John Cage: The Cult of BTS
This is “The Cult of BTS” —my imitation of John Cage, capturing the essence of BTS fandom through soundscape and imagescape.
John Cage was an avant-garde composer renowned for his exploration of silence and the absence of deliberate sound.
In his experimental piece 4′33″, John Cage instructed musicians not to play their instruments during the performance. Instead, the piece emerged from the ambient sounds filling the silence—rustling, coughing, breathing, and the subtle noises of the audience.
Exploring John Cage has deepened my appreciation for ambient sounds, which, like for most people, I once dismissed as mere noise. His assertion that “Everything we do is music.” even inspired me to starting collecting sounds as travel souvenirs. Delving into his work, I’ve started to consider how ambient sounds can tell stories.
"The Cult of BTS" is an exploration of John Cage’s soundscapes and imagescapes. Using ambient sounds paired with a series of flashing lights, the imitation seeks to evoke the fervor of BTS fandom that often feels cult-like, while also highlighting the global phenomenon of the Army.
For the record, I’m not in the Army. There’s only one BTS song (Boy With Luv) that ever fell victim to the repeat button, but that’s about it. Still, I can live vicariously through the Army and appreciate the joy they find in BTS.
As E. Tammy Kim acknowledges in her New Yorker article, How BTS Became One of the Most Popular Bands in History:
"At the start of my BTS journey, I might have dismissed the band’s music and accompanying œuvre as a sentimental detour from our macabre shared reality. But I have found that BTS Armys do not live in a fantasy. They live where everyone else does: in a world of depression, mass death, and ecological ruin. Over the past nine years, Armys have not looked to the seven for escape. They have looked to them for joy."
Maybe “The ‘Cult’ of BTS” is a more fitting title for this piece. 🫰
