I was asked to be the artistic director of the festival, selecting artists and developing the festival format. Collaborating with Bech, Nørby and her incredible crowd of peers were to handle the artists’ productions, and a local art collector and publisher, Bent Petersen, was to secure funding and sponsorships. Regrettably he made an entire mess of it.

The festival was named Festival of Fantastics because Fantastics was the title of the most successful Broadway musical at the time, but also because this musical had its office and small museum at MacDougal Street in New York, where I spend most of my time in those years. The term Fluxus was avoided as it had gradually turned into a nonsense word mostly used by people with ambitious career plans but without any affiliation to the events in 1962.

Two fundamental principles were established: the entire medieval city should come alive with activities, and the same venue could not be used as a performance platform more than once. These principles were more or less enforced. Due to the size of the city, Nørby’s local roots, Bech’s exceptional work and the two local newspapers’ scrupulous front-page coverage of every detail, the festival became the city’s pivotal point for ten days. Especially the journalist Birgit Brunsted was instrumental in terms of achieving total sympathy from the city and its institutions, services and businesses. I believe that the festival was the only subject discussed by the citizens during those days.

After Emmett Williams’ brilliant finale, gently blowing out candles in the Culture House, a longing arose among the city’s bereaved. The best men and women could not allow for InterMedia’s ephemeral being to slip through their fingers, and a site of remembrance was created, insisting on another appearance than the former.

Thankfully director of Roskilde’s historical museum and head of The Danish Museum Council Frank Birkebæk was around. The outcome of it all was the Museum of Contemporary Art (Museet for Samtidskunst) residing in the old bishop’s palace with Bech as director and Birkebæk as head of the board – and in addition this website.

Eric Andersen                                                                                       
2009.01.29.

Read Eric Andersen’s text “What is…?” on Fluxus and Festival of Fantastics

Charlie Morrow and his mother Laura Morrow, MD. Photo: Mari Ellen Morrow, 2002

My dad had been taken away by a fast cancer after a healthy life.
He and my mother, with my sister and a cousin I believe,
had traveled just before his illness was diagnosed,
to Russia to visit the area where the Morochovskys
had lived before they immigrated to Boston in the
early 1900s.

So it was brilliant that Laura Morrow, M.D. took this
Danish holiday.

In 2006, Henry Martin reminisced about our meeting in Roskilde. I had forgotten that I made a dream song performance for him on the shore of the fjord.

Quite literally: I was at the very top of the tallest ladder of a Roskilde fire department vehicle, connected to 29 dancers from the body theatre group “Berzerk” by a bright blue 45 meter-long costume. From the top of the very tall, swaying ladder I looked out over Roskilde and it felt as though not only my body, but also my mind was about to take off – only the blue costume held me back, and I professed myself totally to Fluxus.

The ladder happening was part of Berzerk’s performance. Before we reached the ladder, we had filed through a city bus – the first in line were leaving the bus as the last ones were entering it. Then the group made its way to a supermarket, where the blue serpent of people moved through the store, giving each other rides in the shopping carts and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Surprisingly, the customers and staff found this most amusing.

Characteristic and unique to this festival was the fact that the Fluxus artists, through playfulness and good humour, engaged the city and its citizens in the festival and managed to change people’s general perception of art considerably. 

For example, at the rather chaotic preliminary press conference, the Fluxus artists had lined up and were all speaking at once. Geoffrey Hendricks bit Ben Vautier’s hand and later burned a paper dart. Alison Knowles urged Ben Vautier to do something classic Fluxus. Ben didn’t need much encouragement. He dashed out of the press conference with a roll of paper in his hand, stretched it across Algade, bringing traffic to a halt to the sound of tooting horns.

Eventually a neat-looking lady stepped on to the street and tore the paper. The epitome of Fluxus spirit. The festival included a Citizen Powered Sculpture, i.e. in the beginning it was just a pile of tiles that had been unloaded at Stænder Square. However, after a while people realized its potential and creative souls started moving the tiles, causing the sculpture to move down Algade. At one point, the Roskilde city authorities feared the sculpture would be a danger to passers-by and a compromise was negotiated, keeping it within specific boundaries. You can’t win them all…
Then there were the stewards of the cathedral, who demonstrated a rather narrow-minded attitude when the Fluxus artists asked for permission to put on a concert in the cathedral. Because the Fluxus artists had no other description to offer of the programme than ‘avant-garde music’ (one sensed that the mere mention of the word sent a collective shiver down the stewards’ spines), their request was turned down. The regulations apparently stated that cathedral council had to be sure of every single tone that would be played. In a way it was a happening in itself.

And the artists simply came up with something else.

The festival had an air of effortless ease, an inclusive humour and almost a sort of innocence. And many challenges for those who initially asked “Is that supposed to be art?” This question ceased to be asked within a few days, being replaced by curiosity and active participation.

A vibrant energy flowed through Roskilde during those bright days and nights of May 1985, people were grasping the moment and joining the shenanigans taking place in practically all official and semi-official buildings in Roskilde: the law courts and detention cells, St. Ib’s Church (where Eric Andersen gave the audience absolution), the city’s galleries, The Viking Ship Museum, The Culture Centre, a ship on the fjord, a bed on the square and not least on the streets and down alleys where there were brass bands, choirs singing, clowns and acrobatics in the air.

Somehow I never made it all the way back down that ladder.

While she, her back against a brick wall, held on to the strip of paper, Ben Vautier, the roll of receipt paper is his hand, stepped out onto the street in front of cars which had to brake sharply, cyclists and pedestrians. He strode backwards across the street to the wall on the opposite side unwinding the paper roll as he went, like a bar blocking the road, with tailbacks quickly forming in both directions – until a cyclist tore the paper strip.

”That’s Fluxus”, Ben declared. A brilliant, yet simple and expressive way of describing a concept that cannot be defined in words.

During the press conference, Vautier eagerly made notes and drawings on sheets of paper which he regularly threw to the floor. They were picked up in no time by devoted members of the audience, in particular the Korean ambassador, a keen collector who followed the entire festival with great interest. As Ben says in the exhibition catalogue, one of the reasons for the tremendous interest in Fluxus was all the free material one could collect in the hope of later being able to sell it at a sizeable profit.

In 1984, Øystein Hjort told me about one of his students, Marianne Bech, who had just written an excellent dissertation on Fluxus. He asked me if North would be interested in publishing it – North had recently published a sizeable work on Arthur Köpcke. Obviously, I was very interested and contacted Marianne Bech.

The problem was getting the publication financed. North was struggling to survive as it was, and even though Marianne generously renounced her fee, I was unable to cover the expense of translation and printing. With a good deal of approximation and manipulation, Fluxus would be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1985 and the idea arose of celebrating the occasion with a festival and including the publication in the festivities. Of course, this meant even more fundraising, but at the same time we did have access to much more funding – including public funding.

It was not difficult to convince Valborg Nørby of Gallery Sct. Agnes that a festival in Roskilde would be a good idea. Valborg and I had been close friends for many years, and since the end of the 70s I had worked as a consultant and as her sparring partner at the gallery, arranging many of her exhibitions and giving a number of lectures at the gallery. Together, we worked on the local authorities and business community for financing. Our efforts included a lecture at the Lion’s Club to leaders of the business and financial establishment. Meanwhile, Marianne and I discussed festival participants, content and budget. We agreed on a number of potential participants like Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Ben Vautier, Emmett Williams, Robert Filliou, Nam June Paik, George Brecht, Tomas Smit, Wolf Vostell and Eric Andersen.

At this time we got in touch with Eric Andersen, who quickly taught a newcomer like me about the realities of social networking even among rebels like the Fluxus people: If this and that person is invited, then these other people will not agree to come – this applied, for example, to Wolf Vostell who we had to leave out from the outset. Already at this point I had to downscale my involvement in the project, which later overwhelmed both Valborg Nørby and I, and turned out to be a financial disaster.

Eric also lectured us that no Fluxus artist would participate in anything so petit bourgeois as a 25th anniversary – no, it had to be a 17¾-year anniversary – and since Fluxus had passed away several years previously, a new name had to be chosen and the official occasion had to be dropped. The final result was ‘Festival of Fantastics’ for Fluxus and affiliated artists.

The festival was realized despite of many financial and practical difficulties, not least as a result of the tremendous efforts of Marianne Bech and Valborg Nørby, Eric Andersen’s contacts and the numerous corps of volunteers. And in many ways the festival was a huge success mixing humor, madness and poetry.

Collaboration with the artists was exemplary and educational. Especially two aspects puzzled me. The first thing was that every performance was so carefully prepared and timed, with nothing left to chance. This did not correspond with my impression of the immediacy and spontaneity of the Fluxus events – or with my experiences with related happenings, performances and actions that emerged in the wake of Fluxus. The second thing was that many performances were re-enactments of earlier happenings – which gave the festival the feel of an anniversary after all!

My own favorites were Alison Knowles’ performance at the Viking Ship Hall, Philip Corner’s piano performance at the library, his “Democracy in Action” and “A Reverence for the Piano”, Geoffrey Hendricks’ performance at the harbour and Eric Andersen’s sound performance with Roskilde Studio Choir at the amphitheatre in the park – all surrounded by poetry and grace.

Actions presented in Ben Vautier’s performances and film screenings were both absurd, linguistically refined and thought-provoking, e.g. where he is sitting on a chair in the middle of the busy Promenade des Anglais in Nice with a sign in front of him reading ”Ne pas me regard” (don’t look at me) (which naturally attracted a crowd). Or when, also in Nice, he sat on a bench facing Mediterranean, a glass plate on his knee, signing his name on the horizon as it appeared through the glass. The action was entitled “Ben signs the horizon”. Or his simple word paintings like “Deux mots” (two words).
 
Emmett Williams’ readings and simple word games were beautiful, although it was perhaps the veneration of experiencing this great poet up close made the greatest impression. And this notion is a point in itself: a number of internationally renowned artists travelled from France, Germany, the USA and Canada to meet here in Roskilde and revive old acquaintances and memories and give the population of this small provincial town an experience for life (and myself, with Marianne having been instigators and involved in getting them here…) Come to think of it; where was the world press from Copenhagen at this occasion? Not that they were missed at the time.

The absurdity of Bob Watts’ performances certainly made an impression, especially the  meticulously planned, highly orchestrated concert with a brass band in Roskilde Hall. The audience bought their tickets and waited eagerly for the required academic quarter of an hour before the curtain was raised to reveal the band sitting on chairs, their instruments at their feet. Conductor Bob Watts raised his arms and the musicians moved their instruments to their mouths, whereupon Watts lowered his arms and the musicians returned their instruments to the floor.

Bob Watts turned to the audience and bowed and the curtain came down. The performance was over. A similar absurdity characterized Eric Andersen’s performance at the Roskilde municipal court. The event consisted solely of getting the paying audience to leave the room as quickly as possible.

- E-mail from Ben Vautier to Eric Andersen, May 21 2008

The exhibitions
The exhibition in Galleri Sct. Agnes had work from some of us, though I’m not sure all of us, for other work was in the stable over near the Palace. Ben Vautier had the room next to mine and he had spray-painted words on all the walls. In my installation I had two ladders, one with day skies (one-sided) leaning in the corner to the right of the door leading into Ben’s space and another with two-sided watercolors of night skies hanging from the ceiling near the window.  The gallery located the two ladders for me. I recall visiting a family who had a ladder in a garden shed and another who had one behind a house.  After I got the ladders to the gallery I attached watercolors that I had brought with me, and changed the ladders in other ways such as wrapping the bottom of each side of the day ladder with strips of white cloth. Is it possible that at least one of those ladders is still in Roskilde? Could I have given one to Valborg with the skies, or were they simply returned after the exhibition and the watercolors sent back to me when the show was over?
     On the walls I had a number of my Berliner Tagsbuch watercolors that I had done in 1983 when I was in Berlin on a DAAD Berlin Artists program grant.  I would grid a sheet of heavy Arches watercolor paper into eight panels with a colored pencil, which functioned as a slight resist and with care kept the color from going from one panel to the next.  The panels would be painted sequentially so that I recorded how the sky was changing over a specific period of time, noting date and time on the back. In this series I began working with night skies as well as day skies. My Sky Boots from 1965 were in a niche in the room. They were the first objects I painted totally with sky, and I liked the way they became an image that melds earth and sky with the individual.
     I had tributes to George Brecht and George Maciunas. I gathered stones in the courtyard to use in a small installation piece, 100 Stones for George Maciunas. George had wanted people to send him 100 stones from strange places around the world for the fabrication of the Flux Atlas. And I brought a Flux Wedding Album that Brian Buczak and I had produced for George Maciunas and Billie Hutching’s Flux Wedding, February 25, 1978, in which I was Flux Minister. Honghee and Hoseon Cheon, who was South Korean Cultural attaché, bought these last two pieces as well as another watercolor that I painted for them. For the exhibition I had also brought George Brecht’s bowler hat that I bought at the auction of his belongings before he went off to Europe, where Al Hansen was auctioneer. I arrived wearing a black felt hat I had bought at a flea market in Berlin in 1983. At one point Ben Vautier accidentally stepped on this Berlin hat. To make amends, he wrote a sign for it saying, “I stamped on this hat and yet it still fits Jeoff Hendricks perfectly. Result: Ben’s got no effect on Jeoff head. Ben.” So this hat with Ben’s text then joined the Brecht bowler and became a two-hat installation. I have another story of a Brecht bowler hat in conjunction with my installation for the 1970 Happening & Fluxus exhibition in Cologne, but will save that for another time. In addition to the 100 Stones for George Maciunas, which I think are the black and white stones Marianne Bech remembers helping me collect in the courtyard, I also had some larger stones as installation near the hanging night sky ladder.
     For my exhibition at the DAAD gallery in Berlin in 1983 I had 4 tall ladders with watercolors of sky. Two of these ladders are in the collection of the Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg, along with two large triptychs Sky to the East and Sky to the West. The first ladder I did was perhaps my Ladder Garden, 1963-64, a stepladder with a spectral progression on the steps that were filled with a spectral progression of artificial flowers and a gray scale up the back. At the top there was some sky. That sky, and the sky on the upper part of Landscape Chair, 1964, was in anticipation of my painting sky on objects that began with the Sky Boots, where sky was freed from earth, other than what earth might be implied in the object.  Marianne remembers a bucket. I don’t recall whether this would have been hanging or on the floor. Over the last decade I have used old buckets rusted out on the bottom in a number of pieces. I have attached two-sided watercolors of the phases of the moon to each end of a cord that went through a pulley tied to the handle, so that the skies could move up and down under the hanging bucket. Watercolors of a great variety of skies used in combination with ladders, chairs, roof slates, rulers, scales, buckets and other objects have been major components in my exhibitions over the last few decades. I don’t recall having given a title to the exhibition at Galleri Sct. Agnes, though perhaps I did.
     In the old royal stables that had been turned into a gallery Sarenco’s Porto-Fluxus was on exhibit downstairs. My contribution for that project Sarenco had failed to produce in the way I had specified, so that I had to adjust what was there in the exhibition the best I could. I had provided Sarenco with a prototype that I had fortunately photographed in the Verona railroad station before delivering it to him, giving me a record of how I had made it.  That piece should have had images of sky from photographs that I had provided on slides, drawings of sky that I had done and sky/anatomy drawing/collages that I had made. These were to all be the same size and could be combined in any arrangement in four clear plastic pockets that were pinned to the muslin panel like a window. Underneath them there was a muslin pocket to hold the material not on view in the windows. The original title for the portfolio was to have been “Flux Commandments,” and the commandment I chose was “Change!” which I had on a tag in English and Italian, hanging from a safety pin. Sarenco had printed only some of my collaged drawings, I suppose keeping the rest for some other use, and had printed the photographs in the wrong size. I was really angry.
     Upstairs at the gallery/stable I remember a beautiful installation of Alison Knowles spread out on the floor or on a low table. And there was of course much more work. There were a good number of pieces from all of us in those two spaces. Emmett Williams had one of his beautiful photo collages, “Portraits of Fluxus Artist as Hors d’Oeuvre Art.” That I remember because Bob Watts bought it, and had shown it to me as we were going to the airport together. He was so pleased that he had been able to buy it from Emmett.

My performance From the Sea
Although on arriving in Roskilde I knew essentially what I wanted to do for my performance, From the Sea, I was also aware that the site would determine many aspects of the piece. A work always evolves in the course of bringing it together.  Eric arranged one trip out across the harbor to Hillerød, where we went to investigate an old wreck of a barge as a possible location to stage the piece. It was interesting, but in water too shallow for a boat to approach. I looked at the buoys in the harbor as possible supports for text. I thought a lot about the piece as journey. Then the fantastic boat Skjelskør was located. Perfect. And the wharf of Risø, the energy research center, was available as a destination and everything came together.
     In thinking about what I would do, right from the beginning I imagined it as a piece that would involve boats, a destination and activities taking place at that destination. I was seeing a journey to an island, with performance on the boats crossing Roskilde harbor, as well as on the island. The activities on the boats and island should be simple but must be tight in structure and image. Horns could call back and forth between the boats as they are crossing. I wondered whether the piece in some way evoked the Embarkation for Cythera.
     I imagined having performers in the front of each boat carrying out a slow progression of activities like the figureheads on the prow of a ship, activities such as wrapping and tying, bicycling with flowers on feet, cutting and tying a chair, tying the cut chair with trees to the prow. Sounds would be made back and forth between the boats. Then on shore the parts that were visible in each ship would come together as a whole. Some of this becomes transposed into what took place on the Risø wharf.
     I thought about text, a list of questions, mythology and metaphor. Should I write a small story to be handed out, or make a series of drawings and collages as a kind of score?
     I imagined activities of performers on the boat, but then on the land the audience could go in search of stones, flowers and leaves. They could create a trail, possibly leaving a string to mark their path as they headed out in a kind of island exploration. Should there be loud sounds to bring people together?  Should we have fireworks or a fire? In order to become clear about what I was going to do I knew that I must first find the location and the boat or boats, and also meet with those who would help.
Other early thoughts from my journal:
Have someone on the wharf engaged in small formal activity as people are boarding the boat. On board have people wrapping objects and each other enveloped in sky from projected slides. Make a drawing on the ground like a gaming board.
For the arrival at the old boat, do I swim over to it? Or go across a gangplank?
Once there, I would begin activation of two people who would already be there, as if they had slept for twenty years. We could wrestle. Chase each other. Move through space.
There could be buoys with red flags, or messages and letters; or we could toss buoys into the water with words or images. Or should we tie flowers to the buoys? Each buoy should have a special top.
     On board sound might come up from trap doors, made with large timbers, or metal sheets, rocks, blocks, and bells. Horns could call back and forth. Green leaves and branches could emerge from somewhere. A banner could extend from the prow.
Cycling with flowers on feet. Rolling wheels. Prow figures.
Figure at prow with bicycle wheel held with arms outstretched, or between feet.
We three would board ship and slow trip back with sounds from all performers.
We don’t talk with anyone or answer questions from anyone on the boat.
     Should I get some birds (carrier pigeons) to carry a message somewhere?
     The process of crawling is certainly a good activity.
     Must remember it will be cold in the water.
     I think about how in the small loading area on the boat I could have a performance like “Trunk” that I did a few years earlier for Charlotte Moorman’s Avant Garde Festival on the Passenger Ship Terminal pier in New York City. Could the space underneath be opened and entered at end of performance on returning to the wharf, when a person covered with flowers goes there. Perhaps Eva could be like Persephone entering the underworld. She has a Primavera quality. She could be covered with flowers and some earth and I could be covered with leaves and blue. She could go to one of the bunks onto a bed of flowers with the door remaining open so people see her and I would go above onto the deck. We would be the mythical Sky/Earth. These are thoughts I was having and in various ways they inform what was finally done.

At one point in my journal I wrote:  “Fluxus is a drop of water.”
I wrote this down in a mindless way, but now I recall George Maciunas showing me a homemade slide with a little tube into the space between two pieces of glass that he had in his projector. With an eyedropper he put water in the space and was totally amused watching the microscopic creatures wiggling around and remarked how it was all one needed for a movie, a minimalist movie. So Fluxus is a drop of water.

Discovering the ship Skjelskør – København - the piece comes into focus, it is the perfect boat for the trip. With pictures of the old King and Queen in the dining area, it has the feeling of an earlier time. The journey is the performance.  I meet the Captain, Niels Borserup, and am shown around the ship. It will hold up to 100 passengers and 24 may eat at one time. We must serve Flux food. The hold could be used for supplies, but also as an entrance, and the fore cabin has two bunks. There is a toilet and small washbasin that could be for a flux-event. The upper deck is open. The lower deck is covered. It has a whistle, boiler room and coal fired engine. There is the captain and a crew of two. It has no galley/kitchen so all the food must be prepared before. We must plan different meals and different servings. Should there be one seating each way, or can we have two so that everyone has a chance to try some Flux food?
     Niels Bundgaard, Director of Risø is contacted and one day I am driven around to their wharf where I am able to see the space and figure out what should take place there.
There could be activities on the wharf in Roskilde while waiting for the departure and activities for the half-hour journey on the steamer. Then when the Skjelskør arrives at the Risø pier the audience will watch the performance on the two decks of the steamer since they cannot disembark.
     I talked with Alison and Bob about Flux foods. Alison suggested a large loaf of bread or Hala’s pâté penis. We also discussed the idea of a red meal, or red and white for Denmark. Bob Watts suggested making a Boat Cake. That could be good, and with pound cake easy to fabricate. Other thoughts are my 10 flavors of mashed potatoes, Dick’s clear flavorless gelatin and Alison’s shit stew. We could have a rainbow meal with beets, carrots, lemon custard, lime Jell-O, green beans/peas, deep green greens, blueberries and red cabbage for purple. Also black food and white food. A checkerboard of bologna and cheese, with slices of round salami for checkers was made.
     We must make a long banner for the side of the Skjelskør saying:
     FLUXSKIB GEORGE MACIUNAS
     I wonder about the time of the sunset and the moonrise. The piece is about the sun and the moon, as well as fire and water and the journey. The journey itself is a performance. Metaphorically we’re going to George on the other shore.
     The idea of a Fluxship George Maciunas came to me first for some performances that Alison Knowles, Takako Saito and I were planning for Galerie Baecker in Bochum on June 25, 1978. George had just died the month before and this seemed like a beautiful way to commemorate him. An inflatable rubber boat was found for me. I filled it with water and wearing a sailor’s hat and shirt, became the Flux Navy. I made a questionnaire for people to fill out about crossing to the other shore.
     Then as we were planning the Flux-concert that we had at the Kitchen in New York on March 24, 1979, our first project in New York after George’s death and the Flux Funeral. It also seemed important to again have a Flux Navy to reach George Maciunas who was now on the other shore of life. It was for this concert that I also made the memorial newspaper, a V TRE Extra. That project was my concept, I was the publisher, and Sara Seagull worked with me on the design and layout, with great contributions from everyone.
     I was the Flux Navy again for the opening of the 1962 Wiesbaden Fluxus 1982 exhibition and concert at the Museum Wiesbaden. It is there that Marianne Bech saw me perform in the museum entrance hall. There were many other realizations later with my traveling exhibition Day into Night, (in Pori, Finland I had a whole fleet of boats), and at the Seoul of Fluxus exhibition in Korea.
     Can I score whistle sounds, or have Philip make whistle music?  Yes, I should have Phil score the sound and Bob help me score the food, with Eva, Susanne and others to help make the food. Eric and Philip should both help wrap me with branches.
     People for the performance: Eric Andersen, Philip Corner and Bob Watts. Jeppe, the young assistant and Susanne, with dark hair in gallery, were both very involved with the preparation of the FluxFood. Eva wanted to stay free for organizing. The day before the voyage we gathered at Susanne’s house to prepare the food. Susanne, Jeppe and others were all energetically bringing the different dishes together, and making the cake in the shape of the Skjelskør. I gave advice but they had everything well under control so there was very little that I could do.
     On the trip over on the Skjelskør Bob Watts, Marianne, Jeppe and Susanne, served Flux Food in the Dining Room. Rainbow cards were made and Bob Watts handed them out to people in order to determine places at each serving. I believe Eric and Phil were engaged with sound and other activities on the deck, and I was on the Risø wharf  under a sheet waiting for the boat to arrive.

Performance on the Risø wharf
Eric and Phil come onto the platform. Some other people also come off the boat, but most watch from the two decks of the Skjelskør. I emerge out from under sheets, naked and draw a pail of water from the sea that I pour over my body. I pour dirt onto my feet and tie flowers to them and then raising them into the air “bicycle” while Philip turns a bicycle wheel above me. I strain water onto my head and pour water through funnels standing high on a square stool. Do I make a small fire? Philip and Eric had been engaged earlier in simple activities measuring of the space in front of the boat with a stretched rope and rolling wheels back and forth, then Philip begins to cut the chair with a saw, performing it as though it were a musical instrument. When the chair is cut the parts are reversed and joined back together again with branches. Was Eva covered with flowers? Did Phil & Eric wrestle on the wharf?  After completing various elemental activities I go to the area near the ship and with the help of Eric cover myself with blue makeup onto my head, torso and body. Then again with the help of Eric tie branches, tall grass and yellow flowers all around my body and Eric ties me to the mast for the return journey back to the Roskilde dock. As the boat was traversing the harbor people could see the full moon rising in the east and the orange sun setting in the west. It was a magical moment. When we landed, Eric helped me off the boat and accompanied me up through the yellow field of rape, below the cathedral and on to Gallerei Sct. Agnes where I left my wrappings in the courtyard, got cleaned up and dressed, and then joined the others for dinner, feeling very exhilarated from the whole performance.
     The antecedents for From the Sea are many. The concept of journey, and interaction with nature and the cycles of nature pervade my work. Examples include Between Two Points, three meditative rituals that I did in 1974 on a mountaintop in Norway for the summer solstice, for a full moon in Asolo, Italy and then on a beach below Venice with the sun; and later that year a three-day piece for the Autumnal equinox in the Clocktower in New York. My performance Two Beds for the 1982 Wiesbaden Fluxus celebration, 1975 performances in Rome where I emerge out from under a sheet and engage in transformative actions of myself and with a chair, and in Munich where I lived for three days in the Kunstverein, a bed where I slept, branches, earth, rocks, water and other materials that I worked with during the time I was there.

The Lynghøjskolens Brassband performance
Eric told us that he had arranged for a brass band of young musicians to perform in the square in front of the Town Hall, and asked us for scores. What I composed was:

Instructions to the brass band

You are a group. Work to think together. Listen to each other.
For about the first minute search out your highest range.
For the second minute let these sounds come together in rich harmonies.
If you have an instrument with a low range try to let the sound of a higher instrument be an overtone of the sound you’re making. Then in the third minute gradually give way to the highest tones and let that part of the group move on up to the sky, to which you should all be looking.

     Note: A decade earlier Dick Higgins had composed a work dedicated to me:
     Clouds for Piano, for Geoffrey Hendricks, Cloudsmith, 1974.
The first performance of that work was by Paul Hoffman at the Kitchen in New York sometime that same year. My piece was in part a response to Dick’s score, and the two became a kind of musical sky exchange.
     Later the piece became referred to as Tone for Roskilde. It was a score that Philip Corner performed with groups of musicians on various occasions, and on at least one occasion it became Tone for Asolo. I also included it in performances, including the opening of my exhibition Day into Night in Warsaw in 1994, and for a performance at the exhibition Fluxus East in Budapest this year. In those two instances two-sided day sky watercolors were raised up toward the ceiling while a musician with a wind instrument moved toward the highest note possible while looking at the sky being raised. It was also to have been the final work, with the musicians going outdoors, for our realization of Dick Higgins’ The Thousand Symphonies, arranged and conducted by Philip Corner at Douglass College, Rutgers University in conjunction with my exhibition Critical Mass, Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University, 1958 –1972, in September 2003.

Hotel Prindsen, an old white building, is in the center of historic Roskilde and close to all the places where we were performing and to the exhibitions that had been organized. There were tables in front of the hotel where we gathered to talk, drink and plan events at all times of day. And when we were having breakfast or dinner inside. One evening Hong-Hee Cheon and her husband had a great Korean feast for all of us in the dining room. On another occasion we performed Bob Watts’ Two Inches, in front of the hotel, stretching the tape across the street and stopping traffic while the tape was being cut.

     One time a sightseeing bus was arranged for us so we could see Roskilde and environs. I think this was early in our stay to enable us to become better acquainted with the area in case there were places where we might want to do things. It was as if the whole city were at our disposal.
     Places and events in Roskilde that linger in my memory include the Viking Ship Museum, where I discovered more of the history of my ancestors, the Vikings, through a map of their explorations and expeditions. I learned about their extensive travels down the Volga River to Istanbul/ Constantinople and their control of Ile de Cité, Paris and Brittany and Normandy. It was interesting to see the ships that were sunk in the harbor to block it, bringing back memories of seeing Viking ships in Norway. Several North-west Coast Indians were there carving a dugout canoe, and there were replicas of Viking ships that they sailed. It was an active living museum. One evening we walked in single file with paper bags over our heads from the hotel to the Viking museum for I believe Alison’s performances that took place inside.

     I have a profound memory of Phil Corner’s performance in a small concert hall of Democracy in Action where he plays what ever he wants and periodically stops to have a vote to see if he should keep playing. The score might have been a little different than this. But the most vivid memory of this event was a realization of what a fantastic musician and pianist Philip was. I was deeply impressed and delighted to have him keep playing. Then we were all down in the street and pushing a piano somewhere or perhaps simply performing Philip’s Piano Activities. 

     Ben Vautier had requested a big double bed to have in the central square. He lettered a sign, in a bed, to go over it, and then invited beautiful young women to join him in bed. It was generally there by the city hall, but one day we carried the bed with Ben in it into the courtyard of Galleri Sct. Agnes and then all piled onto it with Ben. Tut Køepke, the great grand dame of Fluxus, was also there with us. That courtyard was a place we enjoyed gathering.

     One of the most memorable events of the festival was Bob Watts’ performance of his score Trace for Orchestra. Eric or Marianne had arranged for a group of young musicians, the high school orchestra or band, the performance was in the High School gymnasium/auditorium. The musicians wore their uniforms and Bob was in a gaudy tuxedo. They were lined up across the stage with their instruments and a piece of flash paper for score. The lights went out. The rich red curtain went up and in nearly total darkness Bob with one of those tubes that glow conducted the group. He raised his baton, and as he brought it down the musicians struck matches and lit the flash paper. In an instant it was over and the curtain went down.  It was fantastic. Bob had been reluctant to come to Roskilde and I believe Eric and Marianne had to arrange for a first class ticket to get Bob there. He arrived later than the rest of us, but that moment was absolutely worth it. It was so short and so wonderful. While people were gathering for the performance, Hannah Higgins was a gypsy fortuneteller in a caravan there in the gymnasium space performing another work of Bob’s. I remember Bob being a fortuneteller at the Avant Garde Festival in Central Park in 1966.
     Eric had made a long blue costume designed to hold a great many people, and I recall one day a group of us got into it and walked through the central square and down the street and at some point we climbed up the extension ladder of a fire engine. Another piece of Eric’s was a moving wall of cement blocks. He had a great quantity of concrete blocks delivered to the center of the pedestrian street that constantly kept getting reconfigured and moved up or down the street as the people worked with them. Another piece of Eric’s that I enjoyed was his receiving people, one at a time, in the small chapel in the park behind the palace to get their last wish that he would realize for them. At some point in the exchange of ideas that went on there in Roskilde, Eric and I decided Ben must do a Flux Suicide in three months, since we have never had one. It grew out of conversations we had with Ben about suicide, and probably also talking of the Flux Divorce of Nye and me, the Flux Wedding of George and Billie, and the Flux-Funeral for George. It is something that clearly didn’t happened.
     My departure from Roskilde was a memorable experience. I think it was possibly on the ride back on the Skjelskør after my performance on the Risø wharf, though it might have been another time that Knud Pedersen told me of a project he had organized at the airport, a portrait project, where there were two young artists each day who would paint your portrait. One would go to Knud’s art lending library and the other would go to the sitter. In order to have something different he wondered if I would be willing to pose nude for the two young painters? Sure, why not. So Knud took Bob Watts and me to the airport. Bob had an earlier flight and sat for his portrait first. He picked the one he wanted, and went on his way to catch his plane. Then it was my turn. But waiting there in the airport Knud brought reporters over from the local tabloid newspaper, and they were wondering if they could photograph me while I was posing. It suddenly got my hackles up, I was feeling I had been misled and rather than having a fair exchange, a turn around for the art students where the teacher becomes the model. I was to be a little tabloid sensation. I said “no.” An interview was fine, but I wasn’t going to be that tabloid photo. Knud said, “okay.” I went up to the studio area, a kind of upper lounge area above the main waiting hall, took off my clothes and posed for the two young painters/art students. When they were finished I asked Knud if I could have both so there wasn’t one there to appear on the front page of BT. He was fine about this and both are still here with me in New York. Some day I should have a show of paintings of me, for there are others, including the frequently reproduced portrait that Alice Neel did of Brian and me.
     At our press conference in Roskilde for the Festival of Fantastics Ben Vautier made the comment “Geoff Hendricks nude is not Fluxus.” But then this was a not a Fluxus Festival, but a Festival of Fantastics. There are many things I haven’t spoken of, Anne Tardos & Jackson Mac Low performing Gathas and other pieces. There I noticed Knud Petersen having his photographer photograph Phil Corner sleeping through Jackson’s performance for Ezra Pound. In my journal I wrote “Naughty Knud Petersen “. And the list could go on, so many events and place I haven’t even mentioned.
     It is now twenty-three years later that I am trying to reconstruct these from memory, with the help of photographs and journal notes what took place during those extraordinary days. If others who participated, or were there among the audience have different recollections from what I have written here about something let me know. This is a collective history that is being built, and memories are fallible.

Unconnected memories of others who were there
Eva’s husband Henrik who has Edition Out of Hand, told me that once he put an ad in a Copenhagen paper about an event that took place the previous day together with a phone number. Mogens Otto Nielsen was the only one who responded to the piece, and they became good friends. Henrik has published two books of Mogens.
     Lars Morell, a philosopher and art critic from Aarhus was there and we had some wonderful conversations. My brother Jon had talked with him earlier, and he spoke of how he enjoyed meeting Jon very much. I met him with Henning Christiansen’s wife, Ursula, and Ursula Block.
     Henry Martin and Berty Skuber were there, dear friends. Berty took fantastic photographs of the pieces including some iconic images of me tied to the mast returning from the performance at the Risø wharf. Their son Johnny and Garry Williams, the son of Emmett and Ann, became great friends and reflected the Flux-family spirit of the gathering.

For 10 days, the festival turned Roskilde upside down, with 21 events and performances as well as an exhibition. Numerous international academics, journalists and visitors observed the festival closely from the arrival of the artists, the press conference, and the many different events until the day the artists left Roskilde and its people in a state of relief and wonder. What had hit Roskilde? And was it really art?

 

This website provides an insight into the numerous events and performances that took place in Roskilde during the Festival of Fantastics. In order to bring together the vast and dispersed reminiscences of the festival, the organizers decided to present an exhibition of documentation the following year. The exhibition established an archive including video documentation, audio recordings, slides, photographs and a variety of written material: letters, lists of materials, staging sketches, performance scripts, scores, instructions, artist biographies, press releases, interviews, press coverage, etc.

Museet for Samtidskunst (The Museum of Contemporary Art) opened in 1991 and ‘inherited’ the Fluxus archive, which was to lay the foundation for the Museum’s continued preoccupation with documentation and registration of ephemeral art forms. With hindsight, the archive presented a number of the complex conditions in terms of registration, conservation and mediation, which still challenge media art today.

Twenty four years have passed from the festival in 1985 to the launch of this website in 2009. However, many of the festival guests feel that this particular festival never ended; that the festival still resounds in the streets and alleys of Roskilde.

This website seeks to commemorate the Festival of Fantastics through written, visual and aural documentation. Based on the Fluxus archive, the website also tries to grasp the personal memory and attestation of the festival. Artists and audience from the festival have contributed with their recollections of the events, adding layers of memories, anecdotes and personal meditations moulded by the time passed.

Many Fluxus works – like other ephemeral works of art – tend to slip through our fingers. If we are lucky, we are left with careful documentation of the events perpetuated in the form of photographs or video. This documentation helps us to recall what happened, but how do we recall the sensation of the event? Is this experience forever lost? This website gives room to our imperfect memory and the subjective experience of the Festival of Fantastics. The process is open-ended and we encourage everyone who experienced Festival of Fantastics in 1985 to contribute to the never ending story of Fluxus with their imperfect recollections.

Access to the Fluxus archive can be obtained by contacting The Museum of Contemporary Art.

Marianne Bech
Roskilde 2009

Funny you should ask for Jackson’s thoughts and memories of the 1985 Festival of Fantastics in Roskilde, now, two years after he has died. You’re asking me for my impression of Jackson’s impressions. My memory of his memory. This brings home the point that although so much of Jackson has remained, so much of him is still so accessible and palpable in our collective and individual memories that it makes one wonder what death really means.

How indeed could I remember my experience in Roskilde without also remembering Jackson? He was the reason I was invited, well actually it was your friendship for me and generosity, Eric, that was the real reason I made it there.

Jackson and I absolutely loved it there. We loved the Festival of Fantastics, the city of Roskilde (with the silend “d”) and its involvement in the festival, the St. Agnes Gallery, the hotel, and your and Marianne’s ever optimistic and witty presence.

Jackson and I performed in our own, each other’s, and others pieces.

I remember being written up in the local press as a “French Fluxus artist,” primarily because I was born in France, and we thought that was funny, though I’m sure the Danish paper just said that I was a French-born Fluxus artist, which is true. All our friends were there, Alison, Emmett, Ann, Bob, Ben, among others.

I had many conversations with Jackson about Fluxus versus non-Fluxus, and the title of the festival also addressed this question—began the conversation.

Jackson’s ambivalence, as you know, was rooted in his “resignation” from Fluxus on 25 April 1963, in response to George Maciunas’s proposal to block the traffic during rush hour in the Holland Tunnel, which runs under the Hudson, and as you know, connects Manhattan to New Jersey. Tunnels and bridges have a special place in the life of New York. Jackson saw the idea as so counterproductive and so wrong that he wrote his famous letter of resignation to George.

The Festival of Fantastics played with the letter F coquettishly. Fluxus without Fluxus. Very Fluxus indeed.

No, Jackson, we’re not in a Fluxus festival. But all the participants are in some way associated with the movement. How do you explain that? Well, I don’t really know, but it’s good to be together in this wonderful place and work together, make art together with our friends.

So is this a Fluxus event? I don’t know, Jackson, what do you think? Let’s just do the work we do anyway, and not worry about labels. That is Eric’s message, isn’t it? Yes.

I did a piece that involved two slide projectors, which we could not synchronize. I remember that while the performance was going, and the images clearly did not correspond to the text, Bob Watts was heard mumbling “this shouldn’t be happening.” Now Bob is dead too, and, thanks to the out-of-synch slide projectors, he had the opportunity to express his compassion for me, which I cherish and appreciate more than I would have a perfectly coordinated set of projectors.

The other piece I did was easier to realize, the world premiere of my Kinder/Børn/Children. People lined up on stage facing the audience, each inflating their inflatable life vests. Some vests opened, others didn’t—it was simple and beautiful. We finished my segment with a banquet on stage, to which the audience was invited. Everyone seemed very hungry that day, and we were all on stage, enjoying the banquet of great Danish cheeses, breads, fruit and wine.

The hotel had tried heroically to accommodate the crazy American vegetarians. (When we returned to New York, and when Jackson saw that our cat was eating fresh fish, he declarted that we too should eat fish. Later we added chicken, and decided to draw the line at eating mammals. And that’s how it stayed, until Jackson died. Now I eat meat, but I feel like a vegetarian who needs meat.)

I remember doing a word event with Jackson, one of his word events, in which we were given actions to perform in addition to saying words and uttering sounds. Some of Jackson’s actions were so impressive that he was depicted in one Danish newspaper as flying across the stage, his long hair trailing behind him. And although I could not possibly remember his thoughts, I can tell you that he was a fearless performer who didn’t suffer from self doubt or stage fright or self consciousness. It’s rare to see that.

I also remember creating a post card, with my idea that “Rose killed a rose killed a rose killed a rose.” I still have some of them.

I hope this is more or less what you were hoping for.

With very much love to you and Marianne,
Anne

Most Fluxus Festivals depend on a concert hall. Because of this the artists involved would arrive in town the night before and fall back on the classical pieces performed in a line along the lip of the stage. We know these pieces so well and love to do them. However, in Roskilde in the Viking Museum we were surrounded by ships which inspired us to take off into uncharted seas! We heard the sea piped in to the hall as a background for poetry. We watched Jackson Mac Low perform with excellence his phonemes and phrases. Another big plus about Roskilde was the fact that our works were done outdoors. Except for Nice this is rarely the case. And why were the pieces in Roskilde so dynamic - the piles of stones that made sculptures down to the sea, a dress for 30 dancers climbing over the steeple of a church, or going through a supermarket? No, it was simply that strangers and inhabitants of town were ready to help at every corner. Another point that strikes me is how fortunate we were to work not only with one another as usual but that it was friends that ran the institutions, the museum and the galleries we presented in.

My memory is that the festival went for at least a week and the particular people to be thanked are Marianne Bech, Valborg Norby, Galleri Sct. Agnes and Eric Andersen.

Valuable as well is the catalog with a little known work by Jackson (”Tree Movie”) and Anne Noel’s (”I graphic”).

On this occasion I was introduced to Gammel Dansk, a close 2nd to Unterberg.

Is it too late to do this again?

When we arrived at the Hotel, I remember Emmett Williams and Ann Noel were having a drink on the terrace. I don’t think I’d seen them since living with Dick in Berlin two years earlier. Ben Vautier was there, as were Geoffrey Hendricks, Bob Watts Jackson Mac Low and Anne Tardos from New York. I knew them all well and got ready to help wherever I could. It all felt very familial. At the time I was sure I’d be an artist – or a folk singer. I gave a decade to the latter and a year at most to the former, before finally deciding on an academic career. I think the latter had a lot to do with the Roskilde experience.

As one of number of flux-urchins I had grown up alongside the children of Jackson Mac Low, Geoffrey Hendricks, and (to a lesser extent) Peter and Barbara Moore. What our parents did had virtually no cultural context for us – Events, exhibitions, and European travel in large numbers were just a part of being in this group of people that we’d known forever. But things began to change when I got to college. I failed my first Art History class because it was such a bloody bore. Lights out at nine and what they called an avant-garde gingerly sprinkled with Flux-this and Flux-that had no resemblance to the familial setting I found myself in periodically when traveling with Dick or Alison. At the time, very little seemed at stake in the problem. If it had, I might have written a good paper about it and survived the class. In Roskilde, I had a blast during the day getting ready for the festival and at night we would drink too much and I’d pull out my guitar and sing too long and too loud. But this was a polite group (at least as far as progeny were concerned).

One day Eric Andersen announced that his “Walking Wall” (Borgerdevit), was about to open and we all walked over from the hotel to a large pile of cinder blocks stacked – minimalist fashion – in the main square. People were invited to take one cinder block and move it along. The wall would walk through the city. I was unimpressed and went back to drinking and playing my music. The next morning I walked over to see how far it had moved and — POW!—I fell in love. The homely pile had transformed itself overnight into a phantasmagoric scene – medieval spires, arches and patterned pavement spread across the plaza, while the walking wall streaked aggressively in ‘dominoe’ lines that shot up and down the steps of the medieval buildings. This was a spontaneous creativity that I’d known in the intimate confines of our home and among these artists, but never seen in the public domain before. I was stunned and that work remains in my life as a paradigm for what art can do and be in the public domain. If nothing else, love thrusts from the social experience between two people into a view of the world. This was my first experience of intellectual love – I was excited. The work took grip in my mind and established itself as a feature of the landscape of possibilities that is the springboard of intellectual life.

There were, of course, other high points. Jackson Mac Low gave a wonderful reading with Ann Tardos. Bob Watts made a fortuneteller’s tent using a computer program (with yours truly as the gypsy) and Emmett Williams and Anne Noel gave a delightful performance of their new works. Eric Andersen’s dress for a hundred people stretched over that same plaza, and included in its ‘skirts’ a fire engine and a supermarket. In 1992 I invited Eric to Chicago to show off his designer skills and it was still absolutely outrageous and fun. But these were the small affirmations of what the Walking Wall had already given me.

When I went back to Oberlin College the next year, very much was at stake in the stupid discussions of Fluxus that came to me in the mail, that I read as reviews of shows and that put it close to the hearts of my more iconoclastic friends. It wasn’t anyone’s fault really. With painting as the standard, the Fluxus events, kits and objects that were made with a sense of play, joy, humor or curiosity, looked like anti-art, which much of the world takes to be hateful still.

I didn’t come around to writing about Fluxus professionally for another five or so years, but I’d fallen for it. Falling in love, as any person who’s been through it a few times knows, is hardly an uncritical experience. Fluxus wears its bumps and warts with me just fine, though I’ve burned a bridge or two for talking about it. At Roskilde, I came to experience the world of art through Fluxus experiences and was completely engaged. It grew a context, accreting to itself meanings and values, empirical attributes and specific social dimensions that extend far beyond the group.

It is bittersweet remembering all this, though it brings on a feeling of tremendous gratitude. My father, Dick, is gone and never really had much of a sense that his ties to Fluxus would amount to much in the world of culture. Bob Watts and Jackson are gone too, though the rest of them are alive and active – if much older and not necessarily well. I’m as old now as the younger Fluxus artists were in that Fantastic place and time in Roskilde. I try to bring some of the excitement to my students to varying degrees of success but am not sure that love can really be communicated — but I show them my documentation of the wall as a picture of a long since lost beloved.

Lighting: The room is fully lit, with spots directed at a red stage curtain. All the lights are then switched off. The lighting behind the stage curtain comes full on, with vertical spots from the stage ceiling.

The stage curtain sweeps open to reveal a person, two tables, sound equipment, a photocopier, piles of books, magazines and clippings, a chair and in addition, two flights of stairs from the gym floor to the stage. What was previously the stage (the gym floor) now becomes a barrier. ”The stage” is now at eye level and becomes an object to be watched but not possessed.

As imagery, the stage is enhanced by two powerful spots which add to its illumination of the stage apart from the stage’s own lighting. However, a side-effect of this lighting is that the spots dimly light up the previous stage: the barrier.

The audience is actively engaged in the performance, moving around eyeballs, lenses and pupils. The person on stage allows the audience to choose between practically every musical genre as a musical backdrop for the performance. A vote is cast by a show of hands. Everyone can vote for more than one piece of music. The voting continues until one piece of music has been selected. It is possible for the performance to come to a halt already at this point if the vote does not lead to a selection. When a piece of music has been selected quite another piece is played as the musical backdrop.

The person on stage asks one member (but no one in particular) of the audience to approach the stage along the tennis net from the seats. An assistant follows the audience person (AP) along the way and up one of the stairs to the stage. The AP sits down on the empty chair. The conversation between the audience person (AP) and the stage person (SP) can not be heard by others.

SP chooses a text for AP, which may be a factual account, a user guide, an anecdote, a short story, a poem. The text is photocopied and given to AP with the instruction that AP must learn the text by heart and not show it or retell it to nobody in the gym.

AP leaves the stage by the other set of stairs to the part of the gym floor where numerous sports apparatus are placed. AP walks around with the text trying to memorize it. The part of the gym floor where the APs walk about learning their text is relatively weakly lit - equivalent to reading light. 
The other half of the floor remains in darkness. Two people are rearranging the chairs, transforming the seating arrangement into a square with the precise number of chairs needed to seat all APs in the gym. Their work is noisy and technically demanding.

This process continues until all APs are in the same part of the gym. Everyone, with the exception of one AP (the one on stage) is in principle left to his or her own devices.

The SP and the assistant perform mechanical service functions, and the chair technicians attend to their own problems. The APs may well be able to talk to each other, dance the tango, sing national anthems; use the gym apparatus as they please - do whatever they feel like really. But this does not alter the fact that they are left completely to their own devices.
The wandering about and stage briefing process is extremely long-winded. Every AP spends an average of 2 minutes. 60 APs will take approximately 2 hours and 625 APs about 21 hours leaving a considerable amount of time to memorization and innumerable possibilities for the performance to be extended or come to a halt.

The audience in the surrounding seats are actually in control of the performance; if the majority of the audience or all of them were to get up leave the gym, the performance would be correspondingly shorter. People are free to come and go as they please. However, APs who have been given texts are asked to stay in the apparatus area. The two chair technicians continually adjust the number of chairs in the square.
When all those present have received texts for memorization, the light above the square of chairs in the other half of the gym is switched on. All other light in the gym is switched off. The APs are asked to sit down on the chairs and relate their own text or other people’s texts (after listening to them) to one of their neighbours in the chair quadrant.
The texts wander through the chair quadrant until no more APs want to retell their own or others’ texts.

All the lights are switched on and the performance is over.
The performance is a blueprint, realisation of which renders it invisible. Its duration is indeterminate. The performance can perhaps be brought to its conclusion, although this is by no means certain.

There is no audience, no stage and no performer although at times these components may be observed. Even the classic dramatic lighting seems to become ordinary utility or guide lighting. The event appears as an everyday necessity and you find yourself waiting for it to start raining so you can unfurl an umbrella or a button will fall of so you can sew it back on in another place.  

Eric Andersen, July 6th 1989

The principal characters are 21 nouns: a boy, a girl, a cat, a mouse, a rooster, a hen, a ghost, a goblin, a friend, a foe, a sweetheart, a lover, a nun, a penguin, a cow, a cowboy, a dwarf, a giant, a soldier, a corpse and a bird. These characters are in flux throughout the course of the poem. From beginning to end, they undergo interrelated metamorphoses as progressions of modifying phrases and parts of speech change the activities and attributes of the ‘dramatis personae’. The transformations are exhaustive, from slapstick through intellectual games to a tragic finale.

Emmett Williams’ reading was quiet and calm leaving the drama to the surreal associations and poetical nonsense of the words.

 

 

Ann Noël announced that the evening’s programme would be a performance based on an alphabet square by Emmett Williams. The alphabet square was mounted on the stage behind the performers, who in addition to Ann Noël included Emmett Williams and their son Garry Williams.

Ann Noël explained that pauses would occur throughout the performance when the performers were unable to come up with answers. In these instances the performers would blow a whistle and the audience could fill in the blank spaces.

During the 80 minutes performance the three performers presented a vast number of word games based on the alphabet. A number of categories – alcoholic drinks, food, artists, art categories, actions, psychology, duets, songs and composers – determined the theme of the various alphabet games. Often the words were just spoken alphabetically, but on the theme of actions Emmett Williams spoke the actions, and Gary Williams and Ann Noël performed them: Algebra, blow bubbles, bow, cola, camera, drink, dance etc.

Each alphabet game traversed a new part of the Alphabet Square, starting from the middle and working its way out. Throughout the performance which also included games of abbreviations, saints and nursery rhymes, Ann Noël regularly pointed out the progressions on a spiral of letters.

 

The performers were instructed to continue their chosen sound, while slowly beginning to leave the area. As the orchestra left Stændertorvet, spectators followed in procession down the street towards the Viking Ship Museum.

Hendricks wrote the following instruction for the brass band:

“You are a group. Work to think together. Listen to each other.
For about the first minute search out your highest range.
For the second minute let these sounds come together in rich harmonies.
If you have an instrument with a low range try to let the sound of a higher instrument be an overtone of the sound you’re making. Then in the third minute gradually give way to the highest tones and let that part of the group move on up to the sky, to which you should all be looking.”

Note: A decade earlier Dick Higgins had composed a work dedicated to me:
Clouds for Piano, for Geoffrey Hendricks, Cloudsmith, 1974.
The first performance of that work was by Paul Hoffman at the Kitchen in New York sometime that same year. My piece was in part a response to Dick’s score, and the two became a kind of musical sky exchange.
Later the piece became referred to as Tone for Roskilde. It was a score that Philip Corner performed with groups of musicians on various occasions, and on at least one occasion it became Tone for Asolo. I also included it in performances, including the opening of my exhibition Day into Night in Warsaw in 1994, and for a performance at the exhibition Fluxus East in Budapest this year. In those two instances two-sided day sky watercolors were raised up toward the ceiling while a musician with a wind instrument moved toward the highest note possible while looking at the sky being raised. It was also to have been the final work, with the musicians going outdoors, for our realization of Dick Higgins’ The Thousand Symphonies, arranged and conducted by Philip Corner at Douglass College, Rutgers University in conjunction with my exhibition Critical Mass, Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University, 1958 –1972, in September 2003.

 

A work for brass band by Eric Andersen. Performed by Lynghøjskolens Brass Band and conducted by Poul Vejby Jensen

The Untactics of Music is the final rewriting of music history and simultaneously a remarkable way of employing the cluster of sounds produced by diatonic orchestras.

An orchestra chooses a work from their repertoire. The work is rewritten according to 33 principles and is rehearsed again. In this way, Lynghøjskolens Brass Band performed Marche Militaire by Franz Schubert and the Frank Sinatra hit My Way.

Eric Andersen’s elaborations on The Untactics of Music (Pdf)

From the Sea

 

Onboard the ship Skjelskør, which for the occasion had been re-named FLUXSKIB GEORGE MACIUNAS, Eric Andersen greeted the audience. Leaving Roskilde Harbour, Andersen elaborated on the purpose of the trip: only the captain knew where they were headed, but within 30 minutes the ship would reach its destination and Geoffrey Hendricks would do a performance. On the way there, Flux food by Robert Watts was served in the gallery below, and Philip Corner performed small events on the deck.

After arriving at the Risø peninsula, Geoffrey Hendricks began his performance. The performance consisted of a number of ritualised actions which saw Geoffrey Hendricks cleansed by means of sea water, sand, coloured chalk powders and blue spray paint and then dressed in branches and flowers. While Eric Andersen and Robert Watts assisted Geoffrey Hendricks, Philip Corner again engaged in events, slowly sawing a chair in two. This proved to be rather difficult and surprisingly noisy; however Philip Corner eventually succeeded. 

Wrapped in branches and smeared in colours, Geoffrey Hendricks returned to the ship where he was tied to the mast. Sailing back to Roskilde Harbour, the ship was bathed in a low afternoon sun and a full moon had appeared on the sky. As Geoffrey Hendricks disembarked the ship, the audience applauded and he walked back to the city centre, still dressed as nature’s son.  

Rainbow food

 

A Fluxus meal was served in the little dining room of the ship Skjelskør. The meal was served in three sittings. All passengers were handed black, white or red cards which decided the colour of the food they were served.

Towards the end of the trip, a pastry replica of the boat was served as dessert.

 

nothingisanything is a work for choir by Eric Andersen. Conducted by Ole Hannibal, Roskilde Studio Choir performed the work at Festival of Fantastics.

The work requires thirteen singers, who are each given a syllable from the sentence no-thing-is-any-thing, i.e. several singers may have the same syllable but no one has more than one syllable. All syllables are sung in the key of e.

The syllables of the sentence permute and multiply indefinitely through four classical movements as the singers onstage take new positions relative to each other with every repetition. The work is a sound mobile carrying the song from the corners and edges of the stage to the listening audience in the semicircles of the amphitheatre.

The duration of the work is 25 minutes. It is from 1961 and was first performed at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1963.

 

According to the score, the realization of this work should involve a choir of at least 12 singers; a requirement with which the Roskilde Studiekor was easily able to comply.
 
The members of the choir spread out over the slopes of the amphitheatre instructed to contemplate the notes they would soon be singing while moving about. At a signalled moment, all singers started to sing creating a wide-spaced dissonant chord by the chance combination of each singer’s preconceived tone.

As the chorus members circled among the audience, the effect of the singing was intended to be a kind of blur which comes into focus only as various combinations within the chord passed by the ears of a given seated listener.

In the score, Philip Corner stresses that the performers should avoid “…that tonal gravity which pulls down towards the simple, the easy, the familiar, which give resolutions unintended!”

 

Robert Watts had left the execution of the performance to Ann Noël, who asked the art critic Henry Martin to help her perform the piece. The event took place in the amphitheatre in the middle of the park.

With the choir standing on the platform at the centre of the amphitheatre, Ann Noël walked down from the highest side of the amphitheatre, unravelling a coil of rope. Henry Martin was holding on to the opposite end of the rope. When Ann Noël reached the conductor onstage, she raised the rope above her head, and Henry released a bundle of sausages attached to a pulley. The sausages came rolling down the rope to the choir who enthusiastically consumed the lot of them.

 

The floor of the brightly lit Roskilde Hall is divided into two halves by a tennis net. On one side of the net there are gymnastics apparatuses and on the other side chairs are arranged in a square. The audience is seated along the side of the hall while a huge bright red curtain conceals a stage on the opposite side of the floor. As the stage curtains open Eric Andersen appears sitting at a table surrounded by sound equipment, books and a photocopier. Two small staircases lead from the gym floor to the stage.

He announces that the performance will start with some music; however it is up to the audience to decide what kind of music they would like to hear. Eric Andersen reads aloud the names on all his cassette tapes; Eric Satie, Talking Heads, Anne Linnet, Mozart, Johan Sebastian Bach, Fritz Helmut etc., and by a show of hands the audience decides that they would like to hear Satie.

Eric Andersen now asks the audience to come to the stage one at a time. The first person who enters the stage is asked to sit down opposite Eric Andersen. They have a conversation inaudible to anyone else, and Eric Andersen photocopies a page from a book for him or her to memorize. The person then leaves the stage by the staircase opposite to the one from which he/she entered. Andersen repeats the process with all members of the audience until there is no one left.

While this is going on, two men are busy working on the quadrangle of chairs on the gym floor, continuously adding or removing chairs according to the size of the audience in the gym. Eventually, Eric Andersen asks people to take a seat in the quadrangle. Now people have to tell their stories to each other or retell each others’ stories, so that the stories will travel from person to person and around the square.

Read Eric Andersen’s account of the performance, A performance of unpredictable duration

Trace for Orchestra

 

A seventeen-piece high school orchestra in uniform is lined up on the stage of the Roskilde Hall. Robert Watts enters the stage as conductor, raises his arms and the orchestra gets ready to play. The light is dimmed and eventually extinguished altogether. On a signal from Watts the members of the orchestra set fire to their scores. The scene is briefly lit up by the flames. The duration of the performance equals the time it takes for the scores to burn out, whereupon the room returns to darkness. The light is turned on again; the orchestra bows to the audience and the performance is over. 

The Oraculum or Book of Fate

 

Inside Roskilde Hall, Robert Watts had a fortune teller’s tent erected. Hannah Higgins assisted him as a fortune teller. An Apple computer predicted the destinies of members of the audience using the questions below. However, regardless of the supplied information, the destiny would always be the same.

The Oraculum, or Book of Fate.

The Oraculum which follows is a most amusing game. Some people have regarded it as more than just a pastime. The great Napoleon constantly consulted it. It is, of course, given here merely as a diversion. The Oraculum is gifted with every requisite variety of response to the following questions:

1. Will my wish come true?
2. Will I have success in my undertakings?
3. Will I win or lose my case?
4. Will I have to live in foreign parts?
5. Will the stranger return?
6. Will I recover my property?
7. Will my friend be true?
8. Will I have to travel?
9. Does this person love and respect me?
10. Will the marriage be prosperous?
11. What sort of wife, or husband, will I have?
12. Will she have a son or daughter?
13. Will the patient recover?
14. Will the prisoner be released?
15. Will I be lucky or unlucky?
16. What does my dream signify?

Hannah Higgins also performed one of Jackson Mac Low’s Gathas on a guitar, translating all of the letters of the alphabet that appeared in the poem into individual notes numerically. Afterwards, Robert Watts came up and said “I didn’t think I’d like it, but I did”.

 

Costume by Eric Andersen
Performed by The Group Berzerk

During the art fair Art in 1980 in New York, Gallery Interart from Washington arranged a sensational Fluxus Buffet from October 10 through 18, 1980. The following artists participated: Eric Andersen, George Brecht, Joe Jones, La Monte Young, Yasunao Tone, Nam June Paik, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Daniel Spoerri, Emmett Williams, AY-O, Geoff Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Yoshimasa Wada and Bob Watts. For the occasion Eric Andersen produced a Dinner Dress for 30 people. The costume is part of a series of possible shared costumes for which function overrules convention. Among these costumes are a TV Costume for 1 to 10 people, a Soccer Costume for 11 people, an Industry Costume for 5 to 10,000 people, a Big City Costume for 5 to 10 million people, an Erotic Costume for 3 to 99 people, a Witness/Victim Costume for more than 2 people and a Debate Costume for fewer than 179 people.

In 1984 in Copenhagen, the group Berzerk performed The Idle Walk of the Year for Eric Andersen – a procession stretching from The Ethnographic Collection at The National Museum through The National Bank to the courtyard of Amalienborg Castle. During the Festival of Fantastics, Berzerk performed with the 30 people costume carrying out an extensive choreography. Initially, the performers put on every second part of the costume, conducting a procession across Stændertorvet. Then audience members were invited to enter the remaining fifteen costume parts. The ensuing procession climbed ladders on fire department vehicles and stretched through city streets, alleys, busses and shops. The whole performance lasted more than two hours.

Eric Andersen’s description of The MassDress

 

Born in France and raised in France, Hungary, Austria, living in the United States since 1966, Anne Tardos used 4 languages to relate the story of her life at The Culture House in Roskilde, with her multimedia piece “Autobiography in Four Languages”. A slide projection illustrated the stories of her nomadic childhood and adolescence, and pre-recorded text sometimes mixed with her renderings.

Anne Tardos also performed the work ”La-Ma-Na-Oa-Pa-Qua-Ra-Sa-Ta-Ua-Va”. She sang phonetic mantras on top of multi-track playback, building an impressive meditational chant sometimes with drone-like effects. Jackson Mac Low co-performed with Tardos on some events; i.e. reading of place names, travel itinerary etc. of their last European tour while showing slides and snapshots.

Kinder/Børn/Children

 

This event was performed by Emmett Williams, Bob Watts, Ann Noel, Alison Knowles, Ben Vautier, and others, who lined up on stage carrying life vests. The piece began by each performer putting on and inflating their life vests. Performing this action was the entirety of the event; some life vests opened, other didn’t.

Banquet

Anne Tardos’ performance was concluded with a vegetarian banquet on stage for both audience and performers.

 

The first part of Philip Corner’s performance took place at The Culture House where a bus was waiting to carry the audience to the library for Corner’s scheduled performance. However, before entering the bus the audience was invited to listen to the sound of the engine. A sign attached to the side of the bus read “Ear Here – læg øret til her”.

At the library, Corner started out with the performance A Reverence for the Piano. He stood in front of the piano, his arm stretched out while he slowly descended on the stool. The slow movement ended when Corner eventually touched the keys with his bowed head.
As Corner’s bowing reached its limit at the keyboard, he performed OneNoteOnce as a head tone-cluster. In immediate continuation of this piece, Corner performed elementals, repeatedly striking a note in regular rhythm by hands at each extreme of the piano register while his head was held down. 

Eric Andersen then entered the stage and explained to the audience the nature of the next piece Democracy in Action. Corner would continue striking the same keys until the audience decided that he should stop. Every couple of minutes the audience was asked whether or not Corner should continue with his performance. Finally a vote decided that he should stop (30 for stopping, 4 for continuing).

As an encore, Corner played another version of OneNoteOnce.

Corner’s next piece continued the investigation of democracy. The performance and termination of the work Consensus was based on the audiences’ ability to reach a unanimous decision. However, this proved to be difficult and after app. 10 minutes of debate, Corner terminated the performance without having played a single note but he thanked everyone for an optimum performance. Instead he decided to perform no isms, to go. This piece reminds the listener of their freedom to leave whenever they like. This is usually done by printed statements on the seats, but there are no records of that being the case in Roskilde.

The piece Objective Necessity is concerned with ending a performance due to specific external circumstances which impose fixed time, in this case Anne Tardos’ performance at 9 pm. Corner decides to perform the work gamelan MOBILEL – a transcription for piano of one of the compositions from the “gamelan” series, based on Corner’s many years of involvement with the ensemble Son of Lion in New York, which plays contemporary music on classic Javanese instruments.

gamelan MOBILEL opens up symmetrically from the centre of the keyboard, each hand mirroring the other with chromatic scales moving progressively outward. There are gradual expansions and contractions in the dimensions of speed, loudness, and pedalling colour, mirroring the pitch structure. Since it could conceivably go on until the outer limits of the keyboard have been reached, it could be stopped at any point, which it was.

The largest court room in the building was furnished with a big monitor and VHS player at the judge’s seat, a video crew at the prosecutor’s seat and Eric Andersen equipped with a toaster, hotplate, saucepan, smoked Scottish wild salmon, green asparagus, excellent bread, vintage Mersault wine and Pall Mall cigarettes at the defence counsel’s seat. In addition to this white china plates, silver cutlery, crystal wineglasses as well as white pepper and virgin salt from Læsø. The seat of the accused was empty.

The audience took their seats. The doors were closed, and Eric Andersen asked everybody to leave the room. When no one followed his instructions, he offered to bribe every single audience member to make them leave the courtroom. There were many offers: a fancy dinner, a nice glass of wine, a cigarette, a sequence from a pornographic movie or Danish peasant and manor folklore, a dance, an undressing or a dressing, a fictitious story, a secret, a childhood event, an open or closed window, opening or closing the curtains, turning the light on or off etc.

After two hours and countless bribes, the last member of the audience left the courtroom. Among the audience was the resident judge, who left as number seventeen after smoking a Pall Mall.

In the autumn later that year, PLEASE LEAVE was performed with a substantial amount of props at Emily Harvey Gallery on Broadway in New York. Like isolated islands in a sea of audience members, the three performers were equipped with a variety of audiovisual means. At the entrance everyone was given a number, in the style of marathon runners’ serial numbers. Thus the three performers were able to approach everyone individually during the process of the performance. By means of different forms of persuasion everyone was asked to leave the room.

The performance was successful after five hours. Everyone except for the first one to leave the room received a badge at the exit stating: I wasn’t the first person who left a performance by Eric Andersen.

Alison Knowles also performed Bean Snow for Alison Knowles by Anne Tardos, A Bean Phonemicon for Alison Knowles by Jackson Mac Low, Gamelan Things by Philip Corner, and her own work Onion Skin Song.

 

R for Roskilde

In the performance, eight performers stand in a line before the audience. Each performer holding behind his/her back an object beginning with the letters in the word Roskilde. The objects are then shown to the audience and spoken about in the language of the country of the performance in the order of the letters in the word. In the case of Roskilde the word was spoken in Danish.

Shoes of Your Choice

 

The score invites a member of the audience to come forward to the microphone and describe a pair of shoes, the one he/she is wearing or another pair. He/she is encouraged to tell where he/she got them, the size, colour, why he/she likes them etc.

Alison Knowles read a text by Ann Nöel describing her shoes in detail, how she felt about them and where she bought them. Valborg Nørby (Gallery Sct. Agnes), Ben Vautier and Jackson Mac Low performed the score and described their shoes to the audience.

Alison Knowles: The California Sandals
Recording of performance by Alison Knowles. Festival of Fantastics. The Viking Ship Hall. Roskilde 1985. Poem from More by Alison Knowles, published by Unpublished Edition, New York 1970

 

Ben Vautier’s performance at The Culture House was a potpourri of works by other Fluxus artists. All the titles of the works have been written on large pieces of paper hanging to the left of the stage. Whenever Vautier was ready to perform a new work, he tore off the paper announcing the previous work and the title of the upcoming work appeared.

During his one-hour performance, Ben Vautier managed to perform 28 works. From short and simple everyday actions like tying shoes (Orchestral piece for George Maciunas) and putting a vase with flowers on a piano (Piano Piece # 2 by George Brecht) performed by Ben Vautier to orchestrated performances with several performers like Afraid of Piano by Ben Vautier or Piano Piece #1 & #2 by George Maciunas.

Many works paid special attention to the sounding qualities of everyday objects e.g. candy wrappers (Sweets by Ann Noël) or dripping water (Drip Music by George Brecht). Also, alternative or experimental use of musical instruments characterized a number of the works. The piano in particular was the focus of many works (Piano Piece #1 - #2 by George Maciunas, Piano Concerto for Fluxus by Koering etc.)

The 28 events are listed below. Please note that the titles are based on Ben Vautier’s introduction to the events. Therefore some of the titles may be Vautier’s version of the original title and not entirely correct.

Counting Song by Emmett Williams
Ben Vautier and Ann Noël count the audience as a joint venture (there are 76 people).

Chair Music by La Monte Young
Ben Vautier instructs the audience to push their chairs across the floor to make a noise.

Piano Concerto for Fluxus by Koering
Ben Vautier and Eric Andersen both sit on the small piano stool fighting over the piano. The fight leaves them chasing each other around the piano. Eric Andersen wins the fight.

Piano Piece # 2 by George Brecht
Ben Vautier places a vase with flowers on the piano.

Piano Piece # 1 by George Brecht
Ben Vautier sits at the piano. The light is turned off for 20 seconds. When the light re-appears, Vautier has disappeared. The piano is all alone.

Wind Instruments Solo by Bob Watts
Ben Vautier enters the stage with a tuba under his arm, takes a bow and table tennis balls fall out of the tuba.

Trace for Orchestra by Robert Watts
Eric Andersen, Ben Vautier and Ann Noël are seated on chairs with music stands in front of them. The lights are turned off. The performers set fire to their scores, which light up in the darkness. The performance lasts longer than the one at Roskilde Hall.

Piano Piece by Nam June Paik
Vautier sets down a bucket of water next to the piano, sits down and starts playing the piano loudly. After 10 seconds he pours the bucket of water over his head and continues playing for a short while.

Drip Music by George Brecht
Eric Andersen and Ben Vautier wipe up the water with cloths. A microphone is placed close to the bucket and picks up the sound of dripping water from the cloths.

Afraid of Piano by Ben Vautier
Ben Vautier briefly touches the key of the piano and escapes the stage. He is chased by Eric Andersen, Bent Petersen, and Ann Noël. Vautier is captured by his pursuers and although he resists, he is dragged back to the stage and placed in front of the piano.

Concerto for Cheon by Ben Vautier
Vautier carries a tray with glasses and a bottle to the stage and puts it on the piano. He pours wine into the glasses. Eric Andersen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Ann Noël, Robert Watts and Emmett Williams join him for a drink.

Sweets by Ann Noël
Ann Noël throws caramels wrapped in paper to the audience. The audience is encouraged to make music with the wrappers.

Micro by Kuzugi
Vautier enters the stage with a copy of the newspaper Die Welt. He takes one page and wraps it around the microphone. The sound of paper crumbling can be heard through the speakers. He asks the audience to keep quiet and leaves the paper on the microphone, waiting for it to emit a sound as it unwraps.

Amplifier by Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen uses Ben Vautier as an amplifier. Andersen whispers words in Vautier’s ear, and he amplifies it by yelling it out loud. The words are as follows:

This piece is all about amplifying
It doesn’t mean anything
And it’s hardly entertaining
This piece is performed by Ben Vautier
And can only be performed by him

Incidental Music by George Brecht
Ben Vautier and Philip Corner build towers of wooden bricks on either side of the piano. Corner’s tower collapses first, Ben keeps on building for a long time, but eventually his tower collapses as well. As the tower falls over and hits the top of the piano, Corner hits the pedal of the piano, sustaining and enhancing the sound.

Violin Solo by Mieko Shiomi
Ben Vautier disappears from the stage. Moments later a violin suspended from the ceiling of the stage slowly descends, eventually touching the floor.

Violin Solo by George Brecht
Vautier polishes a violin and puts it in its case.

Thanks by Jackson Mac Low
Anne Tardos and Jackson Mac Low enter the stage. They exchange apples and say “Thanks”.

Newspaper Music by Alison Knowles
Ann Noël, Ben Vautier, Eric Andersen and Philip Corner line up on stage with newspapers and start reading aloud from the papers simultaneously. The papers are in different languages. The performers start raising their voices until they almost scream, then they gradually lower their voices again until they’re barely audible and finally disappear.

Zen for Head by Nam June Paik
While Philip Corner plays the piano, a long scroll of paper is unrolled behind him stretching down the stairs from the scene and through the aisle of the auditorium. Ben Vautier dips his head in paint and draws a long line on the paper with his hair.

Piano Piece #1 & #2 by George Maciunas
Philip Corner starts playing a tune on the piano. After a while Ben Vautier hammers a nail through a key on the piano and Ann Noël starts painting the piano white. Ben Vautier continues hammering nails through the white keys, gradually limiting the range of Corner’s playing. Eventually all the white keys have been nailed to the frame of the now white piano.

Cream for Benjamin Patterson
A naked girl covered in whipped cream is carried on to the stage and placed on the piano, where she makes herself comfortable. Performers and enthusiastic members of the audience start licking the whipped cream off her body. She remains on the piano for the rest of the performance.

Disappearing Music for Face by Meiko Shiomi
Ben Vautier, Philip Corner, Eric Andersen, Emmett Williams, Ann Noël, and Geoffrey Hendricks enter the stage smiling. They stand smiling on stage looking at the audience. Slowly the smiles disappear and the performers end up looking miserable.

Constellation by Dick Higgins
Ben Vautier hands out instruments to the performers, Philip Corner, Eric Andersen, Jackson Mac Low, and Geoffrey Hendricks. Ben Vautier conducts the performance which consists of one simultaneous stroke of the instruments. The work is performed a couple of times, first instrumentally, then vocally and finally by the audience.

Composition # 2 by La Monte Young
The work instructs the performer to ‘Play a composition of your choice as best you can’. Ben Vautier announces that this work must be performed by someone from Poland. A (Polish) member of the audience enters the stage and sings a song in Polish.

Orchestra piece for George Maciunas
Ben Vautier enters the stage, unties his shoelaces and ties them again.

Mama by Guiseppe Cial
Ben Vautier continuously yells “Mama” with increasing desperation in his voice.

Bags by Benjamin Patterson
Lead by Andersen, everyone must put a paper bag over their heads. While holding on to a rope, Andersen will then lead them to the Alison Knowles performance.

 

 

Assisted by long-time collaborator Anne Tardos, Jackson Mac Low performed his 1st Milapera Gatha. The work is based on mantras from Buddhist prayers. Gathas are a series of performance scores by Jackson Mac Low. He has worked on them since 1961, placing the letters of each word into squares on quadrille paper. The performance of the piece is based on performers’ spontaneous choices. The work’s spiritual nature aims towards a de-emphasizing of individual egos and to open up to what is going on around them. Mac Low’s instruction to performers was to “listen and relate.”

Mac Low also read from his boook Words nd Ends from Ez, words and ends of words drawn from Ezra Pound’s work The Cantos. Spoken by only two voices, several pre-recorded tracks superimposed the performance which slowly developed in strength and volume.

In another Word Event, Tardos and Mac Low performed actions and spoke words they had written on index cards. Some actions involved the whole body, some words were phonemes and letter-sounds.

The Last Request premiered as an 8 hour performance in New York. On this occasion Eric Andersen wrote a letter to the UN asking them to include The Last Request as a human right in its Charter. The UN never answered the letter. The performance took place at the Dia Art Foundation, Bob Whitman’s Studio; now the home of The Kitchen. The public service radio station WBAI broadcast reports from the eight hour performance every half hour. A few thousand people turned out. A dozen or so forms were completed.

A similar eight hour performance was given at the Romanesque church of St. Ib during the Festival of Fantastics. A dozen people showed up and three or four forms were completed. No one, neither from New York nor Roskilde, has so far contacted Eric Andersen to have their requests granted.

Eric Andersen’s The Last Request regarding The Last Request and advert from The Village Voice, October 1984