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I think what makes Fluxus so dynamic and
interesting to me is that there is no definition- I wish people would
just accept that. The appealing idea is that Fluxus is inclusive.
Artists spend most of their careers being rejected which is why Fluxus
is so refreshing--or should I just go be a Neoist?? Dawg
I think that your misinformed on that dawg. I am under the impression that the old guys want to keep things a closed ciruit (except maybe Don and maybe ken). I think it is inclusive in theory and in lip service and less so in actual apparent practice - but that's just hear say on my part. Personally, I am all for wide open but since historification of fluxus seems to be leading to fosilisation of same this would seem to be helping to fortify making fluxus a closed set. People like Allen Bukoff whose work I have always admired and who seems to me was doing a lot of serious fluxus work and who seems to have become so disheartened as to shut down fluxus.org - a great website. Is he just a disgruntled isolationist from Michigan or is what he has to say a valid point? Allen Revich basicly suggests the same thing in his last letter - get one of the old fluxus guys to give your work the thumbs up. I say fuck that. We'll let them know if WE give what they did the thumbs up. That's the way it is. Time shakes out the chaff. As far as I am concerned - if this permission from the source is the case (and what would I know after all) - they're like a bunch of old DOS programers that don't want to advance with the times and keep growing. Again, Allan Bowman reveals a similar bias and - even knowing a lot of these people personally won't claim to be a part of it - presumably because of his precieved weak position historically or in terms of attitude or in terms of not being considered "in" by the in crowd or through personal experience decided that they were some completely other sort of people that he at first thought and wants nothing to do with them. (please inform us of the reality of that allan - I am just stirring the pot here). That is an old buddy buddy system sounds like to me. We need to consider that carefully. If we're global and I mean we on this list, we have to move past the buddy buddy thing. It is natural that people become friends after so many years and it is natural that the older people get the less interested they are and the less energy they have to keep expanding so it is quite natural that the old guys are tired and not too accessable. It is time to put them to pasture and keep moving. They need to be writing the old retired guy scores like.
The other thing is, there is in fact definition to fluxus even if that definition is somewhat ambiguous and fluid. It is not wide open as in go do whatever you want and just put a fluxus label on it. If there wasn't any definition to it then what the hell are you doing here? what makes you think there is anything fluxus if there is nothing defining it? It is just a stupid word after all. Still, you may well be right. It is maybe like monty cantsin. Open pop art - anyone is a fluxus artist if they say they are. Hell, why not? Below Allen writes this: "For the last 20 years, an increasing number of mostly young, bright, and talented people have been showing up and knocking on the Fluxus club house door … and almost all of you have either been too deaf or self-centered to hear them, or worse, you have continued to wring your hands over whether anyone should or could open the door (the issue of who has the "authority" to welcome and declare new Fluxus artists has been a convenient excuse). All you really had to do was open the door and show a little kindness. Why has that been so hard for all of you to do?" Well, I tell you today my friends. In the name of Allen Bukoff the FluxNexus is the next phase. Why FluxNexus? It has the word fluxus in it, it has the extra letters nex embedded which suggests next or nexgen or nexible or annex, it has the word nexus in it, and the domain name was available. I hereby as a member of the IPDG authorize and deputize myself and any other member of fluxlist or the fluxnexus to work with flux ideas and invite anyone else to do so that wishes to without regard of any past networks. (in case any one needs authorization) You are hereby approved to do so and if anybody doesn't like it just send them to me. From this day forward we shall begin a new program. This program shall include these 13 FluxNexus Ideas (among other things) 1 - assessing the individual fluxus works of the past as to their feasibility for future use and either leave them in the dump as old fashioned or lacking currency or take them from the shelf, brush them off, reinvent them and use for future events 2 - begin an open recruitment program for young people to get in on the fun and introduce flux ideas into new cultures that will lead to a new dynamic where every fluxfest is used as a recruitment event 3 - do what we do because we like it 4 - cooperate with each other on new projects, 5 - acknowledge each other in our work (self validation) 6 - begin proposing what fluxus will become 7 - Become openly self authorizing and establish a flux tradition while abandoning the cult of fluxus proper. 8 - create a central location and archival system to document our new work (ontologicalmuseum.org is a good basket for that) 9 - (fill in the blank) 10 - (fill in the blank) 11 - (fill in the blank) 12 - (fill in the blank) 13 - (fill in the blank) Just this very hour I have received this application from Australia to become a part of the fluxnexus... i am interested in becoming a member as i am currently studying fine arts at university and i have discovered this particular group (fluxnexus) and am very interested. i am doing a small essay on the movement regarding the places in which the art itself slips into modernism or postmodernism. if you could direct me to any usefull web sites or books i'd be very greatfull. i am interested in perhaps practicing within the guidelines of the fluxus movement but am not yet well enough informed. i hope that by joining your group i will be able to fast track my understanding of the movement and get started. regardsAnd what shall I tell this young woman? Sorry, fluxus is dead, no one's home, go away. or What if we devise a beginner's do it yourself FluxNexus kit? A sort of welcome wagon, new comer's packet? Come on, let's have some fun! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- refered to letter ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An open letter to the remaining 1st and 2nd generation Fluxus AYO Many are called, but none are now chosen. 6 January 2005 Dear Fluxus, I was very fond of Emily Harvey. I miss her a lot. I am sorry I will not be there to help you honor and remember Emily Harvey tonight. Emily Harvey's passing marks a passing for me, too. I am walking away from Fluxus. It is, unfortunately, unnecessary to announce my departure: most of you don't even know me. You probably didn't even realize that I am a part of Fluxus and that I operate and host a number of websites that have promoted Fluxus for the last nine years. And none of you have ever acknowledged that I am, in fact, an active Fluxus artist who has pioneered new directions and forged new sensibilities in Fluxus for more than 20 years now. That is why I am leaving. Twenty years ago I fell in love with Fluxus and the monumental creative revolutions you all initiated more than 40 years ago. You changed and expanded what creativity and knowing means. You changed Western culture. You changed the world. You ripped a new hole in the universe. And you did it with simple little ideas, games, objects, performances, and concepts. I will always admire your astonishing accomplishments. What you did was so big that no historian, writer, collector, or curator has ever gotten their arms around it satisfactorily. But an equally astonishing thing has been going on in Fluxus for the last twenty years. You have been letting Fluxus die. At one time you welcomed people to Fluxus. You recruited people to Fluxus. I know you have always been a contentious lot, but there was a time when the Fluxus door was open, you invited people in, and you made it grow. You embraced a "second wave" of Fluxus artists-e.g., Ken Friedman, Larry Miller. You encouraged new Fluxus work and new Fluxus projects. But as far as I can tell, this pretty much stopped 20 or more years ago (Friedman's Young Fluxus show in 1982 is the last time any of you sponsored a show of "new" Fluxus artists). What happened to you? Letting Fluxus die is a terrific and unnecessary shame and I place most of the blame on you (the people to whom this letter is addressed). I blame you individually and I blame you collectively. You have served Fluxus poorly during these last 20 years and you are letting Fluxus die. It didn't have to be this way. For the last 20 years, an increasing number of mostly young, bright, and talented people have been showing up and knocking on the Fluxus club house door … and almost all of you have either been too deaf or self-centered to hear them, or worse, you have continued to wring your hands over whether anyone should or could open the door (the issue of who has the "authority" to welcome and declare new Fluxus artists has been a convenient excuse). All you really had to do was open the door and show a little kindness. Why has that been so hard for all of you to do? During the last 20 years many different people have been "called" to Fluxus. I am one of those people. We learned about Fluxus in one way or another and were struck by lightning, had an epiphany…and generally felt we had found a place where we really belonged. We had hoped to find a home in Fluxus. And many of just started doing and being Fluxus in our own way…much like all of the original Fluxus folks had their own individual understanding and gifts for Fluxus activities. And one way or another as we have gotten stronger in our own Fluxus work, we have stepped forward and tried to share this work with you. Needing to find some acknowledgement and encouragement from the people who launched this Fluxus ship. We approached you with respect. We approached you as Fluxus authorities. We knocked on the door and you did not answer. The most that some of you have been able to do for a whole new generation of Fluxus artists is hand us some tedious book on Fluxus so we could "study up," or you smiled patronizingly and encouraged us to attend your next exhibition. You didn't even seem to consider that any of these new folks could take you and Fluxus some place new and exciting where it hadn't been before. And frankly, some of these new Fluxus folks have been doing more interesting work and more truly Fluxus work than many of you have been doing during the last 20 years. Many bright and talented people have not stayed long to knock, however. They heard the authoritative pronouncements that Fluxus was "dead" or "over." This was very confusing and discouraging-many of us could feel the spirit of Fluxus alive in ourselves and in our own work, so we couldn't understand how Fluxus could be dead. But you didn't answer the door and many eventually walked away. I have knocked longer than most-for more than 20 years now since I founded Fluxus Midwest in 1982. Dick Higgins and Emily Harvey (and Carolee Schneemann) were the only ones to acknowledge and encourage my own Fluxus work and experiments, but now Dick and now Emily are gone, I'm out in the cold, and I'm tired of knocking. So I am packing up my Fluxus bags, and taking my creativity and energies elsewhere. I am closing down the many internet websites I have constructed and hosted to promote and honor Fluxus: The Fluxus Portal, the Fluxus Homepage, the Emily Harvey Gallery, the Museum of the Sub-Conscious, the Dick Higgins memorial website, and numerous other webpages promoting the work of many original Fluxus artists. I doubt that many of you will notice. I have also walked away from FLUXLIST-the pioneering Fluxus email discussion group that I co-founded with Dick and Ken Friedman. FLUXLIST is another example of what I am talking about. Most of you could never even bother to subscribe. By not participating you have missed a great audience and a wonderful chance to discover and encourage many new Fluxus artists and to learn about their work. It would have given you back more energy than it would have taken. Almost all of you have failed to recognize three obvious things about Fluxus--about the Fluxus you helped create!
You all have spent so much time during the last 20 years trying to shape your legacy and the legacy of Fluxus, and few if any of you are satisfied with the results-the exhibitions, the collections, the books. Instead of trying to manage Old Fluxus you could have been leading a new group of Fluxus artists to explore new Fluxus directions and new Fluxus territory? Wouldn't it have been a lot more energizing and a lot more fun to fan new Fluxus flames than struggle with collectors who have catalogued your work but failed to capture your spirit or the scope of your actual accomplishments? I can only imagine that if George Maciunas were alive today he might have excommunicated you all by now and found a new and younger gang of Fluxus rabble rousers to continue his mischievousness. I imagine him cooking up guerrilla art activities and staging "terrorist" art attacks against some of the collectors and historians who demean him and you by saying Fluxus was no bigger than him and no bigger than you. Fluxus has the potential to be a bigger, more vibrant and creative force in the world today than even the project George Maciunas imagined. Certainly the world's need for the expanded creativity and the knowing that Fluxus provides is greater than ever. Because of the availability of more publications and catalogs documenting Fluxus work and because of the internet, more people know more about Fluxus than ever before. Fluxus is attracting more people than ever before-as much outside the art world as in. More people than ever before want to participate in and make their own contribution to Fluxus. But you-the founders, the brave pioneers-have turned your backs on them. And you have turned your backs on a marvelous opportunity to expand your legacy and help Fluxus continue. Sincerely, Allen Bukoff, PhD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And all of this leads
back to the question What in the plastic arts can be thought of as a
fluxus work and how does one go about the process of creating such a
work (in terms of a working method or studio practices)? cecil touchon |
- Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Cecil Touchon
- Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Cecil Touchon
- Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Rod Stasick
- FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Cecil Touchon
- Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Rod Stasick
- Re: Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS alanfffo
- Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS Carol Starr
- Re: Re: FLUXLIST: FLUXUS AND THE PLASTIC ARTS alanfffo
