Dear Fluxlisters,
Alan Bowman asked the purpose of Secret Fluxus.
Secret Fluxus is a cooperative group of four women and four men living in the UK. We came together in 2003 to perform the work of Fluxus artists in classic Fluxconcerts and performances of single events.
There are eight of us in the group, an architect, two designers, an art student, an artist (who is also a chef), a psychologist, a schoolteacher, and a solicitor. Boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands and an occasional cousin or children sometimes join us.
We perform historical work in our concerts and performances for two reasons. One is that the available collections are historical. The other is that the work is alive in its own right without regard to the date of creation. When we can find new work by Fluxus artists, we include it.
We use the 50% rule on Fluxconcert contents for concerts where 50% or more of the program is work by Fluxus artists and composers. We sometimes include work by other artists and composers.
We are not Fluxus artists. We are a performance ensemble. We perform work we value. Think of us as a chamber orchestra or a sinfonietta. We are not trying to become Fluxus artists or Fluxus composers. We perform their work using scores as musicians do when they play Bach or Webern.
One of the responses our note compared us with Beatles imitators. This is not at all our interest. Beatles imitators are attempting to become the Beatles in some sense. We are not attempting to become Fluxus artists.
Our concerts do not involve nostalgia any more than it is nostalgic to perform Bach or Webern. The work is alive for us. This is why we perform it.
Because the works we perform have a life of their own, we are interested in the history of the work and the role it played in contemporary art and music. Developing an awareness of these issues and learning more about the work helps us to understand the work better, and we believe it helps us to realize a richer interpretation of the events we perform. Anyone who has worked in theatre or opera recognizes the role that history and background research plays in dramaturgy. This is the case for us. Dramaturgy is as important to work composed this year as it is for work composed two decades or two centuries ago.
We perform anonymously and claim no credit for this work. The original Fluxus artists were not anonymous. They signed their work. We perform the work of other artists and give them full credit for their work. Anonymity is our strategy to focus attention on the artists and their work rather than to focus it on ourselves.
We have enjoyed the opportunity to correspond with several of the original Fluxus artists, including Alison Knowles, Ken Friedman, and Larry Miller. We have also had some contact with Bengt af Klintberg. We do not ask these artists to take responsibility for our ideas or the way we present their work.
Alison Knowles recently invited us to perform with her, but we declined rather than compromise our anonymity. This has led to a great debate among our members. Some of us feel this was a mistake, while others wish to remain anonymous. Individual members are free to perform under their own names and to collaborate with Fluxus artists if they keep secret their identity as members of Secret Fluxus. More than one group member has done so. Others have attended concerts and exhibitions of the original Fluxus artists, and some maintain a personal contact. What members do in their private life obviously affects what we know and think about Fluxus, but it does not affect what we state about our work.
We joined Fluxlist because of the statement of purpose. Most of us are active members of email discussion groups in other fields, and we know that any list goes through different phases. There is room for many different kinds of list activity. The issue that we raised involves the PROPORTION of activities. What we were hoping for is more of the different kinds of activities announced in the statement of purpose. A look through the Fluxlist archive shows that list activity involves only a tiny proportion of the activities in the statement of purpose. Since we joined, the largest amount of activity seems to involve word games, interpersonal chat, a small amount of correspondence for creating projects, and people displaying their own work. We do not believe this to be bad. We are unhappy that this seems to be all there is on the list. This is not nostalgia or historicism. We are not stirring bones in the graveyard. We are performing live work.
We know that most Fluxus artists do not discuss their own history at festivals. There is a good reason for this. The original Fluxus artists know their own history because they were there. There have been times when Fluxus artists were interested in discussing ideas, however, and in publishing documentation and critical or historical writing. Most of the original Fluxus artists who did that kind of work and enjoyed those kinds of conversation are dead. From what we have heard, Mr. Bowman would have experienced different kinds of conversation among the artists at other times, especially when the living members of the group included Dick Higgins and George Maciunas, and when Henry Flynt, Ken Friedman, and Jackson Mac Low were more active than he is now.
We subscribed to Fluxlist because a friend told us that Fluxlist is a forum that welcomes discussions of Fluxus history along with issues in contemporary criticism and inquiry on intermedia. From what we have seen, this is not often the case. Discussions of history, criticism, or theory occupy a tiny fraction of list volume � significantly less than 5%. List members seem to consider the suggestion that we discuss these kinds of issues from time to time a bad idea. We gather that this has been the case on Fluxlist in the past.
Dave-Baptiste Chirot seems to think that we are commenting on the list from the digest as though we are reading summaries. We are not. Fluxlist Digest is a complete transcript of all list transmissions. Instead of sending them one at a time, the list software gathers several into a bundle and sends them in one go like a newspaper or magazine. We read everything that all list members read. We base our views on what we have read over the past months. There is a list archive on the web at
Mr. Chirot writes:
it seems odd to critique from a digest rather than from a place of direct participation--
a watchdog operation? covert directives?--one can't help but play and wonder--
is secret fluxus a sort of research group on fluxus, its history and manifestations in the present?
and what does secret fluxus do in this reagrd?
We hope this letter has answered these questions. We believe that engaging ourselves directly in the work is a place of direct participation.
Sincerely,
Secret Fluxus
From the welcome letter to Fluxlist:
The Purpose of Fluxlist<
The purpose of Fluxlist is to examine and consider the range of concerns that typify Fluxus and intermedia.
This might include such topics as:
Art Art history Art practice Art theory Artist books in theory and practice Artist housing Artist periodicals Artist stamps Book culture Book reviews Books Concept art Concrete poetry Correspondence art Current work by historical Fluxus artists Current work by new Fluxus artists Digital media Exhibitions Film Fluxus Fluxus history Happenings Historical work by historical Fluxus artists Historical work by artists related to Fluxus Historical work by intermedia artists Information society issues Intermedia Internet Internet culture John Cage Mail art Mail art projects and events Minimalist art Multimedia Music Music composition Musicality New music New work by contemporary artists in the Fluxus tradition News of relevant listserv discussions on other lists Performance Performance art Radicalism in art Research notes Research reports Research requests Shared projects for list members URL pointers with descriptions of interesting web sites Video Web site reviews Zines
We are interested in the rich web of circumstances and ideas that Fluxus represents as well as in the historical Fluxus. The past four decades of Fluxus activity gave pointers and signals. Members are welcome to develop Fluxlist topics as they deem appropriate.
We hope that Fluxlist will become a premier forum for conversation and interaction on these topics. We want to create a rich locus for the exchange of information on the theory and practice of what Dick Higgins termed the arts of the new mentality and the intermedia art forms.
Fluxlist offers a forum for considering the early history of media and intermedia ideas that have now taken on a rich identity of their own. It is also a forum for considering the rich ecological framework within which these distinct media and intermedia still intersect. Fluxlist operates within the concept of the Fluxus laboratory. It is open to the history of ideas and the archeology of developments that are not always evident in single-discipline discussions or the framework of single media.
All kinds of discussion and participation are welcome.
Invitation with suggestions<
We actively invite notes, comments, and contributions on any of the subjects or topics listed. Essays, letters, or lengthy reports of topical subjects are welcome, along with conversation and discussion on prior posts.
Along with the obvious invitation to historians and theorists of the past, we encourage active artists to present, discuss, and theorize their work.
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