In a Landscape

"In a Landscape (piano solo)" is a composition by John Cage, here interpreted by Mauro Castellano.
Little did I know when I met John Cage, between 1980 and 1984, that I would one day do work that could (try to) dialogue with his, at least in the "time" dimension.
I was then a painter "only," had not yet been forced to go digital as the allergies (to pain fumes and much more) that hit me hard later were not at all present.
I was then "teaching" (drawing and painting) at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (http://www.nyss.org/). I was also its Summer Program director, and one my predecessors, a few short years before my tenure, was Morton Feldman.
That school (started by my friend and mentor Mercedes Matter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes_Matter) had been a fabulous place for encounters between Cage, Feldman, Buckminster Fuller, Bill (and Elaine) de Kooning, Philip Guston and many more, some very well-known, others less, but all remarkable people (I still have fond memories and much admiration for Peter Agostini, a little known artist, and yet one of the best sculptors -and teacher- I have ever met).
I had absolutely no notion then that I would one day work closely with music, and sometimes with Cage's and Feldman's music at that! (See my rendition of Feldman's "Palais de Mari" here http://vimeo.com/35784706)
If I was able then to relate to Cage's ideas, they really came to greater life for me as soon as I entered the "time" dimension, especially the work I do in real-time (live performances, as in this piece http://vimeo.com/38235146).
Here are samples of drawings I did during those heady days (it is also interesting to note that this "Pandora series" gave birth to my first ever "animation" a little over 12 years ago, almost 20 years after the drawings were done): http://www.vudici.net/awn/images_intro.html
So much of the work I see today , be that in festivals or on the web, seems to be generated by recipes. I trust that we are capable of much more than that, as in "working by way of not-knowing."
Somebody once said that "talent is not demonstrated by how much one knows how to do, but by how well one can function when no longer knowing what to do."
As long as we search for and cling to recipes, we are unable/unwilling to hit that point, that "not-knowing," at which, from which, through which, the "real" work begins.
John Cage, talking to Philip Guston, said: "When you are in your studio, you are there, with all your thoughts, the thoughts of your friends and of your enemies. As you start working, and if you are lucky, they start leaving, one by one. If you continue to work, and if you are very lucky, even you leave."