Have taken on new moniker :: Fluxs.us because … well, it’s a nice looking word.
Many of you out there on this great planet of ours ask:
What is Fluxus?
What is Fluxyou? What is, for that matter, Fluxthem? What does it all mean?
The answer, according to Mr. Natural, is “It’s about this big and it’s about this tall and it’s about this art I’m talking about.”
A definitional direction to pursue if one wishes to broaden one’s Fluxs.us understanding:
Fluxus began in the 1950s, some argue the 1960s. Fluxus began in Germany. Others argue its routes lie somewhere in NY. A global undercurrent driven by ambiguous minds, many of which were housed somewhere in the Syracuse NY vicinity. When researching this “movement”, direct your activities toward all sources in the US and abroad.
(or abroad and the UK, or abroad and Belgium, or abroad and Germany… get the idea? Fluxus International = Not Confined to a specific Geographic Location)
Here’s what this Assemblagist learned over the past decade of Fluxus study and implementation: Original Fluxus Artists protested Art’s Intricate Inclusion Requirements, sort of like Groucho Marx and his I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. One of the most fascinating aspects of Modern Day Fluxus lies in the consistent dialog and debate over Fluxus Death or Fluxus Now. I leave it to my readers to find the arguments online but *pssssst* look on Facebook. It seems everyone within and without the Fluxus Community of 2010 contributes to the argument. Read more on the Digital Salon (see link accompanying Cecil’s quote)
I developed my own definition for Fluxus much as did I for Mail Art. Coming into this Flux’d scene as an Outsider — as a Writer and not an Artist by trade, my viewpoint bears no historical prejudicial aspects. Simply put – I liked the word itself. FLUXUS. Say it outloud. “Flux” or “Fluxus” or Flux Me”
My beginning Mail Art definition, though, quickly became nonsensical and irrelevant due to many circumstances, the least of which was that I believed Mail Art to be Art Constructed From Mail. Not, as it truly is, Mail Constructed As ART.
Now links to all these items: Fluxus, FluxMass, Is Fluxus Dead?, IUOMA, Digital Mail Art, FluxList and more can be found via Google. I recommend you become an avid researcher of the topics, accepting not ONE singular definition of the Movements but instead, forming your own circular construct of what all Fluxus ideas mean:
1. an Art Movement,
2. a Response to Cultural Mores of the Day,
3. as Participatory Art (Happenings, true, but also how the viewing of a FluxBox or whathaveyou requires a dialog between the piece AND the viewer), and
4. the European Fluxus Movement and its influence on the US Fluxus Movement and VICE VERSA. Best to understand the significance of both the Fluxus of Yesterday and the New New Fluxus of Now and the continuous drama and debate revolving around both categories.
One often takes sides, calling out the other. Is Fluxus Dead as a question or Fluxus Is Dead as a declaratory sentence. Immerse yourself in the debate of whether Collections of Art define the Existence or Death of a Movement. Consider if the SALE of a piece of FLUXUS is fundamentally wrong, does the sale of something negate its worth as an Artistic Cultural Comment when Fluxus involves its pretty self into the argument.
George Maciunas
New quote from Cecil Touchon on Digital Salon:
Conclusion: I think today we need to understand how this attempt at anti-collect-ability was something of a failure and to then rethink how to approach art and capitalism in less of an adversarial way. Maybe even accept and embrace it. Then mess with it! I think it best not to work against things when instead we can work with them.
Cecil Touchon
These Fluxus Links begin the project of
Flux Documentation online
and will continue indefinitely.
Suggest a link.
macewan @ assemblagist.com
http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/kfriedman-fourtyyears.html
…The computer-generated images presented today as computer art or the fractal images of chaos studies are simplistic presentations of an idea. They are laboratory exercises or displays of technical virtuosity, designed to test and demonstrate the media and the technology. They are the intellectual and artistic equivalent of the paint samples that interior designers use to plan out larger projects. They may be interesting and useful in some way, but only people shopping for paint find them relevant.
In contrast, Fluxus suggested approaches that are simple rather than simplistic.
The level of complexity in any given work was determined by philosophical paradigms and not by available technology. This is an important difference a technological age…
–Ken Friedman
FluxMuseum website, A Wing of the Ontological Museum
“…Therefore,… the conception of the Avant Garde
is discarded as a general movement forward toward
a utopian external and is reoriented to a general movement inward…”
from “Avant Garde?” as seen in the Post-Dogmatist Quarterly
Doug Tanoury – but his link is no longer valid. Tanoury was in the Dead Mule at one time, if I remember correctly. Anyone know where he is and why?
Critical Snips – read more… it’s full of stuff like: Each person’s crap-detector is embedded in their value system; if you want to teach the art of crap-detecting, you must help students become aware of their values. After all, Vice President, Spiro Agnew, or his writers, know as much about semantics as anyone in this room. What he is lacking has very little to do with technique, and almost everything to do with values.
Failbetter linkage – a most enjoyable place where once we visited. I remember you well.
Allan Bukoff – a fluxus resource on PhD level
Naim June Paik – He makes technology ridiculous. He is “the father of video art” — really he is.
No Fluxus Linkage Listing would be complete without Yoko Ono.
Willem de Ridder – The Netherlands creates great flux. His Fluxus Slideshow.
Massurealism – “Massurrealism is the marriage of mass media subjects and techniques to the surreal, which are individually expressed by each artist.”
*ahhhhh, quiz here – who coined the term “mosaic mesh”?
Neil Postman, a vsionary: “…goes further than other critics in demonstrating that television represents a hostile attack on literate culture.” Objective of teaching should be: to “…distinguish useful talk from bullshit”
Washington NC Historic District 
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