Artwork #1: Score

Find a place peace and silent,

where nobody is around,

and where you can see the sky.

Close your eyes and take a deep breathe.

Play your favourite music and look up in the sky.

And you may leave when you begin to feel the silence.

The following pictures are some playtests conducted.

Top floor of the Columbus Garage during night

Park near the Carter Playground

Top of the apartment building

This score is inspired by Yoko Ono and the idea of this score comes from an art game called Loneliness, which is basically a game where player control a black square and wander in the emtpy gamespace, and can’t interact with the surroundings. When I was playing that game, I had a feeling of silence and a sense of relieveness besides the loneliness. Therefore, I want to create a score that will somehow generate similar feelings. This Yoko Ono’s style score is actually similar to meditating, but it must be conducted alone in a place where nobody is around in order to generate similar atmosphere with the game Loneliness. Also, feeling the silence is not about hearing nothing or being quiet, but is to feel the silence internally, so the score delibrately ask the conductor to play music while seeking the silence to create the contrast and let the conductor feel the inner silence more obviously. Personally, I like to find a high place such as the top of a building where nobody is there and conduct the score, but the place really depends on individual’s preference.

Score:

• Acquire the following dice:
  • 2 Four Sided Dice (2d4)
  • 2 Eight Sided Dice (2d8)
  • 4 Six Sided Dice (4d6)
  • 1 Twenty Sided Dice (1d20)
• Gain access to a Baby Grand or Grand Piano
• Open the lid of the piano and prop it open
• Take the 2d8 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano
• Note the position of the leftmost d8
• Find the corresponding piano key that vibrates the strings the leftmost d8 lays upon
• Add the values of both d8
• Starting at the key we identified earlier, count up from that key a number of adjacent keys equal to the sum of both d8
• Keep note of these two keys
• Now take the 2d4 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano near the 2d8
• Note the value of each d4 and their proximity to the d8
• The value of the d4 provides the number of times (in a four note sequence) that each key is played
• The number of times each key is played is taken from the closest d4 to the d8 the key is connected to
• Now take the 4d6 and simultaneously roll them onto the strings of the piano
• Note the position of each d6 and their value
• Find the key corresponding to the position of each d6 upon the strings in the same manner as we did earlier with the d8
• These keys will also be played as the two earlier keys we determined are played, but can be played at any time
• The value of each d6 represents the number of adjacent keys, going either up or down, that can be alternatively played at any time
• Now take the 1d20 and roll it onto the strings of the piano
• Note the value of the d20 and multiply it by 10. This is the number of seconds you will play the piano for. Set a timer for this amount.
• With the correct starting keys identified, and the various values of dice rolled as well as their corresponding effects on how the piano is played in mind, prepare to play
• Start the timer and begin to play
• Stop playing when the timer finishes
• Observe the dice upon the strings of the piano. Repeat all above steps without rerolling any of the dice. Instead note how they have been agitated by your playing and have both new positions and values.
• With these new positions and values identified, prepare to play again
• Start the timer and begin to play
• Repeat ad infinitum

Artist’s Statement:

I was inspired by a number of existing historical musical works both in the form of experimental compositions and musical games. As a whole this section of music that inspired me is referred to as “Aleatoric Music” or “Indeterminate Music.” Music that has some element of its final product left up to chance. The first example of this can be found in the “Musikalisches Würfelspiel” (Musical Dice) which exploded in popularity during the Age of Enlightenment. This was during the “Classical Period” of Music from the mid 1700s to early 1800s and these games allowed even someone with barely any musical knowledge to roll dice and following the instructions of the game put together a new composition every time. Johann Kirnberger’s “The Ever-Ready Minuet and Polonaise Composer” (1757) is one such example, and Kirnberger himself was a student of J.S. Bach. Musical dice games can also be found in C.P.E. Bach’s “A method for making six bars of double counterpoint at the octave without knowing the rules” (1758) and Mozart’s “Instructions for the composition of as many waltzes as one desires with two dice, without understanding anything about music or composition” (1792). While the names of such games are quite overwrought, they serve as the main inspiration for this project. As the concept of using dice to inform various components of performance and provide musical limitations comes directly from these games. However, there are also other elements interacting. The idea of rolling the dice directly onto the strings so that they would interfere with the strings vibration and create a unique sound came from John Cage’s practice of creating “Prepared Pianos.” There was also inspiration from Terry Riley’s “In C” and Earle Brown’s “25 Pages.”

Documentation:

Video of Performance: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YJvM96vsuNFPDkb48

Before Playing

After Playing

Score:

Read the following sentences titled in “statement” if you want.

Send comments to liu.jinx@northeastern.edu if you have one.

Warning: the statement is currently grammerly inaccurate. Intrepret it, and if you don’t want to, skip it.

Statement

2022/9/26

“A day

Then get up in the morning reluctantly

Attend classes

Struggle with homework

Be miserable

Be sad

Be perplexed

Go to bed”

This is my ex-score.

This is me, manipulated by hormones. Fragile body, and uselessness. A day is happy, the other day is sad, and poor “me” can’t even define myself.

When I wrote this(score), other than completing homework I also wanted to find resonance. I want to know…what’s other people’s thought. I want to know…In the end, whether I can find the meaning of life in crowd or not.

……you see, if I’m blind, I can’t paint anymore. If I have broken arms, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

My former teacher told me a story in which there was a question, “What is the meaning of finding meaning in life?” “I think that a good question. It can be used to help you find meaning in life.

In Richard Hall, I sat on couch beside the doorway. There is a plaque painted in black with gold characters that reads “1941-1945, commemorating these Northeastern people who died for their country”.

…… Golden plaque. As if by erasing this, they would no longer exist. Is that right? The sacrifice is meaningless.

No, the definition should not be defined by me, it must be by themselves.

Let’s go see “the Confessions” again.

……

2022/9/27/13:05/In Ryder hall waiting for class

These days are busy and my brain have not recovered yet. And I came back to do the score reluctantly.

Why did I write a score? I guess it’s, “avoid being the only person in the class who didn’t do their homework”. It’s not about fame. Because as if I have not been, the first or the last, in my class. I have been there, and there’s no difference.

It’s because that if you are the special one with defect, you’re ability of understanding everyone very well is deprived by the group. Because every soul is unique and there is so much more I want to understand, I still want to be in the group.

Last night I ran to read the Confession again. Leo Tolstoy’s book. It’s nice to see that he’s even crappier than me on this issue.

Me, the limited me.

(From professor Celia:) Meaning is for “someone”.

In my eyes, ants on the ground carry food by following their genetic instincts to survive. However, this may not be the case for the ants.

Eternal things do not need to look for the meaning of existence. Only with such a short life do I need to exist by attaching myself to something eternal.

By then I felt it.

This could be the answer, the cause, and the result.

My brain felt weak and burnt, its strength is depleted by this question. Now what I’ll do is to record my feelings honestly.

This is the answer in my mind:

“Seek eternity until your death.”

……

2022/9/27/21:00

I spent most of my leisure time on watching other people’s lives. I went to video sites to watch people go into factory, do night shift for ten hours, live in a dormitory with bugs on their beds, and then earned 4,000￥. If I become some big man, would I try to improve their lives? Would I? Though I don’t have the ability, not at all. If I get superpower suddenly, maybe I would sneak into the government department and then talk to the leaders. “Y’all”…

Though incompetent, I do “have a life”. You see, if I were brave enough, would I be able to sacrifice myself to get the attention of my superiors? Then many more people will be happy.

……

I’ve read Ono’s grapefruit, and I felt that many things in it are not so meaningful to me.

Hey, fun fact. Just by reading the works of my classmates in class, I don’t think these are interesting at all. Watching them presenting, I thought, “the loveliest thing is actually them”. One by one, they showed their personalities.

The black girl who swears freely, the guy who plays his instrument in silence, the dice artist with blonde hair and blue eyeshadow, the classmates who’ve concluded his good weekend, the girl who sat next to me having a nice smile and nice cat. Grabbing cake with friends, trying to show the paint stains of tennis balls but have had problem unfolding, asked everyone to plays parachute together. Or draw pictures, tell stories, ask twenty-five people to twist a cube. What really gives meaning to their works is them.

……

If I want to present my score to class, I must present myself.

What do I have?

My life is kind of by myself. Sitting in the dormitory. Busying……

Woo! I typed these words when Sydney suddenly protruded from the side of the door and scared my roommate off. Sydney has black curly hair, dyed green at the end, and beautiful gray eyes.

Though, how could she be so lovely? Why is she so cute? Is it really my poor flesh that gave me such beautiful emotion and made me in tears?

I want to see your souls. Then when I see it, I’ll say:

“How could you be so cute!”

*My words are translated from Chinese and could have loss its strengths.

*My brain is exhausted and I have to get up next morning very early and I felt a little bit dizzy now. I can’t continue. I’ll edit it in the future if I have chance.

Event Score:

“Grab a long novel,
But read every other page…
Find an unknown word,
And make several paper cranes…
Go until it’s “true,”
Then count every crane in sight…
Write a short haiku,
Using all your newfound might…”

Artist Statement:

During the brainstorming process for this artwork, I was reading through a multitude of “event scores” written by Yoko Ono in her famous book Grapefruit. One of the most defining characteristics about her written artwork is her astounding usage of unorthodox actions to reveal greater truths about existence, and I wanted to create something a bit similar for our first assignment. Ultimately, there were three “event scores” included in her collection that resonated within me, and they were “Number Piece I,” “Number Piece II,” and “Paper Folding Piece” respectively. Each of these “event scores” involved words, books, and paper in some way shape or form, and as someone who loves language, linguistics, & literature in their entireties, I personally wanted to compose an “event score” that was thematically relevant to both reading & writing. More specifically, I wanted to compose a written piece that encompassed the intrinsic beauty of novels, poetry, origami, and education in a rather unorthodox way, and these three “event scores” gave me the inspiration to conceptualize “Zen Tsuru Piece.”

For additional context, the name of this “event score” is a mixture of “zen” (the Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism) and “tsuru” (the Japanese word for “crane”). Furthermore, it is derived from the Japanese term “senbazuru,” which is an Eastern tradition with some remarkably wholesome folklore. In short, it was believed that any wish would come true if you manage to fold one thousand paper cranes, and it is generally practiced by communities for the sake of mitigating and mourning other people’s suffering (such as injuries, sicknesses, memorials, etc). Because of the inherent nature of “senbazuru,” I always found this phenomenon to be a heartwarming display of both empathy and condolences, and it definitely played a major role in the composition of my “event score.”

In the end, I wanted to incorporate certain aspects of both the fine arts and Japanese customs in my artwork while simultaneously expanding upon the subject matter at hand. While many Dada movements do involve appropriation, the “avant-garde” is best characterized as being “ahead of the curve” by providing a differentiating perspective through innovative processes. Moreover, I did not want to blatantly appropriate these particular practices because in my eyes, it would’ve been extremely insensitive to neglect their original meanings and cultural significance. The overarching intent behind my art piece was to create a love letter for the limitless potential of the written word (as well as the materials used in its production). Obtaining knowledge through reading books, appreciating culture, reflecting on tradition, and pursuing innovation can result in both intellectual growth and creative expression, further cementing these ideas as the central concepts for my project.

Documentation:

Score:

1. A few people (more than two but not more than ten) stand in a line
2. The first person whispers a command that can be done right then and there to the next person
3. The next person whispers the command they heard to the person after them, and adds one of their own
4. This continues with people saying with they heard and adding another command until it gets to the last person
5. The last person says what they heard aloud (it could be incorrect, similar to a game of telephone)
6. Last person has two options
   • Either do all the instructions they heard (regardless of if they heard them correctly)
   • Or try something they wanted to try, or start learning something they wanted to learn, because they want to, not because they have to, but never started or got around to doing, within a week.

Artist’s Statement:

Initially, I wanted to do something related to the game of Telephone, as it’s already very chaotic, and is centered on communication and misunderstanding with the message the final person heard being nearly always different from the one the first person said. I was also inspired by Exquisite Corpse, and the idea of a score using different people’s contributions and ideas to create the final product. This was also a difference from the game of Telephone, commands from different people “pile on” to create the final product. Everyone’s expectations and wants are piling onto one person with this score.

With this score, I wanted to relate to misunderstanding and miscommunication, and also misunderstood expectations, and wanting to do something because you think it’s what others want or expect you to do, even when it might not be, which is a really big part of our world. So, it was meant to be a metaphor for this happening in the real world. It was also about others’ wants versus your own, and how people can add new expectations on a person because they misunderstood other expectations of them. It’s also about conformity. On the other hand, the other option for the last person forces them out of their comfort zone, rather than keep them with the possibly comfortable conformity. But it is for them. Something they genuinely want to do, not something they have to do, but have not done yet. Why? Fear, self-consciousness, procrastination? Though the person is trying, or learning, or doing something they genuinely want to do, sometimes doing something for you takes a little push and a little bravery.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jic_1W5Yo3TcHB6fXReBk3sqtKm5_f2o/view?usp=sharing

The saying “a photograph is worth 1000 words” is a cliche but it speaks an underlying truth. Two of my favorite photographers are Nan Goldin and David Sorrenti. They took candid pictures of people, couples being intimate, drugs, and their whole surroundings. They were able to create beauty in a single snapshot of their life which tells its own story. The essay, “Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life” exemplifies what Goldin and Sorrenti did. “ … If we bypass “art” and take nature itself as a model or point of departure we may be able to devise a different kind of art by first putting together a molecule out of the sensory stuff of ordinary life. (Kaprow 10)”. Like Kaprow states, Nan Goldin and Davide Sorrenti turned their whole life, into an art pieces.

For my project, I want to explore the seductiveness of a photograph. I take inspiration from the apps Pokemon Go and BeReal. At its peak, Pokemon Go had everyone go outside to play around. It connected everyone which made it become a bonding game with other people. The app BeReal allows its user to take a picture of the current moment at a random time of the day. I wanted to create a game based on these two apps and explore this quote, “… these participatory events blurred the line between what was life and what was art, what was an everyday movement and what was a performance. Kaprow said, ‘The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps as indistinct as possible. (Beavin).”

For my game, I want to blur the lines between art and life. The rules of my game are simple: create a discord group chat with friends with how many people in total. Each participant takes picture of something interesting in their current moment (could be a picture of friends, going out to see an art exhibit, etc). The duration of the game can last anywhere from a day to a week. Whoever has the most interesting photos in the group chat wins the game.

The point of my game is to get people out and experience the beauty of their current moment. Japanese artist Mieko Shiomi defines this goal perfectly. He defined Fluxus as a way ” to view and feel the world with innovated perception.121 In this sense, we can all be Fluxus artists, as Maciunas urged. Fluxus’s goal is to teach us to experience the world for ourselves, ” in the same way” (Maciunas’s words) that we experience art (Baas 8)”. Everyone in their own right can be an artist. Each picture is a snapshot of the current world that is ever-changing. Shiomi teaches us that we can all be innovative artists if we can just sit back and enjoy the world. With my game, as the end product, once everyone turns in their photo, you can sit back and embrace all we have been through

.

Score:

1. Play checkers
2. Pieces can be of any shape, they just have to be somewhat Identical and of the same color
3. Pieces can be stacked on top of each other regardless of whose they are
4. Pieces that are stacks cannot be captured
5. The game ends when there are 7 (Stacked and/or unstacked) pieces left on the board

Preparation:

1. A classic 8×8 chessboard or any 8×8 square grid is used
2. Each player uses 12 pieces
3. All pieces must be of the same color
4. All pieces must be placed at the default positions as used in regular checkers
5. 2 players are needed

Artist’s Statement:

The score for Cheesy Checkers was inspired by Yoko Ono and Ludo which is a derivative of the Indian game Pachisi. As the name implies, most of the rules and mechanics are derived from the standard version of checkers. However, in this case rather than following the standard practice of two players going against each other as opponents with the aim of winning the the game of checkers, players are instead working together in tandem to make a piece of art. Persons who follow the score and participate in the activity are in the end more of an artist as compared to being competitors. I feel like although this takes a slightly different route, we can still seem to explore the intentions of Yoko Ono when she was creating white chess. Although in her case there was a bit more freedom for participators in my case, a few more rigid rules purposefully steer the game in a particular direction. For instance, stating that pieces can be stacked regardless of which player claims them and also the instruction that stacked pieces cannot be captured add a completely new element to the game. This in turn focuses more on the collaborative aspect of this score necessitating the communication between players.

The stacking aspect of the game was gleaned from Ludo. In the case of Ludo stacking ones pieces ensures safety and is used as a defensive measure. In this case not only does it do that but once again it leads to cooperation because of the nature of the other rules.

Pre-game Board

Players proceed to move pieces as thought it were normal checkers

Pieces can be stacked

Game ends when there are 7 pieces left

It is interesting to see how different players interpreted the rules and intended to collaborate with each other. One playtest resulted in a case where one player was still adamantly trying to win, hence keeping track of which pieces were “his” and going about the game as though it were a regular game of checkers. This ultimately failed because his “opponent” forcefully collaborated with him by stacking some of her pieces on top of his stacks.

The patterns created by both participators are also interesting, from 3 play tests no 2 patterns were remotely similar which came as a surprise to me. The potential art created from this game is fascinating and hopefully I can find more intriguing interpretations of my score

Jila’s Experimental Score (1)

This is the score to my game Rubber Circles. I was inpsired to make this based on found household materials I use for my hair. Rubber bands and bobby pins are what I use for this score but the score does not explicitly state what a rubber circle is or how to hit the targets so that is left up to the interpretation of the players but I provide bobby pins because that is how I would play.

I believe the piece should be played by 1 player after the playtests. Simply because it is intended to be a short game that one could do on their way to something else. The instructions are short and could be displayed in a large setting on a shelf perhaps. It is a found object game truly and does not rely on the use of other materials that would not be in a household or available for reasonable pricing at a convenience store. I believe the simplicity of it was birthed through my need to create a game that was something one could play and not something super difficult to onboard.

During the playtests, I saw that players were more interested in making the score competitive instead of a short one over that just happens. With the solo game tests I’ve seen, the player just plays through the one minute often questioning if that was all they were to do.

It relates to the theme of using simple instructions yet obscure items which I pulled from the readings of Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. I was inspired by the soft writing style presented in some of the Ono scores that I was compelled to use that technique myself when writing my score. In future iterations, I would like to introduce new items to act as rubber circles and bobby pins such as tires and shoes.