So approximately 24 hours after completing Pondwalk, I had an idea. For a new event. Something completely different from anything I've done before. And it has to be outdoors, so that means one of two things: either I needed to get it sorted out quickly and have the event by the end of September (before the rain comes) or wait til the spring. After a week and a half of hard work (and some enthusiastic encouragement from others), I'm choosing the former. Let's just do it! Ready?
Games: a Fluxus-inspired interactive event
What happens when we play games? How is it different than a concert or a dance performance? How is it different from tying your shoes?
Maybe games are actions that have certain rules or guidelines in place and usually there is a winner. In the performing arts, a score or a guideline is created to give structure to the event, but when show time comes, what really happens? Is it a musical "foul" to play slightly louder for two seconds than you did in rehearsal? If you finish three inches farther stage right than you were at the matinee performance, do you "lose"? Who's the referee anyway?
And what about if you forget some of the rules, or all of the rules? Can you improvise? Take for example the difference between professional-level sports and games played in backyards and public parks. What happens if you can’t remember the scoring method for horseshoes? Do you make it up and keep playing or pack it up and go home? These are some of the questions up for consideration at this event.
But don't get the wrong idea either: this is a backyard party, and a bit of an odd one at that. Fluxus art is thought-provoking but doesn't take itself seriously; rather, it delights in the absurd, the mundane and the surprising. There is a history of games and sports as part of participatory Fluxus-style events; I've taken inspiration from the past and put my own unique spin on things.
The event will consist of a series of games and events, some with instructions and some without, some with a referee and some where everyone is a referee, some kind of like games you've played before and some that, well, you'll have to make it up as you go along.
Cornhole and corny jokes. Competition and confusion. Party games as performance.
It all goes down on Saturday, Sept 23 at 2pm.
Registration and more info can be found here:
Hope to see you then. Bring a helmet.
-Justin