Fluxus follow up and Sound Machine Projects:

Returning from break we spent some time reviewing the Fluxus projects with a focus on modernism and postmodernism. We explored Hassan’s list of terms and ideas associated with each era. In doing so I posed four questions: evaluate usefulness modernist ideas, critique postmodern ideas, critique modernist ideas, and evaluate usefulness of postmodern ideas. My hope with this is to make an end run around the question of why to study all this weird indeterminate stuff in the first place. This discussion gave way to the presentation of the sound machine or generative art project. Students are instructed to build a machine with a certain number of steps and a certain timeframe to create a “sound.” Once set in motion they are not to interfere with their machine, but many struggle with this. Generally about 50% of the machines don’t function as intended do to a variety of variables – but they still produce interesting results. In the first section they were playful and fun and often funny. The second section, although still creating some playful machines, didn’t quite synthesize the way the first section had. But, the work was generally good and interesting to watch. From there we segued into a deeper discussion of the projects and an introduction to generative art through Riley’s In C and Trisha Brown’s solo olos. This class was followed by a discussion of Steve Reich and Brian Eno discussing generative or process driven work. I do have the students listen to Reich’s “Come Out” all nearly 14 minutes of it – in order to hear it shift from one point to another. So, here we cycle back to discuss duration again. We also explored some of Eno’s work along with other artists. It feels like some of this material is starting to cohere for the students. New to the discussion this time is to lean into the modernist/postmodernist ideas a bit more and ask about employing indeterminacy – as Reich does with his tape loops – but then learning from that experience and weaving phasing back into a more traditional compositional approach. I feel this is a better representation of our world in which the two ideas co-exist. Next it’s on to the auto destruct project. Considerably mor complex than what we have seen so far, but based on the skills students have acquired so far in the term.

John Cage, La Monte Young, and Fluxus:

One of the things I have been struggling with teaching this course is engaging the students. Their work on the projects is wonderful, but once we turn our attention to discussion things seem to fall flat. So, in anticipation of the Fluxus project I opted to shift things a bit by going back to the physical warm-up that was developed for this class ages ago. I’ll admit I feel a little silly doing it, but I do think it helps transition us from where we are coming from to where we are headed. I’ve also tried to structure more performative exercises at the top of the class. I really do love the John Cage inspired indeterminate sound piece in which students are given a chart with blocks of time to fill with sound. It always produces some lively and creative results. Given the horrible HVAC sound that dominates the gym space we have taken to retreating to the stage area for discussion in a more conventional seminar set up. Not my favorite choice, but it does seem to generate better interaction. We discussed the Cage material complete with some examples of his work. I’m trying to get students to see the idea of indeterminacy not as a simple approach, but one that can be developed in a number of different ways. It does seem to be a hallmark of postmodernism. The next class was an introduction to La Monte Young’s work and Fluxus. Some of Young’s simple compositional devices (like a line on a piece of paper) do seem baffling, but allows for a conversation about what we expect from a composer or author. Here indeterminacy can be seen as a direction, but not necessarily as a final goal. All of this leads toward the Fluxus project and the best way I have found of approaching this is to share examples of this type of work before the assignment. The student generated Fluxus pieces were quite nice, but largely remained on the level of small, quiet, Zen-like work. Which is fine. I have seen this approach before – specifically in the postmodernism class. Its interesting to me that this project can generate smaller more intimate gestures, but also huge, sprawling, loud work too. It all really depends on the make-up of students in the class. This time around I do not have any Drama students enrolled – so I wonder if that has some impact. At the half-way point of the term we established a good list of terms and ideas, but. Do feel like I have been leading them toward these rather than them discovering them. I do need to explore patience more fulling in allowing students to figure this out on their own. This was made clear by the student responses to what is going well and what could be improved in the course. More open ended question, more patience, don’t lead or fish for ideas, allow them to develop organically. It has been some time since I taught one of these project-based courses and I need to remind myself that it takes a good 6-7-8 weeks for these ideas to begin to gel. The plan now is to review the material from the first half with a specific focus on the shift from modernism to postmodernism and connections to Self, Society, and Cosmos ideas. I’m toying with the idea of attacking Hassan’s modern/postmodern list and exploring the ideas from multiple sides – where is the value in these ideas? Where is there no value? And then it’s on to the generative art machine projects.