This is Fluxus

This is Fluxus (2008)
for speaker and piano

first performed at the Guildhall New Music Festival 2008, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London by Ella Jarman Pinto (speaker) and Yshani Perinpanayagam (piano)

in this video:
Ella Jarman Pinto (speaker)
Matthew Lee Knowles (piano)

The text was created by walking around the Tate Modern during its Long Weekend, about Fluxus, with many performances and events. I walked around the entire building for hours, writing down snippets of conversations onto postcards. I got home and pieced them together to make this text.

The fast speaking was inspired by Samuel Beckett's "Not I" amazingly performed by Billy Whitelaw, and I have employed this method in another recent piece "The Story of a Magnificent Banquet" based on the Marquis de Sade's "120 days of Sodom" first performed by Neil Luck (speaker) and Matthew Lee Knowles (harpsichord)