On 18 June 2002, Benjamin Patterson staged a realization of George Brecht’s Drip Music (Drip Event) (1959–62) at the Paris venue La Ménagerie de Verre as part of a fortieth-anniversary celebration of Fluxus organized by Bertrand and Claudia Clavez. Patterson’s interpretation, executed that evening by Johan Barbereau, Fleur Spolidor, and Gilles Costantini (pictured left to right), featured a custom instrument designed and built by Patterson and Bertrand Clavez. The apparatus included three water bottles (principally meant for feeding animals) adapted to drip continuously onto an overturned plastic garden container whose shape was designed to hold three flowerpots. Contact microphones amplified the sound of water dripping onto the container’s drum-like surface.
As Patterson explained of his motivation, “I decided to re-examine the original score, rather than rely on my memory of performances of the traditional interpretations of these works. Thus, I discovered that Brecht’s original instructions allowed for both a single source or multiple sources of dripping water. Remembering George’s first career as a chemist, employing laboratory equipment to produce multiple, dripping sources seemed appropriate” (personal correspondence from Benjamin Patterson to Alan Dunn, 2008). Bertrand Clavez elaborates: “The idea was to recall the scientific/lab/chemistry origins of the score (reminiscent of Burette Music [1959]) by staging a device served by three performers wearing protection glasses, gloves, and lab coats. Each of them would carry a glass of water, pour it into the bottle, step back, and then listen carefully to the sound” (personal correspondence from Bertrand Clavez to Natilee Harren, 2017).
