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the
past
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would
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the
pre-WWI
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,
cultural
workers
have
fought
the
shackles
imposed
by
their
cultural
overlords
in
seeking
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flexible
social
,
political
and
cultural
strategies
in
confrontation
with
a
looming
militaristic
,
consumerist
and
mass-media
driven
popular
culture
.
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Seasons change. A clock ticks forward. And ideologies in art evolve. While all move forward, all move cyclically. Fluxus is a movement influenced by the past, and has lived on to take on different iterations in the 21st century. Dadaist satirical art, Flux Happenings, and Net Art stem from the same impetus from their creators and participants. The Recipe goes as such: -5 heaping lbs of shitty government. -2 cups of a greedy, shallow, and primarily consumption driven society -¾ of a cup of art scene disillusionment -2 tbs of desire to advocate for change -1 tbs of desire for like mindedcompanions and thinkers -A pinch of superiority complex -Salt and pepper to taste “Since the pre-WWI avant-garde, cultural workers have fought the shackles imposed by their cultural overlords in seeking innovative flexible social, political and cultural strategies in confrontation with a looming militaristic, consumerist and massmedia driven popular culture; the aptly named Society of the Spectacle of Situationist Guy Debord.” - John Held Jr. of FluxusFoundation Debord emphasized the act of art as more important than the art object itself. The concept of the ephemeral was important to Fluxus and Happenings, as the performance was a temporary experience. No longer could art be confined to be exhibited in a museum in the traditional sense. The only artifacts remaining from aspects of Fluxus and Happenings in their entirety are photographs and oral histories. To the art that had previously been defined by the art object itself, good luck getting defined. This was the intention of Fluxus though. Forgo ego and status symbols. Art was no longer elitist. Everyone can flux with each other. Art was now defined by the action,
activity, occasion, and/or experience that constituted the Happening, the fluxfilm, the act of things in flux, which are fundamentally fleeting and immaterial. An innate sense of humor rooted in sadness and disillusionment allowed for Fluxus participants to comment, laugh, and scoff and what had become of the world around them. We continue to scoff. At Black Mountain College, Zen Bhuddist-trained composer John Cage staged one of the first Happenings. Events played off simultaneously and allowed for the unexpected and unseen to arise from their interconnectedness. The connection was made by the spectator. The 1952 event heralded a future of unlimited collaboration between artists of different disciplines. Then, Fluxus founder, George Maciunas, drafts a Manifesto in 1963: 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 grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals. FUSE the cadres of cultural social & political revolutionaries into united front & action. Then he elaborates and defined art: 1965 ART: To justify artists’s professional, parasitic and elite status in society, he must demonstrate artist’s indispensability and exclusiveness,
he must demonstrate the dependability of audience upon him, he must demonstrate that no one but the artist can do art. Therefore, art must appear to be complex, pretentious, profound, serious, intellectual, inspired, skillfull, significant, theatrical, it must appear to be valuable as commodity so as to provide the artist with an income. To raise its value (artist’s income and patrons profit), art is made to appear rare, limited in quantity and therefore obtainable and accessible only to the social elite and institutions. Today, those looking for the cutting edge of culture in music, the visual and performing arts, can be passive. They need to look no farther then the flickering screens of their computer monitors to find a community sharing their concerns on the internet and world wide web. The Bohemian Diaspora has spread electronically, replacing the need for physical gatherings of the avant-garde in a specific time and place. The hyperconnectedness of our world today spreads the message of the avantgarde to a new generation. We share our interests and knowledge across arbitrary borders and created our individuality by means of others’ work. Avant-gardists today manifest in a huge array of different characters and artistic and lifestyle choices. Conceptualizing the current moment of art history is daunting. Yet, the impetus of Fluxus and Happenings still exists today. We just re-emphasize objects and tangibility. Or relish the nature of our fleeting and over-saturated media and attention spans. With the emergence of the digital revolution, the tangible is the unusual. There is a renewed fetishization of objects. But the recipe of the past exists today. It keeps on existing. And will come around and around and around and around.