Statement on Indeterminacy

Une « époque » ne préexiste pas aux énoncés qui l'expriment, ni aux visibilités qui la remplissent. (Gilles Deleuze: Foucault, 1986)


Indeterminacy happens as intrinsic unavailability (Unverfügbarkeit) of world, and the occurrence of scores such as Cages 4'33" or Brecht's Water-Yam is beautiful evidence of the efforts to be made in order to trace this unavailability.

These efforts remain residing somewhere in the scores as evidence (énoncé) of the epoch.

But Indeterminacy has become an artistic strategy, and the resultant practice of producing musical situations (encounters referring rather to sound) reflects these efforts of the potentiality of the score, though in a rather chaotic and unpredictable way.

Language oscillates between power and unavailability. A score reflects this structure.

An encounter referring rather to sound and occurring as intrinsically unavailable, could it have emerged through a notation where the quality of iteration of language and notation has been locked and where letters and signs have become mere representatives?

Scores as such occurring as incident.
Unavailability.
Regarding their possible realisations, perplexity.
Trace elements of a world.


Written in February 2010 and published in: John Lely and James Saunders, Word Events, Perspectives on Verbal Notation, Continuum 2012