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By the time Benjamin Patterson met John Cage in Cologne in 1960, he was already a classically trained, professional double bassist and assistant conductor. The encounter radically changed Mr. Patterson’s perspective on making art, and its impact was reflected in Paper Piece, created in the same year. In the press material for the album Early Works, released by the label Alga Marghen, he states: "This work cut the umbilical cord to all of my previous classical and contemporary musical training and experience." Two years later, in 1962, Mr. Patterson assisted George Maciunas in the first Fluxus International Festival of the Newest Music in Wiesbaden, Germany. Among the artists presented in the “Fluxconcert” were Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, John Cage, Alison Knowles, Wolf Vostell, and Nam June Paik. Benjamin Patterson was then at the core of Fluxus foundation in Western Europe, and was one of the artists who had critically contributed to the Fluxus legacy. Mostly recognized by his concept of "action as composition," Mr. Patterson appropriates the sound produced by ordinary actions—sometimes leading to extraordinary situations—to compose the score of his symphonies, operas and other musical pieces.

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Read "Benjamin Patterson — A Retrospective Concert" in Performa Magazine. 

Read "Akademia Ruchu: Into a Nightmarish, Unknown Future" in Performa Magazine. 

Akademia Ruchu, "Biuro tłumaczeń, (Translation Agency), Warsaw, 1999. Action by Akademia Ruchu and Komuna Otwock, party of the City Surfing Project, Warsaw. — A one-day temporary "translation agency," established along Krakowskie Przedmieście, one of the busiest streets in Warsaw. A number of seated "experts" were ready to answer any questions that passers-by might ask on everything and to calm doubts arising in the post-communist Polish reality. 

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"Autobus II" (The Bus II), Wetlina, 1975. — One of the first group actions was a tableau vivant titled "Autobus," based on the famous eponymous painting by Bronisław Linke, performed in the village of Wetlina in the Bieszczady Mountains. About thirty perfomers froze in an immobile, live picture of resigned and reckless passengers, their eyes shut, stuck inside a red and derelict vehicle, abandoned on the side of the road, led by a blind driver and heading into a nightmarish, unknown future. 

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"Gazety" (Newspapers), Warsaw, 1977. — A series of actions in which a number of people were queuing to buy a morning paper and each of them, one after another, demonstratively dumped it into the nearest bin after reading the headlines. 

"Okna—autobusy, tramwaje (Windows—Buses, Trams), Łódź, 1977.—A man waiting at a bus stop (the action's originator Jacek Bąkowski) was wiping bus and tram windowns, clearing the view of the sleepy passengers.

"Autobus" (The Bus), Warsaw, 1975.—The first indoor version of the performance. 

"Kino uliczne IV" (Street Cinema IV), Warsaw, 1983.—Many of the interventions carried out by A.R. throughout the 1980s in the deaf years of martial law were focused on communication procedures. The group aimed to encourage independent channels of broadcast and and fantasised about what today would be called social media and citizen journalism. In various episodes of "Kino uliczne" (Street Cinema, 1977–83) the participants were asked to come up with their own news item, and in this case to pass in front of a camera while covering their face with their hands in a sign of protest against the illusion of social communication in the communist-controlled country. The action was announced to the militia as shooting of experimental film, and these films became subject to censorship only after they had been produced, so their making itself was free from being controlled.

"Kolejka donikąd" (Queue to nowhere), Łódź, 1977.—A parallel line was formed next to the existing lining up near the meat shop. 

"Człowiek i jego rzeczy" (Man and His Things), Santarcangelo di Romagna, 1978.—A day-long display of a human figure surrounded by a lexicon of objects that an inhabitant of Western Europe would use in everyday life, things that in the East would usually represent a collection of objects of desire. 

"Życie Codzienne po Wielkiej Rewolucji Francuskiej" (Everyday Life After the Big French Revolution).—Theatre performance that premiered in Łódź 1979, on-going since 1980 in different locations thematising daily life in Poland under martial law, later under Solidarność, and also during the time after the first free elections of 1989. 

"Potkniecie (The Stumble), various places, 1975–77.—"Potkniecie" (The Stumble) was carried out between 1975 and 1977 in various prominent places, often full of propaganda flags, banners, or images of communist leaders. A number of passers-by would stumble one after another, as if in reaction to the particular nature of the place.

"Sprawiedliwość jest ostoją" (Justice Is the Mainstay), Warsaw, 1980.—While the Warsaw court debated a possible legalisation of the Solidarność trade union in the 1980s, A.R. members climbed onto the roof opposite the courthouse and spread a long banner mirroring the inscription on the court building. The group delivered a message back to the judiciary body underlining that the street also has its say. 

"Kino uliczne V" (Street Cinema V), Warsaw, 1983. 

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Originally published in Camera Austria in 2013. Courtesy of Camera Austria.  

In the fall of 2012, the exhibition "Moments. A History of Performance in 10 Acts" at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany looked back at the history of performance within the field of dance and visual arts. The choice of its three curators—Boris Charmatz, Sigrid Gareis, and Georg Schöllhammer—focused on a corpus of artists who questioned the porous borders between performance, dance and visual arts since the 1960s. Ten women, as so many acts, each defined a space for the exhibition: Marina Abramović, Graciela Carnevale, Simone Forti, Anna Halprin, Reinhild Hoffmann, Channa Horwitz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sanja Iveković, Adrian Piper, and Yvonne Rainer.

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Read "In Conversation: Boris Charmatz" in Performa Magazine.