Score: Piece of Dirt
Wake up
Scoop soil from the spot you were born
You will make your mother cry
Assemble the mud, dirty your skin
Take every shower without water drops touching you while singing the ABC’s
Go to sleep
Observe moss growing
Artist Statement:
This piece draws influence from themes of losing innocence and purity from birth. I take an allegorical approach by instructing the reader to gather, make, and sing things in a context that represents this deterioration of innocence. The way I approached forming these instructions derives from my attraction to fiction, which is also why the score is intended to be thought about, and cannot be realistically followed. For instance, depending on how line five is interpreted, one may imagine a superhuman ability to avoid contact with the water drops. When forming this piece I drew inspiration from my own fascination with collecting strange ingredients. Things like dirt/soil from the spot you were born and a significant amount mothers tears is virtually possible to gather, but it is more valuable for the reader interpret what these items represent, in the context of the score.
I attempted to incorporate an element of perpetuation in three ways without explicitly adding an instruction to repeat any part of the list. The first way hints at perpetuation by bookending the main part of the score with “wake up” and “go to sleep”. This can also be interpreted as birth and death since the piece is about losing innocence in life. Then line five adds a strong element of perpetuation by creating a condition in the reader’s life that they must take showers a certain way. They repeat this condition till they die or stop participating. Lastly, the final line suggests that this score is meant to be perpetuated in some way for a long amount of time because it asks you to observe the growth of moss.
The work and ideas of Fluxus artists heavily encouraged the development of my score. I was specifically drawing from the vein of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit when conceptualizing Piece of Dirt. The title of my work “Piece of Dirt” is also a reference to how Yoko Ono phrased her titles in her collection Grapefruit. Yoko Ono’s piece titled “A Piece for Orchestra” provokes an experience similar to my score because they are both virtually possible, but the beauty is in imagining the execution and pondering the meaning. The importance in my piece lies in producing an idea rather than producing art as a physical product or event. In a broad sense my piece addresses ones presence in time and the corruption of innocence that occurs when humans are affected by time. This focus on relationship with time was one of the key ideas explored in the Fluxus movement.
Iterations:
Piece of Dirt underwent four iterations. The changes between iterations improved the clarity of the instructions while attempting to focus on its message based on the feedback from readers and my own adjustments. With every iteration I improved the piece by combining sentences, eliminating/changing words, and sometimes adding a word while trying to keep the piece concise. I focused on keeping the word count small to preserve a poetic element and insure it’s easy to digest.
-Dirt Piece Iteration 1
Wake up
Take soil from the spot you were born
Ask mother to cry, or make her
Assemble mud, and dirty your skin
Take a shower, let no water drops hit you
Take a shower and sing the ABCs
Wait for moss to grow
-Dirt Piece Iteration 2
Wake up
Take soil from the spot you were born
You will make your mother cry
(Removed “ask mother to” because it distracts from the piece. Rephrased to give the reader no choice in making mother cry because it resonates better with the theme of losing innocence/purity, in which people cannot avoid encountering)
Assemble mud, and dirty your skin
Take a shower, let no water drops hit you and sing the ABC’s
(Combined lines five and six because the instructions were confusing having “take a shower” twice)
Wait for moss to grow
-Dirt of Piece Iteration 3
(Changed title to emphasize the play on words “piece of dirt”)
Wake up
Take soil from the spot you were born
You will make your mother cry
Assemble mud, dirty your skin
(Removed “and” because it wasn’t necessary and the commands being on the same line is enough indication that you should dirty your skin with the mud. If someone did not come to that conclusion then the piece still holds because the dirt is not literal)
Take a shower, let no water drops hit you while singing the ABC’s
(The word “while” replaced “and” because it provides more information that the score wants you to sing the ABCs while not becoming clean)
Wait for moss to grow
-Piece of Dirt Iteration 4
(Changed title to “piece of dirt” because it makes more sense)
Wake up
Scoop soil from the spot you were born
(“scoop” is more descriptive and the word “take” is used in line five)
You will make your mother cry
Assemble the mud, dirty your skin
(“the mud” was added to help indicate the mud comes from mixing tears and dirt)
Take every shower without water drops touching you while singing the ABC’s
(The word “every” was added to make clear this is process is intended to repeat forever) (“touching” replaced “hitting” because it focuses purely on contact)
Go to sleep
(“Go to sleep” was added to try and hint at a cycle because the piece starts with waking up)
Observe moss growing
(Rewrote this line so its purpose is clearer. This line was to indicate that the mud never leaves your skin.)