Yoko Ono – Cough Piece
As I viewed ubu web for different sound artists and their sound pieces, I came across one with an interesting title, “Yoko Ono – Cough Piece.” Out of curiosity I decided to click on the link and check it out but in all honesty, my first impression on the piece was that it was useless. I didn’t quite get Yoko Ono’s point – if any, of coughing for a good half an hour was about. The sound piece basically consisted of coughing along with an amazingly annoying echoing/rumbling sound which seemed to serve as white noise in the piece. The piece I will say nonetheless was interesting enough to keep me wondering what she was gonna do next – other than cough. Among the coughing there was the ever-constant echoing rumble coupled with the occasional tapping on a glass or the sound of an stone object being scraped across the sidewalk. I found the piece to be intriguing enough to listen to the whole half an hour because other than coughing Yoko Ono threw in random sounds which I didn’t quite expect & I tried to figure out the point of the sound piece which Yoko Ono was trying to display, but i didn’t actually enjoy the piece as the repetitive pattern proved to be quite annoying to listen to especially for such a length of half an hour. If I could ask one question to Yoko Ono, it would be what was the purpose of the cough piece, or if it had a purpose at all, and if not, why make the piece then? Although I could not figure out any meaning to the cough piece, I plan to continue to explore this certain piece and maybe try to answer my question without actually asking Yoko Ono herself.
