Architecture and efficiency

George Maciunas and the economy of art

CUAUHTEMOCMEDINA

1. The great frauds of architecture were less resistant to fire and even less beautiful. As for the Guggenheim Museum, LloydWright ought to have In the first prospectus of the contents of devised a more intelligent enclosure to ensure that the magazine, of February 1962, of the museum's collections were properly announced that he intended to publish an essay titled illuminated. Instead, propelled by his obsession with "The Grand Fakers of Architecture: M. v. d. Rohe, arranging the museum around a spiral ramp, he had Saarinen, Buschaft, F. L.Wright."1 This was, in fact, one perimeter windows installed all around the building, of the very few original projects for Fluxus magazine which made light fall exactly at the eye level of the that were finally included in the edition of the spectators, interfering with their appreciation of the art "yearbook" in 1964.2 In retrospect, this document is one works. In each of these cases, Maciunas denounced a of the best vantage points from which to understand the "preconceived" stylistic goal that hampered the economic rationale behind George Maciunas's anti-art. fulfillment of the building's aims, increasing the costs of In "The Grand Frauds of Architecture," George its construction and day-to-day operation. Maciunas Maciunas intended to critically demolish some of the quoted Mies van der Rohe with utmost irony: masterworks of American postwar architecture: Mies Van he will not make inevitable. der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago "Alone," says, "logic beauty But with a (1949-1951); Eero Saarinen's MIT Auditorium logic, building shines." These innovations are Mies. (1952-1955); Gordon Bushaft's Lever House (1952); accepted matter-of-factly by "In our he "we don't have a a of course, Frank work/' says, grand idea, and, Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim . . . dream, and then try to glue it together. We just solve Museum (1957). Behaving like the district attorney before the tribunal of reason, Maciunas accused the problems."3 Masters of the modern canon of having cheated their But the "Great Frauds" took architecture as the own a a clients and, worse, betrayed their principles. To starting point for discussion of more general kind, an an give example, in the Lake Shore Apartments, Mies exposition of Maciunas's axiology. Trying to leave his sure were as a had been asked to make his buildings fire mark social theoretician, he composed a series of proof. According to Maciunas, the cheapest and most diagrams that summarized the relation between his beautiful solution would have been to employ fire-proof theory of anti-art and a certain economy of values. concrete for the structure. Instead, Mies had chosen Dictionary at hand, Maciunas dictated: Value is a some "'efficient' looking exposed steel columns," which "universal objective?'something to be desired.'" According to Maciunas there were at least four "universal values" that all forms of desire: a encompassed This essay is section of my Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Essex: "Fluxus non-art and anti-art. A of Maciunas," Study George in art value of experience, beauty 2003, which Iwrote under the guidance of Dawn Ades. Iwould like to thank the staffof the different librariesand archives inwhich I in industry value of productivity worked research and the of a during my acknowledge support grant in finance value of money from the D.G.A.P.A. of the National University of Mexico (UNAM). in science value of 1. Jon Hendricks, ed., Fluxus Codex. Introduction by Robert knowledge Pincus-Witten. : The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus This enumeration was, to be sure, like a Collection in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1988, something schematization of modern social and the pp. 104-107. purposes, 2. George Maciunas, "The Grand Frauds of Architecture: Mies recognizable "modern" element of these values relies on van der Frank 1 Rohe, Saarinen, Buschaft, Lloyd Wright." Fluxus their apparent lack of hierarchical or structural bond. (1964):4. Maciunas held the piece in such esteem that he republished it in 1966: Underground Magazine 1:7 (Wednesday, December 28, In 3. 3. 1966):9. this essay Iquote from the original edition. Ibid., p.

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More importantly, perhaps, Maciunas conceived these ECONOMY without loss of value. human drives as governed by an unlimited ambition. economy of materials. According to Maciunas, the needs fulfilled by those four economy time, money, energy, ability, to attain more is "values" were to satiate in themselves. For and greater values possible with impossible EFFICIENCY humans, Maciunas argued, "the higher the value and the efficiency eliminates waste of energy, materials, more of it, the better." time, money, etc. and increases their effectiveness.5 Itwould be useful to examine this scheme as a us to rendition of a certain form of economic mentality. As This document might offer the key what George Maciunas to as Gary Cross argues, all through the first half of the used describe by the mid 1960s the was an an twentieth century most social arguments concerning "Fluxus way of life."6 It attempt at labor and leisure are framed under a "modern moral administration of desire that hoped to achieve the ideal economy of needs"; i.e., the continuation of the of an "economy without loss of value." The outcome of classical stoic distinction between natural needs "and such reasoning was, in fact, anti-art. Maciunas reasoned those unnatural wants which seemed to undermine that while three of the first basic human purposes he were community and rational use of free time." Most leftist, had outlined developmental?knowledge, money, to conservative, or sociological discourses tended to assess and productivity?in that they helped work increase the relations between work, leisure, and time on the production, "beauty" was an obstacle to progress. assumption that real human needs were limited. On that Departing from his critiques of contemporary basis, social reformers and activists believed that the architecture, Maciunas compared the economic art In increase in productivity in industry opened the rationality of and architecture. art, he argued, that art materials are possibility of obtaining reductions of working time, given normally of very low in art whereas technocrats and employers constantly worried importance the calculation of the work's cost, 90 costs are about the seeming incapacity of the market to absorb about percent of the of production derived from the "artist's attainment." On in the overproduction brought by technological advances. the contrary, the 90 of the final costs were Save for Marginalist economists, the notion of "limitless architecture percent spent in one was consumption" was a concept foreign to social materials and energy, and only tenth in and two discourses. Even Samuel Taylor's methods of "scientific employed designing planning. Logically, the an In management" were promoted with the idea that surplus disciplines had opposite economic behavior. itwas to more would eventually be large enough that workers and architecture perfectly logical spend time on A managers would find it "unnecessary to quarrel over and energy the architect's labor, i.e., design. higher how it should be divided."4 "logical deliberation," no matter how strenuous or an Maciunas's economic reasoning was a variation of costly, would eventually pay back by saving enormous amount resources. such an early modern rationale. He not only felt that the of material On the art desires of the modern subject were bottomless, but also contrary, could only be made cheaper by furthering that his unlimited demand would if unfettered lead to the artist's "dexterity." In the long term art was incapable a permanent scarcity: "Money, time, energy, ability is of progress: while the history of architecture showed more "continuous of in use of limited in quantity," he argued, while "desire for development efficiency since can and great value is not limited." As a consequence, a materials," its know-how be "objectively shared and secondary value had to be put in place to avoid the communicated producing historical economic crisis involved in such excess of want. This "2nd objective" was a form of economic reason: "attainment of greater value for less is desirable," 5. "The Grand Frauds of 1. to to Maciunas, Architecture," op. cit., p. leading therefore, Maciunas explained, the need 6. For instance, in a letter by Maciunas to written an "ECONOMY" that introduced a measure am develop in early 1964: "Fluxus way of life is 9 to 5 pm working socially humankind's voracious own mediating between impulses. constructive and useful work?earning your living, 5 pm to 10 on This was nothing other than the value of "EFFICIENCY." pm. spending time propagandizing your way of life among other pm idle artist & art collectors and fighting them, 12 to 8 a.m. sleeping (8 hours is enough)" (George Maciunas, Letter to Tomas Schmit, November 8, 1963. Silverman Collection, New York. Partly reproduced by Jon Hendricks in Fluxus etc/Addenda II. The Gilbert and Lila 4. Gary Cross, Time and Money. The Making of Consumer Silverman Collection. Pasadena: Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute Culture. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 15-45. Taylor quoted in p. 19. of Technology, 1983, pp. 166-167).

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letterswere like hands. (. . .) an and a a could only increase his output by envelope glove? continuity," painter . same function: the encloses the hand, right? (. .) speeding his manual operations. glove You see, the reason Iam so concerned with that is that However, Maciunas concluded that the improvement . that's the an architect was that's architect training (. .) way of artistic dexterity had biological limits: art he thinks functionalism, otherwise he's not an an "ART-OCCURRINGORGANISM," thinks, produced by he's a or was architect, sculptor stage designer.9 namely the human body, which incapable of never a progress. In other words, the artist's tekn? was to This was, of course, rather reductive interpretation architecture. As L. become a technology: of the assumptions of modern Larry has "function" remained a and of each artist continuous of Lingo argued, complex History displays development one polyvalent notion in modern architectural theory, efficiency in use of his time-increased dexterity since that both emotional effects on the viewers efficiency is in the subjective occurrence, it cannot be encompasses and users, of "universal" values, easily shared and therefore does not produce historical expression purportedly or a cultural of time and continuity.7 specific epoch's understanding to space.10 Notwithstanding, "functionalism" tended be for architecture had the Luckily Maciunas, exactly conceived under a more "restricted" and "naked" opposite economic logic: its profits could be increased view.11 Frequently, the notion of "functionalism" a "curtailment of the that is by necessary labour-time," involved as a call for an A understanding in "direct proportion to the productivity of labour." architecture entirely based on requirements of use, the certain accumulation of work in terms of technology satisfaction of physical and biological needs, and the made itmore efficient.8 Had Maciunas been a proper pursuit of the efficient management of labor and Marxist, his could have in terms of argument developed materials in edification. This "strict functionalism," art as reading this difference between and architecture "the idea that good architecture is produced part of the history of the transition from craft to industry, automatically by strict attention to utility, economy, and to fine art as a form which could have led him interpret an other purely practical considerations," carried of economic resistance working against the logic of the aesthetic regulation.12 Walter Gropius's dictum "form increase of But Maciunas was not profit. clearly follows function" seemed to be able to any as replace interested in criticizing material progress the result kind of decisions of taste by a principle of "structural of coercion. articulation," understood as "the revelation, in design, of more roots It is likely that the of Maciunas's or more a building's structural materials and methods," lie in of modern economic thought the doctrines a precisely, "the articulation in building's exterior of the architecture. Even late in his life, "functionalism" various areas of activity which are contained within remained a concept close to the center of Maciunas's it."13 By all appearances, Maciunas had been trained He in fact understood it much like speculations. very under these views of the modern architectonic strictures. "concretism," for it involved the coincidence between His obsession with finding a way to restore the identity the "truth" of an object and its sensible appearance. of the concept and the perception of the thing Functionalism involved that unity of content and form corresponded to the view that architectonic which he had been pursuing throughout his anti functionalism consisted in the complete coherence artistic pursuits: among material, purpose, form, and cause in the design . . That's when the George Maciunas: (. .) functionalism. (. .) piece that you are doing has an inherent connection with . we A the form (. .) did the whole series of aprons (...) 9. Larry Miller, "Transcript of the Videotaped Interview with on in etc/Addenda I. The non-functional apron would be to print some flowers it. George Maciunas," Jon Hendricks ed. Fluxus . New York: Okay? Now that has nothing to do with the fact that (. .) Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, ed. Jon Hendricks. Ink 23-24. you are wearing [it] on top of your stomach. (...) Icame &, 1983, pp. . a 10. Larry L. Lingo, The Concept of Function in Twentieth-Century and designed (. .) [an] apron [with an] image of stomach . Architectural Criticism. Ann Arbor-London: UMI Research Press, 1984, right on top of your stomach. (. .)we did a series of . p. 5. stationery (. .)The envelopes were like gloves and the 11. Peter Blundell Jones, "Functionalism," in Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner. 34 v. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996, vol. 11, pp. 1. 7. Maciunas, "The Grand Frauds of Architecture," op. cit., p. 839-842; Lingo, op. cit., pp. 11-12. 3 8. Karl Marx, Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. vols. 12. J.M. Richards, An Introduction to Modern Architecture. Introduction by Ernst Mandel, trans. Ben Fowkes. Harmondsworth, Baltimore, 1940, p. 37. Quoted by Lingo, op. cit, p. 11. England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976, vol. 1, pp. 319, 432-437. 13. Ibid., p. 5.

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of any kind of building, to be achieved thanks to autonomous practice.17 The more modern architectural a modern economic and technical developments.14 practice identified with revolutionary Marxist model, In fact, George Maciunas had reason to assume that the more it adopted a strict functionalist rationale. While the doctrines of functionalism involved a reconciliation Le Corbusier hoped that modern architecture could help of modernity and desire. Gropius's attempt to reestablish to prevent the extension of Bolshevism in Europe, the guilds that would have made the cathedrals of the reconciling the workers with the industrial forces,18 future was wrapped in an argument that wanted to those who sided with the socialist revolution, like Hanes abolish aesthetic and social alienation, by identifying Mayer, defended the view that if architecture had to once again the useful and the beautiful: adjust to the pure rule of efficiency and utility itwould sacrifice any kind of aesthetic concerns for the sake of Every object is determined by its essence; in order to better its economic functions: construct it so that it functions properly, one must ascertain fulfilling what the essence forwe must make it serve its is, purpose All things of this world are products of the formula: i.e. fulfill its function and be perfectly, practical durable, function and economy. All works of art are compositions . cheap and "beautiful." (. .) and therefore, not suitable. Life, however, is functional and The "work of art" has to in both the ... "function," therefore, not artistic. To build is not a process of intellectual and material like sense, something produced by but a biological process.19 an as an the obvious of engineer, such aeroplane, purpose Maciunas's need to condemn all of those architects which is to fly.15 as who had merely become "stage designers," such Mies It without that there is of evidence goes saying plenty van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, carried the that artists/theorists like and Le Corbusier never a Gropius implications of such early modernist polemic. In surrendered their to entirely designs merely pragmatic certain way, he was right in sensing that buildings such intentions. his calls to follow the engineers in Despite as the Guggenheim Museum signaled the crisis of the their of rational forms pursuit simple governed by functionalist paradigm of modern architecture, for they economic and mathematical Le Corbusier principles, implicitly recorded the changes that the Western the roles of the two in arguing was distinguished professions, capitalist economy undergoing at the end of the that architects needed to go utilitarian needs," "beyond 1950s. Seen in this perspective, Maciunas's anti-art for architecture was "a whose "business" plastic thing" ought to be read as a desperate attempt to contain the was to establish "emotional with the aid relationships" changes that architectonic and design values were of the new raw materials of engineering.16 suffering under the pressures of contemporary Nonetheless, the fact that modern architecture was capitalism. His fears that the desire of beauty carried understood as for a strict frequently campaigning with it implicitly an economy of unlimited demand utilitarian aesthetics in many architecture an prevailed might well be eccentric reading of the emergence of schools all around the world, for it that all promised consumerist society. kinds of collective needs and desires could be achieved an This by means of application of economic rationality. an on art as an 2. The of consumerism thought at many points suggested attack question Back in 1929, some members of the technocratic elite to the caused 14. That modernity would be able justify disruption in the West started to realize that the shortage of is by the industrial revolution and the nineteenth century precisely a demand that threatened capitalism was to be merely what Giedion would want architecture to do in reconciling human "in needs with technological means, by taking into consideration that creates new even as following its material urge, industry unconsciously powers 17. This explains that architect theoreticians such Siegfried new to "Do We of expression and possibilities of experience." (Siegfried Giedion, Giedion devoted sections of their writings the question a Space, Time and Architecture. The Growth of New Tradition. Need Artists?" (Giedion, op. cit., p. 350). Press. out Cambridge, Mass, and London UK: The Harvard University 18. "The machinery of Society, profoundly of gear, oscillates 1946. 99-101. an a Goeffrey Cumberlege Oxford University Press, pp. between amelioration, of historical importance, and catastrophe. . no 15. Walter Gropius, Bauhausbauten Desssau, Fulda 1930, pp. 8-9, (. .)The various classes of workers in society to-day longer have A Architectural From the artisan nor the in Hanno-Walter Kfruft, History of Theory. dwellings adapted to their needs; neither Vitruvious to the Present, trans. Ronald Taylor, Elsie Cal lander, and intellectual. It is a question of building which is at the root of the or Antony Wood. London-New York: Zwemmer & Princeton Architectural social unrest of to-day: architecture revolution." Le Corbusier, op. Press, 1994, pp. 386. cit., p. 14. trans. 16. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (1923), 19. Hanes Mayer, statement in a publication by the Bauhaus, Frederick Etchells. London: The Architectural Press, 1946, pp. 7, 10. 1929. Quoted in Lingo, op. cit., p. 13.

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in temporary problem of market society. The Committee on the twentieth century, of the great indoctrination of the nineteenth The same of rationalization of Recent Economic Changes of Roosevelt's presidency century. process forces, which took in the nineteenth foresaw that if consumption could be induced, itwas productive place century in the sector o? production, is accomplished, in the possible to manage capitalism so as to contain twentieth in the sector of economic crisis: century, consumption. Having socialized the masses into a labor force, the industrial . . (. .)wants are almost insatiable; that one want satisfied system had to (. .) socialize the masses (that is, to control makes for another. ... and other a or way By advertising them) into force of consumption. The small investors consumers were promotional devices, by scientific fact finding, and by the sporadic of the pre-war era, who free a on to consume or no a in carefully predeveloped consumption, measurable pull not, longer had place the system.23 ... has been created.20 production one If thing characterizes the shortcomings of Cross has that Sociologist Gary eloquently argued Maciunas's aesthetic-political outlook it is precisely his with this new economic outlook "came the of discovery inability to understand the importance that prestige and the of free time and disciplinary potential high wages." symbolic value, and their expression in the design of In the next two decades the moral of the economy early commodities and urban spaces, acquired for the twentieth was a new view that century replaced by functionality of the social order of the "post-industrial" ruled out the idea that limited consumer desires a posed economy. But not being able to understand or theorize a threat to the of the market expansion economy. By historical situation is not the same as being able to the theorists of the so-called affluent 1958, society ignore it.Maciunas's rejection of the emerging material started to claim that "The of satiation has concept very culture of his age went hand in hand with his hatred of little in economics. It is held to be neither standing European culture. They were the result of his despair nor useful scientific to speculate on the comparative when he discovered around 1962 that life inWestern of the stomach and the mind."21 To use K. cravings John Europe was already as commodified as in North new Galbraith's metaphor, the consumer began to America. His fantasies about the nature of the Eastern behave like a "museum" that accumulated "without were Bloc in great part determined by the hope of the of his wants."22 diminishing urgency finding a society where consumption would not define With the arrival of the new consumerist society, the members of society. More than a pursuit of social left to the floor and capitalism efficiency factory public justice, there was one thing that Maciunas valued most and started its in finances, demanding subjects indulge about the way the Soviet Bloc was ruled. It seemed to and in abundance, waste, luxury, grandiosity, fancy him that real socialism was the last refuge of the order to a constant level of market demand. The keep rationality of efficiency, while the rest of the developed aestheticization of the world?of which the was commodity world instead more and more subjected to artificial new architecture Maciunas so much George despised? needs induced by decadent capitalism: gave capitalism the tools for enforcing labor discipline Maybe in a few years Iwill try to settle in East Europe. and keeping the demand levels that assured its People here [are] just like in U.S., like pigs stuffing productive superiority. As Jean Baudrillard so well themselves with all kinds of garbage, food, goods, described it,mass as needed the consumption, by automobiles, bad art, till they are ready to burst. Itmakes increased productivity of industrialism, turned into one sick to look at them. Itmust be Western decadence or social labor and was to a thus, paradoxically, subjected something, or Imust be seeing visions of pigs similar of instrumentation and process rationalizing past everywhere.24 labor. This time, however, the pressure was not to only His overt concern with loss and the of create a irrationality the subjective conditions of theoretically consumption sheds light on the internal differences in unlimited level of production, but also a theoretically Fluxus. Maciunas pictured as the paradigm unlimited force of acquisition: of this "Western decadence." This condemnation was (. . .) the current indoctrination into and systematic in fact the result of his outrage when, during the organized consumption is the equivalent and the extension,

23. Jean Baudrillard, "Consumer Society" (1970) in Selected 20. in 41. Quoted Gary Cross, op. cit., p. Writings, ed. and int. by Mark Poster. London: Polity Press, 1988, 21. Kenneth The John Galbraith, Affluent Society (1958), 4th ed. p. 50. London: 119. Penguin Books, 1987, p. 24. George Maciunas, Letter to , ca. January 18 1962. 22. Ibid., 123. p. Getty Research Center, Special Collections, Los Angeles, Calif.

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Wiesbaden Festival, Vostell had interpreted his fresh war experiences of the consumers. In "YOU," a D?-coll/age musique titled Kleenex by throwing cake presented in New York in 1964, the audience and it a was to wear smearing against glass pane located between invited gas masks while watching a three him and the audience. on on Similarly, Dick Higgins's "Danger minute program TV sets burning top of beds until no. 15" to advised the performer "Work with the monitors exploded, just after having witnessed a and for a so as to an butter eggs time," make inedible parody of concentration camp killings enacted with waste an an instead of omelette.25 Maciunas loathed the pigments in empty swimming pool.29 In one of his waste in symbolic involved such action: best actions, "Televison D?-coll/age for millions 1959," Vostell invited the audience to participate in or react I think it immoral to destroy food. That is one reason we a series of commands which were but never performed (afterWiesbaden) Dick Higgins' danger against nothing exalted moments of music with eggs & butter.26 That's also the reason Iam very consumption: hesitant about Vostell's Kleenex cake d?collage throwing, hold a fish in your mouth (. . .) unless he comes up with variation.27 change your clothes rapidly several times in a row It is obvious that and Vostell's actions were Higgins's switch to the following channels rapidly one after the other in great part metaphoric readings of the then most 212321276931234312345917 (. . .) striking novelty in the life of Western societies: the hold your naked stomach in front of the screen and drink a abundance of commodities and supplies. But, to what . coca-cola while thinking about pepsi-cola ads (. .) extent can we actually relate their kind of actions and turn on all the household appliances and wrap up your tv object operations to actual reflections on the new set with barbed wire economic structure? InVostell's case there is little room feed the television set a tv dinner for doubt. His environments and "" open a currrent magazine ad and find a whiskey ad pretended to transform the audience's experience of tear the bottle out of the ad hold the ad with the hole in itover the tv screen . their environment, but they tended to succeed when they (. .) were shout economic miracle obsessive enactments of the troubled discovery of loudly tie your to a vacuum cleaner and the earth material and visual abundance as experienced by the body sweep (...) Europeans in the late 1950s. The images that attracted take the next plane without asking the destination.30 Vostell, and that he wanted his audience to register, were those derived from the inundation of consumer In the light of such imagery it is easier to understand and the nature of advertisement as products imperative both why Vostell related to the American Fluxus/ were the urban they colonizing setting: Happening artistic practices reacting to similar historical on a phenomena, and why he clashed with Maciunas's 8?100 washing machines suddenly appear square 9?automobiles are covered with black cloth (. . .) defense of the outmoded logic of functionalist 11?the windows of a streetcar are studded with nails aesthetics. The two of them despaired about the current 12?policemen give information about their past change of social values, but while Vostell denounced it . 13?daily newspapers are completely blank (. .) with mimetic exaggeration Maciunas used new arts as a 15?blood flows constantly down the wall of a house28 demonstration of an alternative to consumer culture.

Vostell's D?-coll/age actions tended to identify the bombardment of and commodities with the still images 3. On the Socialist planning of use-values The Fluxus leader's tried to demonstrate 25. Cfr. Dick Higgins, Foew&ombwhnw. New York-Barton compositions Cologne: , 1969, p. 18; and Postface (1963-1965, the possibility of naked object relationships and the in Dick et. The and Four 1970) Higgins al., Word Beyond. Literary routines of efficiency and rationality. Of all the random New York The Smith, 1982, 64. Cosmologists. City, p. patterns Maciunas used for creating action music, the 26. Maciunas refers to the first Fluxus Festivals inWiesbaden, most successful and enduring consisted in taking an Germany, in September 1962. 27. Maciunas, Letter to Nam June Raik, ca. late January 1963, T?te Gallery Archive, London, United Kingdom. (David Mayor and the 29. Wolf Vostell, "YOU:A DECOLLAGEHAPPENING FOR BOB Fluxshow and Letter to Robert before Archive): 815.2.1.1.25; Watts, AND RHETT BROWN. King's Point, N.Y., April 19 1964." InAllan March 11 in Fluxus etc/Addenda 150. 1963, Hendricks, II, p. Kaprow, Assemblage, Environments & Happenings. New York: Harry A of environment d? 28. Wolf Vostell, "Skeleton. changing the N. Abrams, 1966, pp. 257-258. theater inWolf coll/age Wuppertal 1954," Vostell, D?-coll/age 30. 'Television d?-coll/age for millions 1959," inVostell, D? New York: Else 9. Happenings. Something Press, 1967, p. coll/age Happenings, pp. 12-14.

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as score there can be no "Folk handcrafts" (. . .) "old adding machine tape" to interpret it the of proletarian design. must be mass (. . .) an Homage to Adriano Olivetti (1962).31 To perform the replaced by production. As for clothes, their is by their numbers of those found calculations, interpreting each design complicated sexual decorative function. However, attractive sports number as a cue for a performer's action, in strict clothes are often efficient, when they are designed to meet chronological succession marked by the metronome, the physical requirements of the sport. The Soviet decision appears as an of serial subjecting . allegory production, to copy the freakish fashion industry (. .)exemplifies human life to the of value and accountancy efficiency. the reactionary tendency in Soviet "applied arts."33 Inworks like his Homage to Olivetti Maciunas played With it is remarkable how this, then, an imaginary battle against the economics of what he hindsight by radical was in fact and called "forced consumption," i.e., the revolutionary project, closely the social trends that for waste and luxury involved in the seduction of following developing turned, clothes into one of the dominant commodity design. For the two Kulturbolcheviken instance, "sport" styles of life in late What and Maciunas could "style" was nothing but the market-oriented formula of capitalism. Flynt not force was, in the inwhich those aesthetic enchantment able to sabotage the practical fact, way bygone "functional" attires were to be with nature of the Soviet way of life: merely charged sexualized import, and how their minute differences To increase labor productivity in the "applied arts," public were turned into devices of social differentiation through ownership is necessary, particularly to escape the forced fashion as effective as the extreme stylization of consumption, the deliberately wasteful styl ism [sic] . clothes of the 1950s. required by the capitalist economy (. .) But the experience bourgeois as of the Soviet Union shows that these economic This proposal of what Henry Flynt has described "the socialist of use-values"34 found its prerequisites do not ensure efficient design. The Soviet planning in Maciunas's of a Union is needlessly backward in the design of automobiles, foremost expression George design . as a appliances, furniture, graphics and clothes. (. .) the mass-produced prefabricated system conceived efficient has to be chosen over the even design stylized design.32 contribution to the single sector that the Soviet as authorities acknowledged the weakest spot in the Their position was not merely a reassertion of purportedly unstoppable socialist productive machine: modernist anti-decorativism, but an attempt to surpass the provision of housing for Russian citizens. In the early the strictures of any form of pursuit of a modern style. 1960s the Soviet state tried to remedy the situation by "An efficient artifact?they claimed?is not a erecting thousands of prefabricated apartment blocks, modernistic styled artifact, or even a conventional which despite their reduced size and rudimentary artifact minus familiar stylization or decoration." comforts were a radical improvement for the families "Efficient" meant providing the highest performance at that were lucky enough to be allocated to them. the lowest cost, a standard achieved "through complete Maciunas admired their eminently functionalist design, of artistic, national, and stylistic traditions" for disregard and of course the industrial method of their a production it ought to be mere result of "extensive thought that, according to the official statistics, had allowed the analysis" and the use of the latest scientific advances. Soviet Union to produce more than three million Professionalism was upheld by Macunias and Flynt at dwelling units in 1960 alone.35 George Maciunas the cost of any populist or proletarian aesthetical that he could the Soviet inclination. For the of this industrial believed, however, improve pursuit highest was model, which despite itsmerits he felt still too standard even gender differences seemed unjustified and "stylized," heavy, and lacking in structural flexibility. eminently reactionary: Maciunas designed an ingenious prefabricated building The the and illiterate masses as such have oppressed, poor system composed of only nine mass-produced to contribute to in the arts"; nothing engineering "applied components, most to be produced in modern plastic

33. Ibid. 31. This and other Fluxus scores are in The Fluxus reproduced 34. Henry Flynt, "George Maciunas und meine Zusammenarbeit Performance Workbook, ed. . Trondheim, Norway: El mit ihm," in 1962 Fluxus 1982, ed. Ren? Block. 1990. Djarida, Wiesbaden, Kassel, : Harlekin Art. Berliner K?nstlerprogramm 32. Henry Flynt, Communist Must Give Revolutionary Leadership des DAAD, 1983, p. 106. in Culture. New York: Worldview 1966 , 1. on Publishers, p. Reproduced 35. Maciunas, "Statistics Housing in the U.S.S.R., U.S.A. and in Fluxus etc./Addenda I. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, Western European Countries," Sohm Archive, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; ed. Hendricks. New Ink 38-43. Jon York, &, 1983, pp. Flynt, Communists, Appendix 1.

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a materials. Except for "Service Cubicle" that integrated R?alisme, the artists in Fluxus did not evolve along the kitchen, bathroom, and heating facilities, the system lines of an affirmation or ironic emulation of consumer user a allowed its maximum of flexibility and functional culture.37 While the early British Pop Artists longed for adaptation, from private homes to offices and public the "popular-transient-expandable-cheap-mass was buildings, and always easy to expand, contract, or produced-sexy" aesthetic of the new commodities,38 reshape. So although his system was in fact slightly explored the fears and desires of the more expensive than the Russian original prefab housing homogenized souls of mass audiences,39 and Pierre was a model it remarkable attempt to create something Restany construed the "direct appropriation of reality" of close to a general architectonic equivalent. While the Nouveau R?alistes as a constitution of "a modern modernist functionalism posited the pursuit of fetishism of the object" most appropriate for the architectonic solutions to specific social needs, "contemporary, industrial, mechanic, publicitary" nature Maciunas's housing project was presented as the latest of Western societies,40 Fluxus (and the Happening in "adaptability" to climate, function, and even the movement to a certain extent) was defined by the an "special needs and habits" of its dwellers. While the desperate attempt to find alternative model of object Russian flats all had the same square window openings and image interaction. Its artists shared a sense of in the front, inMaciunas's flats one would have been discomfort or open rejection of the new objectivity of able to open windows by merely choosing between commodity relations of the early 1960s. The apparent transparent or opaque versions of the non-structural free floating diversity of their conceptual and aesthetic or was as a exterior walls, to control climate by merely choosing strategies less matter of pluralism, than as a between different exterior covers. Mounted on precast result of their inability to find a single compelling concrete piles, provided with sliding doors of Japanese alternative to the new aesthetic conditions of the inspiration, Maciunas's "prefab" could grow practically contemporary economy. Their failure to project such an indefinitely, although limited to single-story houses, applicable heterodoxy testifies to the objective difficulty which probably made it unsuitable for the high-density, of challenging the new aesthetics of the commodity overpopulated urban centers. Itpotentially could cover brought by the consumerist world. the whole earth, impervious as itwould be to heat, cold, Maciunas's anti-art propositions were based on the hurricanes, earthquakes, corrosion, termites, and assumption that a total disenchantment of object a new vandalism.36 His disregard for cultural, social, or natural relations would deal mortal blow to the Western particularities, his distrust for aesthetic values and economic order. Cognitive and rationally defined modes subjective peculiarities, were aptly summarized in this of usage would replace the last remaining forms of the architectonic utopia based on the hope of developing a old artistic culture, both for the sake of dealings with on universal object of pure use-value. reality based the notion of truth and the furthering of the economic output of the socialist world. The reasons for Fluxus's failure to contain the 4. In face of the allure of commodities commodity aesthetics of its age in the realms of Taken as a whole, and despite the diversity of their 37. The of the relative reconciliation of mass culture economic models, the different Fluxus strategies can be complexity as and high art realized by Pop Art has been explored, among others, seen as part of cultural attempts to respond to the swift H. D. Buchloh, Warhol's One-Dimensional Art: that the rise of the "consumerist by Benjamin "Andy changes economy" 1956-1966/' in Andy Warhol. A Retrospective, ed. Kynaston McShine, to the of and in brought phenomenology objects images preface by Richard E. Oldenburg. New York: The Museum of Modern Western societies. Such is, in fact, the common ground Art, 1989, pp. 39-64. 38. Richard "Letter to Peter and Alison Smithson" that links the early 60s aesthetic revolutions, including Hamilton, (1957), in Pop Art. A Critical History, ed. Steven Henry Madoff, of course Pop Art and Nouveau R?alisme. Certainly of California Press, 1997, these to the aesthetic of the new Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University responses profusion pp. 5-6. phase of market capitalism varied enormously, putting 39. See his famous statements to G. R. Swenson: "Someone said into disarray the modernist tactics of refusal and that Brecht wanted everybody to think alike. Iwant everybody to think . differentiation in to the aesthetics of the alike. But Brecht wanted to do it through Communism (. .) It's regard . so happening here all by itself (. .) if it'sworking without trying, why commodity world. But unlike Pop Art or Nouveau can't itwork without being Communist?" Ibid., pp. 103-105. 40. , "La r?alite d?passe la fiction" (June 1961) in Contensou. Paris: Mus?e d'art 36. Flynt and Maciunas, Communist Must, App. 1 and 2; Les Nouveaux R?alistes, ed. Bernadette Hendricks, Fluxus etc/Addenda I, pp. 40-42. Moderne de laVille de Paris, 1986, p. 267.

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were to be the architecture and design may be similar to those of Pop ideas that waiting applied by professional Art's cultural success. Given the identification between architects and society at large, was the rewriting of the most 1960s commodities and their images, and the way "design" notion of avant-garde that coalesced of the were to had infused consumer society with the historicity of art Fluxus-related artists, especially those who close an art on and in "styles," preaching absolute opposition to the the Happening branch of the movement, to and Alan In the basis of the bygone bourgeois set of utilitarian values particular Vostell, Higgins, Kaprow. had more of a denial about it than of a clarification of pursuit of a new model for a relationship between to status the new historical situation.41 Fluxus, and in particular society and art, they aspired the of becoming "artist Maciunas, attest to the aporias of "alternative culture" in futurist visionaries. Higgins argued that the were to "restore a terms of its inability to provide an immanent criticism of researchers" of the anthology called modern civilization. His endorsement of the modern spirit of aesthetic research to architecture"; to correct the and technological society and the assumptions of mismatch between architectonic practice technocratic socialism, assumed a standard of rationality "contemporary needs." In his view, the "economics of were our which was the least suitable for a deployment of an building" responsible for "an aridity in was was in to actual political alternative. In fact, it implicitly experience," which great part due the to complicit with labor exploitation. architects' unwillingness incorporate the discoveries of the avant-garde into their projects. This waste of the was potentialities locked in contemporary art particularly 5. Fluxus and the productive prevalent in the architectonic views of the left: How to describe the tension between Maciunas and . Architecture, (. .) is the last art still in a primitive state. his associates, if not that all of early by acknowledging Virtually none of the aesthetic revolutions of the 20th them were in one or another in the implicated, way, century has touched it.We cannot speak of structure of economic that ruled their failed even questions architecture, Tachist architecture, collage architecture. . leader's views? In fact, itwell may be that Fluxus is The main innovations have been structural, and (. .) some new . is in defined by the way several of its artists shared of introducing materials. (. .)This the equivalent, of a new shade of . and the economic concerns Maciunas posed when thinking , introducing (. .) gilt paint, . the relation between art and Their continuing to make the same old Secessionist (. .) productivity. . more commodity. (. .)The perception of space, the use of space utopianism, although amicable than that of (. . .) has been allowed to remain in 19th Maciunas, somehow was unable to define a quagmired similarly or or even century pseudo-Marxist narodnik assumptions. workable alternative to the function that contemporary (. . .) architects (. . .) have to escape from the established for aesthetics in the only begun capitalism commodity . as is drawing board mentality, (. .) architecture process world. only being dreamed of.44 In 1969 Dick Higgins and Wolf Vostell co-edited an Those of course, were not shot but anthology titled Fantastic Architecture, published in attacks, randomly, aimed at and Maciunas. German with the more commercial title of Pop directly provoked by George Late in tried to invite the Architektur.42 The book, as Vostell put it, compiled the 1966, Higgins unsuccessfully Fluxus chairman to contribute to the volume. Maciunas's "new methods and processes" introduced by Fluxus, reluctance a small debate that the Happening, and Pop Art that posed a "demand for new provoked opposed two artists' views on the dichotomies between need and patterns of behaviour" and "new un-consumed function and art and and reason or environments."43 This pursuit of novelty was, in part, dream, form, design, Their could be turned triggered by the desire to experience something other imagination. epistolary exchange into a little on the encounter of the Soviet than what already was made available by the market, comedy administrator and the dreamer: but itwas also an attempt to claim a certain sense of hippie The notion that new art forecast the . . . avant-gardeisme. George Maciunas: Re: your project of fantastic (unreal future conditions of new to architecture, by developing made without reference reality, truth etc.,?Webster's) architecture?I am afraid there is no such animal. It's 41. The of the trans. Donald a terms. mean Guy Debord, Society Spectacle, contradiction of Maybe you fantastic Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1994, pp. 16, 29. large .45 42. Wolf Vostell & Dick Higgins, Fantastic Architecture. New York: in 44. Dick 11. Something Else Press, 1969. s.p. published D?sseldorf, Germany by Higgins, "Introduction," ibid., p. 45. Letter to ca. 1967. T?te Droste Verlag GmbH. Maciunas, Dick Higgins, early January 43. Ibid., p. 3. Gallery Archive: 815.2.1.1.24.

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Dick art and non-art?a to A Higgins: "Suggestion: assign yourself very difficult, Architecture, sculpture sit on? chair. construction . in specific problem (. .). Solve problem A chair understood as sculpture? A sculpture. Art is as art . fantastic manner.46 (. .) Fantastic also means of or does. To the workman, building Oldenburg toilet floats on to the pertaining fantasy (i.e. imagination), also conceived the Thames would be a job no different from building a or the of a having appearance being conceived by wild and bridge, littlemore exotic maybe, but along the lines of unrestrained . fantasy."47 industrial display. (. .) to the project of Tinguely, Spoerri (. . .) a workman be the of GAiThe only worthwhile work Ido now is product design might appalled by inefficiency the structure? Or he be amused at the obvious waste (inc. architecture as an industrial product).48 might of effort?51 DH: May we include the architecture article you had in the COMMUNISTMUST GIVE REVOLUTIONARY Maciunas and Higgins shared the same issues; the LEADERSHIP INCULTURE (. . .)? It is for it. perfect bond that kept them related all through the Fluxus years GM: Iwrote on this in the . architecture was subject past (. .) the perfect reciprocity of their disagreement. There (. . .) becomes if it's fantastic & if it's architecture as sculpture are, however, few doubts to who set up the agenda of it's not fantastic but is realistic?my prefab system very this dialogical structure. Itwas Maciunas, who . was a realistic (. .) it conceived not by fancy but rational structured Vostell and Higgins's position by reaffirming approach?like a mathematical problem. Idon't believe in the orthodoxy of the division of the modern faculties. Gaudy [sic], F. L.W. or other stage designers. My On the other hand, Higgins's moderate reformulation architectural ?deal is an engineer such as Maillart, Candela, of the notion of shows the extent to B. Fuller, Le Corbu?etc.49 fantasy clearly were which their postures far from involving manifest DH: Fantastic! Who would have thought you'd be so . surrealist-like defiance of modern rationality. A good disturbed by the word "fantastic." (. .)Maybe it isn't the deal of the architectonic "dreams" and Vostell best title. (. . .) the name of the book (. . .) is intended to Higgins collected confirmed Maciunas's fears that their attract readers who will be confronted by our views and, approach would lead to the of art works as if hopefully, convinced by them.50 only repackaging they had architectonic intentions. Claes Oldenburg's The between the two perfect symmetry positions gigantic everyday object monuments; land-art volumes about their mutual As we speaks implication. interventions like Michael Heizer's Dissipate line-traces will see in detail their main referred later, disagreement on the sand of the Black Rock Desert, Nevada (1968); or to the issues of the definition and limits of the notion of Dennis Oppenheim's wheatfield drawings could only be art. Maciunas insisted on a contrast between drawing included in the anthology by taking them out of their architecture's bond with and purposes sculpture's fancy. sculpture context. Itwas only among the artists of the Vostell and on the that Higgins, contrary, proclaimed Fluxus group that the visionary model of the future was no more two there difference any between those architectonics was taken with some earnestness. To offer of "Action is architecture! is one types activity: Everything of the best examples, proposed architecture!" That loss of was in fact what specification planning cities in order to realize the flaneur's considered their central contribution to be. But the they assumption that the streets were a spectacle. Museums inside which made their discussion conceptual grid they and galleries, he proposed, ought to be abolished so all of the art/non-art character of architecture was the same: art works and performances would replace the An issue about utility and function. Ultimately, the merchandise in the store windows on street level. needed to be as a matter of the question posed Filliou's proposal merely extended a trend that was structural of art and in new opposition production, efficiency already implicit the functioning of urban spaces and waste: and markets, acknowledging how interchangeable art had become with standard commodities: "Why fill store can windows with things that be seen by entering the 46. Ibid. shop anyway?" The transgressive mode of Filliou's 47. Dick Letter to Maciunas, 23, 1967. Higgins, George January mirror the routines of consumerist T?te Gallery Archive: 815.2.1.1.19 utopias pleasures: 48. Postcard to , ca. 1967. T?te February Gallery Another thing to develop iswhat Icall "the Erotic Sidewalk Archive: 815.2.1.1.24. 2." Through some electronic device embedded in the 49. Dick Higgins, Letter to George Maciunas, including George sidewalk, men and women can get sexual gratification Maciunas's answer. September 30, 1968. T?te Gallery Archive: 815.2.1.1.19

50. Dick Higgins, Letter to George Maciunas. October 7, 1968. T?te Gallery Archive: 815.2.1.1.19 51. Higgins and Vostell, Fantastic Architecture, "Caption 6," p. 75.

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see women or men Think when they they fancy walk by. very little to contribute. Paradoxically, Maciunas's also of the facial expressions, and physical contortions, that belated functionalism had more awareness of the social would follow. What a show for these who are resting tensions involved in the social history of design than did between orgasms!52 the neo-avant-garde gesture of his Fluxus foes. their seem made one for the How different were these climaxes from shopping? Nonetheless, positions views of the same unsolved For instead of a critique of the specification of other?conflicting problem. For its aesthetic architectonic agency inmodernity, or a reading of the despite divisions, personal animosities, and politics of spaces, markets, and types of artistic philosophical misunderstandings, political conflicts, on the discourse of Fluxus is a debate about intervention, this "avant-garde" verged futurist always economic It is neither a renunciation nor naivete. Even Raoul Haussman, the ex-dadaist, who development. a radical of this contributed a manifesto titled "An Appeal for Fantasy," critique development's consequences. it is an to find a for art abandoned his disrespect for the ideology of progress by Rather, anguished attempt place or even while the almost projecting "non-gravitational" dwellings for the despite, secretly agreeing with, absolute consensus that, and social inhabitants of the space-travel era.53 Surely, Fantastic beyond ideologies was established in the 1960s around the of Architecture did not pretend to be a critique of the systems, goal economic Fluxus is a collection of artistic social system, but rather, frequently risked turning into a development. and aesthetic about the fate of technocratic wild dream, not altogether far from John experiments speculations art under about the between Cage's mid-1960s belief in the possibility of reaching development, relationship and anarchism through the global success of multinational aesthetics, production, knowledge, leisure, entertainment and material the balance of corporations. Vostell's and Higgins's idea of radical art culture, satisfaction and rest and More consisted in believing that artistic creation would purpose, activity. these revolve around the accelerate industrial development, by shortcutting the precisely, arguments necessary between and a process of technological improvement: antinomy development satisfaction, tension that, despite its presence in the mere thought of Technology?to apply successfully one's material work, acquires special relevance for art given the knowledge to any given problem. Simply to use complex affluent society's social discovery that no matter how techniques? Heck, half the time, what a waste. Artists and an economy would be, it needed builders mostly using electron microscopes as fly swatters successfully developed to enforce dissatisfaction. One of the best and computers as adding machines. In the early 19th perpetual to a Fluxus and to describe his or century the technology of steam was well known and had ways identify artist, her in the of been for a hundred years, but itwas only after this very place culture the time, consists of long time that such men as Morey and Fulton "bothered" to determining who tirelessly tried to find a peremptory a We cannot the of such a make steamboat. afford luxury solution to the unsatisfactory character of development, time There are too of us for lag today. many competing and the seeming uselessness of art, and the and for the world's material resources.54 space transformations that contemporary capitalism was to the balance of work and leisure of Higgins's reflections are rather unsatisfactory as an bringing Robert Filliou, who became a after architectural critical discourse. One would feel that by modernity. poet a Ph.D. in economics, and who worked in the avoiding any discussion of what Maciunas called the obtaining economic reconstruction of South Korea in the "stage designer" kind of architect, i.e., the whole branch early 1950s, this kind of concern in his to of modernist/early postmodernist architecture that had explored attempt a In different ways tried to develop an aesthetic revaluation against hard develop poetic economy.55 totally than those of he also reflected the core functionalism, Fantastic Architecture failed to Maciunas, unsettling realization that abundance need not lead to nor engage in an actual discussion of the fate of architecture justice, to fulfillment, least of all to an of leisure: in its age. By the 1960s there was already an internal expansion of modernist architecture about which an critique There exists a very large number of people, throughout the . entirely external provocation coming from fantasy had world, who work hard, and remain poor. (. .) There exists also a class of people (artists)who work hard and remain destitute. (. . .) In New York I came across an ad: 52. Robert Filliou, Letter to Dick Higgins and Wolf Vostell, October 10, 1968, ibid., p. 136. 53. Raoul Haussman, "An Appeal for Fantasy," (1967). Ibid., pp. 170-171. 55. Pierre Tilman, "The Four Lives of Robert Filliou," Artpress 238 54. Higgins and Vostell, "Caption 3," ibid., p. 37. (March 1998):39.

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FIGHT POVERTY THE AMERICAN WAY: WORK We keep on encountering the same themes, and probably the same mixture of prophetic disillusion: The first question to be asked, then, iswhether artists Fluxus is a collection of failed, and in that sense should be working or not, that is to say, whether they alternative aesthetics the should have a side job bringing them an income, so that underdeveloped, confronting enormous their art is created in their spare time, and becomes the development obtained by capitalism through . success alternative to going to a bar for a drink or chasing girls (. .) the of its aestheticized commodity world. What A form of socialism where the avowed goal is to make made Fluxus different from the two mainstream artists out of Thus there would exist an ever everyone. expressions of the same phenomena (Pop Art and is to and growing group whose income according need, Nouveau R?alisme) was that the Fluxus artists wished to whose contribution is to being new according ability, technology confront, rather than merely reflect or explore, the used to create leisure, and art to indicate ways to use aesthetic status of the commodity and environment. (consume) it.When all works of art will have no value, they were in an ambivalent attitude with will be beautiful.56 They trapped regard to the new stage of modernization: they would have To be part of Fluxus consisted of exploring the liked to discover a new formula of aesthetic discomfort, so antinomies of production and desire within while at the same time they wished to transform art in a developmental societies of the 1960s. Even its interest that itwould become productive force. Zen buddhism was colored by such a perspective. One Nam simply needs to read the ironic Zen questions that June Raikposed inMarch 1963 for his "Expositionof to it. In Experimental Television" inWuppertal confirm the very first show inwhich Raik manipulated TV monitors as an art form, by distorting live-transmission event in signals ("the most variable optical and semantic the Nineteen-sixties"), changing the internal circuits of waves the receptors, and experimenting with produced Raik by generators, tape-recorders, and radios, Zen in the questioned the validity of the reception of West. But instead of stressing a relativist defense of cultural specificity, he challenged Zen's coherence with the state of dissatisfaction which was at the base of the economic superiority of the West:

Now letme talk about Zen, although Iavoid it usually, not to become the salesman of "OUR" culture like Daisetsu . Suzuky, because (. .) the self-propaganda of Zen (the doctrine of the self-abandonment) must be the stupid suicide of Zen.

. is anti-frontier anti (. .) Zen anti-avant-garde, spirit, Kennedy, Zen is responsible for asian poverty.

How can I justify Zen, without justifying asian poverty? (....) Anyway, if you see my TV, please, see itmore than 30 minutes. (. . .) The perpetual Unsatisfaction is the perpetual evolution. It is the merit of my experimental TV.57

56. Robert Filliou, Lehren un Lernen als Aufuehrungskuenste. as Arts. New York: Verlab Gebr. Teaching and Learning Performance ca. 75. Koenig, 1970 (from notebook, 1962), p. 57. , "Afterlude to the EXPOSITIONof EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION 1963, March, Galerie Parnass," in /?Luxus ce fiVe ThReE, Fluxus newspaper no. 4, June 1964, p. 1.

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