The Fluxus Blog  -

+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Ruud Janssen, Mail Art and Fluxus

In keeping with the mandate of The Fluxus Blog to examine both historical and contemporary Fluxus, this is a profile of a contemporary Fluxus artist. Ruud Janssen is a Fluxus community member who has been a mail artist for many years. Recently Ruud has also established a significant internet presence with his web sites and blogs. Jansen manages an organization dedicated to mail art called the International Union of Mail Artists which is now 17 years old. Ruud has been involved in mail art for more than 25 years. He has an ongoing mail art project, Travelling Art Mail or TAM. TAM publishes a blog at http://tampublications.blogspot.com/.

Mail art has been closely aligned with Fluxus since the early days of both movements. The artist Ray Johnson is often considered to be an early link between the movements. Ray was not actively involved with Fluxus, he was generally unwilling to be tied to any movement. However, many of his contemporaries and friends were involved with either Fluxus, mail art, or both - and Johnson was in the middle of it all. Ruud Jansen is also involved with both mail art and Fluxus. More of Ruud's correspondence and work can be seen on his Tam and Ruud Findings blog.

Ruud has also interviewed many other mail artists and has maintained a print-based interview publication project and a web-based interview project. He introduces the interview project, "The project started in 1994 where I started to interview people. Not just anybody, but I choose the mail artists that I was in contact with or the mail artists I had heard about. Mail art is a strange thing. Only by doing it one can find out what it actually is all about. Well, so I am told, and I must say, that after becoming involved in mail art I couldn't explain to others what mail art was, unless they were involved themselves too. The interviews were meant to find out what mail art was according to other mail artists." and "The interviews were not done in the normal way...Some interviews were done by mail, some by fax, some by e-mail, some actually included personal delivory of the questions or answers. But finally when the interview was ready, it was published too." The interview project is on the web at http://www.iuoma.org/interview.html.

In addition to his mail art projects Ruud Janssen, together with his partner Litsa Spathi, maintains a Fluxus website from Heidelberg, Germany, titled appropriately enough, Fluxus Heidelberg. Jansen himself resides in the town of Tilburg, Netherlands.

Comments:

+ 2 - 0 | § ¶Three Stages of Event-Based Art

Fluxus has often been concerned with art as an event or art as an experience. This is evidenced by the "happenings" of Allan Kaprow as well as by later performances by artists such as Al Hansen and Yoko Ono (Yoko Ono Piano Drop). The Fluxboxes and Fluxkits constructed by many Fluxus artists might also be considered as experiential and event-based works in some ways.

Event-based art may sometimes be perceived as being fleeting moments of an ephemeral temporal nature. While the performative aspect of event-based art is temporary, event based art actually consists of three stages, of which only the event is temporary. The three stages are:

1. Conception and Planning
2. Activity/Performance/Event
3. Documentation

Conception and Planning:
This stage usually leaves lasting evidence in the form of drawings, diagrams, or event scripts.

The Event:
Performative and temporary - it may be the "main event", but it is not the only act in the show.

Documentation:
Evidence of the event will usually exist in the conception and planning evidence, as well many event-based artworks also have the event or performance documented in the form of audio or video recordings. Fluxboxes and Fluxkits may also be considered as event documentation insofar as they are the documentary evidence of their preparation.