Fantastically Fun Fluxus Function

Project 2: Transformation
Our objective was to throw a party in place of having a typical class. We chose class because typically the classroom is not an environment for fun and time often drags while we're in it. We placed a time limit on the party and the guests were told they had 10 minutes to play as they walked in the door. A myriad of options for fun awaited them: they could color, draw, play with play-doh, play cards, eat pizza and candy, play video games or watch a movie. With our child-like themes, we intended to stimulate a nostalgic experience for everyone individually. We wanted every guest to feel that they had escaped reality and at the end of the time limit, were be left wanting more.

Arduino, Discarded Vino, Card Keno

As you can see, the word Arduino makes me want to rhyme. There aren't many good words that rhyme with "ard" and "duino" but there are lots of fake half-rhymes that sound alright. It's actually making me feel Italian. Vino, Geno, Guido? I don't know....let's get back on track...

So playing with the Arduino was pretty awesome. I knew nothing about it beforehand so it was pretty awesome to get to type some stuff in the computer and have a board take it and make things happen. I learned a lot, mostly through error, that syntactical errors are pretty devastating to this kind of work. I also thought it was pretty interesting that the Arduino program and the Processing program we worked with before are practically the exact same interface. I'm assuming they're made by the same company/people but it surprised me when I first opened it. I was a bit bummed that my kit didn't come with a switch, so I couldn't make my LEDs go on and off, but I did manage to accomplish the fading in and out at various speeds. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but it happened...I saw it!

I don't feel like I know/have played enough with the Arduino boards to get an idea for projects. Obviously, the use of lights and interaction create endless possibilities but I really want to get a more extensive kit for this week so hopefully I can do more stuff in the book and get more ideas.

EDIT: I completely forgot I took a quick video of the fading LED. It's added now!

Fluxus Research 2

Fluxus works seem to have a variety of intents and meanings. Overall, what binds them seems to be the idea that every artist within the Fluxus movement is making work that they truly enjoy and desire to create. The work seems very soulful and fit into what I suppose we’d call a bit kitschy, or maybe homemade. It’s hard to describe the work because it does vary so greatly in execution and craft, but the artists in the Fluxus movement often aimed to create laughter and fun, and it seems apparent that the creators behind the Fluxboxes and Fluxkits inherently have these qualities and simply want to project them onto others. Some work, however, does seem to have more apparent intents than others.

For example, if we look back to the event where they disassembled/destroyed (depending on your interpretation) the grand piano, there seemed to be some kind of underlying meaning that one could take out of the show. Whether it was done to take a stance on the direction of popular music at the time, or perhaps the rise of creatives in other areas of the arts, it could mean any number of things. What is important is that it very readily strikes the viewer as an event that aims to have meaning behind it be it political, religious, or anything else, and that meaning is up for them to interpret (Emmett 30).

On the contrary, Fluxus artist Eric Dietman’s The Unwell Saw, which entails a handsaw with one edge wrapped with a bandage is less thought-provoking (ArtLex on the Fluxus Movement). Of course, this is a matter of opinion; however, I do feel that in viewing a gallery of Fluxus work, it would be very apparent that certain pieces entice bigger and more deep reactions than others. Could this be intentional? Absolutely, but that doesn’t change necessarily change the viewer’s opinion on the work, which raises the question: If the artist doesn’t care about the viewer’s interpretation of the piece, then does it truly matter what people think of it at all? In fact, it would be interesting to know if the artists that created work like this even cared about other Fluxus member’s interpretations of their work. If a Fluxus artist truly didn’t care if another Fluxus artist thought their work was Fluxus art, isn’t that the epitome of anti-art? Isn’t that what the Fluxus movement aimed to do in the first place?

In the field of graphic design, our work seems to always hold top priority: functional, meaningful work is of the most importance. Anybody can make something look pretty, but truly good graphic design has something to say. If a graphic designer is attempting to raise awareness about an issue through a poster, or maybe a website, the designer must consider the audience and what their interpretation will be. If the message behind a poster for a band is the date and time of an upcoming show, if all the viewer gets out of looking at the poster is that the band likes grungy fonts and large skulls the poster is useless. Fluxus design seems to have a more free-spirited, fine art approach to it. The beauty of this is that Fluxus methods mixed with traditional graphic design could create an extremely interesting dynamic.

I’m intrigued by Fluxboxes and Fluxkits and how these were physical things Fluxus artists used. I would like to turn the idea of a Fluxbox into an on screen experience. I’m unsure of how I would approach this just yet, but I do think it could be an intriguing way of bringing modern technology into an art movement that was set before such opportunities existed. There could potentially be a physical element to this, but I think that there would definitely need to be a screen presence in the piece. I think this event would need to be one that entices some kind of reaction and thought process (as discussed earlier with the piano piece).

Works Cited

“ArtLex on the Fluxus Movement.” ArtLex Art Dictionary. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .

Williams, Emmett, and Ann Noel. A Flexible History of Fluxus Facts and Fictions.
London: Edition Hansjorg Mayer, 2006. Print.

Fluxus: a study in ambiguity

To begin, my favorite quote from all the research I did:

"There is one important thing that the masters of Zen and the masters of Fluxus have in common: the extreme difficulty of explaining to the outside world exactly what it is that they are masters of" (Williams).


After spending a bit of time with my head in fluxus books and articles, I've began to understand the movement (if you can call it that). According to wikipedia, the facts are these:

1. Fluxus is an attitude. It is not a movement or a style.
2. Fluxus is intermedia. Fluxus creators like to see what happens when different media intersect. They use found and everyday objects, sounds, images, and texts to create new combinations of objects, sounds, images, and texts.
3. Fluxus works are simple. The art is small, the texts are short, and the performances are brief.
4. Fluxus is fun. Humour has always been an important element in Fluxus.


I'd like to add to this list and include a few thoughts of my own:

5. Fluxus' definition is vague at best, and the argument on what can and cannot be considered Fluxus work seems never ending and extremely opinionated
6. Fluxus members relish in their own ambiguity
7. Fluxus prefers a DIY method and almost never takes their work out to be commissioned.
8. That is not to say that they do not collaborate, as that is completely false; Fluxus simply does not outsource their work. If it is not within their means to do it themselves, they don't do it.


Now, some facts that I found to be very interesting/intriguing:

-Fluxus work has rarely, if ever, been showcased in modern or contemporary art museums
-When asked whether he saw Fluxus as art in his last interview ever, Maciunas replied by saying "No. I think it's good, inventive gags."
-For a large period of time, the only person willing to put up with Maciunas was his mother. He did, however, marry in the last year of his life before dying of cancer.
-Fluxboxes, Fluxkits, Fluxfriends and Fluxenemies are all terms
-John Lennon and Yoko Ono were good friends iwth Maciunas
-John Lennon and Maciunas were both colorblind and in a fluxus piece created "Lennon's Fluxkit" which was a big water-color kit that had lots of bright colored paint tubes that couldn't be distinguished by the color blind.
-On Fluxus, Maciunas once stated "the works were simple, small and cheap. With them, an art form emerged which was projected superficially as a gag and a paradox"

I loved the story about the grand piano we were told about in class. I found an interview by Rene Block with Emmett Williams and Benjamin Patterson:

Emmett Williams: Because it certainly wasn't a practical way to get rid of a grand piano. We could simply have called a junkman to carry it away. but here, in the context of a museum, and music, and composers, it was a startling, symbolic thing. Let's get rid of any vestige of the old music.
Rene Block: But it was an artistic event. It was a piece of music. There was a score.
Emmett Williams: But this piano was destroyed from evening to evening, we were not following a score. Th objective was to reduce this thing to nothing (Laughter).
Benjamin Patterson: As a matter of fact I never saw the score…The way we 'learned the piece' was through George's instructions. It was George's interpretation. He said, well, we're going to do this piece by Phil Corner and this is the way we do it. And here are your instruments.
Emmett Williams: And the instruments were there - a crowbar, hammers, rocks, saws…And we assisted, let's say. I enjoyed it thoroughly, night after night.
Benjamin Patterson: It was wonderful. And it was a music event. We certainly made sounds like you've never heard before (Laughter)" (30).



Fluxus concepts I'm inspired by:

-fluxboxes/kits: they seem to be so full of fun and mystery. I'd like to see how this could be established in an on-screen environment and if it would be as successful as a physical version.
-just the immense quirkiness of all of the Fluxus art. I feel I'm more of a clean artist and could not see myself doing a project in this style. I'd like to try it.
-the humorous, sometimes ridiculous approach to art. it seems that often we take our work so seriously that we don't even consider the humorous or fun approach. it would be nice to create a project that has the objective of making someone laugh or smile.



Some history, quoted from two books I found at the library:

"In the winter of 1960/61, Maciunas, a New York design student of Lithuanian origin, prospective art historian and unsuccessful dealer in antique musical instruments, met some of the young artists and composers grouped around John Cage, and wanted to publish their work in a magazine called Fluxus. From 1962 onward, instead of being involved with the magazine or other Fluxus works in new York, Maciunas began organizing Fluxus concerts in a number of European cities, attracting an international following of young artists. Maciunas saw the concerts developing into an organization which would protect the copyright of the individual artists and successfully market and monopolize their work, building a bulwark of cultural policy against serious art. However, as the intended exclusivity involved insoluble economic problems right form the start and was not even favored by many those involved, most of the musicians, writers and artists soon distanced themselves form him. Maciunas continued to pursue his editorial activities undeterred, producing several hundred different Fluxus products by 1978 He continued to aim for dictatorship of the artistic proletariat, even though Fluxus production depended entirely on him, like a one-man factory" (Kellein 10).

"Fluxus has neither been a style nor has it found its form through certain media. IT has not been dependent on just one artist or a special group of artists, although George Maciunas, the Lithuanian designer and student of art history, has founded and shaped it since 1961. Fluxus products range from paintings to pretend matter and objects. Their sizes differ, their shapes are mostly as simple as well-known everyday objects. Many aspects of Fluxus can only be seen through photos or manifestos. Most of the works are meant to be read" (Williams).

I took pictures (no scanner) of pictures I found intriguing in the books I read. Some of them are interesting photographs and some of them are pieces of Fluxus art work that I found interesting/intriguing/exciting. Please enjoy!











BIB:

Kellein, Thomas, and Jon Hendricks. Fluxus. London: Thames and Hudson, 1995. Print.

Williams, Emmett, and Ann Noel. A Flexible History of Fluxus Facts and Fictions. London: Edition Hansjorg Mayer, 2006. Print.