Actually it makes sense to discuss all four of these days at
once. They were largely presentations days for me – so no projects – but also
gathering days in which my intent is to prepare the students for the final
piece of the term – Postdramatic Theatre, a look at the Wooster Group and the
final projects. Like the disruption of master narratives project and the Fluxus
project just tossing them into these ideas wouldn’t work. I feel like for these
pieces they need more information up front. The “music” section of the class
could probably be driven by a project, but there are quite a few ideas to deal
with so it comes down to listening and discussing.
The intermediary step between Fluxus and folks like Steve
Reich was a stop over in generative art. I spent time with the students talking
about Brian Eno’s work, showing them his generative app Scape and discussing 77 million paintings. Mixed in with this were moiré patterns
the Flaming Lips Zaierika, and a
handful of other examples. The point with all of this is to show how some of
the Fluxus ideas about chance or indeterminacy can be developed into a more
recognizable artistic process. Not sure I stressed that bit enough, but it was
there.
The intent with this is to follow up with a listen and discussion
of Steve Reich’s “Come Out.” Wonderfully generative, noisy, complex, and
simple. It is so clear to see this ideas grow out of La Monte Young’s work in
terms of drones and extended time frames. Listened to a bit of Reich’s Pendulum
music and then where these ideas went in terms of Reich composition. Juxtaposing
this with Schoenberg’s 12 tone/serialist stuff there is a clear difference
between control and indeterminacy. Cage’s Imaginary Landscape #4 helps raise
the idea that an indeterminate composition can sound very much like a
determinate one since you can’t hear the structure. With Reich you can hear the
structure – it is a meta gesture just like John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse.”
Minimalism gives way to post stuff for the next day.
Students may have lots of info on this or may not, but the goal is to sort of
connect the dots. A sweep from proto-punk, through punk to post-punk to
post-rock to post-digital. Little more than a sampling of each. What was
interesting is that compressing that sweep into a hour or so the sounds become
more and more contemporary until we are left with glitch. What was nice is one
of the projects today – in which groups had to do something to Gertrude Stein’s
opening moment from Dr. Faustus Lights
the Lights – one of the groups “granulated” the text by sprinkling scrapes
of paper over it and then reading what was left uncovered. Just like the
granulation of creating a glitch piece with a laptop.
Today was about interpretation and ownership and
deconstruction and The Wooster Group. Wanting an active and engaged audience to
watch the video next week we spent some time talking about their technique. The
tough part is that traditional theatre training – which is about half of the
students in the class – is completely built on the sanctity of the script. TWG
treats texts just about any way by sacred. The parallel is what happened with
the Fluxus pieces in which the “author” generates an idea that is take up and
then re-interpreted by the “performer.” A good place to discuss Barthes’ “Death
of the Author” and “Work to Text” articles. The linkage of “work” to “text” to
“performance text” to audience “text” raises a number of questions about who
owns the interpretative rights. Especially when the original “text’ is put into
question. The controversy surround TWG’s use (or abuse) of Miller’s The Crucible works well here. Where did
he get his ideas from casts us back to earlier texts.
I finished the class by urging the students to review all of
the terms and ideas we have discussed and bring this knowledge with them to
watch the video of House/Lights- TWG’s
take on Stein’s Dr. Faustus. Having
wrestled with and seen interpretations they at least know where TWG started
with this piece. I also tried to make an end run around the criticisms from the
last time I showed this video – that they were all “bad” actors because of how
they looked at the audience and smirked. I suggested perhaps they were playing
by postmodern rules. We shall see
how the process the video. I feel like these students are much better prepared
for it than the last time I taught it.
All of this is leading to the final project. I want them to
see what TWG does to a text to give them permission to do the same. I plan on
reminding them that they are well prepared for this assignment having executed
projects on juxtaposition, movement, disrupting narrative, space and irony and
indeterminacy. Plus we have been doing this type of work at the beginning of
almost every class. The one piece we haven’t done yet is refine the ideas. I
know that they can work quickly to create something interesting, but what
happens if I ask them to work over three hours or so? I may need to consider
that question the next time I teach the class – devote a few days after
mid-term to projects refined and built on in class.
