[Air-l] Call for Papers - FLUXUS

[Ken Friedman]

CFP - FLUXUS issue of Performance Research

[ Please circulate ]


----> Call for papers

FLUXUS was an international community of artists, architects, 
designers, and composers described as "the most radical and 
experimental art movement of the 1960s." As a laboratory of 
experimental art, Fluxus was the first locus of intermedia, concept 
art, events, and video, and a central influence on performance art, 
arte povera, and mail art.

2002 will mark the 40th anniversary of the first Fluxus festival in 
Wiesbaden, Germany. The journal Performance Research will mark the 
occasion with a special issue.

Guest editors Ken Friedman and Owen Smith will coordinate this issue. 
The editors will welcome proposals and complete papers on any topic 
or theme relevant to Fluxus, the Fluxus artists and composers, or 
their work.


----> Themes

"Fluxus is what Fluxus does -- but no one knows whodunit." Emmett Williams

"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." Dick 
Higgins

As a large and somewhat diffuse phenomenon, there can be no single 
approach to Fluxus. The editors encourage a wide variety of topics, 
themes, and approaches.

A list of possible topics includes: art practice in Fluxus, art 
theory in Fluxus, events, video, concept art and conceptual art, 
intermedia, performance, artist books and periodicals, cooperative 
housing, artist stamps, experimental film, Happenings, mail art, new 
music.

A partial list of Fluxus artists and composers includes: Ay-O, Joseph 
Beuys, George Brecht, Phil Corner, Robert Filliou, Ken Friedman, Al 
Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan 
Knizak, Alison Knowles, Arthur Koepcke, Shigeko Kubota, George 
Maciunas, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Miller, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, 
Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Yoshimasa 
Wada, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, and La Monte Young.

Articles on other artists and themes are also welcome.


----> Special theme:

2002 also marks 30 years since the 1972-73 Fluxshoe toured England 
with a series of performances, concerts, and exhibitions. This issue 
of Performance Research will particularly welcome contributions that 
focus on the historical and geographical activities centered on the 
Fluxshoe, together with considerations of how it influenced the 
British art of the years since.


----> Overview

Fluxus has been a laboratory characterized by George Maciunas's 
notion of the "learning machine." The Fluxus research program has 
been characterized by twelve ideas: globalism, the unity of art and 
life, intermedia, experimentalism, chance, playfulness, simplicity, 
implicativeness, exemplativism, specificity, presence in time and 
musicality.

These ideas describe the qualities and issues that characterize the 
work of Fluxus. Each describes a "way of doing things." Together, 
these twelve ideas form a picture of what Fluxus is and does.

The implications of these ideas have been interesting and 
occasionally startling. Fluxus has been a complex system of practices 
and relationships. As a forum of philosophical and artistic practice, 
Fluxus developed and demonstrated ideas that would later be seen in 
such frameworks as multimedia, telecommunications, hypertext, 
industrial design, urban planning, architecture, publishing, 
philosophy, even management theory.

This issue of Performance Research will explore the general and 
individual aspects of Fluxus that have made it so lively, engaging, 
and difficult to describe.


----> About the editors.

Ken Friedman was an active participant in Fluxus, as an artist since 
1966, as director of Fluxus West for a decade, and as editor of The 
Fluxus Reader for Academy Press. Owen Smith is an art historian and 
curator specializing in intermedia and multimedia art forms. His 
book, Fluxus: History of an Attitude, is published by San Diego State 
University Press.


----> Deadlines

Proposals and full text articles welcome to 1 September 2001

Final selection by 15 October 2001

Completed articles and manuscripts due by 15 December 2001


----> Proposals or complete articles welcome

Please send article proposals to Owen Smith at

ofsmith at maine.maine.edu

Completed articles or extensive drafts are also welcome.

Proposals and articles may be sent in email form and as attachments 
in Microsoft Word.

This issue will be richly illustrated. Proposals or complete articles 
should indicate illustrations and how they will be presented. The 
initial proposal or article need not include the actual 
illustrations. These will be planned after articles are selected.

General questions may be directed to Owen Smith or to Ken Friedman at

ken.friedman at bi.no