4'33 & PPT

Incorporating Mr. John Cage’s 4’33 with a PPT presentation was experimented yesterday. In my belief, the sound of silence may be the best sound to convey the simple theme I created, “Life is Beautiful”. It gives the audience a chance to absorb and reflect on the theme. The photographs in the slides should serve as a powerful enough catalyst, and further explanation by the presenter will only take away from the audiences’ imagination.

Unfortunately, the presentation did not deliver the effects intended. Feedbacks generally surrounded, “perhaps more technicalities of the photographs should be discussed”, “Maybe a bit of music in the background would help”, and “the ending was too abrupt…” These were all great comments I appreciate greatly, but I do disagree with a few of the points. Explaining why a photograph is beautiful is like explaining why a joke is funny. Breaking the photographs down to the lighting, shades, etc. murders the life and beauty within the photographs. Moreover, it’s not about the photographs, they serve as a simple catalyst, with the only purpose of inspiring us to think of the theme: “Life is Beautiful”. It’s interesting to hear someone recommend some music in the background may help…In my opinion, a piece of music was played throughout, and it was John Cage’s 4’33. Indeed, the ending was a little abrupt. The original intention was to imitate a live performance of 4’33, where the performer gets up, and walks away in silence. But, I do agree this imitation may be a little too much for a PPT presentation.

In this day and age where silence is perceived as awkward, I remain to believe there are many occasions where silence may better convey a message than words. For example, in today’s commercials, there are too many images, too much noise, and too many words. It defeats the purpose of making the brand/product memorable. By Incorporating some silence and simplicity, an idea may well be better conveyed.

-Mo Zhou