That brief time I was on the list was very helpful to me. I attended art school in Philadelphia in the early 90s and found by the time I graduated that I wasn't interested in the cool NY art world scene and was attracted more to outsider art, mail art, life art, and largely by FLUXUS. Now I know that all these areas have been sucked into that cool NY scene, but that's a whole other issue. I found that my interests were more on the creative process and the act of making (both craftily and conceptually) instead of the artist ego that's connected to the art star celebrity life. I also found that many people I studied with wanted to "make it" in that world anyway they could. They had no interest in FLUXUS.
I signed onto the list to be in contact with others who held some interest in FLUXUS. I encountered a great mix of serious discussion and inquiries along with playful word games and event scores. There were some posts that I found dumb/simple which tried to pawn themselves off as FLUXUS. I also found overly analytical posts on things that I found at the time unnecessary pawning themselves off as the real intellectual FLUXUS. I took what inspired.interested me and deleated the rest. The list was important for me at a time that I had no artistic community support. It was great to know there were others out there interested in what I was reading about and acting on; which is I guess what I'm getting at.
I have encountered few younger artists outside of the NY art world who have ever heard of FLUXUS , and no one in the "real world" who has heard of it. We have all signed onto this list to be connected with others who have discovered this engaging group of interesting people who moved us in one way or another. It's a cold world out there all alone; we should find what we can from each other's posts. Just disregard the one's you're not interested in and move on.
I came back from Korea last August. I've been finding it hard to readjust to american life. A lot has changed here politically, socially; and even on the FLUXLIST. I signed back up about a month ago because I'd been rereading all the books on FLUXUS that I have for a project I'm working on; a screenplay on Maciunas' life (which I will address in another post since I've got to get going to work in a few minutes). I wanted to reconnnect to the FLUXUS lifestream that I found here a few years ago. The last few weeks I've found more word games and playful short posts, many of them entertaining. It seems that the intellectual discussion side has dissipated. I think both ways of approaching FLUXUS are appropriate and should exist together on this list. Don't get too tied down to what your idea of what FLUXUS is/was/will be.
Remeber that the original group was a collection of people from various backgrounds (artists, designers, musicians, scientists,...), using various mediums (sound, performance, film, food, emptiness,...), for various outcomes (purely aesthetic, to expand modern art ideas, to rebel against authority, to entertain friends,...). FLUXUS never was easily defined. It is much like zen in that the more you talk about it and try to pin it down the more you get away from its true spirit.
I've rambled enough. I just hope that all involved will let down their defense a little and attempt to see the common thread that binds this list together and try to feed off of that. I get norishment from the list at times. I just disregard what I see as empty calories or junk food.
thanks for your time,
Ben DiNino
PS - All grammatical and spelling errors were brought to you by "Lack of Caffeine", a subsidiary of "Lack of Time"
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FLUXLIST: What is the purpose of Secret Fluxus ? Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 20:49:50 EDT
In a message dated 5/23/04 3:48:08 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Discussions of history, criticism, or theory
> occupy a tiny fraction of list volume – significantly less than 5%. List
> members seem to consider the suggestion that we discuss these kinds of
> issues from time to time a bad idea. We gather that this has been the case
> on Fluxlist in the past.
>
>
I will be happy to discuss any of these topics with you, but you have to
bring the topic up!!! So far all you have contributed are announcements of shows
you have performed. What bugs me is that you are critical of us for not
psychically knowing what you want to talk about. Fluxlist is flexible but you have to
lead it where you want it to go. LEAD!!! DON'T CRITICIZE
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