1.2 Fluxus, the counterculture

it could not compete with other visual movements such as Cubism or Surrealism. Dada was first and foremost a mentality, not a style.

The movement did not produce much music, which is a pity as it is one of the most playful, light-hearted, and creative movements of the early twentieth century. One composition that perhaps best reflects the spirit of Dada is Eric Satie’s Parade, which he wrote in 1916–17. The piece is a mixture of music hall and circus music and includes such ‘instruments’ as a foghorn and a typewriter. The music is somewhat irresolute and noncommittal, but certainly amusing, and worthy of a staging in Dada style.

1.2 FLUXUS, THE COUNTERCULTURE Fluxus is the most natural successor to Dada and is therefore sometimes referred to as neo-Dada. Some are of the opinion that Fluxus followed from neo-Dada.218 Fluxus was a typical product of the hyper-individual 1960s and 1970s. The core idea is that an artwork does not consist of an object or a text thoughtfully made by their creator, but that it originates in the moment when the artist goes into action before an audience. Fluxus artists preferably leave no artworks behind – and when they do, such works are highly conceptual – nor do they attempt to do something as best they can, such as playing a Chopin etude where it is at least agreed that all the notes are to be played at the right speed.

The aim of Fluxus was to start a revolution in art. The manifesto of the American Fluxus movement, written in 1963, states: Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, ‘intellectual’, professional & commercialized culture, PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art, ―PURGE THE WORLD OF ‘EUROPANISM’ !PROMOTE A REVOLUTIONARY FLOOD AND TIDE IN ART, Promote living art, anti-art. Promote NON ART REALITY to be fully grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals ... FUSE the cadres of cultural, social & political revolutionaries into united front & action.

It was drawn up by George Maciunas, the central figure of the Fluxus movement. It demonstrates how strong the anti-society and anti-art-establishment feelings were. Anything was possible at a Fluxus event, as long as it was not an exhibition of skill or of the established avant-garde. What could be more anti-bourgeois than to sit on the floor with a small synthesizer, surrounded by an audience of non-paying intellec-

218Ian Chilvers and John Glaves-Smith: A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary

Art. Oxford University Press (2009).

tuals, playing an endless repetition of simple patterns while just a few miles up the road the umpteenth Mahler boomed through the concert hall? John Cage’s ‘Happenings’ were also very much inspired by the Fluxus movement: evenings dedicated to the study of small and emphatically non-artful sounds in order to hear where the beauty and value of sounds that were not coming from a million-dollar Stradivarius were to be found. Another example is the ‘fluxus wedding’ of Maciunas symbolised by trading the clothes of his beloved for those of himself, piece by piece. On those nights it was as if the world was discovered anew. Ex. 77: Fluxus wedding of George Maciunas and Billie Hutching, 1978.

Some more examples of Fluxus art: - An artist arrives at the beach at an agreed time. He walks into the sea and pours out a soft drink from a bottle into the waves. He then walks back and departs from the beach, leaving the assorted press behind in bewilderment (Wim T. Schippers, 1961, Petten, the Netherlands Ex. 78). - Yoko Ono sits on a stage and invites the audience to cut off pieces of her clothes (Cut Piece, 1965, Ex. 79). - Michael von Biel sits on a stage, forcing squeaking and screeching sounds from his cello. He continues until the last visitor has left the auditorium, which defines the end of the ‘piece’. By then it is already early morning (The Hague, 1973).

- In 1961, Stockhausen creates the music-theatre work Originale, a sequence of a large number of completely senseless acts, including one minute of motionless silence. In 1964 it is performed in New

York, where it met with disruptions and sabotage by opponents.

Stockhausen regards these actions as part of his composition. These actions were rather fierce… The Stockhausen concerts were picketed with the slogan “Stockhausen-patrician theorist of white supremacy: go to hell!”219

Ex. 78 (left): Wim T. Schippers, 1961, Petten, The Netherlands. Ex. 79 (right): Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1965.

Fluxus was most definitely influenced by Dada but unlike Dada, it does not aim to produce permanent works. Fluxus does not communicate a message, moreover the aspect of communication itself functions as its only goal.

The open form, with much freedom for the performers in the compositions, became a fixture of Fluxus concerts. John Cage received much of his aesthetic musical identity from this movement and thus became a true Fluxus composer. Other Fluxus composers, such as Nam June Paik and Dick Higgins, brought to art the idea that each person can create a

219Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise, p. 534.