This photograph of Mieko Shiomi performing her Direction Music for Fingers at Washington Square Gallery shows Allan Kaprow (right foreground) consulting a map of Manhattan while Shiomi, arms raised, sits at the center of a new, provisional spatial network. Later taking up the notion of direction again for her Spatial Poem No. 2 (Direction Event) in 1965, Shiomi explained her poetic intent to George Maciunas: “I meant ‘direction’ not only direction on compass [sic], in this poem it is rather the state of consciousness of the relation between yourself and the outside world” (Shiomi to Maciunas, ca. 1965, Getty Research Institute, Jean Brown Papers, 890164, box 31, folder 30).
The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift. Photograph by Peter Moore; © Northwestern University.
