“Walk all over the city with an empty baby carriage”, Yoko Ono instructs us on a bare typewritten note. Or: “borrow a cannon.” What kind of art is this? Poetry? “Listen to the sound of one hand clapping” goes the famous Japanese koan. Does this count as music? Rainer Maria Rilke famously finished a poem with the command “you must change your life.” What does it mean to “do” a poem? How is this voice telling us to change our lives? Light a piano on fire and “play whatever pleases you for as long as you can” instructs Annea Lockwood. What does this kind of art ask of us? How does it want us to attend to the world?
This seminar-style course will look at the “text score” or “instruction piece” as it appears in contemporary art, mystical poetry, and avant-garde music.Participants will discuss and perform work by John Cage, Yoko Ono, Pauline Oliveros, George Brecht, William Blake, Rainier Maria Rilke, Wumen Huikai, and Jennifer Walshe. The class will culminate in a “Happening”-style performance and the production of an original zine-style collection of text scores.
Led by performance artist, composer, and improviser Nicholas Miller.