A dialogue with Owen Smith: Owen, I agree that the view that you put forward is the most sensible and practical approach to the question. It also seems to correspond closely to views expressed by Dick Higgins and Ken Friedman who have addressed the question in the past. I think that it also corresponds to the views of most of us on the Fluxlist who respect (greatly) the work and ideas of the first Fluxus artists, while continuing to produce new Fluxus and/or Fluxus inspired work. I think that the answers that I seek arise from two questions: 1) How to deal with critics, curators, and historians who insist that…

A response from Owen Smith: My own point of view is that there is a historical Fluxus that is what it is (not dead, but more set or determined in a way) but there is also fluxus as a view and practice that is alive and well. This is another way Fluxus is like Zen – both have a history and an ongoing practice that are related but not determined one (present, evloving and changing) by the other (past, more set if not fixed) – I had a great conversation with George Brecht a number of years ago about this concept and he agreed that this is a useful way…

This quote by Dick Higgins is from Allen Bukoff’s Fluxus Portal site at http://www.fluxus.org/. Fluxus means change among other things. The Fluxus of 1992 is not the Fluxus of 1962 and if it pretends to be – then it is fake. The real Fluxus moves out from its old center into many directions, and the paths are not easy to recognize without lining up new pieces, middle pieces and old pieces together. Higgins seems to infer that Fluxus is both dead AND alive. Of course his argument could also be restated as, “The Fluxus of 1972 was not the Fluxus of 1962”, or for that matter that the “Fluxus of…

A while back I began making labels that said “Fluxus Free Zone” and then applied them in public spaces. I continue to do so. Part of the “Fluxusness” of this project was its Intermedia aspect via the interface between art/design/technology/literature/high-art-low-art/etc. But as I began experimenting with the “Red Circle with Nothing in it” project I began to realize that another more challenging theme was running through my Fluxus works. That is the theme of changing a space by defining or by transforming it. In the case of the Fluxus Free Zones the space is public and is defined by the time that the label remains in affixed to its substrate…

In a nutshell, it seems to me that Fluxus is dead if (and only if) it is defined as a movement in art and culture associated with the group of artists who came together in the early 1960s with George Maciunas at its centre. However, if Fluxus is defined as an approach to art and culture centred around the idea of Intermedia, then it remains very much alive. I am strongly inclined towards the latter view. The question may never be finally settled, especially given the tautological nature of the “Fluxus is dead” argument… I.E. If Fluxus is defined as a movement that existed between 1962 and 1978, or between…

Readers of the Fluxus Blog will know that I have been working on my own variation of Haiku poetry – writing 3 line haikus that are 3, 6, and 9 syllables for a total of 18 syllables. Now that I have an established rule-form for my Haikus I have decided to give them a name of their own. I am calling them cHaiku. Chai means “life” in Hebrew and the letters that spell the Hebrew word “Chai” also represent the number 18. Since my 3-6-9 Haikus are 18 syllables and since at least one line must be about life or nature, I am calling them cHaiku. Rules for Chaiku: Total…

Fluxus has been closely associated with nearly all media forms over the years. In many ways Fluxus formed the foundation of multi-media art in the 20th century. Fluxus is after all synonymous with the term “intermedia”. Interestingly, Fluxus has never been closely associated with the most traditional of all artistic media, painting. I suppose that part of the reason for so little Fluxus work to be constructed using traditional painting is that Fluxus arose as an anti-art movement (by some definitions) and thus painting on canvas was rejected by many Fluxus artists. Fluxus has also been concerned with the theory and technology of intermedia (the intersections of different media) which…