book review FORMULAS FOR NOW, David Berridge

FORMULAS FOR NOW formulated by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Thames & Hudson 2008), ISBN 978-0-500-23850-9


Since 2006 the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has asked writers, artists, architects, scientists and mathematicians to contribute a "formula for the 21st century." A selection of responses to this request are gathered in this new book from Thames & Hudson, its purple cardboard covers and playful design straddling a boundary between art book, puzzle collection and - something about those thick covers, large type and color choice - toy bath book.

The result is a gathering of formulas by turns funny, frustrating, irritating and enlightening - and a little prone to that hinterland between profundity and the self-help book: "The solution is in the problem" reads the opening contribution. Formulas are presented in a range of styles - from the brief handwritten score to dense, expository prose, "genuine" and "mock" mathematics, and photographs. The book as a whole has a high octane visual design which sometimes seems intrinsic to the artists contribution, and sometimes seems the over zealous work of the books designer, seeking to counter some occasionally thin material.

Formulas by contemporary artists are interspersed with contributions which offer a kind of meta-commentary on the formula itself: such as an interview with Paul Elliman on his work on voice simulation, and the astonishing range of formulas needed to recreate a simple vowel sound. A reproduction of Albert Hoffman's scribbled LSD formula has a similar effect: prompting awareness of the social change stemming from such a casually scrawled formulation.

All of which offers some useful ballast to the A-list art ego on offer elsewhere. Brian Eno's careful, dry, diagrammatic formulation of Garrett Hardin's "Essay on Ethical Implications of Carrying Capacity" prompts all the negatives about stampeding over-eagerly into other disciplines, taking oneself and the form too seriously. Similarly, it's hard not to feel a qualitative distinction between those - such as Yona Friedman - for whom diagrammatic formulation has long been a vital part of their work, and contributers coming up with clever, funny, one-offs about their creative process. Although, having said that, perhaps none of this matters as long as long as the formula maker maintains a dexterous, shifting intelligence, whose gaps and contradictions often evoke the structures of the comic.

Obrist outlines the books lineage in the intricate drawings of Roger Penrose's Roads to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (2004). A productive - and much earlier - comparison could also be made to the Assembling anthologies supervised by Richard Kostelanetz, or Emmett Williams Anthology of Concrete Poetry, in which one finds a similar range of image-text combinations, often seeking to embody a range of information in a condensed, almost ideographic form. More specifically, the form of a page for some image-text combination evokes the fluxus score.

But this is also where the differences kick in. It's hard not to see this kind of project as an implied rebuke of fluxus as all game, lacking its own real social and intellectual connections to scientists, architects and mathematicians. But reading Formulas For Now posed some counter-arguments:

1. Scores left open future possibilities whilst formulas offer some summation by a Great Mind. Scores were a self-consciously marginal cultural activity, whilst Formulas are by those keen to be seen at the centre of cultural production.

2. The shift from scores to formulas suggest our model of cultural reception has become much less performative and participatory. There's a sub-text to the formulas that risks re-inventing a world of elitist, experts, something that certainly seems implied by Nancy Spero's amusing contribution which begins:


The main thing is that no one (or) no one shall (to be decided) does (or) do anything that would be detrimental to society either physically or mentally. There will be a huge number of scientists and psychiatrists that would monitor the world and Hans Ulrich would be Head Monitorist.(139)


That said, I think there might be another reason for my somewhat disgruntled response to this book: Formulas as contradictory and bad-tempered. If some are annoying for being overly casual, others become boring for being too dense. This perversity is part of their nature, at least when the formulas are aesthetic rather than mathematical. My favorites are those that recognize the formulaic quality of artistic work itself, and don't shift from that into mock-profundity - such as Rosmarie Trockel's handwritten fax that says "Think, pig!" or Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's photo of an installation on which she has written TROPICALIZATION in large letters on the white wall.

Despite all these reservations Formulas for Now is still an exciting read, but to realize this I had to make a mental shift away from its contributer list as a map of Obrist's professional network. Like fluxus scores, formulas at their best demonstrate a particular form of intelligence, of processing and activating information, in a form that, through being both linguistic and visual, also becomes spatial, multi-dimensional, and, seemingly, instantaneous. It's a kind of thought that offers to remove these contradictions.

That it remains viable as an artistic strategy is perhaps best illustrated not by this book at all but by a another recent exploration of score and formula: no.w.here lab's Instructions For Films . This work, like Formulas for Now is at its best when engaging the exacting force field of the formula: between joke and mathematics; order and disorder; language and image; proposition, hint, realization.

Above Copied from: http://www.moremilkyvette.blogspot.com/2008/10/booknotes-formulas-for-now.html

George Brecht's "Event Score" (1996), Elyse Nelson

George Brecht’s “Event Score” (1966)
Elyse Nelson
Art, Music & Theory Since World War II
Seth Kim-Cohen
October 16, 2007


George Brecht stands out among the Fluxus group as an innovator, pushing the ideas of his predecessors, Cage and Duchamp, into an open-ended, ever-elusive world of objects, sound, performance, and theory. In his 1957 essay, Chance-Imagery, Brecht seems to find art as a logical nexus among his interests in science, probability theories, and objects. He further stumbles into a career as an artist/musician while taking John Cage’s highly influential class at the New School for Social Research (New York) in 1958. The origins of his practice are significant in understanding his work as that of an untrained musician who embraces art in the light of expanding media of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and thus using it as an open arena for experimentation. Brecht’s chosen platform for such experimentation manifests itself in the shape of his “event scores” (a term coined by Fluxus artists). Among the dozens of situations that are sketched out in his “event scores”, perhaps the most beautifully understated yet loaded and paradoxical may be found in his 1966 “Event Score:”

Arrange or discover an event. Score and then realize it. (fluxworkbook 27)

In a short ten words, Brecht cuts through the material employed in his other scores, instructing that a non-descript ‘event’ be manipulated in every sense that he sees fit. The score stands above the rest as a paradigm of contemporary artistic thought in the 1960’s, critiquing – and simultaneously advocating – the nature of art as an ‘event’ (one brushing the fringe of reality) if only set aside as such by any one who chooses to do so.
To speak of his “event scores” in broader strokes, they may be seen as instructions for performances or guidelines for a particular situation, which he calls an ‘event.’ The use of sound and objects is typical, and he often instructs action between the two, such as in his “Drip Music” (1959) in which water is dripped from a source into an empty vessel (fluxworkbook 22). In other scores, he calls for the performance of specific actions by the audience and/or performers. Brecht blurs the distinction between the mediums by creating scores that call for ‘events’ that lie between object and sound, performance and reality, and physically exist as replicable paper objects written in miniature stylized stanzas. Higgins uses the word intermedia to define the in-between state in which these scores exist (4). They neither mix nor juxtapose media, but rest between them in a state of flux (thus the group name Fluxus). Higgins’ use of the term intermedia is the closest one comes to pinning down the proper nomenclature for the many ambivalent instances such as the appearance of the sound-object that Brecht calls for in “Drip Music.”

But among the many uncanny situations that unfold in Brecht’s ‘event scores,’ his piece “Event Score” (1966) remains evermore elusive. In cleverly giving the title of the piece a name that is synonymous with the entire body of work in which it lies, he speaks of the common principles underlying his work as a whole. To start, he uses the word ‘Event’ to suggest that the score draws out a situation. In reading it, however, one becomes aware of the fact that while Brecht asks for many different manipulations of the ‘event’ within the score, the event itself is left undefined. This ambiguity is intentional, and perhaps Brecht does this in order to encourage the reader to think more seriously about what constitutes an ‘event.’ Secondly, Brecht recognizes his work as a ‘score’, suggesting its likeness to a musical score and thus his role as that of a composer. His claimed authorship, however, remains paradoxical, as he otherwise seems to deny himself the designation as the genius behind his work. Dezeuze calls Brecht “one of the most self-effacing artists around,” referring to the way in which he leaves his scores exceedingly open and enigmatic so that those who come across them may interpret and perform them in such subjective manners that they become, in part, their own work (9). So in using the word ‘score’ in the title of the piece, while he in some ways calls attention to himself as the composer/author/artist, Brecht perhaps more importantly calls attention to the other necessities of any musical score – the performers and the audience.

In Brecht’s scores, and in this one in particular, the performer/audience relationship is left undetermined. Brecht himself being an untrained artist does not require any skill of his performers and never even designates who is to perform his scores at all, be it artists or musicians. His scores are left as open haikus printed as public statements and (preferably) distributed at large. The way in which he states the content of “Event Score” in imperative form implies that he speaks directly to the reader. So in reading the score, the audience and/or performer is confronted by Brecht in many forms, being asked to participate as the composer, performer, and audience of the score. To appreciate this notion, it is necessary to understand this score piecemeal, for each word is loaded with meaning and possibility.

First, he tells the reader to “arrange or discover an event.” The word ‘arrange’ has been carefully selected because the verb ‘to arrange’ can be interpreted in many ways. Brecht may be asking the reader to organize or plan an ‘event,’ to position objects and/or sounds and/or performers into a situation, or even to ‘arrange’ in the musical sense, to compose sounds, objects, or gestures into a situation. As Dezeuze notes, he chooses the word ‘arrange’ over ‘assemblage’ to differentiate his ‘events’ from the combines of other artists such as Rauschenberg (7). As stated before, Brecht is not interested in juxtaposing or mixing objects and/or mediums. He wants to ‘arrange’ them into new situations fitting between media. Brecht also gives the option to ‘discover’ an ‘event’. This may be interpreted as to simply call a found object/sound/situation of reality an ‘event.’ This idea was influenced by Duchamp’s readymades, such as his 1913 Bicycle Wheel or 1917 Fountain. Duchamp advocates through his readymades art as objects of reality that are placed into the art world by choice of an artist. Brecht takes Duchamp’s idea a step further, allowing the art to be not only an object, but also any sort of undefined ‘event,’ whether it be a set of actions, a sound, an object, or a situation between any of the former. In using the disjunction ‘or’ in juxtaposing ‘arrange’ and ‘discover,’ Brecht gives the reader the option between the two. The instructions are mutually exclusive, as he asks the reader to do one or the other. He is specific in using a disjunctive rather than conjunctive as to avoid the urge to both ‘arrange’ and ‘discover,’ which may lead one to invent, or fabricate, an ‘event.’ To invent a situation would be too much in line with the tradition of artists who feel the need to be creative. Brecht desires a more subtle art, one that exists as an intermediate between reality and artifice, what Dezeuze calls “almost nothing” (10).

In the second sentence of “Event Score,” Brecht directs the reader to “score and then realize [the event].” Here, he passes the baton to the reader, instructing for him/her to take his role as composer or artist. Brecht recognizes that ‘arranged’ or ‘discovered’ situations/objects/sounds are not actually ‘events’ until they have been legitimized by the author as such by means of recognizing their ‘event’ status in some concrete form. To ‘score’ the ‘event’, then, means to dictate or transcribe the situation into an ‘event,’ thus giving it status as a situation outside (or at least on the fringes) of reality. Next, Brecht directs the reader to “and then realize it.” Once the ‘event’ has been legitimized, it must be acted out, seen, or understood as an ‘event’ by the performer and/or audience. The verb ‘to realize’ is once again a broad term that Brecht uses to muddle the distinction between audience and performer. It is unclear whether Brecht is directing the reader to ‘realize,’ as in understand the ‘event,’ or to ‘realize,’ as in physically make the ‘event’ happen.

After treading through Brecht’s carefully constructed language, one seems to understand the options that Brecht outlines, yet may still be dumbfounded as to how to define the ‘event’ within “Event Score” and thus understand how it may be ‘realized.’ But with more thorough consideration, it becomes obvious that this ‘event’ is entirely capable of being ‘realized,’ and it is only the overwhelming degree of freedom that Brecht gives to his reader that confuses him/her. He truly values the risk involved in leaving such works undefined. Dezeuze sees this as an extension of his earlier experimentation with chance in art:

Brecht discovered that simply leaving performers to make the decisions usually controlled by the artist was an equally, if not more, effective way of introducing chance into an artwork.
(Brecht for Beginners 2)

Therefore, to ‘realize’ “Event Score” would be as simple as to ‘discover’ (or happen upon) an exploded pen, ‘score’ it in some fashion, and then ‘realize’ or understand it as art. Brecht would argue that this specific interpretation of “Event Score” would be just as legitimate as any other interpretation.
So, “Event Score” can be readily realized, but still the question remains whether it needs to be. In a sense, the score has already realized itself as paradigm for all scores by Brecht and thus does not need to be further realized. It is as if Brecht writes this score as a way to divulge his own valuable process in writing scores. On the other hand, “Event Score” seems to need to be realized by its reader because Brecht never justifies language as an artistic objective. In fact, in his text Chance-Imagery, he writes, “words about art are so indefinitely inferior to art itself” (4). He does not write scores as products but rather as a means to a more material end. He is specific in “Event Score” that it is to be “[scored] and then [realized].” He does not give the disjunctive connector or as he does in the former part of the score. He uses and then to imply that a score is nothing without being drawn to completion, being both scored and then realized. Nothing in the score is to be overshadowed, for it is his brilliant and humorous economy of meaning within the ten-word score that marks its effective power and signature as a paradigm for all other scores.



Works Cited

Brecht, George. “Chance-Imagery.” A Great Bear Pamphlet, Something Else Press, 1966: 1-29. 14 October 2007

Daneuze, Anna. “Brecht for Beginners.” Papers of Surrealism. Issue 4 (Winter 2005): 1-11. 14 October 2007

Friedman, Ken, Owen Smith, Lauren Sawchyn, Excerpts From: the Fluxus Performance Workbook. Performance Research e-publication, 2002. 15 October 2007

Higgins, Dick. “Synesthesia and Intersenses: Intermedia.” Something Else Newsletter 1 No. 1 (1966): 1-12. 14 October 2007


above copied from: http://artparlor.forumotion.com/critique-discuss-f2/george-brecht-s-event-score-1996-essay-by-elyse-nelson-t2.htm

Metadramas, Dick Higgins

Statement about my "metadramas"
by Dick Higgins

One of the main genres of Fluxus pieces of the 1960s is and was "events." These were first done before Fluxus, and came to be conceptually framed as a sort of cognate of happenings, which were new at the time-that is, intermedial, free-form pieces which lay conceptually among the bounds of music, theater and visual art. Events differed from happenings in that they were always as compressed as possible, minimal statements that would provide a mental or emotional impact. But, of course, they were highly abstract. I did them, George Brecht did them, and others of the Fluxus artists did them also though, for the most part, somewhat later than 1958 when George, I, AI Hansen and others studied with John Cage in his class at the New School for Social Research in New York, a story which has been told, more or less, to death.
However, events made their point and the genre became well defined over the years, through Fluxus concerts and individual performances and works by, quite literally, hundreds of artists. In the sixties, when purely formal explorations seemed essential to sweep away the overly personal baggage of the 1960s, this was a positive thing. However, in the 1980s, when personal expression has been minimized, and when art performances, the heirs in some respect of happenings, often celebrate boredom and almost always deal essentially with technical and formal concerns, it seems more desirable to do pieces which are mainly minimal emotional statements or narrative ones, complete with characterizations in most cases. I had done a few such pieces previously, but not so consciously as now. I call them "metadramas" because they must be dramatic in order to satisfy the criterion, and, the "meta-" part suggests that they are "next to" or "about" what they relate to-that is, some are dramas about the drama, while others simply don't pretend to be dramas but do point in that direction. I wrote about sixty of them in the summer of 1985, destroyed most of them, and then noticed that they seemed to define a genre to which the earlier events belong, though not vice versa.

Barrytown, New York
18 September, 1985







the artist
a metadrama



artist: "i'm hungry."
someone else: "here are twenty two ounces of honor."
artist: "i'm still hungry."
someone else: "here are twenty two more ounces of honor."






buddhism
a metadrama



buddhist monk: "peace!"
sound of gunfire.






couic!
a metadrama



enters in a suit of medieval armor.
trips.
falls.












erotic
a metadrama



she giggles then sighs.
she giggles then sighs.
ad lib a couple of minutes.















flexible lumbar
a metadrama



nude, profile to audince.
demonstrates flexible lumbars.
two minutes.
words: optional.

















follow the leader
a metadrama



two people nude and smiling one leads other follows.
after a while follower no longer follows leader does not change roles.
they look at each other.
leader does something follower does something different.
follower does something
leader does that thing.
leader follows the other away.
















hat show
a metadrama



enters carrying pillow.
puts pillow on head.
pause.
removes pillow.
goes away.
















hers
a metadrama



She: "yes!"
offstage voice: "no!"
(may be repeated).

















his
a metadrama



he: "no !"
offstage voice: "yes!"
(may be repeated).
















how nemo got honored in his patria
a metadrama in three parts



i - solo

A bows to the audience stiffly and repeatedly for a minute.

ii - duo

A and B bow to each other stiffly and repeatedly for a minute.

iii - solo

B bows to the audience stiffly and repeatedly for a minute.


















love story
a metadrama



two at a time.
"yes?" "no?" "no no?" "yes yes?"
grouping and regrouping
















the philosopher
a metadrama



onstage:
"i think so--absolutely--no!"















portrait of a man eating an apple
a metadrama



man.
apple.
man eats apple.















a study in feet, or no second half
a metadrama



participants remove their right shoes and socks only.
they display their right feet to the audience and to each other.
they put their shoes and socks back on.















tenderly
a metadrama



blindfolded. both enter from different places as silently as possible.
they find each other,
touch fingertips,
touch necks and hair,
kiss.















two hard core pornies
metadramas



i - hers

standing female.
someone stands behind her, massaging her breasts with a delicate
clockwise motion.
duration: 46.3".


ii - his

standing male.
someone kneels in front of him, rubbing head in his crotch.
duration: 46.3".















variation on an old theme
a metadrama



naked man: "i have no wings."
clothed woman: "so i see."
















variation on a theme by shiomi
a metadrama



look for the vanishing smile.















the way things are
a metadrama



a couple, A and B.
A falls into B's arms.
B shivers.
A goes away.
B looks after A.














zebra
a metadrama



someone enters dressed as a zebra.
says: "i am not a zebra."
someone else says: "i'm naht so sure about that, dahling!"













New York City
September-October, 1985







Copyright © 1995 by Richard C. Higgins. All rights reserved. Portions of this text appeared in Malthus in 1987 and are copyright 1987. For performance permissions, please write to Dick Higgins, P.O. Box 27, Barrytown, NY 12507.