At 8:15pm on August 29, 1952 the Benefit Artists Welfare Fund gathered in the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York to hear the pianist David Tudor perform John Cage’s latest composition. They heard nothing, a nothing entitled 4’33”. Inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s three-paneled White Painting of 1951, the handwritten score indicated a silence of three movements. According to the original performance program, the first movement was 30 seconds, the second was 2 minutes and 23 seconds and the last was 1 minute and 40 seconds. Music without music: is it still music? Are music videos without music still music videos?
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