Exposition

Rephrasing Duration: Silence(s) in 4'33" (2025)

Guy Livingston
open exposition

About this exposition

This article explores the shifting temporality of John Cage’s 4’33” as it propogates through the digital landscape of YouTube. Originally conceived as a timed, almost site-specific performance of shared presence and ambient listening, 4’33” can function surprisingly well online in an environment dedicated to speed, repetition, and distraction. Drawing on seven diverse video performances—ranging from the historically grounded to the amateur and experimental—I examine how silence and time are embodied, marked, framed, and performed in online space. These performances inhabit a paradox: they are situated within a system designed to fragment attention, yet they demand stillness and duration. In doing so, they unsettle the assumptions of immediacy that govern digital spectatorship. Rather than treat 4’33” as a fixed score, I argue that each video becomes a site of temporal negotiation. The performers use silence as a gestural and visual act, creating tension between embodied time and platform time. They foreground listening not only as acoustic attention but as a durational stance—an insistence on presence within an artwork that privileges absence. The result is a form of quiet resistance to algorithmic rhythm, the embracing of non-playing, a reclaiming of boredom. These online performances suggest that 4’33” has not lost its edge. Instead, it has adapted, becoming a mirror for contemporary conditions of time, presence, and attention. Silence here is not absence, but an expanded field—where listening, duration, and performance are reimagined in and against the temporal asynchronicities of the digital. (painting by Morna McGoldrick, 1964)
typeresearch exposition
keywordssilence, embodiment, markers, Silence perception, john cage, time, time based media, duration, YouTube, durational
date21/10/2024
published09/12/2025
last modified09/12/2025
statuspublished
affiliationAfrica Open Institute (Stellenbosch) and Royal Conservatory (The Hague)
copyrightGuy Livingston
licenseAll rights reserved
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3610706/3610790
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/hub.3610706
published inHUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
portal issue5. HUB Issue #5 / Autumn 2025 / Duration? Dur(action)!


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nameTudor version 433 without commentary.mp4
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nameex2 John Cage's 4'33 William Marx at piano black and white.mp4
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nameex3 Cage himself performing 433 as a lecture in germany.mp4
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nameex4 - sitting on bench in wind.mp4
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nameex7 4'33 Quarantine A cappella 《4分33秒 無伴奏合唱》by SIS樂印姊妹.mp4
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nameex9 4'33'' (John Cage) 1 Guy, 15 Instruments.mp4
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nameex8 John Cage - 4' 33'' Death Metal Cover by Dead Territory.mp4
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nameCage 6 videos paired reenactments.mp4
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nameMcGoldrick-Stravinsky in a Field (oil on canvas, 1964)
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nameScreenshot 2025-04-30 at 18.16.24
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nameDeadTerritoryCage-comments remix.mp4 - copy
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nameex7 John Cage's 4'33 Performed on a Refrigerator-(with uninvited guest Nimbu)
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namefridge version
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