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. . . I think there are
scientists here, scientists
at the University of Illinois, for instance, inviting teachers from other
departments to teach subjects that they don’t know. The plan is to bring
about a fructifying in a situation that has been stultified. And it can
break across boundaries—but we’ve said this already. Every
boundary you
see, I think, you should try to see if it can be removed. Is it something
that is really necessary in the sense that the telephone is or that the
water faucet is, or is it something that simply satisfies a bureaucracy?
I mean, was it a necessary boundary or wasn’t it? And if it
wasn’t necessary,
then I think you can expect that the good it did in the past when it was
separating things can be kept when it isn’t separating things. I had a
curious experience yesterday. I had an appointment and I wasn’t clear as
to where the Coordinated Science building was, so I dropped first into
the one that has that name on it, which is an old building. And looking
for the room number I practically went through the whole building—because
no one in the building knew where the room numbers were, and they were
poorly organized. But in the course of that I saw all kinds of things that
I wouldn’t see in a music school, or at home, or in a
supermarket—all
kinds of machinery, and things that were strange—almost like going to
a foreign country; and then I finally got into the new building that the
room is actually in, and it, too, has many different kinds of things in
it that aren’t ever connected with music—or painting or
sculpture—which could be refreshing.
John Cage
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