The Making of Intermedia: John Cage to Yoko Ono, 1952 to 1972

Abstract

This dissertation maps the emergence of intermedia art practices in relation to mid-20th century U.S. social conditions and media technologies, focusing on John Cage and Black Mountain College, Gertrude Stein and the Judson Poets Theater, Ray Johnson and the Something Else Press, and Yoko Ono and Fluxus. The dissertation argues that these artists and sites of art practice perform a queer art, not necessarily through expressive content but rather through a queer temporality that embraces what is preliminary, incomplete, and outmoded. The queer sensorium developed in these works questions and provides alternatives to culturally-privileged modes of the auditory and the visual.