From AH: Fluxus and Wiard
2004-02-20 by grantrichter2001
Hi Peter, Don't worry about the late reply, I love talking about art, any time, especially when it crosses over into the analog synth world! By "fluxus doesn't =minimalism" I didn't mean to suggest there were no minimalists working under the umbrella of fluxus, I meant fluxus does not automatically equal minimalism. Fluxus consisted of a largely diverse group of artists (including all the minimalists you listed) but just as importantly many others who's work was not related to minimalism: Joseph Beuys, Al Hansen (grandfather of the musician Beck), of course Yoko Ono (Ilove her, she'll go on Jay Leno even today and perform the most beautiful fluxus event with the entire tv audience...did anyone see the mending piece she did with the teacup? Had to be the most conceptual tv moment since twin peaks or peewee's playhouse was still on the air!) ect. <<spyglass wrote: >What's fluxus? how does one apply it to music? Much of what Fluxus embodies is traced back to the famous composition class that John Cage taught at the New School for Social Research in the late 1950s. Two fluxus-to be artists; Dick Higgins and George Brecht attended as well as Hansen (who wound up in the life changing class only because his wife was enrolled in a philosophy class at the same time in the same school!) and many other art world giants like Larry Poons, Allan Kaprow, George Segal and Robert Whitman. Almost all these artists had little or no background in music, Kaprow was there to learn how to improve the sound to his art environments. Their lack of musical knowledge was embraced by Cage and ended up being well suited for his avant-garde music class. Cages Class pretty much single handily (through Kaprow) was responsible for inventing the art "Happening". Fluxus was actually organized by an art dealer named Maciunas who's gallery hosted several concerts of experimental music in the 1960's. I'm sure some of you AHers make work that embrace Fluxus ideas, can we hear about them? What equipment do you use for such pieces? The beginning art students at the school I teach at have a Wiard system that is blowing their minds on a daily basis. Most of these art students don't have a background in music either. As an introduction to the Wiard, I have been having all of my 3-D design students spend some time with it individually. They receive no previous instructions from me other than "you can't break it by putting a cord into the "wrong" jack and that a little hollow triangle means out and a solid one means in" When they first walk into this little room alone see the Wiard with all its pots and jacks, they want to turn and run out of the room from intimidation, but then the blinking lights of this little blue box do their job and enchant, even, the students who are afraid to program a vcr. While the rest of the class does their work outside they are hearing the most horrible, or beautiful, or funny, or alien sounds coming from the little room. And the students always emerge from the little room with bugged eyes and a huge smile. Grant Richter was gracious enough to build the Wiard system for us to purchase recently. He put a lot of thought into what would be the best set of modules for a group of beginning visual artists to experiment with. We had many conversations about how it could/would be used in such an environment and the benefits of having such a system at these young visual artists disposal. The wiard is a work of art in itself, the way it interacts with the students and visually. Grant told me the graphics and color scheme were designed by a class of college art students, it was their class project to make the wiard appeal to everyone; young, old, male, female, and not to recall a certain era in electronic music i.e. 1950s, 60's, 70's , etc. So they ended up with the beautiful Victorian looking work of art that the Wiard is! (Kind of like the Spacemen 3, making art that makes music to make art with) The students are just beginning to use the Wiard in 3-D class and I'm sure in the near future I will assign them a Fluxus-inspired piece to produce with the Wiard! -Tom