Fluxus Performance Workbook

the

Fluxus

P e r f o r m a n c e

Workbook

edited by

Ken Friedman

,

Owen Smith

and

Lauren Sawchyn

a

Performance Research

e-publication

2002

F l u x u s P e r f o r m a n c e W o r k b o o

k , e d . K e n F r i e d m a n , O w e n S m i t h & L a u r e n S a w c h y n , P e r f o r m a n c e R e s e a r c h e - P u b l i c a t i o n s , 2 0 0 2

the Fluxus

Performance

Workbook

introduction to the fortieth anniversary edition

The first examples of what were to become Fluxusevent scores date back to John Cage's famous class atThe New School, where artists such as George Brecht,Al Hansen, Allan Kaprow, and Alison Knowles began tocreate art works and performances in musical form.One of these forms was the event. Events tend to bescored in brief verbal notations. These notes are knownas event scores. In a general sense, they are proposals,propositions, and instructions. Thus, they aresometimes known as proposal pieces, propositions, orinstructions.The first collections of Fluxus event scores were theworking sheets for Fluxconcerts. They were generallyused only by the artist-performers who werepresenting the work. With the birth of Fluxuspublishing, however, collections of event scores sooncame to take three forms.The first form was the boxed collection. These wereindividual scores written or printed on cards. Theclassic example of this boxed collection is GeorgeBrecht's

Water Yam

. A second format was the book orpamphlet collection of scores, often representing workby a single artist. Yoko Ono's

Grapefruit

is probably thebest known of these collections. Now forgotten, buteven more influential during the 1960s, were the smallcollections that Dick Higgins published in theSomething Else Press pamphlet series under the GreatBear imprint. These small chapbooks contained workby Bengt af Klintberg, Alison Knowles, Nam June Paik,and many other artists working in the then-youngFluxus and intermedia traditions. The booklets werehighly portable. Even more important, they were easilycopied using what was then the new Xerox technology.As a result, the Great Bear pamphlets spread an ideaabout what art - and performance art - could be to avast and ever wider circle of artists and criticsinterested in new ways of working.The third formatinvolved any of several large-format collections, oftencarrying the work of many artists in neatly typesetcolumns on a large sheet of paper. The best known ofthese was the 1966 Fluxfest Sale Sheet compiled byGeorge Maciunas as chief editor and publisher ofFluxus. This tradition carried forward the early concertcollections in new forms, and these collectionsincluded the compilations that Ken Friedman publishedat Fluxus West in the 1960s, as well as the Fluxuscompilations organized and reprinted by otherpublishers in the 1970s.By the 1980s, there were no widely availablepublications devoted to the Fluxus event scores. WhileJon Hendricks's many books and catalogues includedthe largest extant collection of scores ever compiled,these were only available to those willing to search

F l u x u s P e r f o r m a n c e W o r k b o o

k , e d . K e n F r i e d m a n , O w e n S m i t h & L a u r e n S a w c h y n , P e r f o r m a n c e R e s e a r c h e - P u b l i c a t i o n s , 2 0 0 2

f l u x

work

book

3

f l u x

work

book

2

flux

contents

Genpei Akasegawa

Kompo 13

Eric Andersen

Opus 50 14Opus 46 14Opus 9 14Opus 11 14Opus 13 14Opus 15 14Opus 17 14Opus 19 14Opus 21 14Opus 23 15Opus 25 15Opus 27 15

Ay-O

Rainbow No.1 for Orchestra 16Rainbow No.1 for Orchestra, Variation16Rainbow No.2 for Orchestra 16Exit No.1 16Exit No.2 16Exit No.3 16Exit No.4 16Exit No.5 16Exit No.6 16Exit No.7 17Exit No.8 17

Robert Bozzi

Choice 1 18Choice 3 18Choice 5 18Choice 8 18Choice 9 18Choice 10 18Choice 12 18Choice 12, Variation 19Choice 16 19Choice 15 19Choice 18 19Concerto #3 19Music Piece for Erik Dietman 20Concerto #1 20In Memoriam to George Maciunas #2 20In Memoriam to George Maciunas #2, Var. 20A Piece for Chieko Shiomi 21A Piece for Chieko Shiomi, Variation 21In Memoriam to George Maciunas #1 21

George Brecht

Drip Music 22Drip Music, Second Version 22Drip Music, Fluxversion 1 22Time-Table Event 22Word Event 22Incidental Music 22Word Event, Fluxversion 1 23Tea Event 23Tea Event, Fluxversion 1 23Two Durations 23Two Elimination Events 23Two Vehicle Events 23Three Aqueous Events 23

through the astonishing array of Fluxus publicationsand documents that Hendricks reproduced across themany volumes of projects sponsored by the Gilbert andLila Silverman Fluxus Foundation. While these scoreswere readily available to scholars and historians, therewas no easily accessible form for artists andcomposers to use in developing concerts or studyingthe event score by itself.In the late 1980s, Ken Friedman decided to develop anew edition of Fluxus event scores based on thetradition of the score collection. That led to the firstedition of The Fluxus Performance Workbook,published in 1990. This edition was published by ElDjarida magazine of Trondheim, Norway. The firstedition of the Fluxus Performance Workbook wasproduced in a large press run that was widelydistributed around the world. By the late 1990s,however, even the once readily available workbook washard to find. While copies occasionally turned up in thecatalogues of rare book dealers, it was no longer freelyavailable as it was originally intended to be.The opportunity to develop a special Fluxus issue ofPerformance Research gives us an opportunity toproduce a new, revised edition of the FluxusPerformance Workbook. We have had a chance tocorrect and revise some mistakes from the first edition.In addition, we have decided to incorporate projects byinteresting artists that we feel fit the appropriate spirit.Fluxconcerts and Fluxus festivals have always includeda variety of projects and performances by artists whohave been close to Fluxus in some way, whether or notanyone making any of the many lists deems them tohave been part of Fluxus. We decided that a collectionof scores assembled for the fortieth anniversary ofFluxus ought properly to include a selection ofadditional works.This new edition of the Fluxus PerformanceWorkbook is published electronically and is available asa read-only, viewable document or as a free,downloadable, print-enabled .pdf from thePerformance Research website: www.performance-research.net. It is the second collection of Fluxusscores to be published this way. The first was the HeartFine Art edition of Ken Friedman's 52 Events. In thefuture, we hope to expand our collection and we hopeeventually to make a comprehensive selection of eventscores available in print and on-line.We particularly thank Lauren Sawchyn for her workon this project. Her work as an editorial associate,project secretary, and organizer made this edition ofthe Fluxus Performance Workbook possible.

Ken Friedman

and

Owen Smith