SOUND::GENDER::FEMINISM::ACTIVISM

 
 London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, May 17, 
 2012
 Deadline: Mar 16, 2012
 
 SOUND::GENDER::FEMINISM::ACTIVISM
 
 CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
 
 Post-graduate Research Event
 London College of Communication, University of the Arts London
 May 17th 2012
 
 We invite submissions for 10 minute contributions relating to aspects 
 of research in the context of sound, in its various creative and 
 theoretical forms, and gender. This is an open call and we welcome 
 responses from all relevant disciplines and will accept a variety of 
 formats from short academic presentations to more experimental 
 contributions.
 
 We are looking to share research with a view to establishing a network
 of researchers and practitioners working in these areas. The final 
 format of the event will be generated around the contributions received.
 
 Please send expressions of interest, including the theme, topic and 
 format of your presentation, of around 100 words and a short biography 
 of no more than 100 words by March 16th 2012 to 
 soundartsevent@crisap.org
 
 supported by CRiSAP http://www.crisap.org/
 
 This event follows on from
 Her Noise Archive Symposium
 3-5 May 2012
 Tate Modern
 
 A three day event investigating feminist discourses in sound, launching 
 with a performance and talk by Pauline Oliveros. The symposium, which 
 brings together contributions by leading artists, performers, 
 theoreticians and writers aims to provide a platform to further develop 
 these emergent feminist discourses in sound and music, with an emphasis 
 on tactics that challenge and / or infiltrate canonical readings. The 
 event marks the donation of the Her Noise Archive to University of the 
 Arts London Archives and Special Collections housed at London College 
 of Communication, and is realised as a collaboration between CRiSAP 
 (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice), Electra and Tate.
 
 Reference / Quellennachweis:
 CFP: Sound Gender Feminism Activism (London, 17 May 12). In: H-ArtHist, 
 Feb 22, 2012. <http://arthist.net/archive/2760>.
  ___________________________________________________________________ 

“Mirror House” - an exploration of acoustics

“Mirror House” is an exploration of acoustics, and our perception of it relative to vision. It is a soundscape collaboration between Rob Olins and composer Douglas Benford.

Benford’s composition is made from sounds recorded from the city of Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver is filled with the same urban sounds of any major city – traffic and construction noises, snatched conversations. But it is surrounded by forests and coastal waters with less of a border between urbanism and nature and more of a diffusion of one into another, and as a result, the sounds of the shore, droning seaplanes, and bird calls can also be heard.

Olins uses an acoustic reflector to focus the Vancouver score such that it will be inaudible outside of one focal point. As one steps into the focal point, the background noise of central London is displaced by the sound of Vancouver.

The observer can choose to look at the acoustic reflector or out onto the East London high street, that is, can choose to explore the relationship between what is heard versus seen. If the 2 senses’ information conflict, does it matter? Studies1 show that our vision overrides sound to determine what we perceive, automatically and unconsciously. It is this perception of sound (versus sight) that we wish to explore.

Artists talks, Saturday 25 February, 300 – 430 pm. Talks are free; but space is limited, please reserve your space with the gallery. Light refreshment will be served.

Please join the artist, the composer, scientist Dr Nick Pillans and SoundFjord Gallery Director Helen Frosi in conversation about some of the ideas around the exhibition. The panel will discuss the work in the show and the engagement of sound and vision in terms of architecture, location and memory. From the science behind the interaction of sound with people and places, to the framework surrounding the curation of such works, the group will discuss how the work questions our understanding of acoustics and our perception of it.

Dr Nick Pillans is an environmental scientist who taught in the Greenwich School of Architecture for many years and is principal of Acoustic Design Consultancy. He is interested in the interrelationships between musical and architectural forms.

Helen Frosi is the creative director and co-founder of SoundFjord, a gallery, research unit and venue dedicated to the Sonic Arts.

1 Feb to 3 Mar
We to Sa, 1 to 6 pm, or by appointment

+44 (0)20 7247 3143 info@augustart .co.uk www.augustart.co.uk

Director: Winnie Sze
224 Shoreditch High Street
Shoreditch, London, E1 6PJ
1Studies include “Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices”, Harry McGurk and John McDonald, 1976

Call for Proposals for Site Specific Exhibition at Shalford Mill

Call for Proposals for Site Specific Exhibition at Shalford Mill

Contemporary artists are sought for a unique art space. The project

promotes innovative, original, and site-specific installations.

Where

A temporary exhibition curated in the public area of the National Trust

property Shalford Mill near Guildford, Surrey. The main installation will be in

the ‘Gang’s Room’, but related work could be situated anywhere within the

public access area of the property.

When

Wednesday 19th September – Sunday 30th September 2012

Proposals requested for:

1. Sound Installation- some archive material is available in the form of

radio interviews.

or

2. Visual artwork based on:

• The life and personalities involved in the Ferguson’s Gang

• Urbanisation- historic and/or contemporary references to

urbanisation.

Proposals to include:

• A written description and examples of how the artist intends the work to

be (Max 500 words).

• A brief statement to clarify the how concept of the proposed artwork

links with one of the above themes (Max 500 words).

• A resume of relevant work to include detail of your practice.

• Max of 5 examples of previous work to be submitted in digital format.

These can be photographs/images for visual artists or soundbites,

showreels etc… for sound artists.

Deadline

Deadline for initial declarations of interest: Wednesday 15th March, 2012

Please e-mail submissions to:

Polly Bagnall

pollybagnall@yahoo.co.uk

Megan Clark-Bagnall me@workwithmegan.co.uk

N.B. E-mail attachments must not exceed 10MB.

Note:

Proposed projects must work within the ambience of a disused 18th century

corn mill.

Visits to the site and submission enquiries.

Contact: Polly Bagnall pollybagnall@yahoo.co.uk

Who can submit

Contemporary artists working in a range of disciplines: film; sound; visual art,

performance and installation looking to explore and create a new site-specific

project. There is no funding available as yet. Should funding become available

the priority will be to firstly to resource the artists’ projects and secondly the

publicity for the exhibition.

Serveral partners are on board offering their services, including the National

Trust.

The exhibition will be promoted by the National Trust locally and nationally

and artists work will be professionally recorded.

Taming the Tentacles

Art Exhibition at Shalford Mill, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 8BS

A contemporary look at the work of the Ferguson’s Gang.

Includes an art installation of the room used by the ‘Gang’ and interractive

workshops.

Wednesday 19th September – Sunday 30th September 2012

Aims:

1. To engage a wider audience to the National Trust.

2. To draw upon the history of the mill and make this relevant to the

modern visitor.

3. To bring a new audience to contemporary art. Some workshops or

interractive work will be held during the period of the exhibition.

More:

The Ferguson’s Gang were predominantly a group of women: Bill Stickers;

Red Biddy; Bludy Bishop; Sister Agatha; Erb the Smasher; Kate O’Brien;

Silent O’ Moyle; See Me Run; Gerry Boham and Black Maria, whose lives are

still relatively unknown. Their mission was to limit the spread of unregulated

urbanisation in England during the 1920’s and 30’s. Inspired by Clough

William-Ellis’s book “England and the Octopus”, which warned that ugly

urban sprawl was ruining the country, the Gang bought land and properties

in England including the then derelict Shalford Mill and entrusted these to the

National Trust in 1932.

Urbanisation is a particularly pertinent theme in Britain today with the

introduction of the proposed National Planning Policy Framework, but also on

a global scale with the development of mega-cities worldwide.

Based on archive material and reminiscences of the present occupants of

the mill selected contemporary artists have been invited to respond to the

work of this gang of eccentric and radical women.The exhibition includes an

installation inside the room in which the Gang used to meet. Original archive

material (photographs; journals; letters; recordings) is available for research

and possible use in the exhibition.

Part 5 of 6, The active listener; Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

Spirit of Gravity

In 2001, Brighton saw the reawakening of the experimental music event. Several factors contributed to this result, such as eclectic music genre crossovers, new electronic music equipment encouraging experimentation and interaction from MPCs to MAX/MSP, cheaply available high quality devices for live performance, as well the fad for ‘anything goes’ anti commercial, anti elitist music venues such as squats and warehouses, as a platform for underground experimental artists to exhibit. The introduction of a 'late licence' to venues such as pubs and bars was also a factor, as even small venues now have the opportunity of increasing their profits by serving drinks longer, live music has become the tool with which to attract customers to their establishment. This increase in demand has made it possible for music groups which are not targeted at popular culture to stage events. With the advent of file sharing technologies on the internet, musicians can promote their music to a mass audience at no cost, and this has enabled experimental musicians to establish followings, where previously they were likely to struggle against the tide of big budget mass marketed corporations. In addition, product sale has plummeted due the accessibility of music files that can be downloaded instantly and free of charge, resulting in an increased budget for the promotion of the music event. The popular music industry now draws its largest profits from events or 'club culture', consequently genres have branched and fused, varying in relation to social subcultures to meet the demands of its target audiences, however, as the event is centred around a 'dance culture' the dominance of rhythmical structure renders 'club music' generic.

The musical collective 'Spirit of Gravity' is distinctive in its rebellion against the mass marketing of the clubbing industry and the repetitive structures of modern electronic music styles. Promoting an alternative, experimental approach to music, each event is unique and the encounterer leaves with an experience. All events are documented in a regularly updated online blog, with a description of the act and atmosphere of the performance. In addition to photographs, short videos of the live event are interspersed in the text alongside sound bytes. The artists' involved, experiment with sonic and visual technologies, and in the creation of their music often employ unconventional instruments, home-made modified synthesisers, or assortments of household objects manipulated to create sound. Their focus lies in improvised performance; concerts are theatrical and often interactive, always including unusual instrumentation and employing the element of chance.

An exemplary event took place at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, in March 2007. The venue consisted of a small stage with seats for fifty people, situated above a local pub. Bingo boards were placed on each seat and the performer, Hot Roddy, acted as both musician and ‘caller’. After each bingo number was randomly selected from a bag, Hot Roddy called the number and performed a piece which coincided with that number using a sampler to play a variety of recordings of calling nicknames for the numbers such as “number 10, Tony’s Den, Big Ben, cock and hen” whilst improvising on sitar to a loop of electronic noise music played from a laptop. This was a demonstration against the demise of light-hearted games when taken over by big business organisation such as Gala or Mecca Bingo, companies who have replaced a traditional game with another moneymaking ploy, devaluing the social aspect in favour of a new gambling market. Hot Roddy entertained, implicating the audience in his music and inviting them to interact in the game. The winner did not leave empty-handed, but was invited onstage to accept the reward of a bag of flour, eggs and milk – the ingredients for pancakes, as it was Shrove Tuesday. In such interactive music performances the encounterer is presented with an experience entirely different to the typical youth culture music event. The listener is connected to the composition process, which stimulates the creative sensibilities of the audience.

At the Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, in November 2008, Henry Collins, a member of the collective Spirit of Gravity, played his newly-invented instrument in a project dubbed 'Slash's Wormhole' (fig. 15): a stand-up vacuum cleaner with guitar strings strung to the neck, and an electronic pick-up on the body. Functioning as both electric bass guitar and household cleaning device, this gag demonstrates many ideals that Fluxus artists held dear. As the mechanical drone of a vacuum cleaner is usually perceived as an unpleasant sound, this project questions whether the sound is dismissed as noise only because of the situation we are used to hearing it in – whilst performing the mundane ritual of household cleaning. Collins encourages the listener to "pay attention to noises around you, by magnifying sound you usually block out"[1]. Once taken out of the household context and brought into a new environment, the sound of the hoover itself is focused on. The low growl of the motor and ‘whirr’ of the fan create an ominous bass line.

The Futurist Luigi Russolo affirms ‘every noise has a tone, and sometimes also a harmony that predominates over the body of its irregular vibrations’[2]. So as the sound of the vacuum cleaner is part of the piece, it is joined by the performer plucking the guitar strings on the body.  Furthermore, it demonstrates that by viewing everyday objects in a new light, art can be found in the small experiences, which compose our lives. Fluxus chairman George Maciunas would have relished the dual function of the instrument, as usefulness and economy were essential in his art objects.

Henry Collins manipulates technologies to transform everyday objects into resonant instruments. In 'Kettle and Fridge Act' (fig. 16) clip on microphones are attached to the bodies of the devices, so as to pick up and amplify all the minute surface vibrations as current passes through their circuits. In the interactive game 'Midi ping-pong', piezo transducers are positioned on the table to generate a current, which in turn triggers a sound when the ball makes contact with the surface. 'House Music' (fig. 17) is an anthropomorphised multitude of domestic appliances, comically located similarly to the positions of the members of a rock band and their instruments. Each device produces a tone, the role of the drum kit incarnated by a food blender which keeps the tempo, punctually colliding with a cymbal once every rotation. When listened to individually, the distinct contrast in timbres between the machines is surprising to notice, particularly as we usually receive the sound as a uniform background noise. Interestingly, if we were to cover our eyes and challenge our hearing alone to distinguish one electrical household appliance from another, regardless of volume, we would struggle to guess which one was which, although these noises encircle us every day. Through the magnification of the fundamental noises surrounding us, Collins alerts us to the continuous, intricate operations of our subconscious mind, which filters the noise of our industrial surroundings.

Figure 18 shows an installation in the sculpture department of Brighton University in 2002, where the interactor listens to the sound of the environment through a pair of headphones. Microphones positioned in the empty room transmit all sounds occurring in the space. The participant is thus alerted to the impossibility of hearing silence. The installation is entitled ‘Now that’s what I call music’, as it focuses the encounterer’s sensitivity to all sound, and values the sensory experience of indeterminate noise.

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[1] Henry Collins, personal interview, December 12^th 2008.

[2] The Art of Noises (1913), translated from Italian. (New York, Pendragon Press, 1986)

Part 4 of 6, The active listener; Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

George Brecht: 1957-64 Composition

  George Brecht wrote a text in 1957 entitled Chance-Imagery, which traced the role of chance in mathematics and science and related it to philosophy considering, amongst others the pivotal concepts of Jackson Pollock[1], and describing a formula for generating chance in visual art. Brecht initially enrolled in John Cage's experimental composition class following communications with Cage on the subject of these ‘chance determined processes’. His interest in aleatoricism continued through his experiments in Cage's class, where he directed these investigations towards the compilation of sounds. As early as 1959, Brecht composed Card Piece for Voices, where cards are shuffled to determine both the sequences of lyrics, and note pitches on which the lyrics are sung.

The Event score originates with George Brecht, who constructed worded motifs on small pieces of card and presented them in Cage's classes, to initiate a discussion based around the possibilities each idea presented. Brecht notes: 'the score is an event; so is the finding an incident of it. In composing music, the composer permits an experience by arranging a situation in which sound arises. If a musical score (sound-score) prepares a musical (sound) situation, the event-score prepares one for events in all dimensions'[2]. In Brecht's Event scores, the initial idea is minimalistic, so as not to impose but inspire artistic expression in an action.

An illustrative example is his 1962 Event score Concerto for Orchestra, (fig. 13) which reads 'exchanging'. The encounterer may follow this in any means, as the object is not provided. The score is comprised of a single word, and the lack of a supporting sentence gives it an abstract quality, highlighting its conceptual value. The use of a verb, instead of a noun, presents it as not an instruction but a continuous action. The implication is to explore the possibilities of the action, not to arrive at a given outcome. The isolation of this single word provides a distance, which shows the nature of the Event score to be a contemplative, personal, and simplistic experience. In the form the participant chooses to execute the score, he reveals something about himself, rather than becoming simply a tool through which the composer can dictate his message. Such forms of Event scores are like mini experiments to gain knowledge and an understanding both of our behaviour, and of our environment.

Concerto for Orchestra presents an abundance of choices: what is to be exchanged - a physical object, or a communication, gesture, handshake; with whom is 'it' to be exchanged? The title of the composition provides a setting, participants and props, but does not contribute guidance for actions. Although the title suggests a sonic outcome, the body of the score does not confirm this. As previous Fluxus scores have focused on indeterminate sound, it could be construed that the 'concerto' is composed of all sounds within the time the performer chooses. Alternatively 'exchanging' could refer to an exchange of notes, phrases or melodies and motifs, using the instruments of the orchestra. In observing the choices the performer makes in realising the score, we are offered a glimpse of their person.

As George Maciunas began to organise festivals for Fluxus Events, Brecht composed variations on his scores with specific performance instructions called 'Fluxversions'. These adaptations are no longer an exploration of a situation, but a theatrical exposition of a theme. Fluxversions are indebted to the Futurist movement, which introduced a free form of theatre.

The Futurist movement was launched by Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944), in a Manifesto published in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1909. Futurists introduced the noise of machinery into the context of music, as they admired the industrial advances of humanity over nature. In 1913 Luigi Russolo built large scale instruments called 'itonarumori', which generated noise resembling the sounds of technology, exploiting the contrast between sounds that machines can produce over the capabilities of traditional instruments, which Futurists dismissed as limited and belonging to an era long gone. In theatre, Futurists rejected all traditional dramatic genres and scenographies, as banal or irrelevant, in its place laying emphasis on movement and gesture. Futurists engaged in crude parodies and harsh ridicule both as an attack against the stereotypical bourgeois audience of theatre, and to condemn conventional theatrical content. The Futurists sought to empower their audiences through this open form of theatre.

Brecht’s Fluxversions are designed to provoke the audience, as each is highly unexpected and left completely unexplained. Some Fluxversions are designed to parody the rituals and traditions of Western music, others poke fun at the role of the audience. Each is a large protest on a small scale.

Concerto for Orchestra, Fluxversion 2, mocks the traditional concert situation. In asking the players to exchange their scores, Brecht objects to the form of traditional concert recital where an orchestra faithfully recreates the piece of music. Through this he redefines the concept of a music performance, exchanging the conventional mode of repetition of a score for his updated model of interactivity.

Fluxversion 3 takes the form of a game. The orchestra is divided to create two war-like fronts, wind musicians against the strings, in a lurid, farcical battle. As the orchestra manoeuvre their instruments in combat as weapons, only the conductor retains his dignified status, allowed to rule supreme as the judge. This caricature of the traditional orchestra ensemble remonstrates against Viennese institutions. Brecht plants a further humorous twist in the deconstruction of the word 'concerto' which derives from the Latin 'concertare'. This can mean either 'to dispute' or 'to work together', revealing Brecht's inspiration for the score.

Octet for Winds (1964) also divides the performers into opposing 'teams' challenging them in a childlike competition. Here, a vat or basin filled with water is in the central position, and wind musicians gather around the perimeter facing each other, holding their instruments at the ready. A toy sailboat is placed in the water, and it becomes each performers quest to blow through their instruments with enough strength to puff the boat to an opposing 'shore', whilst simultaneously playing 'some popular tune'. The infantile joy and innocence in this piece is made absurd by the context proposed by the title, again ridiculing the traditional orchestra.

In a feature section for the August 1962 edition of Stars and Stripes, the US Airforce newspaper, the Fluxus artists Benjamin Patterson and Emmett Williams succeeded in publishing some Fluxus propaganda. Williams plays the role of interviewer to a comically mad Patterson, who retaliates to a question with: "What do you mean is it music? Of course it's music. It's performed on a musical instrument, it's taking place in a concert hall, and I'm a trained musician!"[3]. In listing the materials necessary to become a musician (one instrument, one concert hall, one title), Patterson satirises elitist customs.

Brecht uses water as an instrument in his Event Drip Music (1962). This performance documents the sound of water falling from elevated vessel into another. 'Drip' connotes a miniscule happening, and in its small size, gains the audiences' attention. In minimising the sound in quantity and amplitude, Brecht zooms in on the concept of the alert and focused listener. This piece was initially explored using vials and pipettes from a laboratory as Brecht earned a living as a chemist for some time (fig. 14). As with the Fluxversion, he expanded the action from its minimalist essence and converted it into a more accessible performance: figure 15 shows Dick Higgins stood on a ladder with a bucket on the ground and watering can in hand. As with many Fluxus events, the execution was simple, practical, brief, and used mass-produced objects, encouraging the audience to focus solely on everyday sounds. It demonstrates the do-it-yourself attitude towards music that Fluxus artists employ to involve the audience.

 

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[1] George Brecht: Events - A Heterospective, Alfred Fischer, Julia Robinson and Kasper Konig, (Museum Ludwig, Köln, 2006), page 22.

[2] Quote from article entitled EVENTS. (assembled notes.), page 226 of George Brecht: Events - A Heterospective, Alfred Fischer, Julia Robinson and Kasper Konig, (Museum Ludwig, Köln, 2006).

[3] Benjamin Patterson in discussion with Emmett Williams, in an article entitled Way Way Way Out, published in the American Army magazine The Stars and Stripes, 30 August 1962

Part 3 of 6, The active listener; Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

 Fluxus in Protest

La Monte Young produced an Event score simply named Composition 1960 # 2, which invites the performer to build a small fire in front of the audience and listen to the sounds it produces until it burns out, with or without amplification. In Composition 1960 # 5 (fig. 10) a butterfly is the only intentional sound producer. The audibility of this piece is entirely dependent on chance happenings determined by situations in and outside the performance area. This piece is particularly original as it focuses on the intricate workings of nature, and the value of each sound produced, however small; it alerts the listener to the sounds of movement. Young asserts: ‘I felt certain the butterfly made sounds, (…) unless one was going to dictate how loud or soft the sounds had to be before they could be allowed into the realms of music… the butterfly piece was music as much as the fire piece’[1]. This simplification of the concept of music demonstrates the Fluxus opposition to rigid Viennese traditions.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was the innovator of atonality in an era of Romanticism. He created a new musical language where all notes remain equally important and there is no dominant key. In 1921, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, a method of composition using tone rows, where all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are repeated in a pre-determined sequence. This sequence can be reversed, inverted, or inverted and reversed, but a note can only sound after the remaining eleven have been played. This can be transposed to different octaves, and any instrument may play each note. Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) built on these techniques: in his serialist compositions all music components, such as timbre and dynamics, are determined by these rules. Stockhausen began to include other parameters into this form such as the spatial location of a sound.

At the 1964 New York Festival for the Avant-Garde, a conflict arose amongst Fluxus artists. Stockhausen was to premiere his experimental theatrical piece Originale: in this piece we see cameramen filming one of Stockhausen's earlier compositions Kontakte, amongst models, poets and painters who are 'acting' as themselves. There is a Flux-like use of irony here, however, the timings of each action are governed by serialist rules. The performers included George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Jackson Mac Low and Nam June Paik, all playing themselves.

George Maciunas fronted a protest against this concert, supported by Henry Flynt and Ben Vautier, distributing flyers (fig. 11) proclaiming Stockhausen to epitomize 'cultural imperialism'. Maciunas objected to any mathematical approach to composition, as his vision of music is described by the movement he named: the word Fluxus derives from the Latin to 'flow'. The picketers were opposed to all European high culture, which they felt to be constrictive and elitist. However, they were soon to be joined by Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles and Allan Kaprow, who each performed, and protested against Originale.

Fluxus poked fun at the notion of the composer's grandeur, and made games of the artist's exaggerated status. The concept of art being encompassed within the individual’s perception of it, each person's equally important and valid, is prominent in many works. Ben Vautier questioned the authority of art critics by exhibiting certificates which proclaimed 'BY THE PRESENT CERTIFICATE I BEN DECLARE AUTHENTIC WORK OF ART ....... DATE ....... (I DONT SIGN)'[2]. In Dick Higgins' Anger Song # 6 of 1966, busts of Wagner are destroyed to declare an end to Viennese traditions in music; the Fluxists condemned all Western pre twentieth century composition as classist and racist. Further than rejecting the structural format of themes, developments and expositions in Romanticism, Fluxists were in contempt of the whole nature of the composition, opposing moralistic themes in classical music. The Fluxist Henry Flynt believed that all art and culture should have exclusively communist values and his political writings, particularly On Social Recognition, are demonstrative of this[3], however, this view was shared only by Maciunas and generally seen as one of his many eccentricities. In 1973 Maciunas outrageously advertised a concert with a poster reading '12 Big Names!' and a lists of artists, including Andy Warhol and minimalist Philip Glass, - when the recital hall was packed the famous surnames simply appeared projected onto a screen[4]. Subversively, Maciunas relished opportunities to play pranks on his audience, in one instance leading a group into a forest on the outskirts of New York in the darkest night, under the pretence of organising a happening. After confiscating the torch belonging to each of his guests, Maciunas inexplicably disappeared, taking with him not only the sole source of light, but driving the several miles home in the vehicle in which they had all arrived.

  Absurd scenarios and impossible predicaments often featured in Fluxus Events. The humour employed by Fluxus artists was of a playful nature, decidedly more light-hearted than the farces and dark satires of Dada or Futurist theatre. A shining example is La Monte Young’s Piano Piece for David Tudor #1, 1960, where the performer is invited to feed the piano with hay and water, and ends when the piano decides whether or not to eat (fig 12). George Brecht also poked fun at the rituals of concert performers, in Concerto for Clarinet, Fluxversion 1 (1962) a clarinet is suspended from above, and the performer must leap into the air in an attempt to play the dangling instrument, aiming to catch the reed between his lips. Both in the fantasy world of the former piece, and in the game element of the later, a youthful indulgence is present, and upon examination this becomes apparent in all Fluxus works. Even in the demolition of objects as a protest form, the Fluxus artist embodies the role of a naughty child.

The material value of an instrument or object is unimportant within Fluxus, as it is the experience of music and art that is valuable, not the artwork or instrument itself. Al Hansen famously pushed a piano off a five storey building, which was then to be repeated as an Event in 1959 entitled Yoko Ono’s Piano Drop. The colossal sound of wood smashing to pieces on a hard concrete pavement with the last jolts of the strings, hammers, ivory keys and brass pedals, became a composition. The destruction of a classical instrument also occurs in Nam June Paik’s One for Violin (1962), where the performer is invited to lift a violin as slowly as possible and, when they feel ready, smash it upon a surface. The anti-art statement is clear in such Fluxus works but, more importantly, in demolishing a traditional instrument Paik demonstrates the Fluxus belief in ‘real’ sound. To Fluxus artists sounds, which you can see happening are more interesting than those, which are not obvious. Paik reveals the mechanics of instruments in his Exposition of Music (1963). Five television sets are placed on top of an upright piano. Inside the piano is a series of cameras recording and documenting the mechanics and manoeuvres inside as each key is pressed and the hammer touches the string. The television screens show the audience what is happening inside the piano as it is electronically played, revealing what is hidden and therefore making the sound of more value in the Fluxus attitude.

The artist Rirkrit Tiravanija began to deconstruct the role of the curator by inviting the audience to install Fluxus paraphernalia and a miscellany of associated articles into Hallwall's Contemporary Art Centre’s gallery during a 1992 exhibition. As the audience entered, they were handed an Event card inviting them to pick up some white gloves and move an object to where they felt was appropriate. This idea epitomises the spirit of Fluxus, where the role of the audience is to participate in the creation of the product. For this exhibition Christian Marclay provided an artwork called Tape Fall which consisted of clear bin liners filled with cassette tape commenting on the disposability of mass marketed music. Marclay pays tribute to Nam June Paik in Guitar Drag (2000): an electric guitar is trawled along the street, producing a diverse variety of creaks, twangs and other noise, as the pickup on the bridge amplifies the strings as they are rubbed, irritated, and eventually snapped, accompanied by monumental amounts of feedback.

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[1] Quote taken from page 106 In the Spirit of Fluxus, Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss,  (Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis, 1993)

[2] Catalogued in Happening and Fluxus, Sohm, H. (ed), (Koelnischer Kunstverein,

Cologne, 1970), pages unnumbered.

[3] Flynt summarises his findings in an article printed in Fluxshoe, David Mayor, Ken Friedman and Mike Weaver (eds) (Beau Geste Press, Langford Court South, 1972) page 33.

[4] Poster catalogued in Fluxus: Selections from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, Clive Phillpot and John Hendricks (eds), (Museum of Modern Art, New York), 1988, page 32.

Part 2 of 6, The active listener; Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

 Fluxus Experience

In 1966, the Lithuanian emigrant to New York, and Fluxus 'chairman', George Maciunas, constructed the Expanded Arts Diagram (fig. 1). The diagram sought to provide a lineage for the movement, offering a narrative of the context in which the Fluxus practice grew. In form, it lies somewhere between a graph and a timeline, with Fluxus as its centre point. It arranges direct influences and separates parallel movements, meticulously acknowledging the role of each individual who played a part in its formation.

In the section marked 'PAST' (bottom left) the experimental composer John Cage (1912 - 92), and the author of the revolutionary ‘readymade’ strategy, artist Marcel Duchamp (1887 –1968), take honorary positions. Both artists were crucial predecessors in their appropriation, translation and transformation of the everyday into the ‘art’ situation: Duchamp dealing with industrially produced objects or other items traditionally thought to bear no trace of aesthetic value, Cage, rediscovering, among others ‘environmental sound’ as a positive factor with which to work, isolating everyday incidents and re-contextualising them within the framework of a musical event. 

Zen Buddhism influenced Cage's ideas about what constitutes music and led him to subvert its traditional conventions by transforming everyday tasks and events, however trivial, into art. He states: 'wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at 50 mph. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them, not as sound effects, but as musical instruments'[1]. All conceivable actions and events became sounds waiting to be organised into a part of this music. Consequently, Cage broke away from the traditional Western scoring system and created graphic notations for interpretation, designed to inspire creativity in the performer, with abstract pictures and sketches representing the movement of note pitches and strength of dynamics.

A prominent example of this is Cage's Water Music of 1952 (fig. 2). The performer is free to interpret the scattered instructions for playing actions, with only timing indications for the length of their duration. For many of the actions, the performer is left to choose their own instrument. Through this he encouraged the individual to interact with the composition process as this allowed a connection between piece and performer. Water Music embraces the element of chance in each of the activities scored; even the radio is tuned to a random frequency. The sounds of static during the tuning process are equally important in this composition, as the sound of a melodic series of notes played on a traditional instrument in another music of the day.

First performed by the renowned pianist David Tudor, at the New School for Social Research in New York during the spring of that year, Tudor shuffled cards to determine the order of the performance actions, and used a stopwatch to keep within the very quick but precise timing regulations. The piece was exceptional at that time as Cage utilizes simple household objects to explore the wide variety of different sounds it is possible to make with water. So novel and unusual was this idea, that the piece was renamed Water Walk, and was performed by Cage in 1960 on the popular television panel game show I've got a Secret, during a celebrity guest round, where guests typically demonstrated a new product or technology (fig. 3)[2].

The concept of a musical performance consisting of everyday sounds was clearly a revolutionary idea, and a bold movement to demonstrate on a program designed for mass entertainment rather than modern art. Members of the studio audience laughed loudly and frequently as the curtains on stage were drawn back to reveal Cage’s instruments: a water pitcher, an iron pipe, a goose call, a bottle of wine, an electric mixer, a whistle, a sprinkling can, ice cubes, two cymbals, a mechanical fish, a quail call, a rubber duck, a tape recorder, a vase of roses, a seltzer siphon, five radios and a bathtub. A grand piano was also present, but used more like an item of furniture rather than for any conventional purpose. 

The piano lid was opened, and Cage placed a children’s bath toy – the mechanical fish, wired so that it vibrated, on to the strings inside the piano, causing these strings to oscillate. Water was poured from one receptacle to the next, ice cubes made a grinding sound when placed inside the blender, a whistle was blown above and below the surface of the water in a can, the sound of the cymbals colliding and vibrating under water when hit immersed in the bath, the wide flat surface of the cymbal puncturing the tension of the water surface producing waves. This performance was a demonstration of the new musical concepts, which were soon to be known as the Fluxus attitude.

Cage arranged a series of classes in the field of experimental composition from autumn 1956 until the summer of 1960 at the New School for Social Research in New York[3]. The class was open to students with or without a musical background, and therefore attracted people from a wide variety of disciplines. The communications and ideas exchanged at the Cage class, as it is now referred to, was hugely influential in the work and ideals of its students, and brought together some of the Fluxus movements earliest founders. In attendance were Jackson MacLow, an avant-garde poet, George Brecht, a scientist and visual artist interested in chance proceedings, Al Hansen, whose work fused sound with experimental film, Dick Higgins, who theorised the growth of what he called 'intermedia' approaches. Allan Kaprow was also a visitor, and the Cage class was influential in the development of his 'Happenings', which went beyond assemblages and environments to become spontaneous, but structured, complex performative events. Kaprow’s Happenings forced the audience to become performers, or at least participants, thus questioning the boundaries between theatre and life. Happenings were scenarios, which enhanced the interactor’s exploration of their environment, focusing on the experiential value of art. In his Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life[4] he describes a Happening where the encounterer is simply placed before a mirror, causing them to reflect on their own person and behaviour in interaction with the other audience members. The diversity of the specialisations of those who had attended the Cage class resulted in the unusual fusions of media practices that were so striking in Fluxus. 

During this time, artists from the Cage class met weekly at a New York coffee house to discuss their influences. Of crucial importance as an influence was not only the work of Duchamp, the Parisian artist who had arrived in New York in 1915 and was to become the key New York Dadaist, but also the European Dadaists he had left behind. The ‘anti-art’ of the international Dadaists had been initiated in Zurich with Hugo Ball’s ‘Cabaret Voltaire’, in 1916. The Dadaists protested against the absurdity of the rationality that had led to mechanized warfare, against the bourgeoisie, and against ‘civilisation’ in general. They declared their commitment to ‘disgust’, rejecting the entire social and political order. Dada waged war on the aesthetic, and declared its commitment to an alternative, if unarticulated anarchistic reality - abstract, crude, and devoid of logic. Later, the Dadaists were persecuted by the Nazi authorities, threatened by Dada works that refused to adhere to the cultural censorship of their autocratic regime.

In New York, Marcel Duchamp submitted his notorious urinal, signed "R. Mutt" to the Society of Independent Artists as a work of art under the title The Fountain in 1917. The Fountain was rejected, but Duchamp, under a pseudonym, published a summary of the ‘R. Mutt Case’ in the magazine The Blind Man[5], with a photograph by the influential photographer Arthur Steiglitz, successfully infiltrating the press in a self-advertising manoeuvre that earned him enormous historical weight, and led his work to be called proto-conceptual for having shifted the site of meaning from the persona of the artist and the ‘work of art’, to the institutional and discursive frameworks within which artist and object function.

Following the rediscovery of Duchamp, when a retrospective of his work was held at the Pasadena Museum of Art in 1963, and editions of the long overlooked readymades were produced, the early Fluxists were quick to adopt the readymade strategy, and to follow up some of its implications. They embraced the performative and interactive dimensions of the readymade by inviting the audience to interact with their objects, emphasizing that art should be an experience, and not only a commodity. Fluxus artists, like Kaprow, called for art to be removed from the limitations of museums and galleries, which were frequented only by people already involved in the art scene of the day.

Fluxus brought a new dynamic to the art world by allowing its audience contact with the artwork. Undermining the Modernist commitment to ‘retinal’ or ‘visual’ art, they made objects that were not only to be admired but were also to be touched. An early example of this is the Fluxkit (fig. 5): a wooden box with separate compartments containing a variety of readymades linked by a conceptual motif, that was often a pun, and performance scores called Fluxus Event cards. The interactor is free to pick it up, remove the contents of and explore as they wish, this emphasis on a lack of constriction encouraging the audience to connect with the artwork.

The concept of the Fluxkit, an interactive miniature gallery, originates with Maciunas who dedicated his skills as an engineer, architect, graphic designer and artist, devoutly to Fluxus. He named the movement and constructed a manifesto (fig. 6) expanding what was formerly an ideology into a radical social protest. Maciunas proclaimed himself chairman of the movement and worked tirelessly to promote its thesis despite virtually non-existent funds[6]. He cherished values of efficiency and economy to comic proportions[7]: this is clear in his graphic designs for Fluxus newsletters, pamphlets and diagrams, where every inch of space is covered with minute graphics. Maciunas devoted himself to the construction of Fluxkits and Fluxus year boxes and, together with La Monte Young and Jackson Mac Low, An Anthology, each handmade, unique in form and content in accordance with the motif. Fluxus used materials that are mass produced or at least widely accessible and inexpensive in the creation of their visual and sonic works, to negate the exclusivity of an artwork. Event cards were typed onto plain paper and sold cheaply to anyone wishing to purchase one or simply flung from rooftops into the street below; in the Fluxus Newspaper No. 5, 1965, Maciunas set up a Fluxshop and Mail order Warehouse (fig. 7). The way the artists disposed of their work without ceremony showed their disregard for the concept of an artwork as something precious and unrepeatable. In 1964 Robert Watts produced an ironic Event card, which simply reads 'To be destroyed'.

Fluxus artists disregarded all conventional concepts of a musical score as a firm set of musical instructions with limited scope for interpretation. Instead they introduced the Event score, which consisted of words or phrases and sentences hand typed onto plain paper, distributed cheaply to make the work accessible to as diverse an audience as possible. The Event card made a series of propositions about what might produce an interesting outcome, to be performed or experimented with by the receiver.

During one session of the Cage class the only instruments played were musical toys designed for children. This meant that everyone began with the same level of skill, rendering all persons equally qualified to perform. This became an important motif to many Fluxus artists: George Maciunas’ Music for Everyman, Do It Yourself Music of 1961 used everyday objects and an excessive range of sounds possible to produce with the body, from the more obvious actions such as clap and stamp to the more abstract - splutter, gargle, wail[8]. Through this alternative method of musical scoring Fluxus artists engaged the audience in the compositional process, dismissing the idea that music is the artist’s soliloquy to be conveyed to a passive listener, and instead transforming music into a communication between composer and interactor.

Fluxus declared its audience fully equal to the artist and the composer. 

Sound and music performances were renamed Events, so as to set them apart from the connotations of ‘concert’ – an artist or group of artists repeating a production to a silent and still audience. Some exponents decided to remove their audience from this form of listening so entirely as to encourage the individual to let their focus roam freely. ‘MusiCircus’ was a form of exhibiting a mix of media, with multiple performances, films and chance generated games, happening simultaneously to promote this model of active listening. The first instance of this happening was organised by John Cage at the Stock Pavilion at the University of Illinois on November 17, 1967. The audience moved amongst actors, mime artists and dancers performing concurrently with free form poetry readings and live music, and were invited to interact and produce their own art work with the materials scattered around, and play on the musical sculptures suspended from the ceiling, whilst festively eating doughnuts and popcorn and drinking cider.

Some Fluxus works suggest that the focus of the listener need not be on the performer at all. Advocating the attitude that all sound has musically value, Fluxus declared that an equally fruitful experience could be focusing attention on sounds produced by nature or a neighbour, and other chance sounds in the surroundings during the performance. Some pieces relied solely on these sounds. This was instigated by Cage's 4'33'' (fig. 8), composed in 1952, where the performer is invited to be silent during the three separate movements of the piece, which are divided only by the passing of time. The unexpected lack of action in the performer heightens the senses to action elsewhere: movements of audience, atmospheric surroundings. Its interpretation has been diverse; the first to perform 4'33'' was, again, David Tudor, at a recital of contemporary music in Woodstock, New York. Tudor chose to seat himself at a piano with a stopwatch, close the lid, then reopen and close the piano lid at timed intervals to mark the three movements. There was a very strong reaction to this piece, and the audience were at first perplexed, and then outraged by Cage's bold move. The sounds heard in this rendition were those of the wind and rain, which were subsequently accompanied by the disgruntled mutterings of the audience. Whilst this piece is a clear reaction to the constrictions of the prevalent avant-garde experiments, it was also the start of a new mode of listening - the valuation of everyday sounds such as the rustling of clothing, creaking of furniture, wind and weather, traffic and wildlife amongst the innumerable other noises which surround us in everyday life.

The advent of more complex recording technologies allowed artists to capture organic sounds in good quality onto tape, however, Fluxus practitioners were in general opposed to recording the sounds of nature and relocating these environments. By rejecting all means of reproducing what is around you, they  strove to alert the listener to sound as it happens in the moment, not as it is later portrayed and manipulated. Some felt that by recording and repeating sounds in playback they would be conveying a false image of ever-changing nature. Consequently, the Event performance became a time frame for the reception of sound.

The inclusion of these ‘indeterminate’ sounds generated further interest in the exploration of aleatoric composition. Many Fluxus scores invite the performer to use chance procedures to structure the order of sonic events, or to determine the source of the sound on which to focus attention; since the variations of the outcome are limitless, this method is informative as it investigates each element of the situation in which sound is framed as music. Moreover, it is intriguing as it retracts the control of the composer and performer, over the music. Dick Higgins sees the value of this in the placing of ‘material at one remove from the composer by allowing it to be determined by a system he determined. And the real innovation lies in the emphasis on the creation of the system’[9].

A dramatic instance of aleatory composition is in the performance of Dick Higgins' Event score Danger Music No. 12, which reads 'Write a thousand symphonies'. In 1968, Higgins and his partner, Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, set out to South Brunswick Police Riffle Range with a thousand pieces of manuscript paper for standard orchestra ensemble and, whilst Knowles filmed to document the Event, Higgins shot  holes through the music paper with the machine gun. Higgins then wrote out a list of instructions for a conductor, to aid the orchestra who were to attempt to interpret and perform the punctured and partially destroyed pieces of score paper. An example of the nature of these instructions is 'the straighter the rip, the simpler the timbre'[10]. The Fluxus artist Philip Corner prepared an orchestra to perform the resulting composition later that year in the Hickman Auditorium at Rutgers University. The triumphant execution of an Event score so unfeasible illustrates the endlessly enthusiastic spirit of Fluxus.

The Event scores compiled by Alison Knowles (the sole female representative amongst the Fluxus founders) predominantly focus on minimalistic, simple and routine tasks, which in their contemplation, offer a wider insight into human behaviour and the relationships between person on and material. In the Identical Lunch, which she began to document in 1967, the repetition and meticulous notation of its performers provided a vibrant narrative, offering great insight into the temperaments of the early Fluxists. Thirty-five years later, her daughter, Hannah Higgins encompasses the experience of the Event: 'The meals, like the films and Fluxkits - whether they presented users with art based on sound, touch, smell or taste - frame art as experience'[11].

To share their radical new approach to art and invite participants, the founding Fluxus practitioners staged Events in open public spaces. Figure 9 shows artists sitting under a slogan painted directly onto a wall advertising Fluxus street Events. Fluxus demonstrations happened in unlikely spaces, for example Street Cleaning Event, took place on a busy New York pavement in 1966. The Japanese Fluxus artist Hi Red Center marked his designated area with chalk and, dressed in a full length laboratory coat, proceeded to thoroughly scrub the pavement using solvents, sponges, scourers and toothbrushes. In 1964 Nam June Paik tied a long piece of string to the neck of a violin, as though collaring an animal, and proceeded to drag it through the streets behind him on its ‘leash’ with an air of nonchalance, as though merely exercising a pet. Paik walked his violin all over New York - in the subways, and through shops, implementing the Fluxus practice into all aspects of life.

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[1] The Future of Music: Credo, (1937), from John Cage: Documentary Monographs in Modern Art, Richard Kostelanetz (ed), (Praeger Publishers, 1970).

[2] This extract from I've got a Secret can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U

[3] Cage also taught mushroom identification, showing his affinity with nature. For a full list of the classes he taught see FluxAttitudes, Cornelia Lauf and Susan Hapgood (eds), (Imschoot Uitgevers, Gant, 1991).

[4] Allan Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, (University of California Press, 1993) pages 15-16.

[5] The Blind Man 2, eds. Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, and Henri-Pierre Roché (New York, May 1917), pages 2–3.

[6] On a postcard regarding organisation of Fluxus concerts (1962) to La Monte Young, Maciunas asks Young to use a magnifying glass to read his communications, which consume every possible space with minute lettering, as 'I am saving on postage'. This is catalogued in Happenings, Fluxus, Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme. Eine Dokumentation, (Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg, 1965).

[7] Maciunas employed these values in all aspects of his life. In the mid 1960's Maciunas attempted to eat for an average of a dollar a day. His success is described in Barbara Moore, George Maciunas: A Finger in Fluxus, (Artforum, 1982).

[8] Maciunas suffered with very bad health from the days of his early childhood; far from letting his daily injections and medicine routines subdue him, he collected his empty pill bottles and vials for use in his artworks and poked fun of his ailments in a sequel to Music for Everyman entitled Solo for Sick Man (1962), which uses objects like nose drops and noises such as sneeze and spit. For more on Maciunas: Mr. Fluxus: A collective portrait of George Maciunas 1931-1978, Emmett Williams and Ann Noël, (Thames and Hudson, London, 1997).

[9] Quote taken from page 6 of Experimental Music - Cage and beyond, Michael Nyman, (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

[10] Critical Mass - Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University 1958-1972, Geoffrey Hendricks, (Rutgers University Press, 2003) page 101.

[11] Hannah Higgins Fluxus Experience, (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002) page 49.