what is happening, when we are truthfully listening to cages 4’33 ¹?

i do not think 4’33 is about silence in terms of quietness. it’s rather the opposite. it’s about the richness. it’s about the presence of all sounding sounds in this world.

i like antoine beugers notion of a ‘cut’. we are listening to a 4 minutes & 33 seconds - long ‘slice’ of the world. the start & the end of 4’33 are cuts. before & after 4’33, our daily life & daily perception ends & begin. within 4’33, we are listening to the world. we do not listen to a representation, but to the world itself.

i have to think of simone weil, who wrote

two tendencies with opposite extremes: to destroy the self for the sake of the universe, or to destroy the universe for the sake of the self. he who has not been able to become nothing runs the risk of reaching a moment when everything other than himself ceases to exist.