PushingScores/static/files/17/17.blurb.html

George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer,
as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil. He was a key member
of, and influence on, Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centred on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group
from the first performances in Wiesbaden 1962 until Maciunas' death in 1978.

One of the originators of 'participatory' art, in which the artwork can only be experienced by the active involvement of the viewer, he is most
famous for his Event Scores such as Drip Music 1962, and is widely seen as an important precursor to conceptual art. He described his own art as a way of “ensuring that the details of everyday life, the random constellations of objects that surround us, stop going unnoticed.”


SUNDOWN VEHICLE EVENT by GEORGE BRECHT
Left: George Brecht, 1961, Two Vehicle Events, Detail of a 3.5 " by 4.5. card.  One of many similar kinds of instructions that were given to participants.
Right: Vehicles, drivers & interested students gather before sunset for a performance of George Brecht's "Vehicle Sundown Event".
Location: St Vincent College, Latrobe, PA., parking area behind Sportsman's Hall, 1963.

Steve Joy took me to meet  George Brecht in his studio when I was in residence at St Michael's in Manhattan (c.1962). We became friends and GB mailed instruction cards to me.  I brought Steve Joy to St Vincent College when I returned to the monastery from Paris in 1963. GB agreed to provide instructions for an event at St Vincent. For his  "Vehicle Sundown Event", GB published a set of about 50 cards to be given to  participants who participated in the event with their vehicles. Each card held an instruction to be performed with a vehicle. Drivers  were instructed to assemble at sundown in a parking lot and randomly park their vehicles.  Then each driver, with a shuffled deck of instructions, would begin performing at the sound of a signal. Participants  performed about 50 events such as "turn on lights", "start engine", "stop engine", "open window". This work was performed at St Vincent College under the direction of Stephen Joy with Roman Verostko assisting. c. 1963  ( I can confirm that Fr Melvin Ruprecht participated. I believe it was before I went to Washington as NCE editor, rv0