Cage, Nono and 1960s Hauntology

An interdisciplinary reading of spectral moments and hauntology in mid 1960s experimental music by John Cage and Luigi Nono.

This Element explores Jacques Derrida's concept of 'hauntology' and its connection to experimental music. Focusing on the 1960s, it examines how composers like John Cage and Luigi Nono used records and tape in composition. The Element delves into lost futures, past usage and the future implications of hauntological music.'What does it mean to follow a ghost?' Posing this question in Specters of Marx (1993), Jacques Derrida introduces the philosophical concept of 'hauntology' and the 'medium of the media' through the Shakespearian trope that time is 'out of joint'. Replete with ghostly crackles, hiss, pops and static, analogue media occupied a pivotal role in experimental music and praxis in the twentieth century, particularly during the 1960s, when composers such as John Cage and Luigi Nono systematically exploited the affordances of records and tape in composition and performance. Exploring hauntology's ghostly interplay with music and technology, this Element considers lost futures, past usage and future implications for hauntological music from the late 1930s to the twenty-first century.