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

Graphis series, for which Dick Higgins took inspiration partly from John Cage with whom he studied in 1958, is based on the idea of an “un-semantic, even choreographic” script, a drawing or graphic score that looks like a blueprint or layout for actions. Against the traditional theater that specified what performers should do and say by means of scripts made up of a sequence of events, the Graphis series was in pursuit of an ‘abstract’ style of plays free from any fixed time structures and acting conventions. Its graphic notations were all about movements and sounds which could be produced by or with the human body, as if calligraphically, out of material settings of the stage. Over 130 pieces of this series make use of different forms and matters. With Graphis No.119 performed in Festum Fluxorum Fluxus, Musik und Antimusik – Das Instrumentale Theater held in Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1963, large wooden blocks were pushed across the stage first, and then Higgins walked to the stage, followed by Frank Trowbridge, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Tomas Schmit, Arthur Køpcke, Wolf Vostell, George Maciunas, Daniel Spoerri and Alison Knowles. Leaning forward and watching the ground, they were attentive to Higgins reciting his score.