Experimental Universe

By Andrew Frost

As the MCA’s summer Yoko Ono: WAR IS OVER blockbuster heads toward the end of its run some of the more interesting of Ono’s early film works are being screened as part of a limited season Experimental Universe: Re-Enactments and Imaginings. The fascination of Ono’s art for many younger artists has been her Fluxus-inspired pieces that devise instructions for other artists to create works but without predetermined conclusions. In that spirit, curators Joel Stern and Danni Zuvela devised a program of performances, screenings and music to celebrate and extend Ono’s work into a contemporary setting.

“Film scores are blueprints for potential films; unlike traditional/industrial film scripts, which are prescriptive, film scores encourage an “open work”, one which is, arguably, co-created by the score originator and the interpreter,” writes the curators. “In the mid-1960s, reflecting her contact with fluxus ideas, Ono produced a number of highly imaginative scores for films which were never translated into film works.” Experimental Universe concludes its two night series on February 14 with pieces by David Haines, Nathan Gray and Artists Film Workshop with interpretations of Ono’s Six Film Scripts [1964] and Imaginary Film Series [1968], and a sonic tribute to the Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band by Bum Creek.

February 14

Museum of Contemporary Art, The Rocks

Pic: Yoko Ono, editing the film Rape, 1969.