“Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds” was written by an American composer called John Cage. The piece was performed at Woodstock in 1952 for an audience that supported contemporary art and consisted of nothing other than a piano and a stopwatch to record three silent movements of which he turned a page.

Members of the audience were not happy about the performance and to this day members of the original audience are apparently still angry. The piece is not an extended moment of silence or an absence of noise, as silence does not exist. The piece is created by the ambient noise of the audience - the environmental unintentional sounds. The audiences missed the whole point of the piece and were ignorant toward the real meaning behind what was being said. The piece consisted of no “intentional” sounds therefore my concept would center on the idea of interference by unexpected sounds. 

 

The frustration behind all of this led me to think about how a telephone conversation can be ruined by unexpected sounds and interferences and can become very irritating. Just like the audience at Woodstock felt that day. Going with the concept of a simple telephone conversation, I wanted to capture a basic everyday event and analyse the sounds around it. I set out to record everyday sounds and took note of telephone conversations I had and what sounds are in the background. I realised that the piece did not need too much visual elements onscreen as this is specifically about sound so I decided to keep it purely typographic.