4’33” (Four minutes, and thirty seconds), John Cage’s renowned musical piece, is known as the

silent piece because of its blank music paper whereas the performance remains silent for exactly
4 minutes and 33 seconds. When I first watched its performance, I barely understood the
embedded message of the music, judging the piece as meaningless and boring. However, Cage
once said “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight.
Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” When the
performance was replayed, I sensed something out of silence; It was an existence of sound. In his
music, silence was not simply an absence of sound but the music people can listen to. Although
silence is conventionally known as a sense of sound with no existence of sound, Cage somehow
transformed the nonexistence to existence. 4'33" is a gentle reminder to embrace your
surroundings, to be present. If you treat every sound as you would music, you just might hear
something unexpected, something beautiful. At its core, 4'33" isn’t about listening to nothing.
It’s about listening to everything.

Every person has their own taste and perception so in listening in the composition 4’33,
some might not appreciate it. Some might make their own music by their whispers that grew
louder as they wondered what was going on. Some of them might stop watching. Others might
have shuffled in their seat, anticipating that the pianist would play something. In this reason, this
composition is indeed being based on institutional theory because it is only acknowledged to be
art by the Artworld.