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The Spirit of Fluxus As a Nomadic Art Movement

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The Spirit of Fluxus As a Nomadic Art Movement ABSTRACT !e Spirit of Fluxus as a Nomadic Art Movement The Spirit of Fluxus as a Nomadic Fluxus was the brain-child of a Lithuanian-born artist named George Maciunas whose family "ed to Germany in the Second World War, where they eventually became displaced persons and later emigrated to the USA. Maciunas studied art Art Movement and architecture in Pittsburgh and New York before working as an architect and graphic artist and founded the Fluxus movement at the beginning of the 1960s. During his student years, he became fascinated by nomadic art in Asia and S. E. WILMER Eastern Europe that would later in"uence his life’s work. !is essay considers the relationship between his interest in nomadism and the nature of the Fluxus movement that spread across the world, breaking down barriers between art and life, privileging concrete and conceptual art, and staging unusual events. It applies Braidotti’s notion of the nomadic subject to Maciunas’ encouragement of radical styles of performance art, such as Yoko Ono’s minimalist conceptual work BRAIDOTTI’S NOMADISM the stateless, the immigrant and the migrant rather and Joseph Beuys’s Tatar-in"uenced use of fat and felt. In her book Nomadic Subjects (2nd Edition, 2011), than with those of $xed nationality. While the na- Rosi Braidotti outlines di#erent features of nomad- tion-state reinforces geographical borders and divi- Keywords: Maciunas, Fluxus, nomadism, Braidotti, Deleuze, Ono, Beuys. ism with which she identi$es. In this essay I want to sions and subjugates its citizens, the nomad subverts apply some of her ideas to Fluxus, an art movement these functions of the state. that emerged in the 1960s and which still continues !irdly, she subscribes to the Deleuzian dif- to function today. By presenting several ways that ferentiation between the divisible earth (in other Braidotti conceives the nomad and by relating these words, private property) and nomadic space, which to Fluxus, I plan to introduce various aspects of the belongs to everyone. !us, as a self-styled nomad, nomadic subject and indicate how these can be ap- Braidotti promotes the notion of common space plied to theatre and performance. rather than private property. Fourth, as someone In Nomadic Subjects, Braidotti discusses various who has adopted new languages as she has moved facets of her life that she regards as nomadic: from one country to another, she has been linguis- tically nomadic, writing in di#erent languages and 1. Geographic movement, translating her own work: “My work as a thinker, 2. Transnational identities, has no mother tongue, only a succession of trans- 3. Promoting common space, lations, of displacements, of adaptations to chang- 4. Polylingualism, ing conditions.”3 Fifth, in common with other 5. Desubjectivation, poststructuralist thinkers such as Luce Irigaray and 6. Becoming Minoritarian, Deleuze, she regards personal identity as something 7. !inking and acting di#erently. that is continually emerging rather than being $xed BIOGRAPHY and static and, like them, views the subject “as an First of all, geographically, she has moved from one entity fully immersed in processes of becoming, in S. E. Wilmer (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) is Professor Emeritus and former country to another: born in Italy, raised in Australia, productive relations of power, knowledge and de- Head of the School of Drama, Film and Music at Trinity College Dublin. educated in France, and now based in the Nether- sire”.4 Sixth, as a feminist and lesbian, she considers Recently he co-edited (with Audronė Žukauskaitė) Interrogating Antigone in lands. Secondly, as a person who has moved from her lifestyle choices as minoritarian. As opposed to Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism (Oxford University Press, 2010) and (with one nation-state to another, she maintains no $xed male, heterosexual majoritarian identity, she advo- Anna McMullan) Re'ections on Beckett (University of Michigan Press, 2009). sense of national identity and this has led to her “ac- cates the notion of becoming other, as well as the Earlier publications include: National !eatres in a Changing Europe (Palgrave, tive resistance against methodological nationalism concept of “yearning”, which the black feminist 2008), (with Pirkko Koski) !e Dynamic World of Finnish !eatre (Like, 2006), and a critique of Eurocentrism”.1 Heavily indebt- writer bell hooks de$nes as “an a#ective and politi- Writing and Rewriting National !eatre Histories (Iowa University Press, 2004), ed to her mentor Gilles Deleuze and his notion of cal sensibility that cuts across the boundaries of race, and !eatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities (Cambridge the nomad as a revolutionary $gure in society,2 she class, gender, and sexual practice [that] could be fer- University Press, 2002). tile ground for the construction of empathy – a base [email protected] opposes the state apparatus, identifying more with 88 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 26: no. 2 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 26: no. 2 89 for solidarity and coalition”.5 Seventh, and perhaps weekends by a number of artists including himself. Europe and Japan and attracting artists from many the graphics for Mekas’s $lm magazine Film Cul- most importantly, she regards her work as concep- Many of the performances seemed silly or absurd countries to their ranks such as Joseph Beuys, Nam ture and later collaborated on performances with tually nomadic, as that of thinking di#erently: “!is to the audiences, such as Maciunas’ aleatoric use of June Paik, Yoko Ono, Ben Vautier and Vytautas Mekas at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (where entails the creation of new frameworks, images and technology in In Memoriam to Adriano Olivetti, in Landsbergis (who later would lead the movement they encouraged Andy Warhol to make $lms) and modes of thought, beyond the dualistic conceptual which the performers reacted to the numbers arbi- for Lithuanian independence in the 1980s). With Film-Makers’ Cinamathèque. Although Mekas was constraints and the perversely monological mental trarily produced by an adding machine. “During the proliferation of activities, Maciunas designated an experimental $lm-maker, Maciunas was even habits of phallocentric thought.”6 performances of this piece, the musicians have to four regional headquarters for Fluxus in California, more radical in his use of $lm technology, such as read the numbers and respond to them in time to France, Denmark and Czechoslovakia. According to taping images onto the celluloid to experiment with a metronome, with prescribed reactions, usually Ken Friedman, who led Fluxus West (based in Cal- a new intermedial form in his $lm Artype (1966).16 GEORGE MACIUNAS AND THE FOUNDING OF raising and lowering a bowler hat.”8 !e press reac- ifornia), the twelve main characteristics of Fluxus Amongst many other events, Maciunas organ- FLUXUS tions to the initial Wiesbaden event, including a TV were: Globalism, Unity of Art and Life, Intermedia, ised a "ux-mass in the university chapel at Rutgers Having established some of the ways in which feature, were generally hostile, gleefully quoting the Experimentalism, Chance, Playfulness, Simplicity, University. !e Flux-mass in 1970 was a memorable Braidotti conceives herself as nomadic, I now want gra%tti plastered on one of their posters that “the Implicativeness, Exemplativism, Speci$city, Pres- performance that displayed Maciunas’ originali- to turn to Fluxus and discuss its status as a nomad- lunatics have escaped”.9 ence in Time, and Musicality.14 ty, sense of humour and novel uses of technology. ic art movement by applying these features to their To make matters worse, some of the composers Maciunas maintained a database of the artists Geo# Hendricks, who taught in the art depart- work. However, I $rst want to give some back- of electronic music, who performed in the $rst con- associated with the movement and created an elabo- ment at Douglass College in Rutgers University, ground and basic information about Fluxus. It was cert, abandoned the festival after disagreeing with rate chart to indicate the in"uences on these individ- describes how Maciunas “researched the Catholic the brain-child of a Lithuanian-born artist named the artistic aims of Maciunas and other artists.10 ual artists. Amongst those that Maciunas identi$ed Mass, studied its structure and traditions, careful- George Maciunas. When he was a child, his family More Fluxus concerts followed in quick succession as creative in"uences on Fluxus were the Dadaists, ly examined all the parts and developed humorous "ed to Germany in the 1940s when Lithuania was in 1962 and 1963 in Copenhagen, London, Paris, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, and the Happenings interpretations for each. !e priest’s assistants wore occupied and lived as displaced persons in Germany Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, Nice, and later in Prague, of Allan Kaprow. Like the Dadaists, Fluxus adopted gorilla costumes, and the front of the priest’s vest- for a few years after the war before settling in the Warsaw, and Vilnius. Maciunas moved back to New an anti-bourgeois aesthetic and the idea of nonsen- ments varied from images of Napoleon to the Venus USA. Maciunas studied art and architecture in New York, which became its centre of activities, from sical and absurd artworks. Like Duchamp, Fluxus de Milo to George Washington… !e sacramental York and Pittsburgh before becoming an architect where he tried to provide performance as well as used the notion of the readymade, or found objects wine was in a plasma tank with hose. Wafers were and graphic designer. As a student he was clearly publishing opportunities for a variety of artists. that were given an artistic value. Like John Cage, laxative and blue-urine cookies. !e consecration of impressed by nomadic art works, taking copious Maciunas promoted the idea that Fluxus should who was loosely associated with the Fluxus move- the bread, a giant loaf $lled with sawdust, was done notes on nomadic art in Eastern Europe and Asia undermine the commercial value placed on art and ment and who used the I Ching to determine the se- by a mechanical dove (Holy Spirit) made by Joe as well as on European mythology.
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