WANG Yingzi, Shanghai University

Originating from the rebel spirit of Dadaism and the experimental music results of John Cage and others, Fluxus has concluded the noise in sound art, which rarely participates in the traditional arts. It has also brought specific things from daily life which people routinely ignore to the art stage, has promoted the fusion of the arts, and has raised the relationship between the noise and sound art. Further- more, it has initiated the discussion of sound and hearing problems such as the sub- jectivity of thinking.

Fluxus; Sound Art; Noise; Categories Fusion

aunched by George Maciunas and involving George Brecht, NamJune Paik, La L Monte Thornton Young and others in the 1960s, Fluxus combined many ele- ments such as the concept of industrial technology products, accidental behavior, and audience participation of to create various forms of art. The use of noise in sound art and fusing artistic characteristics in particular ways is particularly note- worthy.

In all of the activities and movements of Fluxus, sound artworks occupy a very large proportion. Fluxus artists are deeply influenced by Dadaism and take the rebel spirit to the extreme. In the sound art of Fluxus, there is an important part of cre- ation called 野subversion冶 tendency, which mainly concerns not only the mainstay for sound art in music, but the daily life and industrial production of noise, given its unique artistic meaning.

Wang Yingzi, doctor of College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, specialized on audi- tory culture and sound aesthetics.

窑42窑 The daily life aesthetics and occasional art in Fluxus are closely related to Mar- cel Duchamp爷s semi-finished product creation concept. Just as his 1917 installa- tion, 野the Fountain冶, was a combination of urinals and his signature, the rebel spirit is incorporated into specific music works of Fluxus. Concrete music artists are good at changing recorded sound with big deformation techniques such as synthesis, pro- cessing and restructuring them for new music works in virtue of the vigorous devel- opment of electronic technology in the 1950s. Its core idea is to extend the concept of music to regular sound which usually derives from daily lives. For example, the sound artwork 野Hymnen冶 (1966), written by Karlheinz Stockhausen, samples the national anthems of several countries and uses electronic technology to transform the music. It is worth noting that this work is not just a simple collage but the na- tional anthem, sampling, and consciously joining the chaotic noise together. At the time, he said that he did not really 野create冶 works, and that the addition of noise was considered incomprehensible. The idea that noise is incorporated into art and music was greatly influenced by American composer and avant-garde artist John Cage. In the 1950s, Cage organized a series of experimental music teaching and art activities at Montenegro College in the United States, Darmstadt Modern Music Summer Workshops in Germany and other places. Through his speeches, organizing events and putting on plays, he has broadened the definition of the traditional music category by forming incidental music, silent music, musical events, and drama creation ideas. In industrial noise and life noise, even silent concept was widely introduced into the music works. At the same time, compared with grand theater, Fluxus artists are more often to choose a public environment which is more casual, loud and close to the audience to get their sound artworks played. An example of this is George Brecht爷s 野Three chairs Events冶 (1961) which is played in Martha Johnson galleries. Such environ- mental selection is a common occurrence in the artistic practice of Fluxus period, it illustrates a spirit against traditional art about the seriousness of confrontation, as well as the attention on interaction between audience and artists. Indeed, in contemporary times, scholars are still debating the relationship be- tween noise and music. Some scholars have said that the discussion of noise does not benefit the development of auditory culture because noise is what we hate based on banal motivation. Such a view notes that most noise is not pleasing at the physi- ological level and lacks an understanding of the artist爷s deep intention to create art through noise. Fluxus widenes the musical category, making it no longer limited to the art concept definition of traditional music, but to everything in life including all kinds of sound, which provokes our thinking of art. Breaking the limitation of rigid

窑43窑 aesthetic concepts provides value to the orientation of critical and creative ideas. Ever since the being of industrialization, human auditory space has been filled with noise. How can noise legalization enter the mainstream of sound research and how can the use of noise become more reasonable, are some important questions to fo- cus on.

Traditional art is dedicated to the distinction between the detailed categories of each art and the boundaries of various senses. The artworks of Fluxus are often difficult to define. Its artistic category and often set audio, visual, performance, ideas, and other varieties of media show the characteristics of the fusion of arts categories . Fluxus is physically opposed to the traditional art of serious categories, blurring the boundaries between them. Usually the artists do not regard him or herself as a musician, poet,or architect, they no longer pay attention to the category his or her work is defined as, they are just 野artists冶 working for the creation of 野art冶.The sound art works of Fluxus run from the cage of 野sound attached to vision冶 to combine themselves with multiple carriers such as live performances, behavior, visual image and so on. This promotes the fusion of the arts. In the sound arts of Fluxus, the works of action music are very typical. The traditional music performance requires the composer to provide the score. The performer then performs according to the notes in the score. However, in creating music, action music works from traditional music make words have clear meaning rather than the musical notes. This way performers follow the action on the score and indicates actions accordingly. As an example, Nam June Paik爷s creation in 1963, 野Zen for Head冶 is the adaptation of La Monte Thornton Young爷s 1960s musical instructions of 野draw a straight line and follow it.冶 The performers with a lace-up on head and dipped in a mixture of tomato juice and ink, on the ground and draw a line on paper, and presented its value in the form of music. In this work, music, painting, performance and other factors are naturally mixed and blended, which is very clear in Fluxus works. Performance art is key to Fluxus. In the live creation and performance of the scene, the artist not only puts self-expression as the core, but uses a variety of interactive media to lead the audience together to feel subtle changes in the environment. Here, the difference between the various categories of art is no longer a priority. Different kinds of art exist in the environment at the same time and for the same theme: artistic expression.

窑44窑 The fusion of art categories was first practiced in the sound art of Fluxus before expanding scope Allan Kaprow, an American artist, was deeply influenced by this tendency and created the happening art in the 1960s. Happening art further eliminated segregation in art. Ling with each event unit to each other, the relationship between the artist and audience by one-way information transmission puts emphasis on the audience, the randomness of their actions are regarded as an important part of the work. The focus of work lies in the process of this dynamic event. Happening art clearly reflects the traits of Fluxus in category fusion: it is not a simple collage, but the cooperation of various arts in the form of elements creating a dynamic artistic style and emphasizing the audience爷s participation and creation. At the beginning of the 20th century, western industrial production began to implement automation, while electronic technology developed at the same time. This pressured the same circumstances to gradually achieve the integration of production where all accessories worked for the same service as a whole. Similar integration tendencies in the field of art also quickly got response and practices, with a new concept of action music gradually emerging alongside a specific behavior named conceptual art which is becoming more and more extensive. John Cage, who has a directional influence on Fluxus, George Maciunas, George Brecht, Nam June Paik and other leading members of Fluxus are often accomplished artists in music, painting, architecture, and other fields. John Cage爷s early event drama creation is various kinds of simple collage. Fluxus artists deepened the basis of general 野collage冶 and created 野convergence,冶 a kind of media using which uses more natural and stealth approach with a variety of categories, truly realizing the interaction between the media, combining the interaction of audience and mixing all kinds of elements for common themes. This kind of fusion trend in art runs through the whole of Fluxus. For example,the representative figure Nam June Paik爷 s practice of music event has moved towards multiple media interaction and towards visual art in its later development. A series of poets like Yoko Ono, a member of the radical group, also have a clear tendency to integrate action and poetic creation. However, there are obvious flaws in this pioneering attitude of integration. The fusion of artistic categories is conducive to the elimination of stereotypes in traditional art, while reawakening people爷s aesthetic sensibility and enthusiasm for daily life. A casual attitude in dealing with these specific different artistic works may cause a new chaos or, because of excessive fuzzy boundaries, a kind of opposite effect may be produced; one not of daily life aesthetics but 野mediocrity冶

窑45窑 of art. Artists may lose direction through the disappearance of borders,while the audience may also feel confused on accepting and understanding. To a certain extent, this kind of art has lost its unique attraction. A loose series of sound art events gradually converged into the history of con- temporary sound art, and its flow became increasingly clear. From the analysis of the sound art works in Fluxus, the universal characteristics of some contemporary sound aesthetics can be summarized. Influenced by Dadaism, Fluxus artists soberly realized that art is not only a regular arrangement, but can also be random and dis- ordered. This part of sound art is especially apparent. In the past, music was the product of pleasurable notes under certain rules and arrangement. Noise was ex- pelled from the definition of music, even in relative position. Fluxus artists changed this stereotype by putting noise of daily life into art to create all kinds art of noise. This behavior is directly opposed to traditional art and everyday life aesthetics. The overall intent is to reverse the traditional understanding of art to people so as to ex- press a kind of brand-new artistic attitude. Such artistic creation attitude opposes the traditional view of human rationality as the center, blurring the boundary of people, objects and the outside world and pursuing pure objective things rather than the absolute performance of self. Thus, in contemporary times, sound should be 野e- qual.冶 The equality of this sound is both internal and external. Internally, in the past, most of the focus on the study of sound is in music and is naturally related to time and technology. The most important basic principle for Fluxus artists is to declare that art and life are integrated and that all aspects of life should be seen in the form of art. More than one artist involved in the movement mentioned that everyone is an artist. Putting the idea to the sound art, daily life, which seems not to belong to art in traditional times, becomes part of the contemporary art society. Classical mu- sic concepts are strictly segregated from the music of the industrial noise and life noise. The definition of music lines is broadening, sound art is constituting more and more multifarious timbre. Just as the major breakthrough of modern optical re- search is one of the muses of impressionist paintings, noise from industrial society is the muse of sound art. For modern human auditory space, the biggest change is the noise coming from the roar of machine production. Canadian musician, Ray- mond Murray Schafer, put forward the concept 野Soundscape冶, aiming to make ear cleaning from the subjective side of the noise, in order to achieve closeness to the natural environment. In post rock and other forms of music, the position and impor- tance of noise in music and sound art has been manifested. Externally, we can also continue to think about the relationship between audi-

窑46窑 tory and visual culture. Nowadays, all kinds of image information explosively occu pies the life of human beings. This signifies the era of visual hegemony and the era of hearing reversion. When emphasized the importance of sound and hearing weak- ening the visual hegemony should not be regarded as the main purpose, which may cause contrast between the auditory culture and visual culture. Therefore, the idea of the fusion of art in Fluxus provides a new perspective for us to create a new 野au- dio-visual balance.冶 Behind the fusion of art is the automatic tendency of artistic creation, which is inseparable from western post-industrial background. In the field of art, several avant-garde artists have developed man-machine relationships be- tween physics, cybernetics, and probabilistic automation theory. In these relation- ships, the random and automation factors were blended in the artistic creation, and the automation and art practice became closely together. In China, the social influence of Fluxus is underestimated due to the wide range and long influence of Dadaism and Surrealism. It was not until 2014 that Chi- na held its first Fluxus art exhibition, which included paintings, architecture, instal- lations and other works of art. But in recent years, a series of art exhibitions and ac- tivities have been emerging in China that include the noise of Fluxus and the inte- gration of categories. Held in Shanghai in 2017, the contemporary arts exhibition 野Transparent Sound,冶 emphasized the subjectivity of sound performance through a variety of devices and advanced science and technology. This exhibition highlight- ed the fusion of all kinds of media and space and reflected the movement of sound with Chinese unique synaesthesia. Fluxus artists fight with precise choreography, one-way output, serious orthodoxy of flexible experience, interesting speech and in- teractions between themselves and audience. They embody the spirit against to- wards classical authority and exert the influence on the later development of sound art. It is of great significance o discuss the subjectivity of sound and the 野audio-vi- sual balance.冶

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