Let's Make an Event Score

Instructions for actions to be performed (or not). Inspired by Yoko Ono.

Yoko Ono, Grapefruit, limited first edition, signed, Tokyo, 1964. Source: Swann Auction Galleries

In her book Grapefruit, Yoko Ono shares poem-like directions. Direction-like poems. Absurd recipes for absurdity. They are called event scores, and they are instructions that the reader may or may not choose to follow. Event scores are considered part of the Fluxus art movement, which occurred in the 60’s and 70’s and consisted of artists who valued process over product and blurred the lines between art and life. Fluxus is raw, true, participatory, accessible, and playful. Here’s the Fluxus manifesto by George Maciunas:

Source: MOMA

Experimental performance art was a large part of this movement. Grapefruit’s Wikipedia page says that event scores are “essentially a performance art script that is usually only a few lines long and consists of descriptions of actions to be performed rather than dialogue.”

When I came across this book as a teenager it cracked my brain open, challenging the format of what I thought a book was supposed to look like, what a poem was supposed to look like, what art was supposed to look like, and what an interaction with one’s surroundings was supposed to look like.

Here’s an example of one of Yoko Ono’s event scores from Grapefruit:

CLOUD PIECE

Imagine the clouds dripping.
Dig a hole in your garden to put them in.

1963 spring

I made my own event scores when I was in college. I’d go to the library and create directions like this: walk to the 10th aisle, face the right side of the aisle, find the 3rd shelf from the top, locate the 30th book, flip to page 20, find the 5th sentence. Then I would make a poem from sentences out of various books, which would always read like a surreal fortune.

It’s pretty cool how the event score is a poem/work of art in and of itself, and if an action is taken from it, that could be another work of art, and the documentation another work of art. Event scores make me feel like I am casting a spell or bypassing my subconscious biases by blindly leading myself to some mysterious outcome.

The book has inspired others, too. It inspired this guy John to write a hit song. The book is effective in helping people imagine.

How to make an event score

1. Create a set of directions that one could physically or mentally follow. Directions can be literal or metaphorical, prescriptive or poetic, sensical or non-sensical.

2. Optional: perform the directions.

3. Optional: document the performance.

Bouquet for a neighbor by Allie Sullberg
Leave your front door.
Face to the right, walk 7 blocks.
Collect flowers along the way and create a bouquet.
Turn left, locate the 9th house on the right side of the block.
Leave the bouquet of flowers in the mailbox.
Imagine the recipient placing the flowers in a vase full of water next to their door.
Do not walk home the same way you came.

Maybe I’ll perform this one. Maybe I won’t.