Persons of Note: I Ching

I am beginning to get an idea of where I want my project and my ideas to go. I am really intrigued by John Cage's use of chance to produce compositions. I knew about his I Ching method, so I researched this further to see how he applied it to music but I found that he actually made some artwork based around this.


He used the I Ching to determine what tools to use, what colours, where to put lines and shapes etc and the results are his series called Changes and Disappearances. This ties in perfectly to what I want to produce for my project so I am going to try and learn how to use the I Ching to create images.

I've found an article by The Guardian that goes into detail about his process of creating images - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/aug/03/classicalmusicandopera.artsfeatures

For this project John Cage used etching. This is a method I haven't yet explored, but I might do if I have time before the deadline because I feel like this would add weight to my work and make it more relevant to Cage. If not, I will use monoprinting because it's a similar printing process and I'm already very familiar with it.

"Cage decided the marks on the plates would be of three types: crisp engraved lines, fuzzy drypoint lines, and wide lines made photographically from Thoreau's drawings. He began composing each print by asking the I Ching how many plates to use. Then he asked how many lines should be on each of them, where each line should be located, and what type of line it should be. Using all this information, he drew up a detailed "score"."

This is from the article I referenced. I suppose for my own work I have to do something similar, like decide on a few lines or shapes, colours and draw up a score so when I consult the I Ching, I know what to use and where.