Artwork #1: Score

Score

This is a score that is designed to make people have fun with the space around them. I was inspired by John Cage’s “4’33”, where the performer is instructed to sit in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. I love that piece because it makes the audience pay attention to the little sounds around them, like the air conditioning running, or a cough, or the shuffling of seats.

I wanted to do something like that where people gain a new appreciation for the space around them, which is how I came up with the Room Game. The concept is to make a game out of any indoor space such as a classroom, living room, etc. so that people can gain a new appreciation for the spaces around them. I wanted people to imagine the objects around them as a pretend playground or jungle gym, and be able to play around with them creatively just like we all used to do as children.

For the playtest, I had players start in the corner of the room and roll dice – moving horizontally if it landed even and vertically if it landed odd. Immediately, I saw that there were some annoying loops where people couldn’t move in the direction that they desired. For example, if they wanted to slide vertically down a surface, they would have to wait until they rolled an odd, which often never happened when the player wanted. It meant that players didn’t feel much agency when choosing where to go. If players had more of a choice of where to go, and make up more of their own rules of how to move, I think it would’ve been a much more interesting experience for the players.

I added these fun and surrealistic characters to add a sense of playfulness to the game, but since the game wasn’t very dynamic, I don’t think it lent very much help to the game. If I were to do this project over, I would change the rules to be more open to interpretation – maybe choosing from a set of cards that revealed very abstract instructions that would make players think outside the box. I think that would’ve been more in spirit with the score and the Fluxus movement. However, I still like the aspect of opening up the room as a playground, I think that idea was strong and has potential to go further.

1. Read this score aloud with your voice.

2. Erase and replace one word in this score.

3. Hand this score to a person nearby.

This is a score where the score itself is part of the performance. Audiences may follow the instructions and modify the score however they want, which could lead to unique interactions but also risks breaking the performance. This connects the many audience-driven works in the Fluxus movement, such as Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, where audience participation could make or break the performance, and Happenings. The score is written on a piece of paper to be passed around and modified; through playtests, the paper itself also became an affordance that the audience could play with.

The score is crumpled as one of the modifications requires throwing the score.

By the end, none of the original text remains as part of the score.

I was inspired by the board game Fluxx, a game centered entirely on the idea of evolving rules throughout gameplay. Scores are instructions, and instructions are just like the rules of a game, so what happens if the score that is meant to be followed changes during the performance? I tied this idea to the thought experiment, the Ship of Theseus, which asks if a ship’s components have all been replaced to keep it operational, is it still the same ship? These kinds of self-referential concepts also appear in works such as Ben Vautier’s Total Art Match-Box.

Most of the iterations focus on determining the base version of the score that allows room for modification and does not confuse the audience. The first iteration does not include numbers on each line, which led to confusion about which action should be performed first. It also only included one verb in the second line, which did produce some interesting happenings, where in the end, there were no verbs left to be performed. However, I also felt that it limited the creativity of the audience, so I added a second verb to the sentence. I changed “the person closest to you” to “a person nearby” to make it more open-ended and prevent the score from not being able to be passed along in early stages.

Video of playtest

Score Score(s) by Daniel Rosenthal

Conductor Score

𝄞 Ask the people in the room to raise their hands if they would like to participate in the performance of a score. After the performers have been identified, ask them to put their hands down. Briskly read the Performer Score to the performers. Do not answer any clarifying questions. 

A score is initiated by starting a timer for one minute. At the end of a performance, ask each performer for their score, stating that it should be a number. If the performer doesn’t have a valid score or doesn’t know what their score is, tell them their score is zero.

Run the score twice. For the first performance, tell the performers that any person whose score is higher than the composer’s high score gets $1. [Note: the composer’s high score currently does not exist.] Once scores are collected at the end of the performance, state whether anyone accomplished this achievement and distribute the prize. Then, state that the score will be run one more time, but due to “underperformance” in the previous run of the score, anyone whose score is lower than the composer’s high score must pay you (as the conductor) $10. Commence the score shortly after. Once scores are collected at the end of the second performance, state whether anyone incurred this penalty and collect the fees.

If any performers complain about the rules of the score, you can either ignore these complaints or defend the score, so long as you don’t directly pass any blame onto the composer. 𝄂

Performer Score

𝄞 In this score, over the duration of a minute, you can score a point by mentally envisioning a single score being etched on a scoreboard. The scoreboard should contain two rows for scores to be scored, with the scores being scored as tallies. Start by scoring scores in the bottom row. When this row reaches a score of points, clear the scores in that row and score a score in the top row. Your total score comes from the number of scores on the scoreboard, with the top-row scores scoring you a score of points and the bottom-row scores scoring you one point. If you lose track of your score, then your score resets back to zero. At the end of the score duration, remember your score. 𝄂

Summary:

In my score, performers listen to instructions for a mental score-keeping system that frequently uses the word “score,” utilizing several different definitions. The performers then attempt to follow the instructions and gain as many points as possible, with the goal of surpassing the composer’s (non-existent) high score to gain $1. (Note: during the performance of this piece in class, I forgot to state this goal.) The score is then performed again, but with the initial goal scrapped and replaced by a penalty, where performers who score less than the composer’s high score must pay the score’s conductor $10. The conductor facilitates the performance, following a separate score that prompts them to defend the rules of the score being followed by the performers. This structure is intended to emulate the performance of a musical score, where a piece is created by a composer and enacted by performers under the direction of a conductor (although I played the role of both the composer and conductor in the class demonstrations).

Artist Statement:

My score is primarily inspired by the “Fluxus Manifesto” by George Maciunas, in which he details what he views as the three main definitions for “flux” (purge, flood, and fuse) and applies them to his political goals for Fluxus. This work reminded me of when I was reading “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono and tried reconciling her instruction pieces with my idea of a score, which required understanding an alternative definition of the term “score” from the musical one. I also took some inspiration from Ono’s “Bell Piece,” an event score where the sound of a bell “decrescendos” as it goes from being heard to being thought of to being dreamt of to being forgotten, as well as Maciunas’ “One Year,” where empty containers from food that Maciunas ate in a year are arranged in a grid, quantifying the time of one year through the space taken up by the containers. read more…

My score, called “Winner Loser Piece,” is built on the idea of how quickly games change when you change the winning (or losing) conditions. In this score, players are asked to play a simple game (unless reading the last line, in which a different piece with any game at all is proposed). To win this game, however, you need to lose because of the second line of the score, which says that losing actually is winning. This is what makes the score interesting to me, because would winning the game itself be a condition that should be reversed? Would line 2 of the score cancel itself out if taken literally to the extremes? And what does winning in these low-stake games really mean? That is why the end condition of the score is so open, so that everyone could interpret those questions how they like.

Part of a thumb war game during the score.

Ending of a tic tac toe board when both players are trying to lose.

Part of a rock paper scissors game during the score.

This score was inspired by the simpler pieces in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, which I feel have the most impact (and are the most impressive) if they are small and efficient in what they try to convey. This idea came to mind when I was playing “rock paper scissors minus one” with my younger sister, and we kept struggling to figure out who won. This inspired me to think, what if we were trying to lose in that game? How would our strategies change? Most likely we would try to tie again and again, but if we were trying to make only one of us win by losing, we wouldn’t do that. That situation in the style of Yoko Ono inspired this piece.

– Yonatan Catran

Draw a short straight line.

Start with this line.

Each participant can make five modifications—you can add, extend, rotate, curve, or move the line. Use your modifications wisely.

After making five modifications, proceed to the next step.

Please remain silent. Each person should make one small modification to the drawing. No discussion or gestures are allowed.

Stop when all participants have made one modification.

Now, describe what you see.

Take turns saying one letter at a time until everyone agrees on a suitable name.

“Name the Line” starts with basic visual components which participants develop through shared work. The main essence of this score exists in its rules and silent teamwork and the method of creating meaning. The starting point of the score consists of a basic straight line which serves as a fundamental graphic element. The participants have five chances to modify the image through extension, rotation, twisting, movement and repetition but they cannot repeat any action. The restricted number of possible actions forces participants to think carefully about their moves while they explore new creative possibilities. During the second stage participants perform one modification to the image without speaking. The non-verbal exchange between participants creates a silent negotiation that challenges their ability to trust their instincts and observe the situation. The image provides the only feedback during this process which enables participants to engage in a silent dialogue through their actions. The work’s title emerges through a gradual process of combining individual words into a single title. The naming process functions as both a linguistic game and a shared act of giving names to things. The final name emerges through chance operations and absurd elements which also create poetic effects while serving as the work’s conclusion and its new creation. The artist drew inspiration from Yoko Ono’s “Grapefruit” and George Brecht’s Fluxus instruction art. The executable instructions in their work transformed art into actions which create short-lived yet touchable processes. The score demonstrates how people can create an “imagined form” through collaborative work under restricted creative parameters using rules and silent communication and symbolic elements. The score merges elements of painting with play and collaboration and poetry while maintaining its focus on interactive conceptual and performance art.