Catio licking mercury glass candlestick to see if it's really poisonous

Best Wishes For 2012!

Cage vs. Duchamp: Toronto Musical Chess Match 1968

On Tuesday March 5th, 1968 John Cage & Marcel Duchamp performed "Reunion" at the Ryerson Theatre in Toronto. Photo Credits: musicworks magazine

Duchamp won the first chess match almost immediately, so a second game lasting over 4 hours, was played between Cage and DUchamp's wife, Teeny.

New books by John Held - USA

A set of two books have been published at TAM-Publications.

Part – 1 (page 1-439) and Part -2 (page 440-919) of the book “Where the Secret is Hidden” , Collected Essays, 1979-2011 containing 106 essays written over 30 years on the 20th Century cultural avant-garde including Duchamp, Cage, Mail Art, Fluxus, BiY, zine and artist publishing, international cultural networking, performance art, rubber stamps and other artistic mediums the mainstream considers marginal. Each essay is illustrated with the publication in which it first appeared or an associated item. (see: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/iuoma for more details of both parts)

Fluxupy Aspen. Cecil Touchon's Exhibition at Quintenz and Company

see Occupy Aspen here: http://ceciltouchon.blogspot.com/2011/12/installation-photos-from-quintenz-and.html

Merry Christmas to all from The Netherlands!

Koeien in de wei. Foto: GPD

RUSH OPEN CALL FOR WIND THEME SCORES !!!

Submit one single score with the theme of WIND to aldonza123@hotmail.com, make sure you write on the email subject WIND SCORES + your name.

The booklet will be released in the windy city as part of the activities of the FluxFest Chicago 2012, a fluxus festival organized by Keith Buchholz.

Call closes the 21st of December.... hurry up, run like the wind and submit!

CRYsis

Desperately Seeking Capital €U-Zone Debt CRYsis/positiv
Luxus Artistamps 2011 by Litsa Spathi

Desperately Seeking Capital €U-Zone Debt CRYsis/negativ
Luxus Artistamps 2011 by Litsa Spathi

Bugland

!!!!! FLUXFEST / CHICAGO / 2012 !!!!!

FLUXFEST CHICAGO 2012 February 9th - 12th, 2012

The Cat is Out of The Bag ..... Time for Another FLUXFEST !!!


Feb 9th - Opening of " FROM THE ARCHIVE " - Mailart and Fluxus from the archives of Fluxus/St. Louis.
@ Chicago Art Institute, Joan Flasch Library.

An afternoon opening reception for an exhibit of works that have accumulated here at the archive .. work by all of us and more ... ( if you've never sent Mailart or anything to the archive ..send it now and I'll make sure it's included in the show )

Feb. 10th . ' FLUX IT YOURSELF ' : Scores and Performances by Contemporary Fluxus

Tentative Location : Center For Book Arts, Chicago ( kind of a DIY free for all, where we can do whatever scores we like, plus a one day long exposition of our publications ) either send publications to me ahead of time, or bring them along.

Feb 10th 6:00pm " Flux Dinner " @ The Artist's Cafe, Chicago

An informal get together at a Chicago landmark .... also an opportunity to sign posters and catch up with each other.

Feb 11th 11-5pm "Fluxus Day at the Chicago Cultural Center"

an amazing performance space, and an event sponsored by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

several events to participate in ...

1. " Mailart Creation Station " - an ongoing space with supplies for making and sending Mailart, informing and interacting with the public.

2. " Women In Bowlers " - a celebration of the women of Fluxus - from its beginnings till now, coordinated by Picasso Gaglione with Dada Machine Fluxus, and everyone who wants to perform.

3. " One Ring Circus " - Contemporary Fluxus scores performed by taking turns ... I'll be there with a sign up sheet, and announce ( like we did last year at the MCA and at ABC No Rio ) ....

4. " Long Form Flux " ... Plenty of room for longer durational pieces to be ongoing .. Let me know what you want to do & we'll work it in ... we have lots of space to work with,
also hallways and stairwells ... Bring your Ideas

5. " Fluxhibition 5.4 " - Cecil Touchon will once again transport valises filled with small flux-works from the Fluxmuseum Collection to show and share for the day.

6. " Free For All " - Please either bring or send ahead a multiple, publication or postcard in an edition of 50 or more that can be given away to the public. Last year was amazing .. over 50 different pieces came in, and all were distributed ... that's 2500 works that went out in a day ....how cool is that! I'll be collecting 8 full sets to box and donate to archives. ( Last years boxes ended up in MOMA, Ohio State, The Sackner Collection, Chicago Art Institute, MCA Chicago, and more.... )

Feb. 11th ongoing ( 8am - 6pm ) " Write Now - Artists And Letterforms "

A major exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center that showcases a diverse range of recent works by artists utilizing letters and text in a wide array of mediums. * The " Fluxus, Mailart, and Visual Poetry Project " that many of us are in, is located on and around a 30 ft. long wall as part of this exhibition, and will be open during the day.


Feb 11th 6:30 pm " The New York Correspondence School of Chicago Dinner "

The Berghoff, host restaurant of last year's Correspondence Dinner, once again
welcomes us for a special meal ... Bring Mail art and Multiples to share and swap.

Feb 12th " Flux Film Fest " @ 6018 NORTH.

A matinee festival of New Fluxus Film ( send me your film work now on DVD, so we can get the schedule set up. ) with a special screening of RE: MACIUNAS a new film by Jonas Mekas - Made for us for the Lithuanian Biennial. Also, an opportunity to explore 6018 NORTH - a new grassroots non-profit arts center for Performance, Sound, and Alternative Art .. this amazing space is in process, and will become the new Public Home of the Mailart / Fluxus archive that I've been accumulating ... (by next year our Archive Space will be completed, with a viewing room for Mailart / Fluxus works and publications, and walls to do special exhibitions from the archive.)

Housing : We've been loaned a Beautiful large apartment for the week, with several airbeds and 2 bedrooms .. and a great kitchen .. ( could be an amazing home base for our activities, also, several of our Chicago folks have opened their homes for the week. Let me know if you'll be needing space to stay )....


* If you're sending works ahead of time please Clearly Mark them as for Fluxfest / Chicago.
* send to this address:
Fluxfest Chicago
c/o Keith A. Buchholz
3449 Hartford St.
St. Louis, Mo.
63118 U.S.A.

Call or E-Mail me regarding Housing or Ideas .....
1-314-276-4802 Keith9963@sbcglobal.net

Any Ideas that anyone has, please give me a call. lots of opportunity to Perform in some great public spaces, view and make Mailart, and a chance to visit and collaborate.
I hope lots of you can make it.
Peace,
- Keith Buchholz - Organizer

wall street

Wall Street visual/visible & fear Luxus Artpoem by Litsa Spathi

Nutty As A Fruit Cake

Wall Strret

An Achill cottage industry

An Achill cottage industry
BOOKS: Achill Island seems an unlikely base for a Belgian and South Korean book artist duo, yet that’s where Franticham decided to set up. ANDY DEVANE finds out what drew them there

WHEN BELGIAN book artist Francis Van Maele first laid eyes on an abandoned cottage on Achill Island in the mid-1990s, he was entranced. Situated in Dugort village, in the shadow of Slievemore mountain, the cottage was just metres from the Atlantic. In 2005, after becoming the cottage’s owner, he set up home there and established Red Fox Press, a printing studio in which he creates his own limited-edition books.

That same year, while exhibiting at a book fair in Seoul, Van Maele asked if he could sit next to South Korean artist Antic-Ham at a sushi bar. It was to be the beginning of an artistic journey that would shape both their lives and careers. Over the summer the pair created what was to be the first of many books together, Night in Seoul. When it came time to say goodbye, they decided to make collage “diaries of separation” – started by one in Achill and finished by the other in Asia.

That winter they spent a month in London, where they combined romance with an intense artistic collaboration. It was then that they decided to merge their artistic identities and work as one unit, and so Francis and Antic-Ham became Franticham.

Mirroring the visual poetry of her books, Antic-Ham speaks in deep, poetic terms. When first separated from Van Maele, she had a sudden urge to go to the coast, and although the East China Sea is quite a distance from Blacksod Bay, she imagined that if she were a fish she could swim, somehow, all the way to Achill Island. Since then the fish motif has become prevalent in their collaborative work.

Antic-Ham was born in Seoul in 1974, and she divides her time between South Korea and Achill, spending about seven months a year in the latter. She is highly focused on her work, and insists that although love is the most important thing in her life, work is of equal importance.

Van Maele was born near Bruges in 1947, and ran a successful publishing house in Luxembourg before moving to Ireland. Although silk-screen printing is a labour- intensive process, he makes it sound almost effortless. “You can print on anything: paper, cardboard, boxes. You can print text, simple images and very elaborate art work. You just need a good table, hinges, a few screens and colours. All the printing is done here in Dugort.”

Given their remote location, the couple’s level of self-sufficiency in the production of such specialised work is remarkable. As Van Maele explains, “smaller books are laser-printed or inkjet-printed in our conservatory, and all bookbinding is done here as well. We use about 20 different kinds of papers, depending on projects, and we order them in the UK and Luxembourg or send them from South Korea.”

“Most of our books are limited editions and most of our collectors are in the US, then the UK, Europe and Australia. We make less than 1 per cent of our sales in Ireland.”

Van Maele is bemused to see his early work sell at auctions on the continent for 10 times its original sale price.

The couple travels to about 10 book fairs a year in cities such as London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt. They describe the fairs as essential for meeting collectors and librarians, who represent the bulk of their business, and although they enjoy visiting big cities, they are always happy to return to their adopted Achill.

The island’s rugged beauty and Atlantic air appear to fuel their creative energy. “I can’t imagine living in any other place,” says Van Maele, adding that one advantage of living on Achill is having plenty of time to work undisturbed. Despite this, the couple open their studio every summer, although Van Maele notes wryly that “as the signs do not say ‘coffee shop’ or ‘craft shop’, people coming in are already filtered”.

Canadian filmmaker Heather Fletcher met the pair in London in 2005. “Being a hopeless romantic, I was enraptured with their story,” she says. The next year she flew to Ireland to make a short film of the Franticham story. Over four days, which she describes as a “magical experience”, Fletcher produced Lost Seouls – Diary of Two Fish , a touching 14-minute film of Franticham’s life and work.

Like exotic birds swept off course, this colourful couple cut a dash as they stroll along Dugort’s Golden Strand. Van Maele says: “I think we are very fortunate to combine life and work. We’re on the exact same wavelength, and we enjoy it fully.”

See redfoxpress.com. Heather Fletcher’s film Lost Seouls – Diary of Two Fish is on YouTube

Visual poetry by GEOF HUTH

Geof Huth
"Aution Caution"

Visual poetry / iPhone photographs.
Words, letters, asemic writings... mostly from the street.
Nr. 65 of the "C'est Mon Dada" collection
A6 format - 48 pages - laser printing.
Thread and quarter cloth binding
November 2011
price: 15 euro / 20 US $ / 13 UK Sterling

online orders at http://www.redfoxpress.com/dada-huth.html

Vispo

Ukulele Dada: A Fluxdada Perfromance

Ukulele Dada: A Fluxdada Perfromance

Miss Fluxus Meets her Dada

The History Of Collage

Coll-age - from the Greek , meaning a collection of old tat glued to an animal skin - or is it French? Anyway, it's donkey's years old and steeped in history, wine, fermented goats curds and a fine musty odour similar to a Yak's chafing belt.

It all began really some years later when artists ran out of paint during the great Paint Drought of 1876 and they had to do something else or go totally mad sniffing all that turpentine and drinking absinthe. One of the first collage artists was Gordon Le Bennet who lived in Paree, somewhere in French France. He was often found sticking post-it notes to Toulouse Lautrec's posters telling him where the next knees up was going to be and to make them more interesting added a cut out from the Exchange & Mart - usually of a shed or some gum boots - applied with his own spit.
Years later a small group formed calling themslves the Extortionists , or was it the Contortionists? Anyway, they used more suffixicated methods using real animal glue and a large brush made from a badgers eyebrow. The leader was George Brark and he became famous for his colluges - as he later called them- of still lives fashioned from the empty packets of biscuits and sweets he mainly lived on. Soon many others were drawn into his collugey web - people like Pricasso, Max Unst and Salvador "Where's Me Bike" Doolally.

Coming right up to date now we have the Kollage Kids who cut out all manner of old junk to amuse and mystify the interweb world. They have a blog which you can find HERE called The Kollage Kit. Go and have a look - I think you'll be amazed!

Attention birds!

Ontological Museum Moves to Pagosa Springs, Colorado

Greetings,
The Archives of the Ontological Museum and its wings: The Collage Museum, The Fluxmuseum and the Archives of the Eternal Network have been moved to the mountain town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado just 3 hours north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are hoping to make this our permanent location. Please note the new mailing address:

CECIL TOUCHON
The Ontological Museum
135 COUNTRY CENTER DR STE F # 10
PAGOSA SPRINGS, COLORADO 81147-8958
Phone 817-944-4000
Email:info@ontologicalmuseum.org
Web: http://ontologicalmuseum.org, http://fluxmuseum.org, http://collagemuseum.com
See 2011 incoming works and calls for work here
http://om-2011.blogspot.com/

Noun or Verb?

If you can find it

Chirot

Has anyone heard from David Baptiste Chirot ?
I'm a little worried, and may be going through Milwaukee in the next couple of weeks.
Cant seem to find a phone # .... any info ??? Let me know.
Thanks, - Keith

Creating the Flux Us Rubberstamp

Who's there?

Please

Please Insert

symbol set hand meme

Call for performance scores- "100 Scores for Kaunas"

CALL- "100 Scores for Kaunas"

Reed Altemus, Mary Campbell and Melissa McCarthy will be in Kaunas the week of Oct 16 participating in the biennial satellite exhibit- GEORGE MACIUNAS AND BEYOND - FLUXUS NEVER STOPS (curator Keith A. Buchholz) to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Happenings of George Maciunas in New York. During that week they will be doing performance scores on a trolley. A special score book will be created for this week with contemporary scores to be performed on the trolley. If you would like to be included please send short action pieces which don't require elaborate props or extensive translation into Lithuanian. Scores must be received no later than Sept. 30 at mary@marycampbell.net

new publication from Reed Altemus

---

Repeatedly Tipping My Hat
a collection of performance scores by Reed Altemus
22 pages 5.5x 8.5" spiral bound
two-color photocopy cover printed by the artist
limited edition of 30 copies signed and numbered
contains 18 scores and a complete bio of the artist
$20.00US postage included
available from:
Reed Altemus
Tonerworks
P.O.Box 52
Portland,ME
04112 USA
to reserve a copy write: reedaltemus@gmail.com

---

MAILART / VISUAL POETRY / FLUXUS

DEADLINE APPROACHING ; PLEASE SEND WORK

CALL FOR VISUAL POETRY, PUBLICATIONS, and MAIL ART USING TEXT.
“ WRITE NOW: ARTISTS AND LETTERFORMS ”
I’ve been asked to curate an exhibition of visual poetry for
The Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture.
Please send works in all their forms, Visual Poetry, Asemic Writing, Publications, Mail Art,
Objects, … Anything Text Based or using Text as a point of departure.

Venue: The Chicago Rooms Galleries of the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Illinois.
These public galleries are visited by thousands of people per year,
and are one of the Primary public exhibition spaces in downtown Chicago.
Following the Exhibition all work will become part of
a large public archive project in Chicago.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS : SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
Opening: Friday, September 30, 5.30 - 7.30
Exhibit runs Through April 29th, 2012

SEND TO :
“WRITE NOW” VISUAL POETRY
Keith A. Buchholz / Curator
c/o Nathan Mason, Chicago Rooms
The Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington Street
Chicago, IL 60602 USA

Hello? Hello?

Wild Shopvac on display

MANIFESTO FLUXUS PARA EL SIGLO XXI

Esto es lo que Fluxus es hoy. Es prácticamente lo mismo que era Fluxus antes, pero los actores antiguos han sido reemplazado por nuevos. Y detrás de nuestra generación de artistas Fluxus ya hay una nueva generación lista para desplazarnos. Les damos la bienvenida.

FLUXUS HOY:

Fluxus hoy está construído en los sólidos fundamentos del Fluxus de ayer. Los artistas pueden ser nuevos, pero, el trabajo que están haciendo es tan parte de la tradición Fluxus como el trabajo que se hacía anteriormente.

Esto es lo que Ken Friedman escribió en 2002. Fue publicado en 1989 por la Galería Emily Harvey como “Fluxus y Compañía”.

“... una vez Emmett Williams escribió, “Fluxus es lo que Fluxus hace – pero nadie sabe quién lo ha hecho”. Esta concisa descripción hace dos afirmaciones radicales. La afirmación en la que nadie sabe “quién ha hecho” Fluxus rechaza la idea de Fluxus como un grupo espefífico de gente. Identifica a Fluxus como un marco de acción y define a Fluxus como a un cúmulo, un agregado de las actividades de Fluxus durante los pasados cuarenta años más o menos. Mientras Emmett es famoso por sus acertijos lúdicos, puede que no esté de acuerdo con esta lectura de su texto. Dick Higgings sí estuvo de acuerdo.

Dick rechazó explícitamente la noción que limitaba a Fluxus como a un grupo específico de gente que se reunía en un espacio y tiempo determinado. Dick escribió, “Fluxus no es un momento en la historia, ni un movimiento artístico. Fluxus es una manera de hacer cosas, una tradición, una manera de vivir y morir”.

Para Dick, para George Maciunas, y para mi, Fluxus tiene más valor como una idea y un potencial de cambio social que como un grupo específico de gente o una colección de objetos”.

Nosotros, los artistas fluxus del siglo XXI hemos tomado estas palabras de corazón. Somos Fluxus y estamos haciendo trabajos Fluxus. Friedman, construyendo sobre el trabajo previo de Dick Higgins, describió a Fluxus como un “laboratorio caracterizado por doce ideas”.

1. globalismo,
2. la unidad del arte y la vida,
3. intermedia,
4. experimentalismo,
5. azar,
6. alborozo,
7. simplicidad,
8. implicativo,
9. ejemplativismo,
10. especificidad,
11. presencia en tiempo, y
12. musicalidad

Vivimos y trabajamos bajo esta sombrilla de estas doce ideas.

CUATRO PRINCIPIOS FLUXUS

Ideas de Ken Friedman, Owen Smith, George Maciunas y Dick Higging, así como la observación directa de los trabajos pasados y presentes de Fluxus, pueden ser sintetizadas para crear un juego más conciso de Cuatro Principios Fluxus:

1. Fluxus es una actitud. No es un movimiento o un estilo.
2. Fluxus es intermedia. Los creadores de Fluxus gustan de ver qué pasa cuando diferentes medios se intersectan. Usan objetos, sonidos, imágenes y textos cotidianos y encontrados.
3. Los trabajos Fluxus son simples. El arte es pequeño. Los textos son cortos y los performances son breves.
4. Fluxus debe ser divertido. El humor siempre ha sido un elemento importante en Fluxus.

Como las 12 ideas de Ken Friedman, estos cuatro principios son directrices flexibles, no mandamientos gravados en piedra. Están hechos para ayudar a que la gente entienda y trabaje con Fluxus. No para confinar y restringir su creatividad.

Nosotros, los artistas del siglo XXI, sabemos que le debemos un voto de gratitud a George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman y todos los artistas originales Fluxus por construir el barco en el que estamos navegando. Quien quiera, donde sea, es bienvenido a abordar. Solo recuerden que el barco ya ha comenzado a zarpar.

Firmado el 19 de Mayo de 2011 por,

Allan Revich, Cecil Touchon, Keith Buchholz, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, ejva/nsva, Mary Campbell, Ed Varney, Melissa McCarthy, Carol Starr, Ginny Lloyd, John M. Bennett, Séamas Cain, Litsa Spathi/Nobody, Ann Klefstad, Caterina Davinio, Rudd Janssen, Christopher Hoddinott, Roger Stevens

Scott Helmes screenprint

screenprint from a visual poem from SCOTT HELMES for the second portfolio "VISUAL FLUX"
http://www.redfoxpress.com/vis​ualflux.html

Desert Sculpture

Ohne Titel

Restricted smoking area

Or else.

Asemics/Visual Poems

A NEW BLOG DEDICATED TO MAIL ART AND OTHER FLUXUS THINGS!

http://mailartrubbish.blogspot.com/

Only a sketch

A house to live

Animal on a blue background

Vispo

Fluxus in all languages

Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus

Fire Fluxus Crisis Performance

The crisis-situation here in Greece, July 2011: ΜΑΧΗ ΜΕ ΤΙΣ ΦΛΟΓΕΣ
http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=22768&subid=2&pubid=63219077

A CALL FOR VISUAL POETRY / MAIL ART / FLUXUS

CALL FOR VISUAL POETRY, PUBLICATIONS, and MAIL ART USING TEXT.
“ WRITE NOW: ARTISTS AND LETTERFORMS”
I’ve been asked to curate an exhibition of visual poetry for
The Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture.
Please send works in all their forms, Visual Poetry, Asemic Writing, Publications, Mail Art,
Objects, … Anything Text Based or using Text as a point of departure.

Venue: The Chicago Rooms Galleries of the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Illinois.
These public galleries are visited by thousands of people per year,
and are one of the Primary public exhibition spaces in downtown Chicago.
Following the Exhibition all work will become part of
a large public archive project in Chicago.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS : SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
Opening: Friday, September 30, 5.30 - 7.30
Exhibit runs Through January 8th, 2012

SEND TO :
“WRITE NOW” VISUAL POETRY
Keith A. Buchholz / Curator
c/o Nathan Mason, Chicago Rooms
The Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington Street
Chicago, IL 60602 USA

A Vispo

Funny song

Photobooth Performances Call - Update

Looking forward to your Fluxus performances for this book. Providing steps for submission due November 30th:
1. Take/make 4 photos of your photobooth performance.
2. Put the original photos in an envelop - do not email
3. On a piece of paper draw dialogue bubbles for talk, think and/or holler (or you can collage from the ones provided at http://ginnylloyd.blogspot.com and also in the Facebook group). Make sure you indicate which bubble goes with each photo.
4. Clearly print your text in the bubble(s).
5. Add the paper to the envelop.
6. Mail envelop to Ginny Lloyd, PO Box 1424, Jupiter, Florida 33468 USA

One submission per person and no returns. Group photos are okay and count as a separate submission. More info is at the Facebook page and link given above.

FLUXUS MANIFESTO FOR THE 21st CENTURY

FLUXUS MANIFESTO FOR THE 21st CENTURY

This is what Fluxus is today. It is pretty much the same as what Fluxus was, but the old actors have been replaced by new ones. And behind our generation Fluxus artists there is already a new generation ready to displace us. We welcome them.

FLUXUS TODAY:

Fluxus today is built on the solid foundations of Fluxus yesterday. The artists may be new, but the work they are making is as much a part of Fluxus tradition as the work that came before.

Here is what Ken Friedman wrote in 2002. It was first published in 1989 by the Emily Harvey Gallery as "Fluxus and Company".

"...Emmett Williams once wrote, "Fluxus is what Fluxus does - but no one knows whodunit." This concise description makes two radical statements. The statement that no one knows "who done" Fluxus rejects the idea of Fluxus as a specific group of people. It identifies Fluxus with a frame of action and defines Fluxus as a cumulative, aggregate of Fluxus activities over the past forty years or so. While Emmett is famous for playful conundrums, he may not agree with this reading of his text. Dick Higgins did.

Dick explicitly rejected a notion that limited Fluxus to a specific group of people who came together at a specific time and place. Dick wrote, "Fluxus is not a moment in history, or an art movement. Fluxus is a way of doing things, a tradition, and a way of life and death."

For Dick, for George Maciunas, and for me, Fluxus is more valuable as an idea and a potential for social change than as a specific group of people or a collection of objects."

We, the Fluxus artists of the 21st century have taken these words to heart. We are Fluxus and we are making Fluxus work. Friedman, building on previous work by Dick Higgins, described Fluxus as a "laboratory characterized by twelve ideas".

1. globalism,
2. the unity of art and life,
3. intermedia,
4. experimentalism,
5. chance,
6. playfulness,
7. simplicity,
8. implicativeness,
9. exemplativism,
10. specificity,
11. presence in time, and
12. musicality

We live and work under the umbrella of these twelve ideas.

FOUR FLUXUS PRINCIPLES

Ideas from Ken Friedman, Owen Smith, George Maciunas, and Dick Higgins along with direct observation of Fluxus work past and present, can be synthesized to create an even more concise set of Four Fluxus Principles:

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 should be fun. Humor has always been an important element in Fluxus.

As with Friedman's 12 ideas, these four principles are flexible guidelines, not commandments carved in stone. They are meant to help people understand and work with Fluxus. Not to confine them or restrain their creativity.

We, the Fluxus artists of the 21st century, know that we owe George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman, and all of the original Fluxus artists a debt of gratitude for building the ship that we are now sailing on. Anyone, anywhere, is welcome aboard. Just remember that the ship has already started to sail.

Signed on the 19th of May in 2011 by,

Allan Revich, Cecil Touchon, Keith Buchholz, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, ejva/nsva, Mary Campbell, Ed Varney, Melissa McCarthy, Carol Starr, Ginny Lloyd, John M. Bennett, Séamas Cain, Litsa Spathi/Nobody, Ann Klefstad, Caterina Davinio, Ruud Janssen, Christopher Hoddinott, Roger Stevens

Vispo

...voeglein poem...

"...voeglein poem..." - visual bird poem by Litsa Spathi

PROXY: MEXICO/LATIN-AM

PROXY GALLERY (now showing: the mexico/latin-america collection): Select and assemble your own custom art exhibition with catalogue! Ultra hi-res art files, suitable for printing, are delivered in one custom pdf/ebook. Thousands of enlarged (custom, patented algorithms) and enhanced photographs (now, likely several hundred thousands, soon over a million,) mostly low-res cellphone, web-cam, and low-end digital camera self-portraits (self-packaging), culled from dating/social websites -- as you might expect, there is some explicit content (more than is permitted here unfortunately: you really should see them all, but it probably makes little difference) -- fascinating and occasionally disturbing. I've decided to also add a set of painting-filters -- this was good, as it enabled a 'recovery' of many more worthwhile images, and also clouded any possible erogenous/irregular corporate claims, but the project now extends beyond my life-span. I could easily make small paintings from these images but who support that activity? It's interesting to find the balance/inertia point between the look of photo and painting, and it speaks to the current social/heroic condition! Often it makes faces look squinty so it's necessary to 'bring-back' facial aspects. The display images on this site are but quick approximations of the larger art files which simply don't scale -- kinda like paint on canvas. Another advantage of the painting filters is that they drastically reduce the file sizes and make it well-nigh impossible for someone to covertly res-up these display images for printing. It's quite incredible to realize that many of these pictures were only 3-4K or so when I started to work on them. You may realize that this is not the first time I've collected anonymous found-public imagery: notably dumpster-diving (bicycling with backpack at midnight,) at photofinishers' in the 70's. And of course, there's the "Insatiable Abstraction Engine" -- collections from newsgroups. [http://bbrace.net/insatiable-abstraction.html] But come to think it, nearly all my work involves repeated multiples or collections of imagery. My new friends. Whenever possible I retained any color casts, cropping and lighting. The portraits are actually very considered, sometimes selections made/altered merely to obscure the identity that they wished to presumably portray initially. Sunglasses are a popular ruse, as are close-ups of cleavage, butts, tattoos, feet and groins. (Curiously, I've yet to see a picture of hands... ok, now I have: some intricate fingernails and the love/hate finger-tats.) Many feature-obilerating camera-flash-portraits in the bathroom mirror. Many of course, occur in and around motorized vehicles. Only one (so far) in a grocery store. And some, but surprisingly few, are filched from somewhere online, but this must be a risky choice in the event of an 'actual encounter.' How much introductory information/description do you want to put out there to begin with? There are some very creative, even artful, solutions to this dilemma. Various select groups of portraits are included in each PDF 500-page ebook/catalogue for $250 (sorry about the price but it was a hellish amount of work and I guarantee you won't be disappointed or YMB), and can be ordered directly. The images contain sufficient resolution to print them out on letter-size/A4 paper for an instant exhibition. Use my verified Paypal account to have the DVD delivered at no charge: [bbrace@eskimo.com; http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html] Or, even better, assemble your own catalogue/exhibition at the Proxy Gallery storefront [http://cart.iabrace.com/]. Art files are only $1 each. My new friends. Having been recently kicked-off Facebook (there was an anonymous report of a depicted nipple!), and losing 5,000 so-called friends - it was the perfect place to host a social-media profile-portrait-collection, I've decided to also open an online storefront where individual high-res files will sell for only $1/each. [http://cart.iabrace.com] How hypocritical to object to profile pictures that were on FB to begin with; but it's fun to now position coloured boxes and bars over n•pples, c•nts and c•cks. How idiotic is that? The prints of course required different custom algorithms and some masterful retouching -- they look great! Technically given the incredibly diverse range of imagery it was difficult to make them all equally legible; despite a variety of intricate processing directives, the scripts would inevitably crash or be unable to render a decent image. These were handled individually as were the painting-filters. If I receive a reasonable number of orders, I'll offer additional states of the union or countries... but California had to be the place to begin. Sure to be a collectors' (socio-anthropologists') item! An amazing and compelling, collective portrait! The interspersed military/gangster imagery (or maybe something else), also introduces a new spin on the hopes for this already tenuous social-media culture. I've had to organize/sub-divide these in some fashion, so by state/country seems to be the prevailing approach. And given how often workers are compelled to move around, there's more of a local difference in cultural self-perception, body language, and social-sexual proclivity than you might expect. It really is a perhaps overlooked (overly-present), socially significant era when a massive proportion of the population is able to individually exorcise their self-imagery instead of being routinely dependent on existing systematized systems of portraiture and presentation -- which is not to say that it's entirely free from stylistic-cultural-corporate constraints and codification (and why, for now at least, I left the imagery in a nearly random arrangement), but the individual, probably for the first time ever, is seen freely negotiating a shifting porous skein of varied reception... well, something like that... what does it matter in this big world of shuffled lies... ( commissioned encaustic paintings on 12x12" panels of any subject are available for $15,000US ) http://cart.iabrace.com

PROXY: ALBERTA

PROXY GALLERY (now showing: the alberta collection): Select and assemble your own custom art exhibition with catalogue! Ultra hi-res art files, suitable for printing, are delivered in one custom pdf/ebook. Thousands of enlarged (custom, patented algorithms) and enhanced photographs (now, likely several hundred thousands, soon over a million,) mostly low-res cellphone, web-cam, and low-end digital camera self-portraits (self-packaging), culled from dating/social websites -- as you might expect, there is some explicit content (more than is permitted here unfortunately: you really should see them all, but it probably makes little difference) -- fascinating and occasionally disturbing. I've decided to also add a set of painting-filters -- this was good, as it enabled a 'recovery' of many more worthwhile images, and also clouded any possible erogenous/irregular corporate claims, but the project now extends beyond my life-span. I could easily make small paintings from these images but who support that activity? It's interesting to find the balance/inertia point between the look of photo and painting, and it speaks to the current social/heroic condition! Often it makes faces look squinty so it's necessary to 'bring-back' facial aspects. The display images on this site are but quick approximations of the larger art files which simply don't scale -- kinda like paint on canvas. Another advantage of the painting filters is that they drastically reduce the file sizes and make it well-nigh impossible for someone to covertly res-up these display images for printing. It's quite incredible to realize that many of these pictures were only 3-4K or so when I started to work on them. You may realize that this is not the first time I've collected anonymous found-public imagery: notably dumpster-diving (bicycling with backpack at midnight,) at photofinishers' in the 70's. And of course, there's the "Insatiable Abstraction Engine" -- collections from newsgroups. [http://bbrace.net/insatiable-abstraction.html] But come to think it, nearly all my work involves repeated multiples or collections of imagery. My new friends. Whenever possible I retained any color casts, cropping and lighting. The portraits are actually very considered, sometimes selections made/altered merely to obscure the identity that they wished to presumably portray initially. Sunglasses are a popular ruse, as are close-ups of cleavage, butts, tattoos, feet and groins. (Curiously, I've yet to see a picture of hands... ok, now I have: some intricate fingernails and the love/hate finger-tats.) Many feature-obilerating camera-flash-portraits in the bathroom mirror. Many of course, occur in and around motorized vehicles. Only one (so far) in a grocery store. And some, but surprisingly few, are filched from somewhere online, but this must be a risky choice in the event of an 'actual encounter.' How much introductory information/description do you want to put out there to begin with? There are some very creative, even artful, solutions to this dilemma. Various select groups of portraits are included in each PDF 500-page ebook/catalogue for $250 (sorry about the price but it was a hellish amount of work and I guarantee you won't be disappointed or YMB), and can be ordered directly. The images contain sufficient resolution to print them out on letter-size/A4 paper for an instant exhibition. Use my verified Paypal account to have the DVD delivered at no charge: [bbrace@eskimo.com; http://bradbrace.net/buy-into.html] Or, even better, assemble your own catalogue/exhibition at the Proxy Gallery storefront [http://cart.iabrace.com/]. Art files are only $1 each. My new friends. Having been recently kicked-off Facebook (there was an anonymous report of a depicted nipple!), and losing 5,000 so-called friends - it was the perfect place to host a social-media profile-portrait-collection, I've decided to also open an online storefront where individual high-res files will sell for only $1/each. [http://cart.iabrace.com] How hypocritical to object to profile pictures that were on FB to begin with; but it's fun to now position coloured boxes and bars over n•pples, c•nts and c•cks. How idiotic is that? The prints of course required different custom algorithms and some masterful retouching -- they look great! Technically given the incredibly diverse range of imagery it was difficult to make them all equally legible; despite a variety of intricate processing directives, the scripts would inevitably crash or be unable to render a decent image. These were handled individually as were the painting-filters. If I receive a reasonable number of orders, I'll offer additional states of the union or countries... but California had to be the place to begin. Sure to be a collectors' (socio-anthropologists') item! An amazing and compelling, collective portrait! The interspersed military/gangster imagery (or maybe something else), also introduces a new spin on the hopes for this already tenuous social-media culture. I've had to organize/sub-divide these in some fashion, so by state/country seems to be the prevailing approach. And given how often workers are compelled to move around, there's more of a local difference in cultural self-perception, body language, and social-sexual proclivity than you might expect. It really is a perhaps overlooked (overly-present), socially significant era when a massive proportion of the population is able to individually exorcise their self-imagery instead of being routinely dependent on existing systematized systems of portraiture and presentation -- which is not to say that it's entirely free from stylistic-cultural-corporate constraints and codification (and why, for now at least, I left the imagery in a nearly random arrangement), but the individual, probably for the first time ever, is seen freely negotiating a shifting porous skein of varied reception... well, something like that... what does it matter in this big world of shuffled lies... ( commissioned encaustic paintings on 12x12" panels of any subject are available for $15,000US ) http://cart.iabrace.com