SATIE was one of the most multimedia and collaborative of composers. The notion that his music is part of a larger artistic experience – not a self-standing work – is present from his earliest experiments with Montmartre writers. In later life his work increasingly resulted from collaboration, notably with artists he met in Montparnasse cafes and interart events: the most significant works of 1924, his last active year as a composer, are the ballets Mercure and Relâche. Mercure saw Satie rekindling his collaboration with Picasso, while Relâche, composed for the Ballets Suédois, was ultimately a Satie/Picabia/René Clair work, though based on a concept by Blaise Cendrars. Satie and André Derain also toyed with a number of ballet scenarios around 1923–4, though none of these resulted in finished works. All these collaborations, like Satie's Galerie Barbazanges furniture music for Max Jacob's play Ruffian toujours, truand jamais (1920), saw him moving in experimental artistic and high-society circles and being part of the significant crossover between these groups. Many of Satie's works are inspired by popular entertainment such as the circus, and his last works show an up-to-date interest in mechanical innovations, culminating in his participation in René Clair's film interlude for Relâche, a ballet that ended with Satie and Picabia driving onstage in a miniature Citroen car. This chapter tells the story of many of the collaborative works of his last years, exploring the role his music plays as part of a wider artistic context and showing that Satie became increasingly notorious as an avant-garde provocateur.

By World War I we see Satie being an active participant and influence on the contemporary artistic scene, not just as a composer. This scene was characterised by manifestos, art magazines, self-conscious modernity and experimentation. A flurry of short-lived experimental art magazines were venues for artists of all descriptions to bring their work to a small but influential public: Satie was a contributor to many of these magazines, which either implicitly or explicitly aligned him aesthetically with the artistic avant-garde of his day. After the war, Satie was also friendly with members of the Paris Dada circle including Tristan Tzara, though the Dada concept of ‘happenings’ had already emerged from the tiny Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916, where multiple performances in different media occurred simultaneously.