How to Make a Happening for 100 Radios

A Launch for Allan Kaprow’s How To Make a Happening CD
Presented by Primary Information

Maccarone
Saturday, October 11, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

“Primary Information is pleased to announce the CD release of Allan Kaprow’s How to Make a Happening with a one-night only event: How to Make a Happening for 100 Radios. As the title implies, the event will be comprised of Kaprow’s lost classic from 1966 How to Make a Happening broadcast continuously over a small orchestra of 100 FM Radios. The event will take place at Maccarone at 630 Greenwich Street from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

Lost for 40 years, Primary Information has remastered and released How to Make a Happening as a CD, making it accessible on a wide scale for the first time in the title’s history. Simple in construction, yet profound in context, How to Make a Happening is Allan Kaprow delivering 11 rules on how, and how not, to make a Happening, an movement begun by Kaprow in the late fifties that is known for its unpredictability, open scores, and constantly-evolving form.

How to Make a Happening for 100 Radios is an auto-improvised event that you can’t get from the CD alone, yet is based on the both the piece itself as a discursive act and its format as a sound multiple. The installation will consist of 100 radios (of all varieties and ages) tuned to the same frequency, in which the CD will be broadcast, endlessly, from FM transmitters. The performance hinges on the imprecision of radio technology, providing a platform for the broadcasts/frequencies to interact with each other and audience members in an uncontrolled manner as the piece plays out, creating an aurally-roving sound collage.

How to Make a Happening was re-issued with the cooperation of the Estate of Allan Kaprow and the Getty Research Institute. For more information, please email info@primaryinformation.org or visit www.primaryinformation.org

How to Make a Happening for 100 Radios is made possible through the support of Maccarone and Hauser & Wirth.