Allan Kaprow “Happenings”

&William Burroughs“Cut-Up Method”– Referencing The New Media Reader, Wardrip-Fruin & Montfort

“Happenings” in the New York Scene appeared first in Art News, 1961.

“Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin”appeared first in A Casebook on the Beat, 1961.

About Allan Kaprow 1927 - 2006

• “Happenings” were a milestone for emergence of interactivity in art because they broke down distinctions between creator/author and audience.

• Compares/connects with Boal’s theatre insofar as it gives responsibility to the observer – making observers “spectactors.”

• Kaprow’s anti-hierarchical formulation of art is similar to Ted Nelson’s formulation of computing – subversive and “sticking it to the MAN.”

• Performance art and Installation art was heavily influenced by his work.

“Happenings” history and place in art (1)

• (According to Kaprow) Comes from three influences:

• 1. Sophisticated, witty pieces put on by theatre people (eg Peter Brook’s interpretation of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty).

• 2. The sparcely abstract, Zen-like rituals given by writers and musicians, eg John Cages, 4’11”

• 3. Some have a history that goes back to Surrealism, Dada, the circus, all the way back to medieval plays and ritual.

“Happenings” history and place in art (2)

• Happenings are events that simply happen.

• Make no particular literary point and have no structured beginning, middle, and end.

• Occur in “Found spaces” -- lofts, basements natural surroundings, and there is no separation of audience and play.

• Happenings have no plot, no obvious philosophy, is materialized in an improvisation, like jazz.

• Much like the process of contemporary abstract painting where one does not know what will happen next.

• The element of “chance” is key because it implies risk and fear. A Happening cannot be reproduced. Contains “Aleatory” Elements. (Roger Callois, John Cage.)

• Its activity embodies the myth of non-success, for Happenings cannot be sold or taken home, they can only be supported (and chronicled!)

About William Burroughs 1914 - 1997

• Adding-machine fortune heir, junkie, homosexual, Jewish/Buddhist, killer of his wife – the most challenging and complex of the Beat writers. (Montfort)

Who was Brion Gysin? –He was a performance artist and besides experimenting with cut-ups, he invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed.

• The Cut Up Technique was based on earlier experiments of the dadaists and surrealists

• Burroughs used this cut up method in the process of revising The Naked Lunch.

Mixed reviews

• Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift, a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion” of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism.”

• Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius.”

• Novelist and critic Anthony Burgess panned Burroughs work saying it bored readers with repetitive episodes of pederast fantasy and sexual strangulation that lacked any comprehensible world view or theology.

• (According to Burroughs) The cut-up method brings to writers the collage which has been used by painters (and moving camera) for 50 years.”

• Writers and photographers will tell you that often their best shots are accidents.

• Cutting and rearranging a page of written words introduces a new dimension into writing enabling the writer to turn images in cinematic variation.

• Cut-ups can be applied to other field – Van Neuman introduced cut-up method of random action into game and military strategy: assume the worst has happened and act accordingly.

Your Links

Allan Kaprow Inspired Happening

Cut-up Method of William Burroughs.

BlackEyesPeas Flashmob Happening

Flashmob for Peace

“Aleotory” viewing of Kaprow/Burroughs montage.