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CAGE: A FILMIC CIRCUS ON METAPHORS ON VISION
An interview with Film Artist Lawrence Brose by Christine Sevilla, April 12, 2004.
In his film and video portrait of composer John Cage, film artist Lawrence Brose and composer Douglas Cohen combine more than seventy compositions and performance works by forty-five composers. Originally presented in 1993 as a performance work in Los Angeles at LACE and LACMA, and in New York City at Experimental Intermedia Loft, the USA premiere of the gallery installation version (commissioned by the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, Ireland) was on view at the Visual Studies Workshop Gallery in Rochester, New York until May 15. The work was part of a two-person exhibition of media art that included Brose's new series of large-format, film-based Iris prints from his film, De Profundis, and VSW Executive Director Chris Burnett's Messages to Extinct Places in the Present Tense.
CAGE
Christine Sevllla: How did your interest in John Cage, the musical revolutionist / composer / artist / philosopher, begin? What was your first collaboration and what led you to honor him with this film portrait?
Lawrence Brose: I first worked with John Cage on a film that I made to his score, Ryoanji. That was the beginning of my series of films called Films for Music for Film. Before working with Cage, and before developing this film series, I started out making the film, Hyacinth Fire, a collaboration with the composer Douglas Cohen, who also worked on the Cage project with me. That led me to make six films for the North American New Music Festival-it was an evening of live music and film in which one of the films was Ryoanji. My lover at the time, Yvar Mikhashoff, was founder of the North American New Music Festival, a virtuoso pianist, and artistic director of a number of new music festivals throughout the world. He worked with Virgil Thomson and John Cage. At this time Cage had just completed the Europeras; numbers five and six were created for Yvar. Through that association 1 began to know John, although I had met him many times because he frequently came to Buffalo as part of the Creative Associates who were bringing in composers in residence. Notable composers were here...