Reed Altemus, Mary Campbell, and Melissa McCarthy were in Kaunas, Lithuania the week of Oct 16, 2011 participating in the Kaunas Biennial satellite exhibit “George Maciunas And Beyond-Fluxus Never Stops” (curated by Keith A. Buchholz) to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Happenings of George Maciunas in New York City. During the week they performed Fluxus scores throughout the city written by international artists.

My score, titled “Screw Head,” was performed by Melissa McCarthy and narrated by Reed Altemus:

Stand looking straight ahead, arms at your side

Lift arms

With a hand placed on each side of the hat, lift bowler hat straight up by a couple of inches

Turn the bowler around 180 degrees

Lower the hat to sit on the head

Lower arms

Lift arms

With a hand on each side of the hat, lift bowler hat straight up by a couple of inches Turn your body around 180 degrees

Lower the hat to sit on the head

Lower arms

I wrote the score to explore a different perspective on the popular joke: “How many X’s does it take to screw in a light bulb?” The head’s shape is similar to a light blub and we often think of new ideas as the “light bulb” in the head going on. I then explored different ideas on how to actually make it look like the head is being screwed by using a bowler hat as a point of reference while the hat turns. The alternate action was to turn the body with the hat being a relatively stationary object. The intention of the performance is to be funny, a bit absurd, and to make the audience think about the human body and our connection to common objects.