"in the near future, plans may be developed which take
their cue from games and atlhetics, where the regulations
provide for a variety of moves that make the outcome always uncertaint. a
score might be written, so general in its
instructions that it could be adapted to basic types
of terrain such as oceans, woods, cities, farms,; and to basic
kind of performers such as teenagers, old people, children,
matrons, and so on, including insects, animals and the weather. this could
be printed and mail-ordered for use by anyone who wanted it. greorge brecht
has been interested in such posibilities for some time now. his sparse
scores read like this:
DIRECTION
Arrange to observe a sign
indicating direction of travel.
� travel in the indicated direction
� travel in another direction
"but so far they have been distributed to friends, who perform them at
their discretion and without ceremony, certainly they are aware of the
pholosophic allusions to zen buddhism, of the subtle wit and childlike
simplicity of the activites indicated. most of all, they are aware of the
responsability it places on the performer to make something of the
situation or not. as we mentioned before in connection with another of
brecht's pieces, this implications its the most radical potential in all of
the work discussed in this book. beyond a small group of initiates, there
are few who could derive pleasure from going ahead and doing them without
self-cosciousness. in the case of those happenings with more detailed
instructions or more expanded action, the artist must be present at every
moment , directing and participating , for the tradition is too young for
the complete stranger to know what to do with such plans if he got them."
(alan kaprow)
At 10:16 am -0600 1/11/00, cecil touchon wrote:
Three Aqueous Events
ice
water
steam
George Brecht 1961
That the simplicity of it causes literally any action that includes these three
states of water to be a variation on his work. That's kind of like staking off
wilderness, one stake in each of its four corners, and saying that because you
have placed these four stakes anything that happens within them is trespassing.
Hogwash!
