I don't recall if I posted this.
cecil
Thirty Years of Fluxing Around - Cecil Touchon 1975-2005
<>There are those things which artists often do as their
serious work and then there are all of the other things they do when
they are
playing and messing around in the studio or when hanging out with other
artists.
That range of other things tends to be fluxus-like in nature. More
concept
based, experimental, contemplative, humorous, and expressed in a kind
of
private short hand. When translated into a more public language you
have work
that may appear unfinished, tentative, and with a lot of open ended and
very
loose ends. I think of this kind of art making as more conversational
than
lecture-like in nature, more private, informal, ephemeral and downright
immaterial. This kind of art activity is the product of a shared
mercurial mind
world where unfettered creativity, lucid imagination and the immediate
cognition of a deeply intuitive mind are of the greatest value. I think
this is
why some like to relate Fluxus to Zen. I think Zen has a strong
interest in this
same range of mental activity in search of those moments of creative
release
and intuitive cognition of the spiritual world a more fluid state
that we are
normally not cognizant of. Not that I can claim to know anything about
Zen or
for that matter Fluxus.
<>
A lot of the well known Fluxsters are well known in part
because of their interest in performance, theatre and experimental
music/sound.
These things tend to be done live and in public via scheduled
performances,
festivals and the like.
<>
I am primarily a visual artist. While I have engaged in the
occasional performance, they have always been in the form of a personal
ritual
accomplished for my own internal reasons and have required no one other
than
myself as their witness with the location usually being my studio or
out in
nature.
<>
It was never my fortune or misfortune to ever meet up with
any well known Fluxus people in person. I have never been that
interested. I
have never been very interested in meeting anybody that didnt find
their way
naturally into my life. Artists are happy to admire and interact from
afar and
across time and with the internet we are able to interact right in the
contemporary moment with each other all over the world.
<>
So anything of mine that could be regarded as Fluxus-like
over the years was developed in relative isolation until coming across
the
fluxlist gang on the internet around 1998-99. When I did I was amazed
to find a
family of people still working who shared a very strong affinity with
my way of
seeing the world.
<>
I spend a lot of time with Fluxus after that and was
especially moved by Ken Friedmans amazingly clear headed way of
looking at
things. He may or may not be altogether right in all of his ideas I
really
couldnt say - but he is definitely clear headed about them and you
have to
admire that. I consider him an inspiration in my work since about the
year
2000.
<>
My main Fluxus-like activities since that time are in the
realm of collage poetry and collage sound works. I have also been
compiling
early works that fit the fluxus profile that go back to as early as
1975
meaning that this year 2005 represents a thirty year mark.
<>
Aside from these things, a broader activity of mine has been
working to short circuit the idea that an art movement has a beginning,
middle
and end usually of a very short duration and involving a very small
circle of
associates. With the internet and mass communication I do not believe
that
movements have such a cut and dry history or that they involve so few
people.
<>
I notice that things, especially ideas and the influence of
objects that contain ideas, live in a continuum and spread like a virus
into
the minds of artists all over the world and across many generations. I
do not
believe historians want to deal with the fact that all art movements
are still
being played out by whatever artists decide to embody them. This spread
across
barriers I think is especially notable in Fluxus history with its use
of an
international mail network and the continued life and influence Fluxus
clearly
still has on the current internet generation.
<>
Art, since it is not fashion that is here today and gone
tomorrow, moves in large multi generational waves and any artist is, at
any
given time, a conduit for one or several artistic trends. Artists
embody the ideas
that are still being played out and the tug is always between fresh,
new
adaptation and a love of nostalgic regress. Both have their place and
should be
experienced as pleasantly coexisting impulses.
<>
So, as the old Fluxus
starts to dry out a bit and wrinkle, new blood should feel free to pick
up
anything anywhere and continue happily along. Let no one stop you, time
is a
sharp blade, the field always remains freshly plowed.
