J4Kd!: On "'Happenings' in the New York Scene" by Kaprow

-Interactivity in art

-"Some of us will probably become famous. It will be an ironic fame fashioned largely by those who have never see our work."

-Desire to break down distinctions between creator and audience

-How does one model of interactive performance compare to another?
--Kaprow - creation of new experience and type of attention

-Work threatened to overflow and even wash away the boundaries between disciplines that the "total forms" (such as opera) subsumed and reinforced

I think happenings are where it's at. I listened to this interview with Ivanka Trump, and she mentioned that she is an opera fan but that she prefers traditional opera over opera that stems from more progressive thinking because traditional opera is "classic." The "total forms" set up conventions and this idea of classicism that can actually inhibit the artists working within those boundaries. It's one thing to impose restrictions on your own work or even to work within the restrictions that another artist sets up, but to strictly work within the bounds of a form to maintain its purity seems only limiting. Why not allow disciplines to merge and overlap? Combination and experimentation of forms and disciplines and aesthetics and THOUGHTS can lead to unbelievably beautiful things, and it seems pointless to maintain the boundaries that we set up for ourselves.

I feel like now might be a good opportunity to plug the happening that I'm curating in May. Many of the ideas that I'm working with are actually very relevant to the stuff we talk about in class, and I think that maybe some of you might be interested in participating.

One of the first articles we read mentioned that much of the technology available to us today, the interactivity, the spatial quality of it, etc. can be traced back to some of the happenings that were occurring in the 60s, to work that expressed a desire for interconnectedness and total understanding.
Now, I'm looking to create a happening that is actually derived from that technology in ideology and in practice. Here, we have the ability to learn and understand the people and events around us, and as many have expressed, it actually seems to have separated us from the world around us. We have a library of human knowledge available to us, and yet, look at how it seems to be affecting actual human interaction. The anonymity that the internet affords us has made us brave enough to express anything we want, and yet much of what we say and do online is rarely reflected in any physical realm.
So I want to emulate an online experience. No, this event will not involve a library of human knowledge, but it WILL involve people from several walks of life who, if you can bring yourself to just talk to them about something, could potentially teach you something. And to further emulate the online aesthetic, the performers I'm working with WILL not be presented in a linear fashion. Several things will be happening at once, and it will be up to the viewer to decide what s/he wants to experience. Most of the performances will involve the use of computers. There will be video art, DJ sets, improvised electronic soundscapes, dance, jazz, avant garde cirque performances, and a number of characters who may or may not be acting, characters who, at the very least, will have everyone talking about them by the end of the night.

Mind you, this project is still a work in process, but it's something that I'm putting a lot of time and energy into right now, and I want to know if anyone is interested in being involved. We're looking at some pretty large venues right now, so we're planning on having a lot of space to fill.

Here are some of the people I'm currently collaborating with: