The All New FluxNexus Member's Starter Kit
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PART ONE: A Collection of Ideas About Fluxus (other parts in the works)


ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION: WHAT IS FLUXUS?


"...it was meant to be a long-lasting idea or tradition with continuing converts and practitioners. That is the way I look at it and that is the way I deal with it. I think it should be open to anyone who wants to practice it. " [Don Boyd]

"I think what makes Fluxus so dynamic and interesting to me is that there is no definition - I wish people would just accept that. The appealing idea is that Fluxus is inclusive. Artists spend most of their careers being rejected which is why Fluxus is so refreshing..." [Dawg]

"Fluxus is not a moment in history, or an art movement. Fluxus is a way of doing things, a tradition, and a way of life and death." [Dick Higgins]*

"Fluxus is more valuable as an idea and a potential for social change than as a specific group of people or a collection of objects." [Ken Friedman]

"1) Fluxus makes the mundane magical., 2) Fluxus happens when one feels that life and art must be taken so, seriously, that it becomes impossible to take life or art seriously. 3) Ordinary acts and ordinary objects perceived in extraordinary ways." [Allan Revich]

Three obvious things about Fluxus by [Allen Bukoff]
  1. Fluxus is more than Art. It's bigger than that. To confine it to being understood as being primarily a phenomenon in the realm of art is to let it die.
  2. Fluxus can still be a vibrant and energetic force. By refusing or failing to recognize this for the last 20 years, you have been letting Fluxus die.
  3. Fluxus is bigger than you. Fluxus is bigger than the initial group or Fluxers, it's bigger than Maciunas. You guys didn't finish off or "complete" the Fluxus project, you just got it started! Many others have come to Fluxus with new Fluxus ideas and projects, and many of you haven't even bothered to notice. By confining Fluxus to yourselves, you are letting it die.

"I have no idea how to answer!" [Alan Bowman]

"Why on earth we would want to(say what it is)?" [Alan Bowman]

"40 years after the first fluxus ventures the word has come to signify much more than it ever did and the world has come to expect more from fluxus than there ever was." [Alan Bowman]

"Fluxus is the "event" according to George Brecht: putting the flower vase on the piano.
Fluxus is the action of life/music: sending for a tango expert in order to be able to dance on stage.
Fluxus is the creation of a relationship between life and art,
Fluxus is gag, pleasure and shock,
Fluxus is an attitude towards art, towards the non-art of anti-art, towards the negation of one's ego,
Fluxus is light and has a sense of humor." [Ben Vautier]

"Fluxus has been hijacked, adopted, assimilated, morphed, borrowed, plagiarised, reworked, overworked and overblown and we've made something else out of it." [Alan Bowman]
"Fluxus is inside you, is part of how you are. It isn't just a bunch of things and dramas but is part of how you live. It is beyond words." [Dick Higgins]

"Perhaps its time for a new fluxus manifesto." [Alan Bowman]

"What’s said about ducks might help out here ... If something walks and quakes like a duck it is, in all probability, a duck ... or perhaps it could be a drake ... so if <SOMEthing> looks, sounds smells, tastes and/or feels like fluxus, in all probability, it is fluxus ..... or it could be <SOMETHINGfluxus>  masquerading as <SOMETHINGneoist> or visa versa ... then again it could be any number of things .... even <ZENzing> maybe? ...  in all probability, it’s much easier trying to work out if you’re a duck ... or a drake  ... or <SOMETHINGconcrete> ... than it might be trying to work out whether or not you’re fluxus ... the <HARDbit>, it seems, is knowing just exactly what fluxus looks, sounds smells, tastes and/or feels like."  [Ray Norman]

"It is important that we define fluxus 'now'. [Alan Bowman]

"Try to imagine being in a room with ben vautier, emmett williams, ay-o, jean dupuy, philip corner, yoko ono, nam june paik, takako saito, serge III, ken friedman, dick higgins, alison knowles, yoshi wada, geoff hendricks,larry miller, george brecht, etc, etc, etc.work out from there what fluxus is! and then look at your on work - what's the criteria?" [Alan Bowman]

"In my expereience the people we know to have been involved in fluxus, don't really believe that it exists." [Alan Bowman]
"In Fluxus there has never been any attempt to agree on aims or methods; individuals with something unnameable in common have simply naturally coalesced to publish and perform their work. Perhaps this common something is a feeling that the bounds of art are much wider than they have conventionally seemed, or that art and certain long-established bounds are no longer very useful." [George Brecht]
"Stop worrying about the past.  If you want to be fluxus, be fluxus that's fine.  But be prepared for opposition.  Unfortunately the sheer inability to define fluxus as one concrete thing  is always going to stir shit up.  [Alan Bowman]

"Whether you think that concert halls, theaters, and art galleries are the natural places to present music, performances, and objects, or find these places mummifying, preferring streets, homes, and railway stations, or do not find it useful to distinguish between these two aspects of the world theater, there is someone associated with Fluxus who agrees with you. Artist, anti-artists, non-artists, anartists, the politically committed and the apolitical, poets of non-poetry, non-dancers dancing, doers, undoers, and non-doers, Fluxus encompasses opposites. Consider opposing it, supporting it, ignoring it, changing your mind." [George Brecht]