In 1952 John Cage composed the piece of music known as 4'33" usually called 433. It's a seminal piece of creativity, and if you don't know about it, read the link to learn more.
The Opposite of 4'33" is my proposal to have an audience at a performance of 433 carry out an action that lasts for the exact duration of the four minutes and thirty three seconds of the Cage piece. That action is consists of the audience making the continuous sound of the crumping up of A4 sheets of paper.
To facilitate this process, each audience member is presented with a ream of A4 paper and located between the seats there are large baskets to receive the resulting crumpled balls.
At the signal from the conductor, the pianist begins his non playing pose and the audience commences generating the crumpled paper cacophony.
After exactly four minutes and thirty three seconds the conductor waves his/her baton to end the performance.
As every resulting ball of paper is totally unique, they can be hung in a large space to form a visual representation of The Opposite of 4'33".
Other continuous Opposites Of 4'33" generation alternatives include: ball-pen clicking; amplified eye blinking; sweet paper unwrapping; zipping/unzipping clothes; shoes on floor shuffling; chair scrapping backwards and forwards, and for a very special event there is the 433 Chin Scratching Opus with free entry to anyone with a beard.-- xenzag, Apr 03 2021 4'33" https://en.wikipedi...E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3John Cage's 433 [xenzag, Apr 03 2021] https://en.wikipedi...usical_compositions There are many different "silent" compositions, but they all seem to have a slightly different take on the concept. It's a shame Cage's 4'33" seems to have taken over the field. Personally, I think my favourite is the first one, Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1897) by Alphonse Allais, though I have to say Silent Tracks of Various Useful Lengths (2010) by Brett Black has a certain charm. [pocmloc, Apr 03 2021] NYT 2021/03/08 The Latest Wrinkle in Crumple Theory https://www.nytimes...hin%20sheet%20of,D. [jutta, Apr 07 2021] Certainly unique. Uniq? [+]
Can the audience throw the completed paper balls at one another?-- whatrock, Apr 03 2021 + Pretty cool. I love audience participation.-- xandram, Apr 03 2021 The snack kiosk at this venue only sells crisps, ring-pull cans of fizzy drinks, crunchy candy bars, and other noisy foods-- hippo, Apr 03 2021 Surely the opposite would be static white noise at the loudest possible setting?-- RayfordSteele, Apr 03 2021 My own contributor to the genre is called " " and the score specifies that the performance venue is to contain no musicians or performers, no tech crew, no staff and no audience, and is to be locked and secured against intruders. The performance is to run for "a very long time" usually interpreted to mean about five and a half hours, though this is up for interpretation. Posters, promotion, and advertising are specified as an integral part of the performance as well as the presence of a copper pot to be set in the centre of the performance space.
The world premier is being held tonight. I guess this notice counts as "world wide advertising and promotion on the main social networking platforms" and so fulfils the marketing requirements of the composition.-- pocmloc, Apr 03 2021 [Raybrad] No, it wouldn't really be, as the idea of the Cage piece was to refocus attention on the imperfect surrounding silence, outside of the near perfect silence inside of the piece. White noise is too continuous and devoid of unpredictable components. Using white noise is a bit like saying that the opposite of a Cubist painting is a Kasimir Malevich, when I would say there's a stronger logic for it being a figurative representational work. Also, unless each person in the audience generates a component of the white noise, (a complete idea in itself) then the entire idea behind the Cage piece is lost-- xenzag, Apr 03 2021 Pomloc - it was Cage who inverted the attention to that of the ambient sounds created by the audience. Just as gravity always existed, it was Newton who looked at it with new insight, and so it was with Cage, who brought a new vision to that which was always there.-- xenzag, Apr 03 2021 I was going for the scientific opposite, which would be filling all space with as much noise as possible, which would inevitably be white noise.-- RayfordSteele, Apr 03 2021 The paper doesn't have to be white.
Opposite implies a simple single dimension but in a multifaceted complexity it depends on the focus, which includes non focus. Antithesis? Contrary?-- wjt, Apr 03 2021 [xenzag]; your "other continuous Opposites" aren't nearly as good as the main idea, as the main idea gives a tangible result of the "Opposite of nothing". Which I like.-- neutrinos_shadow, Apr 07 2021 *pinches a nearby baby*-- 21 Quest, Apr 07 2021 random, halfbakery