Activating Fluxus
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Episode 6: ‘Dream Piece’ (1976) by John Armleder
‘Dream Piece’ (1976) is a performance by John Armleder, conceived and enacted within the expansive context of the Ecart Group, an artistic collective that thrived in Geneva during the 1970s. Ecart’s approach to art bore a strong imprint of Fluxus influence, a fact made evident by the numerous characteristics that situated the group firmly within…
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CFP: “Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge” / 36th CIHA Congress 2024
The research team of our sister project “Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge” is pleased to announce the call for papers for their panel at the 36th Congress of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art, which will take place in Lyon, France, June 23–28, 2024. The theme of the conference is Matter Materiality. Read the description of their CFP below and submit
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Tuna Fish Sandwiches and Grapefruits: Activating Fluxus at FLUXUS GLOBAL / DIVERS
Members of the Activating Fluxus team – Hanna Hölling, Aga Wielocha and Josephine Ellis – collaboratively presented on Alison Knowles’ infamous Identical Lunch (1967). The talk, Parsing Difference: Alison Knowles’ Identical Lunch and the Question of Continuity, drew on our sustained engagement and fascination with Knowles’ score which highlights several key concerns of our project, namely:…
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 