Symphony No: 48, 1st–3rd Movement: Allegro Vivace – Andante Spiccato – Allegro Grandioso

A leading member among Fluxus artists and the founder of Something Else Press, which offered many artists a forum for publications, objects, and theoretical texts, Dick Higgins was greatly influenced by John Cage’s views on experimental music and composition, and the visualisation of both remained recurring elements in his work.

A work on paper shot through with a machine gun, "Symphony No: 48, 1st–3rd Movement: Allegro Vivace – Andante Spiccato – Allegro Grandioso" is part of Higgins’ series entitled "Thousand Symphonies (1967–1995)". In this series, the artist first shoots the paper, and then sprays it with colour. The Thousand Symphonies series is closely associated with a previous work of Higgins entitled "Danger Music", a series of eclectic and performative compositions he produced as a musical response to the late 1960s socio-political conditions of civil unrest and/or state-run military violence. The total number of symphonies is a rhetorical element for Higgins, tackling the violence and power relationship among the performers which characterises our understanding of the delivery of a musical piece in the most dictatorial and technical way. "Symphony No: 48, 1st–3rd Movement: Allegro Vivace – Andante Spiccato – Allegro Grandioso" is one of Higgins’ pieces where he details its intention, resources, notations, interpretation, and mechanics for experimental composition.