Digital Salon Fluxus Blog

My friend and colleague, Mark Bloch, has posited two very interesting questions, which I am reposting here. Answers are more than welcome, and can be posted here in the Fluxus Blog “comments” field, or sent directly to Mark.

I am seeking comments on these two ideas:

1) When Alison Knowles spoke at CUNY earlier this year she insinuated or even just said that Dada and Fluxus don’t have much in common. I found that really interesting giving the fact that mail art claims both Dada and Fluxus as its precursors…. But the more I thought about it, she is right. perhaps Fluxus is about precision and Dada is about chaos and the two don’t go together. Maybe Fluxus uses precision to create the unpredictable, experiential situations that Dada seeked to create directly at its core. Perhaps that is where they meet?

2) Maybe this would be a good place to discuss Jung Fluxus this concept I came up with which opens up an idea of artistic myth making as an adjunct to the traditional Fluxus program. I say that the John and Yoko myth and the Josef Beuys myth a…nd the George Maciunas as Pope myth and maybe even the Geoff Hendricks sky myth or…(fill in blank) are personal narratives performing art functions that really fall outside the realm of traditional, historical Fluxus but they are done by Fluxus artists. I personally (it’s about the personal) am interested in this type of work and so always found Fluxus limiting in that way if it is to exclude such expressions. When (artists) make art about Kali or any of us return to traditional image creation or picture making, we are clearly outside the Fluxrealm. What does it mean that this ancient function of art continues to exist even in a post-concrete world?

Mark Block http://www.panmodern.com/

Email Mark Bloch