Activating Fluxus
news | EVENTS | writings
-
Julia Robinson: Working In the Spirit of Fluxus
How do museums handle the legacy of a collectivist initiative whose life and energy had a great deal to do with its avoidance of museums, galleries, and the art market? Julia Robinson, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History at New York University, speak about the musealization and preservation…
-
Episode 5: ‘Orange Event No. 3’ (1963) by Bengt af Klintberg
Composed by Bengt af Klintberg in 1963, Orange Event No 3 (or Apelsinhändelse nr 3 in Swedish) is one of the scores from the series Twenty-Five Orange Events. The series was published several times, the first time in Swedish in 1966, together with other writings by af Klintberg, The English translation of 25 Orange Events…
-
Sally Kawamura: Towards Infinity: Mieko Shiomi’s “Transmedia”
Associated researcher Sally Kawamura explores the idea of “transmedia,” a term first coined by artist Mieko Shiomi in 2012. This concept refers to the process of creating new works or responses to existing pieces or concepts. Shiomi’s ideas resonate with other artistic attempts to build upon pre-existing work, particularly within Fluxus.
ABOUT OUR PROJECT, IN BRIEF
This research project, which has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation at Bern University of the Arts, investigates the objects, events, scores, and ephemera that emerged in the spirit of Fluxus in the 1960s–70s in Switzerland, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Inherently fluctuating by definition, Fluxus rejects any stable, material form. Considering the transitory aspects of Fluxus forms not destined for preservation, and looking through a multidisciplinary lens of conservation, art history, performance studies, heritage studies and museology, our project will advance novel strategies for activating Fluxus through the reconstruction, adaptation and artistic reinterpretation of Fluxus forms.
AIMS AND MEANS
The project has three principal aims : (I) Using examples of collections and individual artworks held in Switzerland and abroad, the project reviews, catalogues, evaluates and systematises the current strategies for exhibiting, conserving and documenting Fluxus. (II) By means of a theoretical investigation of the notions of authenticity, changeability and intentionality and the role they play in the continuing life of Fluxus intermedia, (III) the project advances new strategies for activating Fluxus works through (a) the reconstruction, (b) the adaptation and (c) the artistic reinterpretation of Fluxus forms.
IN DETAIL
Activating Fluxus centers on the lives and afterlives of Fluxus objects, events, and ephemera created in the 1960s–70s in Switzerland, Europe, the UK, and the US. Fluxus transformed creative practice for good, not least by questioning the dominant preconception of the artwork as something that endures unchanged. Inherently fluctuating by definition, the creative outputs of Fluxus reject any stable, material form. While many histories of the post-war avant-garde focus on the implications of nascent conceptualism and performativity for other artistic genres, the proposed project considers the fundamentally transitory aspects of Fluxus forms not destined for preservation. By seeking new ways to engage with the legacy of Fluxus through the lens of conservation, art history, performance studies, heritage studies and museology, this project examines the possibility of activating Fluxus, challenged as it is by its paradoxical coexistence of ephemerality and materiality, with implications for how we conceive of changeable artworks that emerged after the 1960s.
Activating Fluxus 