Re: FLUXLIST: HNY!! II Dad
Keys go to buZ blurR in arkansas to help him fill up Rust Never Rusts with misc keys... --- suse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what about the keys?... *** [EMAIL PROTECTED] writ: can I borrow some money? just wondering... From: Alan Bowman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ask your mother! __ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com
FLUXLIST: FFFO Scores
Dear All, The Freeformfreakout Organisation is somewhat bemused to announce the arrival of yet another page of junk by Bowman. By surfing on over to http://art.supereva.it/alanfffo.superdada/scores/scores.html you'll find a pile of pebbles and neon widgets behind which you'll find 23 (yes! t-w-e-n-t-y-t-h-r-e-e!) scores which were found lying around FFFO HQ. Some are old, some are newish and others are quite probably somewhere else on the site! You never know, there might even be something there that makes it all worthwhile Go on, have a look around (please!) Yours Anna Wombal FFFO 'Look What We Found Under The Sideboard' Division visit the FREEFORMFREAKOUT ORGANISATION online! http://freeformfreakoutorganisation.net
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
Allen is right. Fluxus has devolved into the sad spectacle of those who originally disdained canonicity desperately trying to ensure the presence of their own work in the canon. It's a bit pathetic. Fluxus, the original entity, has become a collection of objects and texts of interest only to academics, such as Hannah Higgins, bless her good intentions, whose new PhD will only sift another layer of dust over the legacy that she's preserving. Shows of Fluxus artifacts, like the one at the Walker Art Center a couple of years ago, are an incredible yawn, heaps of paper in vitrines. They are evidence of the end of the thing. Fluxus isn't meant to be an archive, it's meant to be a practice, and such practices cannot be owned. The current discourse around the idea of copyright that has been sparked by the internet illuminates this as well. There is a potential in the net for great and radical changes in the notion of the creative practice and its relation to the individual and to the culture at large. This potential is intimately related to the possibilities that Fluxus opened. So why, then, do later practicitioners want a relation to the name Fluxus? Why don't we simply call it something else, Flewage, whatever? Because the practice known as Fluxus is a legitimate component in what is happening, and it's weird and cumbersome to be forced to ignore it, a kind of falsification. Plus, to stop using the word is to acknowledge that a group of people who once pursued the practice own the word and its attributes, even own the practice. It's sort of like being disowned by one's parents. If my father insisted that the name Klefstad was his, and that all the characteristics that it implied stopped with him, because he owned the word and its attributes, and said, Find your own name, that would be analogous to the sad and paranoid behavior of the Fluxus artists I've witnessed, from the Anderson/Friedman feud to the notion that the term Fluxus was reserved for the chosen few, even if that meant that the practice was doomed. I think we should just hijack the word. Ann Klefstad On 1/7/05 9:27 AM, Alan Bowman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Allen Bukoff has asked me to forward this to all. I request that you all read it and give it just consideration. Allen, in my opinion, has had more to offer on the 'Fluxus' front than many in recent years. Wether the F word matters or not is one thing, Allen and Fluxus Midwest has/have provided a valuable source of fluxus art amusement over the years, and before it goes... CHECK OUT http://fluxus.org and it's related sites. ab MESSAGE FOLLOWS Many are called, but none are now chosen. An open letter to 1st and 2nd generation Fluxus AYO Eric Andersen Henry Flynt Ken Friedman Geoff Hendricks Alison Knowles Larry Miller Yoko Ono Nam June Paik Ben Patterson Carolee Schneemann Ben Vautier Lamonte Young Emmet Williams -other names to be added to this list, as I distribute it. 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 little 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
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
Ann is right. Either hijack the word Or, exchange for it Weetabix (Sp? See archives)--then, if Weetabix becomes well known, we can always write the history as Fluxus begat weetabix. Thats all for now. Right on and write on Allen! - Original Message - From: Ann Klefstad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FLUXLIST@scribble.com Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 10:52 AM Subject: Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff Allen is right. Fluxus has devolved into the sad spectacle of those who originally disdained canonicity desperately trying to ensure the presence of their own work in the canon. It's a bit pathetic. Fluxus, the original entity, has become a collection of objects and texts of interest only to academics, such as Hannah Higgins, bless her good intentions, whose new PhD will only sift another layer of dust over the legacy that she's preserving. Shows of Fluxus artifacts, like the one at the Walker Art Center a couple of years ago, are an incredible yawn, heaps of paper in vitrines. They are evidence of the end of the thing. Fluxus isn't meant to be an archive, it's meant to be a practice, and such practices cannot be owned. The current discourse around the idea of copyright that has been sparked by the internet illuminates this as well. There is a potential in the net for great and radical changes in the notion of the creative practice and its relation to the individual and to the culture at large. This potential is intimately related to the possibilities that Fluxus opened. So why, then, do later practicitioners want a relation to the name Fluxus? Why don't we simply call it something else, Flewage, whatever? Because the practice known as Fluxus is a legitimate component in what is happening, and it's weird and cumbersome to be forced to ignore it, a kind of falsification. Plus, to stop using the word is to acknowledge that a group of people who once pursued the practice own the word and its attributes, even own the practice. It's sort of like being disowned by one's parents. If my father insisted that the name Klefstad was his, and that all the characteristics that it implied stopped with him, because he owned the word and its attributes, and said, Find your own name, that would be analogous to the sad and paranoid behavior of the Fluxus artists I've witnessed, from the Anderson/Friedman feud to the notion that the term Fluxus was reserved for the chosen few, even if that meant that the practice was doomed. I think we should just hijack the word. Ann Klefstad On 1/7/05 9:27 AM, Alan Bowman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Allen Bukoff has asked me to forward this to all. I request that you all read it and give it just consideration. Allen, in my opinion, has had more to offer on the 'Fluxus' front than many in recent years. Wether the F word matters or not is one thing, Allen and Fluxus Midwest has/have provided a valuable source of fluxus art amusement over the years, and before it goes... CHECK OUT http://fluxus.org and it's related sites. ab MESSAGE FOLLOWS Many are called, but none are now chosen. An open letter to 1st and 2nd generation Fluxus AYO Eric Andersen Henry Flynt Ken Friedman Geoff Hendricks Alison Knowles Larry Miller Yoko Ono Nam June Paik Ben Patterson Carolee Schneemann Ben Vautier Lamonte Young Emmet Williams -other names to be added to this list, as I distribute it. 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 little 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
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
hi alen i saw it on fluxlist so it is going through. bests, c xx Alan Bowman wrote: Allen Bukoff has asked me to forward this to all. I request that you all read it and give it just consideration. Allen, in my opinion, has had more to offer on the 'Fluxus' front than many in recent years. Wether the F word matters or not is one thing, Allen and Fluxus Midwest has/have provided a valuable source of fluxus art amusement over the years, and before it goes... CHECK OUT http://fluxus.org and it's related sites. ab MESSAGE FOLLOWS Many are called, but none are now chosen. An open letter to 1st and 2nd generation Fluxus AYO Eric Andersen Henry Flynt Ken Friedman Geoff Hendricks Alison Knowles Larry Miller Yoko Ono Nam June Paik Ben Patterson Carolee Schneemann Ben Vautier Lamonte Young Emmet Williams -other names to be added to this list, as I distribute it. 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 little 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
FLUXLIST: Re:letter
hi allen, having read your letter i can only say why are you killing fluxus too? by shutting down all the web sites and going away from fluxlist you help perpetuate the fluxus is dead situation. i can see you might be tired of moderating the list but to totally kill the wole thing seems like throwing out the baby with the bath water. what do you care about that small group when you know and so stated that fluxus has and does continue. like you i was stuck by everything fluxus when i joined the list in 96. my thinking and work about fluxus really doesn't have anything to do with what official fluxus thinks. i love doing it and the way i now think about what art is. no group governs that for any of us. whatever you do i have enjoyed virtually knowing you and participating in klonike was a blast. very bests, carol xx
FLUXLIST: Tinnitus
Tinnitus bush enirtal rushed your misting bug srekcink crawled your business sink gnihcnurc jammed your noodle dumb gnidlacs plowed your seeper change caidrac boiled your incher sob gnilkcuhc dormed your tubing jerks gniniahc plunged your socklint bonk slobber degnul ruoy tsilkcen joke ecneitnes flowed your bootleg shunt erutrot glowed your wallet dash sucof blazed your tinnitus John M. Bennett __ Dr. John M. Bennett Curator, Avant Writing Collection Rare Books Manuscripts Library The Ohio State University Libraries 1858 Neil Av Mall Columbus, OH 43210 USA (614) 292-3029 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.johnmbennett.net ___
FLUXLIST: Thank you to Ann Kelfsatd for Fuxus/Practice/Unownea
Dear Friends Fellow Workers:
I have just been rereading the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti--they are part of a project/book working on--on the theme across many examples i am working with, the theme of finding liberty and work to do even in the most limiting (in prison awaiting execution after all!) of circumstances . . .
it is related to this so beautifully presented and , for myself, so accurate, so vitally aware and alive sentence from among al the wonderful, powerful sentences in Ann Kelfstad's magnificent letter:
"Fluxus isn't mean to be an archive, it's meant to be a practice, and such practices cannot be owned."
YES!!--truly in a crude way to put it: "you can't just talk the talk, you got to walk the walk"--
(would you walk a mile for a Camel?--damn straight i have--)
this empohasis on Fluxus as activity, practice, is to me the core of Fluxus--we may have traces, documents, records of events--yet what was truly Fluxus was the event itself--
the way to honor this is to continue to LIVE it--walking along in the world, for "the world as we see it is passing"--ephemeral--to honor this ever moving, changing Flux--
"the basis of poetry is change in the universe"--Basho--
Baudelaire's definition of modernism: the conjcuntion of the eternal with int the ephermeal--
in this way i find the Maciunus link to Mail Art: The Eteranl Netwrok--
in Mail Art, the works, communication/community--is freely given--not owned --
part of why i work with found materials mainly--is just such an honoring of the not owned--to uswe refuse is to refuse the sytsems of ownership--for you are making use of what was thrown away, junk--or broekn gfragements, torn from their ctagories within being objects with names and classifications--now they truly are uncanny sites/sights/cites of recognition--
to recognize and honor and also to thank--what it is all around one--"the common thing anonymously about us" --
this is as Ann notes a contnually ongoing practioce: "Preliminary work goes on incessantly--evry meeting, every street corner, every encounter is material for poetry"--
the simplest activity opens new wqorlds for activity, practice:
"Cezanne noting that by moving his head an inch to either right or left, there was completely new motif--
this movement is never owned, for it keeps on moving--at once here--and there-
"The Dadaist is one who enjoys life in all its varity and says it is not only here --but there, there (('da, da')"
"No final glossary, then, can be made of words whose intentions are fugitive"--
I had a dream two days ago--in which i was continually being pursued by a presence, a person perhaps--a presence--and each thing i had was taken away and made a possesion by their presence, omnivourous--it wanted every shred of what i ahd, which was next to nothing--it appeared to be much, as my eyes and being were open and brimming continually with so much--yet fleeing this cntuanly being among sites/sights/cites--andf the presence wanting to posesses even the faculty of my way of seeing-
at one point fleegin and al the while observing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting--this that is--in the Mt Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA--very lovely parts with flower lined walkways among small trees, tombs, vaults--then--suddenly in a vast delta--rice fields--running swift to the ground--the presence searching futiley for me--to find suddenly that one is free--a kind of guerrilla among this continual beauty and danger-
yet it cannot be owned nor put in the archive, this freddom in the practice--
each i can go anywhere making rubBEings of things found, ormake clay impressions to uselater with spray paint and primitvie as it were printing methods (spray paint on impressions, rub on to paper--), copy art of rubBEings--finding objects and letterings in the street---non of this owned--al around one--free--
alsoi fel free of being called "Fluxus"--i have neve consdiered myself as that, nor any other name--
to me the actions speak louder than the words, because--in the end, one's own wrods may betray one
yet the activity of the practice, eludes all deinfitions, boundaries, any sort of prisons of being--
as foir names--i am the one called david
e
i have been thinking again of some of Fluxu's relations with Eastern Thought-
From: Ann Klefstad [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: FLUXLIST@scribble.com
To: "FLUXLIST@scribble.com" FLUXLIST@scribble.com
Subject: Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 09:52:14 -0600
Allen is right. Fluxus has devolved into the sad spectacle of those who
originally disdained canonicity desperately trying to ensure the presence of
their own work in the canon. It's a bit pathetic.
Fluxus, the original entity, has become a collection of objects and texts of
interest only to academics, such as Hannah Higgins, bless her good
intentions, whose new PhD will only sift another layer of dust over the
legacy that she's preserving. Shows of Fluxus artifacts, like the one at the
Walker Art Center a couple of
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
wow!!! Since Allan is no longer a member of Fluxlist he won't see this reaction to his letter(isn't that always the way) just like the originators of Fluxus won't see his letter. I just have one thing to say without getting into all the crap about- should Fluxus exist and how, etc. I say this: Why not subscribe to the Buddhist philosophy of it is perfect because it exists. You know--don't worry be happy kind of stuff. by Madawg
Re: FLUXLIST: from fluxus to weetabix synchronicity
In a message dated 1/7/05 9:06:41 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ann is right. Either hijack the word Or, exchange for it "Weetabix" (Sp? See archives)--then, if Weetabix becomes well known, we can always write the history as Fluxus begat weetabix. Thats all for now. Right on and write on Allen! speaking of weetabix they just started carrying it in the stores around here. I picked up a box-Im glad to see that it's organic! You can't get interrupted while you eat it though-gets too soggy
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
Well, actually the originators of Fluxus have received his letter as he sent it to all that had an email address. Bertrand - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FLUXLIST@scribble.com Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 9:33 PM Subject: Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff wow!!! Since Allan is no longer a member of Fluxlist he won't see this reaction to his letter(isn't that always the way) just like the originators of Fluxus won't see his letter.
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
In a message dated 1/7/05 1:44:32 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Well, actually the originators of Fluxus have received his letter as he sent it to all that had an email address. Bertrand oh
Re: FLUXLIST: from allen bukoff
Dear Ann, dear fluxlisters, dear Allen, First I would like to say that I'm terribly sad that you (Allen) withdraw from Fluxus and from fluxlist: what you did, what you do, what your are, makes you a important figure in the fluxus network, and in Fluxus too. I know that what you express in your open letter is not a short term decision, so I won't try to convince you not to do it, even if this news saddens me deeply, and even if I think that you should stay where you deeply belong. But your immense deception somewhat leads you to go to far in your declarations: for example, you close the site you did for Ben Patterson (the museum of the sub-conscious): 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. But as far as i know, it's only since a couple of months that Ben owns a computer, and he's only beginning to get into the internet stuff, so it's not because he had no interest in Fluxlist, or in what you were doing that he was not on Fluxlist. Otherwise, you're speaking of the lack of openness for new artists from the FLuxus originators. This is a bit unfair at least regarding Ben Vautier who always added new people to his flux events: even for the 40 years of Fluxus he organized last year in Nice, many many many other artists were invited, people from the second or the third fluxus generation.It is a bit unfair too for Emmett Williams who curated the exhibition Fluxus und die FOlgende in Wiesbaden in 2002, with no historical Fluxus in it, but many young artists that were working under the influence of Fluxus. However, these new artist are not Fluxus, and they don't pretend to be Fluxus, and better, they don't care being or not Fluxus or anything else: they feel close to, they get inspired by, they're developping from, but they don't want, even in their worsts nightmares, to become Fluxus. Now, why did you want to be Fluxus? Why do so many people around the world want to be Fluxus, or to be part of Fluxus? This is a good question too. Are labels as important as that? Being an artist in not so easy, not to speak about being THIS type of artist (and not another type), so what's the big thing about bein a Fluxus Artist? Who is defending what position in this situation? I would add one or two things about the actual practice of Fluxus artists today, and what they do as art, since the last, say, twenty years. Are they still doing event scores? Do they still consider concerts as their major work? Do they still refuse to create objects, as they used to? No, of course. Do they exhibit only together, as a group, or are they mingling with anyone, in collective exhibition, as any individual artist do? Guess... Are they so solid as an entity, as a community, that they have all reached the same achievments, the same fame, the same level in the art market? What collective position is to be defended, exactely? You're talking about expanding fluxus as if art was a land to conqueer, as if there were any hegemony to build out of it, but that's not the point at all: in fact Fluxus artists never wanted to be in such position, the only one who wanted that was Maciunas, and he failed and almost lost his group after he had proposed to do terrorist acts as art in '64. What I mean is that they have all followed their own path through the art world and through their own practice, I would say as they always did -in so far as they met by accident in the sixties- even though they're still able to create new fluxus pieces. But their fluxus production have always been a part of their global artistic production, and only a part of it: as Dick Higins himself pointed, an artist that would be only making Fluxus pieces, would be a very poor, if not a very bad, one. That means also that being a FLuxus artist today has very little sense, because that means that one has to create following a path that has been left by those who had initiate it, since many years. Last, I would recall that they never choosed to be called FLuxus or anything else, the name was given to them, as you perfectly knows, after Wiesbaden: Fluxus was to be the name of the publication Maciunas was preparing, not the name of the people that were to be published in! Now comes something else, as an art historian with a phd on fluxus, i find myself a bit concerned with what Ann wrote about fluxus, archive, and the dust of the art history, and this is also close to what Allen calls the Fluxus Legacy, which is supposed to have been shaped by the artists during the last twenty years.
