Fluxus yn Aberystwyth 1968

FLUXCONCERT BY AND FOR FLUXUS, 28 Tachwedd 1968, 8 yr hwyr, Neuadd y Plwyf, Aberystwyth

The Fluxus Concert was a real success... Slides of cowboy drawings. We pull crackers, burst bags, howl. Somebody chases his mate around the parish hall to hit him. Flux-Pin-Up No. 1 showers down. It is a picture of Brian. ...People howl and throw streamers, and stick coloured papers on their faces, and somehow behind the light Brian throws us another set of instructions. Caution, Art Corrupts.
(John Hall, A State of Flux - John Hall at the Aberystwyth Festival, The Guardian 30 Tachwedd 1968)

O 27 i 29 Tachwedd 1968, roedd yr artist Brian Lane yn Aberystwyth gyda'i gydweithwyr, sef y First Dream Machine, i drefnu digwyddiad tridiau Fluxus. Roedd wedi'i wahodd gan Wyl Flynyddol y Celfyddydau yn Aberystwyth, sef pwyllgor o fyfyrwyr Coleg Prifysgol Aberystwyth (a oedd yn cynnwys Bob Marsland, John Osborne a Steve Mills). Roedd natur gyfranogol a llawn dychymyg Fluxus yn apelio at y trefnwyr a oedd, yn ôl y gwahoddiad, yn awyddus "i gyrraedd cynulleidfa eang"ac yn "ceisio rhoi hwb o'r newydd i'r Wyl drwy hyrwyddo'r syniad mai rhywbeth i'w fwynhau yw Celf".

Ymatebodd Brian Lane drwy lunio rhaglen uchelgeisiol i Aberystwyth: cyngerdd 12 awr o gerddoriaeth electronig (gan gynnwys darnau gan Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Henry a Adrian Nutbeem), un o'r Fluxusclinics cyntaf ym Mhrydain, arddangosfa o waith graffig rhyngwladol a sesiwn Total Theatre. Roedd Flux Concert yn ganolbwynt i'r Wyl, gyda pherfformiadau o'r darnau Fluxus, sydd yn glasuron erbyn hyn, gan George Maciunas, Ben Vautier, George Brecht a Chieko Shiomi. Yn ôl Adrian Glew, curadur yn y Tate sy'n gyfrifol am Archif gwaith Brian Lane, roedd y digwyddiad yn hynod bwysig gan ei fod yn dod yn rhan o ganon cyfoes Fluxus a hanes Fluxus yng ngwledydd Prydain ers hynny (Glew 2007).

Maen nhw'n dweud os ydych chi'n cofio'r 60au nad oeddech chi yno … ond gobeithiwn y gallem brofi bod hynny'n anghywir.

Os oes gennych unrhyw atgofion am y digwyddiad tridiau hwnnw (neu am Wyl Celfyddydau Aberystwyth yn gyffredinol), neu'n adnabod rhywun sy'n ei gofio, byddwn ni'n falch iawn o glywed gennych chi! Byddai unrhyw ddeunydd o ddiddordeb ... hyd yn oed brith cofion am ddigwyddiadau y cawsoch gip arnynt drwy gil eich llygaid.

Cysylltwch â mail@performance-wales.org

Fluxus yn Aberystwyth 2008

FLUXCONCERT BY AND FOR FLUXUS, 29 Tachwedd 2008, 8 yr hwyr, Theatr y Castell, Aberystwyth

Eleni gwelwyd cryn bwyso a mesur ar ddylanwad chwyldroadol y flwyddyn 1968, ac rydym ni yn rhoi teyrnged i'r enghraifft arloesol hon o ymarfer celfyddydol arbrofol yn union ddeugain mlynedd ar ôl y digwyddiad cyntaf. Bydd artistiaid sy'n gweithio yn Aberystwyth yn perfformio eu dehongliad nhw o'r deunydd Fluxus gwreiddiol a ddefnyddiwyd ym 1968.

...........

Lluniau: Daniel Ladnar

...if you don't know what a Fluxconcert is you must come and see for yourself...
[Brian Lane, 1968]

Gyda chefnogaeth Gwobrau Syr David Hughes Parry 2008.

GWYBODAETH

ADOLYGIAD

[...] This was to have been a series of “happenings,” unleashed by The First Dream Machine, a disarmingly normal combo headed by Brian Lane, charismatic ex-printer’s proof-reader, and propped by an attractively gaunt, girl-child called Rainbow Day, who, Brian casually announced, exists simply to interpret his ideas, and who was nothing before he built her early this year.
Well, Brian’s plans for Aberystwyth included exploding beach poetry, writ stanzas of phosphorous and magnesium, the first Fluxclinic in the country, and an evening of cool-as-hell experimental films. He also wanted to set the sea on fire.
But somebody got wind of the films, which were not exactly Bethel Sunday school material [...]. And so the films were off.

On the subjet of fire poetry, the town council had reservations. There was a suggestion that a seafront landlord might fire an unwanted property and claim insurance on the ground that the damage was done by a stray incendiary couplet. But permission to use the beach was granted, with a proviso that the organisers took out an insurance indemnity for the entire sea front, or that the recital should be executed in non-combustible materials. But, as Brian said, noncombustible fire poetry is not calculated to pull in the multitudes. So the fire poetry was off.
This left the First Dream Machine with a 12-hour concert of electronic music, the first Fluxclinic, a session of total theatre, a session of minimal theatre, a session of totally minimal totally destructive theatre, and a rapidly run-up Flux Concert. [...]

The marathon concert ran most of its course, and offered works by Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, and Adrian Nutbeem, to name but a few. There was a live performance of ‘The Book of the Silent Rainbow”, a suite of seven phonic poems and their combinations for four voices and three tape-recorders with the silent voice of O. For those who don’t know this work, it helps to realise that the script originates from the measurements taken horizontally and vertically from the seven pixieglass poems designed by Gian Roberto Comini, to name but another. Which was naming one too many for the assembled students of Aber, many of whom had missed the overture in favour of a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown.
There developed an ad-libbed chorus of whistles, catcalls, and belches, not to mention a general rudeness, and several of the young gentlemen of Aber pocketed exibits from Brian’s internationally graphic poetry exhibition, and attempted to turn down the volume of the performance. Whereupon Brian called a halt, although a balloon event for two thirds of a rainbow had been prepared, and had to go begging.
The lads who didn’t like the music said they had been conned, and marched off to the refrain of the Ballad of Kerriemuir. Brian folded his arms behind his head and lay on the stage. “I’ve got this idea for a non-audience happening,” he mused. “So peaceful. So still.”

The next day, Brian, Rainbow Day, and the entire Machine were thinking about going home. Somebody was organising a petition saying they were a con, and an imperious Telewele producer had the performers all cooperating while he gave a brief commentary on the Fluxusclinic. In Welsh. When the film was in the can, he explained with a cheery Welsh smile that he had just told his bilingual audience that the performance was more or less a con. Somebody told him that they thought he was a con, too. In English. Brian clapped his hand to his forehead at the thought of nonaudience events, and I volunteered to be the first person to be Fluxusclinicked, just to cheer them up.
Actually, the Fluxclinic is very much like a Nuffield maths course, minus any educational end product. I found the volume of my mouth by filling it with water and emptying into a measuring glass - 95c.c. I blew out a candle at 5 1/2 feet, and when I couldn’t tell the Flux Tester what colour ball she had in her pocket, she entered on my chart: X-ray vision - none. There’s no point in being fluxed, apart from having a giggle with the bird who is fluking you.’

The Flux Concert was a real success. At one point Brian, who must have proof-read “Trilby” at some time, stood before three Dream Mechanics, including his Rainbow Day, and raised both hands like the Messiah. The girls smiled according to the height at which he held his hands. He lowered them and they stopped, like an orchestra of laughs. Later he Svengalied the lot of us, standing on a balcony with a floodlight playing in our faces where we were enclosed by screens. He showered down leaflets of instructions. War Game. “The pectures you are about to see are silent. You have been provided with materials to make a sound track. Fluxus bids you fight well. God is on your side.”
Slides of cowboy drawings. We pull crackers, burst bags, howl. Somebody chases his mate around the parish hall to hit him. Flux-Pin-Up No. 1 showers down. It is a picture of Brian. Howls from the mob. Another Flux-Pin-Up, and a third. It is the picture of a half-rotten war corpse. People howl and throw streamers, and stick coloured papers on their faces, and somehow behind the light Brian throws us another set of instructions: Caution, Art Corrupts. And all supported by the Welsh Arts Council.

[John Hall, ‘A State of Flux’, The Guardian, 30 Tachwedd 1968]