#fluxkit

[squigglecrab]

2024

Fluxkit

Mixed media

After looking into event scores (simply instructions, proposals, and propositions for a performance or action), I was inspired to learn more and make my own fluxkit. Like those fluxus artists, I created a collection of projects, from books to boxes to ephemera, that were framed around an event score. Those who couldn’t be tied to an object were printed in a pamphlet, inspired by Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. I also was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, where found objects could be repurposed as art pieces. I also wanted to recreate at the aesthetics of fluxkits, which definitely felt very based in letterpress. I experimented a bit with type but mainly focused on imagery with found vintage illustrations.

[jazznoisehere]

George Maciunas: Burglary Fluxkit (label) - 1971.

[jgthirlwell]

05.04.24 Darius Jones fLuXkit Sextet with Yuniya Edi Kwon – Violin, Ledah Finck – Violin, Christopher Hoffman – Cello, Chris Lightcap – Bass, Ches Smith – Drums and Darius Jones – Alto Sax and Composition. For the Bang On A Can Long Play Festival. At Roulette in downtown Brooklyn

[antronaut]

Fluxkit (1966-67)

[thomasmartinnutt]

Fluxus. cc Valise e TRanglE, Fluxus newspaper No.3 (from Fluxkit), 1964

[proustian-dream]

George Maciunas, Burglary Fluxkit, 1971-1981.

[oldmanffucker]

thinking about artist Archie and Frenchie both pulling random fluxus/grapefruit prompts and doing them together. Then it becoming a weekly Revenge artist exercise.

Fluxus (experimental art movement) and Grapefruit (book by Yoko Ono that embodied Fluxus) - basically ‘event scores’ or prompts for (often) performance art. They were often absurd, often ephemeral or esoteric or inevitable. Examples:

(tape piece iii and walking piece from Grapefruit by Yoko Ono George Brecht. Games and Puzzles (Name Kit) from Fluxkit. 1965, Fluxus Edition announced 1965 Page from Fluxus 1, containing ‘Flux Napkin’. 1964, Fluxus Edition announced 1966) (God I’m crying reading Grapefruit now. Being a pisces is hard work but someone’s gotta do it [PDF])

but anyway I can perfectly imagine Archie’s smile and laugh and body language while they do some of the sillier prompts, and Frenchie’s little smirk. It’s the smirk of pyramid scheme and authentic planks. The events that ask for silence, they do with permanent little smiles channeling the silliest and most earnest intentionality that you can’t NOT look at it and not be soppy about it.

Fluxus isn’t just prompts or events, it’s a whole movement. It’s about accessibility of art, it’s about making art constantly, it’s about being anti-art, it’s about subverting the capitalist ideas of art. But to me it’s a beautiful exercise in opening yourself to the vastness of art. Everything is and can be art, from the sound of silence to the crushing of stones to the using of a napkin to taking a walk with someone. It’s down to intention, it’s down to openness, It’s down to earnestness and curiosity. It’s down to being receptive and most importantly PLAYFULNESS. It’s about letting art be low stakes and letting art into every moment of your life. It’s about embodying art.

Plus, Izzy would love this bc that sub loves to follow a direction. Man is lost in subspace watching the stars and turning on and off his headlights and walking in someone else’s footsteps.

(If all of those examples sounded insane and esoteric, here are more links to Fluxus things. First publication (poetry! Music! Vehicles! John Cage! Yoko Ono! Nam June Paik!) ‘An Anthology of Chance Operations’, and archive of fluxus artbooks: fluxus 1, fluxkit, and flux year box 2)

Even more emotional thinking abt how in college, in his really intense performance art and physical exertion phase, Izzy loved Fluxus and the idea of art being that and following directions and experiencing something new from it.

Then he gets to know the crew eventually, And finds out they do this. And oh, he’s taken aback. Launched back to being 19, to grieving his sister and transitioning and experiencing lack of bodily autonomy and finding refuge in performance art. And fondness bubbles up so hot and acrid he has to step outside. After that he’s part of the weekly events. He and the crew relish the events that take the most time, like the walking piece. The crew is fascinated by his earnestness and tenacity when so often before they only saw perfection and persnicketiness.

[originally posted as a twt thread]

[azersam]

Darius Jones - fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s̶ suite but sacred), 2023

[burlveneer-music]

Darius Jones - fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s suite but sacred)

A radiant manifesto of artistic freedom, fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s suite but sacred) brings together a composition in four movements written and performed by Jones on alto saxophone, long-time collaborator Gerald Cleaver on drums, and four Vancouver-based string musicians: violinists Jesse Zubot and Josh Zubot, cellist Peggy Lee and bassist James Meger; with original artwork by Stan Douglas and liner notes by poet Harmony Holiday. Commissioned by Western Front, an artist-run center for multidisciplinary experimentation and the historic home of the avant-garde in Vancouver, Jones drew inspiration from Western Front’s art is life ethos and its legacy of exchange with creative musicians such as George Lewis and Ornette Coleman. Composed across a series of residencies beginning in 2019 and recorded in June 2022 at Western Front’s iconic Grand Luxe Hall, fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s suite but sacred) is the first collaborative release with Brooklyn-based Northern Spy and Helsinki-based We Jazz Records. For Fluxus artists, art can exist anywhere. This can take the physical form of a fluxkit, a collection of artworks and everyday objects placed in a small container or box. By challenging definitions and pushing artistic boundaries, anyone who opens a fluxkit can experience an art event. Jones presents us with a fluxkit that we want to reopen again and again. The cover art for fLuXkit Vancouver was contributed by internationally acclaimed Vancouver-based artist Stan Douglas. Part of Douglas’ DCT series (2016 - ongoing), Occ6 is a brightly colored abstraction created through manipulating frequencies, amplitudes, and color values at the point in the digitization process where a photographic image is only represented by code. Occ6 mesmerizes and in turn offers a visual language that is untethered from conventional notions of the art form. “Stan found this world inside of a machine. Is this a photo?” Jones asks. “Is it a painting? What am I looking at? Maybe something that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” The music of fLuXkit Vancouver also exists in between worlds: Is this a compositional suite? Is it sacred music? Or is it simply art? Jones’ score includes visual components — a 25 unique graphics key for extended technique on strings — alongside standard musical notation. Darius Jones: Alto Sax and Composition Jesse Zubot: Violin Josh Zubot: Violin Peggy Lee: Cello James Meger: Bass Gerald Cleaver: Drums Produced by Darius Jones

[armchairarchivist]

Fluxus, Fluxkit

[22003191artstudioiiib]

Week Two

Lecture One - Martin Patrick

What is Fluxus?,

Nobody knows who and what Fluxus is - George Brecht

What is a Fluxus? I'm not ready to answer this question - Alison Knowles

Fluxus is a pain in art’s ass - Ben Vautier

Zen and Buddhist philosophy

George Maciunas, Fluxus Manifesto 1963

Owen f smith, the history of an attitude

Dick Higgins major artist and writer for Fluxus

Hannah Higgins Fluxus experience

proto internet art

Danger Music Number Seventeen

Philip Corner, Piano Activities

Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moormen

1 internationalism, 2 experimentalism, 3 intermedia, 4 simplicity, 5 attempted resolution of art vs life, 6 implicativeness, 7 play, 8 ephemerality, 9 specificity

Intermedia Chart by Dick Higgins

George Maciunas (1931- 1978)

Fluxkit, 1965/69

Zen for film by Nam June Paik

Ay-o, finger box

Robert Filliou, fluxhair

George Maciunas, USA surpasses all the genocide records

Yoko Ono, Box of Smile

anthology film archives

Henry flynt and nova billy

Fluxhouse, Soho, NYC, 1969, fluxhouse cooperatives

alternative arts and music from a young age

CRT TV Research

CRT stands for cathode ray tube. It is a glass vacuum tube made up of one or more electron guns that is charged by a negative plate called a cathode that heats the tube to produce electrons. It converts electrical signals into a visual image displayed on a phosphorescent screen. A CRT inside of a TV is referred to as a 'picture tube' and specifically in televisions and computers that have cathodes in the screen, the front area of the tubes are scanned in a pattern called a raster.

A raster scan is the rectangular pattern of the screen image capture, it scans the data line-by-line like a rake, leaving the clearly indented lines. These lines are known as scan lines. Each line is transmitted from a video source, the order of the pixels by rows is known as the raster order or the raster scan order. Analog TV has discrete vertical scan lines but non-discrete horizontal scan lines/pixels, instead, it varies the signal over the scan line.

The screens used the primary colours, red, blue and green, and the colours are changed depending on the screen image. Modern CRTs use magnetic deflection with a deflection yoke. These tubes are the reason why CRT TVs are so heavy and have a limited size range compared to the flat panel OLED, LCD and plasma display we have now, 40 - 45 inches was the biggest size in CRTs.

This is the order of the scan lines in a CRT TV, the horizontal motion goes left-to-right, blanks and moves back to left to begin again. The vertical line steadily increases downwards, one vertical sweep per frame and one horizontal per line. This makes each scan line slope slightly down to the right.

[elvisstudio4sem2]

What is Fluxus? - Martin Patrick 

George Maciunas, Fluxus Manifesto 1963

Promote living art, anti-art, promote non art reality - to be accessible

The history of an attitude - Owen f. Smith 

Hannah Higgins - Fluxus Experience 

Danger Music Number Seventeen - Dick Higgins 1962

Philip Corner, Piano Activites @ Fluxus festival Wiesbaden Germany 1962 

Chracteristics of Fluxus

Internationalism 

Experentalism 

Intermedia

Simplicity 

Attempted resolution of art vs life

Implicativeness

Play

Ephemerailty

Specificity  

Intermedia Art

Maciunas created funky typography -

Fluxkit 1965/69

Takehisa Kosugi - Keep walking intently 

Nam June Paik - Zen for Film 

Ay-O Finger Box 1965 

Fluxhair - Robert Filou 

[twistedsoulmusic]

If you like your jazz experimental, expressive and expansive, look no further. fLuXkit Vancouver (i​̶​t​̶​s suite but sacred) is a radiant manifesto of artistic freedom, showcasing the brilliant talents of Darius Jones on alto saxophone.

[missmisdemeanor]

(above) james riddle, e.s.p. fluxkit (dop). | this is so wonderfully weird.

(above) george brecht, deck: a fluxgame. | this is a card game where every card is different and there are no instructions. i'm probably gonna make a one on one appointment just to look through all of these.

(above) ben patterson, instruction no. 2. | this is a soap. the instructions inside say “wash your face.” this is what i mean about the love in fluxus. sometimes it’s really obvious (yoko ono’s smile box, for instance) but something about the collectivism and ritual of something like this is really nice. like allison knowles’ identical lunch.

(above) barbara kruger, stop [art original]. | the watch says “look for the moment when pride becomes contempt." she made a lot of different watches, i'd love to have one someday.

saw some really cool fluxus work in the art museum archives today and a piece by barbara kruger who i love

[theradicantattitude]

Brecht George, Water Yam, 1964. Inhalt: 94 Karten mit Handlungsanweisungen und Booklet Nut Bone, Herausgeber: George Maciunas, Edition Fluxus, New York; © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 / Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach / Foto: Achim Kukulies

[aliceisnotshort]

“Miniature Fluxus Museums”: Fluxkits and the Multiple - Bard Graduate Center

Fluxus research