i thought this was a cookbook!! it wasnt. beware!!

Kahn's text sprawls over 358 pages, and is filled with innovative insights into the auditory component of the 20th century avant-garde. I found the most brilliant section to be his critique of John Cage. Cage created music with the aim of "quieting the mind, to open it to divine influence." Kahn is the first to articulate what I have felt, that Cage, the zen anarchist, is just as manipulative with this goal as any tonal symphonic architect! As Kahn puts in,

"...Cagean silence...has silenced other things, as it dwells at the problematic edge of audibility and attempts to hear the world of sound without hearing aspects of the world in a sound" (p. 4) Kahn turns on its head Cage's stated aim of "just letting sound be," speaking rather of "Cage's dominion of all sound and always sound," a project to turn all sound into music! (p. 197)

Much of the rest of the book, the sections on "Water Flows and Flux" and "Meat Voices," is a wandering chronicle of various avant forms, and Kahn has fun with organic analogies. But it's a fascinating trip through little-known terrain, and Kahn is a fearless and creative guide!

This astonishing history of twentieth century art offers a deep and profound view of intermedia and multimedia through the aspect of sound. Kahn's narrative is beautifully written and well researched. He supports the text with a wealth of documentary sources that permit further research. This book is a seminal contribution to research in intermedia, multimedia, and media studies. KF

Book review published in Design Research News, Volume 6, Number 8, Aug 2001 ISSN 1473-3862.