Fluxus Laboratories

Fluxus Limbus

2011-03-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

Fluxus Laboratories may have identified a new threat to Fluxus practitioners. We call it Fluxus Limbus. Fluxus Limbus is a mental state in which the Fluxus practitioner recognizes that his practice is directly related to the practices typical of Fluxus and yet cannot think of himself as an authentic Fluxus practitioner and begins to have misgivings related to having not himself dreamt up the name Fluxus. The symptomatic response is: the Fluxus practitioner continually proposes new and different names for his Fluxus activities. This condition of Fluxus Limbus may be brought on in part because the Fluxus practitioner was not identified by others as a Fluxus prac-titioner, Is in a state of denial about his own Fluxus nature or perhaps because the Fluxus practitioner resists submitting himself to interact with other Fluxus practitioners, thus diminishing his feelings of autonomy. He may even, in his unfortunate state, attempt to convince other Fluxus practitioners that they are also not Fluxus practitioners or that they do not practice Fluxus properly. There may be other reasons for these behaviors and there may be other bizarre behaviors not yet identified by Fluxus Laboratories as Fluxus Limbus but we will be investigating this newly recognized syndrome in order to protect the safety of the general public. Please report any suspicious activity. Thank you for your cooperation.
FluxusLaboratories.org

The Wonders of Plastic Surgery

2009-09-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

FLUXHIBITION #4 - Call for Works

2009-07-07T22:53:00.001-07:00

Fluxus Jokers Wild

2009-07-05T23:57:00.001-07:00

Press Release FLUXHIBITION #3: Thinking Inside of the Box Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers from the Permanent Collection of the FluxMuseum

2009-06-27T02:24:00.001-07:00

Press Release

FLUXHIBITION #3: Thinking Inside of the Box
Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers from the Permanent Collection of the FluxMuseum in conjunction with the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction

Did you think Fluxus was dead? A thing of the past? Think again. All the big names from the contemporary Fluxus art community flex their communal muscle in this extraordinary exhibition focusing on box assemblage. The FluxMuseum (fluxmuseum.org) in conjunction with the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction (collagemuseum.com) has put together its third international exhibition focusing on specific aspects of Fluxus art practice. Works by artists from all over the world have been donated to the Fluxmuseum for this exhibition. Represented in this show are artists from the all parts of the USA, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Greece, Germany, Hungry, Italy, France and Cyprus.

The exhibition to be held during the Month of July (1-31) with a gathering from 6:00-8:00pm on Friday July 10th at The Gallery in the E.H. Hereford University Center at the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas. This exhibition is sponsored by
the Student Art Association at UTA, a student group that manages and promotes student funded, student managed art exhibitions.

This is the largest exhibition dedicated to contemporary Fluxus/Assemblage box artists ever assembled in the history of the Fluxus community. Box assemblage has been a significant art form within the Fluxus community since its early days. Inspired initially by Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Cornell, Fluxus box assemblage quickly became a staple in the Fluxus community to gather together small works and editions of works from many artists into group and individual box assemblages.

The call for this show got a big boost when Yoko Ono - who has taken an interest since the second Fluxhibition in 2008 - help spread the word this time through her website ImaginePeace.com and through her tweets. Even the New York Times picked up the story. In fact a number of works in the show are inspired by or dedicated to this seminal Fluxus artist.

The FluxMuseum is dedicated to documenting the contemporary global Fluxus art scene and assembling a significant collection of works by contemporary Fluxus artists.

The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction is dedicated to the collection, study and exhibition of collage, assemblage and all forms of constructive art.

See online at fluxmuseum.org and collagemuseum.com A catalog will be available when completed. Details online.

Contact information: Cecil Touchon, Director, public information officer – info@collagemuseum.com – Tel 817-944-4000

Fluxhibition #3 - Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers

2009-05-25T15:22:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

INTERNATIONAL FLUXHIBITION #3 - Fluxus Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers by Contemporary Fluxus Artists

Call for Works - Deadline: June 30th, 2009 (sooner if possible) No Jury, all works accepted. No returns.

Fluxhibition #3 will consist of Fluxus Boxes, Kits, Cases and Containers and/or Fluxus Objects (to be placed in containers or boxes by the museum staff for the exhibit). An exhibition will be held in July at The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas. Works contributed will become part of the permanent collection of the FluxMuseum (fluxmuseum.org) and will be used for additional future exhibitions. A catalog will be produced for the show and available for purchase after the exhibit. Additionally, images of all works will become a permanent exhibit on the FluxMuseum web site.

What to do:
1) Create a Fluxus box, case, kit or container - use classic themes or come up with something new.
2) Send Fluxboxes, Fluxcases, Fluxcontainers and/or Fluxobjects by June 30th, 2009
3) Come to the show if you can
4) if so inclined, write or contribute a related essay for the catalog
5) When available, buy a catalog of the show.

FluxMuseum
6955 Pinon Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76116
USA
817-944-4000
http://fluxmuseum.org
----------------------------CALL FOR PARTICIPATION--------------------------------

Cecil Touchon
817-944-4000
www.touchon.com
collagemuseum.com

FLUXHIBITION #2 CATALOG - New and Improved Fluxus: Fluxhibition #2 Classic and Contemporary Scores, Instructions and Artifacts by Fluxus Artists

2009-05-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

Printed Soft Cover: 126 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, white interior paper (80# weight), full-color interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink

Description:

Catalog for the October 2008 Exhibition at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Works by Angelo Ricciardi, Antonio Picardi, Jamie Newton, Allan Revich, Lorraine Kwan, Gregory Steel, Walter Cianciusi, Yoko Ono, Luc Fierens, Jim Leftwich, Jeff Hogue, Rebecca Cunningham, Don Boyd, Neil Horsky, Larry Miller, Fluxdada, Karl Heinz Jeron, Marco Geovenale, Patrick Anderson-McQuoid and Tomas Schmit, George Brecht, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, Carol Starr, Cecil Touchon, Keith Buchholz, John M. Bennett, Reid Wood, Reed Altemus, Sheila Murphy,

Free hi-res downloads of promotional artwork for printing and posting to your networks, on the walls of your city, etc.

Poster

Fluxhibition #2 online exhibit

The Book: Natural Born Fluxus is now ready. 30 artists, 60 images, 140 unique fluxus scores

2008-12-06T21:52:00.001-08:00

The Book: Natural Born Fluxus is now ready. 30 artists, 60 images, 140 unique fluxus scores

Spread the word!
The Book: Natural Born Fluxus is now ready. 30 artists from several countries contributed more than 60 images and nearly 140 unique fluxus scores published here for the first time!
This is quite likely the most important Fluxus document ever published. The book is being presented in two versions: A full color hardback collector edition and a back and white soft cover version for the general public. The soft cover will have an isbn number and available in about two months to the wholesale market. In the meantime both versions are available via lulu.com. Get your special collector copy while you can! http://fluxmuseum.org/natural-born-fluxus.html
Make somebody buy you a copy for Christmas!

Note: the LULU.com website seems to be a little bit screwed up at the moment and does not show the preview of the book properly but rest assured, the printed product is lovely.

Thanks to everybody who helped to make this a really cool project! An endearing book of enduring value!

Cecil Touchon
Ontological Museum Publications
http://lulu.com/ontological

Why do we keep hearing that Fluxus is dead?

2008-09-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

If your a historian or collector then you want fluxus to be dead as soon as possible.
If you are a fluxus artist you want it to live for ever.
There it is in a nutshell.

The whole idea of it comes from the Catholic church traditions of canonizing saints.
They have to be dead before you can glorify them.
But that does not mean that you should kill the saint in order to rever them.
But if you have built a church to that saint that you hope to profit from and it cannot be opened until after their death, then the saint beware!

What can we do about keeping Fluxus from being canonized as a collective?

2008-09-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

The canonization of the individual artists who participated in Fluxus is one thing - fine and dandy, may it happen to us all! But Fluxus itself is impervious to canonization. We need to seperate these two things from one another.

I think one idea is to dismiss the idea that fluxus is a historical entity and that the very idea of it is antithetical to fluxus and preposterous and that anyone supporting such an idea knows nothing about fluxus and has nothing to do with fluxus.

This needs to be done collectively by developing appropriate propaganda that is ubiquitous among us. We have to create a united facade through cooperative endeavors. We need to publish books - which several of us are now doing - of new work not history books about old work; leave that to the outsiders.

We need to get articles in magazines. We need to establish a viable collector market for current work according to our own design. We need to validate ourselves through our own institutions. Thus the Fluxshop, Fluxmuseum, Fluxnexus, Fluxus Laboratories, Fluxlist, fluxlist Europe, Open Fluxus and so on.

Then we need to gather as a group not to promote old but current and emerging Fluxus. Thus the Fluxus Brainstorm Gatherings.

We need our own collective performance workbooks in order for us to promote each other's work as developing at fluxcase.com.

We need to provide universities with materials so that upcoming students accept us as fluxus and join our ranks.

We need to demostrate that we are Fluxus and Fluxus is ours.

There are 6 needed components

1) establish lines of communication,
2) develop infrastructure.
3) qualify yourself through practice,
4) produce product
5) establish a market
6) develop endurance and sustainability.

Theory and whatnot grow out of practice.

I think of us as dervishes as in the sufi tradition. If you ever ask a dervish if he is a sufi master he always says no and promotes all the other dervishes that he knows as the masters. We should do the same: each one adulate the others, each one promote the others, each one honor and respect the others.

This is how Fluxus will survive and deserve to survive: by our mutual good will toward our group and each other. We then are, through the codes we adhere to among ourselves, practicing sustainable peace and properity.

Make it a good day,
Cecil

Beyond Ken Friedman's Twelve Fluxus Ideas - 24 more ideas proposed by Fluxus Laboratories.

2008-09-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Contemporaneousness - many works are intended to be present in the present rather than left for history or for the future.

Interactivity - many Fluxus works intend to be directly interactive rather than viewsed from a distance

Equivocalness - many Fluxus works are designed to be ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations

Inclusivity - a Fluxus idea is to include rather than exclude whether it be other members/non-members of the group or spectators/audience

Poetical - many works have a poetic quality to them

Portability - many Fluxus works are designed to be easily stored and moved about through shipping or mail services, often reduced to scores to be realized on location rather than created in a studio and then moved about at great expense.

Productionalist - many Fluxus works are intended to become manufactured multiple products rather than unique works of art.

Programatic - many Fluxus projects happen according to a plan or program, many works are serial in nature and are developed along a certain plan or according to certain rules.

Communal - many Fluxus works are held in common among a group of artists for general use by all of them.

Didactic - many Fluxus works are intentionally instructional

Progressive - works that take previous ideas in a new direction

Self Empowered - many Fluxus works exhibit an indifference to accepted norms

Mimetic - many Fluxus works mimic common products and designs, scientific procedures, government activities, etc.

Nostalgic - From the beginning many Fluxus artists often refer to past works in current works.

Tentativeness - Fluxus works are often the product of uncertainty - works are often created without a certain intention in mind allowing the artist to explore alternate possibilities as he goes along

Quirkiness - works often exhibit a certain strangeness or unusualness about the thought processes used in their creation

Obsessiveness - many works imply an obsessive nature in their creators

Uselessness - works often, as part of their quality, render useful objects or performance materials useless or apparently useful activities are accomplished to achieve uselessness.

Materialistic - many Fluxus works exhibit a love of the materials that they are made from and exhibit attention to those materials. Many Fluxus works do not suggest a dialog beyond their own scope.

Multidimensional - many works can exist in a variety of forms or are designed to have a multitude of possible meanings or permutations or media

Adaptive - many Fluxus works are intended to adapt to new situations and are not locked into a specific place, time or style.

Porousness - Fluxus has no rigid boundaries and allows anyone to take up Fluxus activity. Anyone can join in with other Fluxus artists and be accepted as a part of the group.

Revolutionary - many Fluxus works suggest a program of revolution against one thing or another and especially against the 'establishment' or status quo.

Impervious - Fluxus as an idea is impervious to historification.