Dimensions / 20.3×25.4cm (8x10inch)
Medium / B&W Photograph

This photograph shows one of the performances of Festum Fluxorum Fluxus, Musik und Antimusik – Das Instrumentale Theater held in Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1963. Frank Trowbridge seems to be blowing breath or saliva into a long tube, while Tomas Schmit is holding a piece of paper which looks like a musical score and through which the long tube passes. On the left-hand side of the picture, Paik wearing a muffler is watching this performance. The names of Schmit and Trowbridge were listed as artistic collaborators on the poster of Paik’s Exposition of Music – Electronic Television. Schmit assisted Paik with installing and maintaining the exhibition, and its photographic records show him demonstrating the operations of some of the exhibited works at the site. His memoirs included in the catalogue of Paik’s retrospective held in Kölnischer Kunstverein in 1976 are valuable materials that give a detailed description of the historic exhibition. Trowbridge did not actually take part in the exhibition due to the change of its schedule. It was Trowbridge that won Paik’s Fluxus Champion Contest in Festum Fluxorum Fluxus. Paik also wrote Fluxus Hero or Heroine (For Trowbridge): “Piss on the subway tracks and thus stop the train.”