FLUXUS

Throughout my research into artists the Fluxus art movement keeps cropping up. Fluxus is desribed as a the multi practice avant garde collective and network of artists who had a DIY attitude and collaboration. A central figure in this movement and "ideological father"was avant garde composer John Cage. His philosophy about the movement was the "notion that one should embark on an artwork without a conception of its end, and his understanding of the work as a site of interaction between artist and audience." Other famous artistic figures associated with the movement include Yoko Ono and two artists whose work has greatly inspired me Nam June Paik and Christian Marclay.

Marclay's work with it's undertones of John CageCage's themes and methodology run into Marclay's own work.  He used this work and indeed took it further with his "turntablist" performances. Using multiple records on multiple record players rather than the broken and then reassembled record made from different ones he created new music from concurrently played different records. He repeated a similar trick but this time using editing and movie clips in "The Clock" and "Video Quartet"

Nam June Paik 's work coined the term Video Art which was seen as part of the movement and sharing it's ideologies. Paik and his work was often viewed as an imposter in art galleries in its formative years but due to the often sculptural nature of his early work he helped to path the way by combining a sculptural structure to his work that made it more gallery friendly. He famously said that this newfound medium would “enable us to shape the TV screen canvas as precisely as Leonardo, as freely as Picasso, as colourfully as Renoir.”

As some of these figures inspired me I thought that it must have some crossovers with my work. It was an interdisciplinary art movement encompassing a multitude of disciplines and an anything goes DIY philosophy. I guess that does sum up my work somewhat, the creating of something from existing parts and the colision of images and sound. Appropriation and mixing that with technology to create something new and interesting. Also Cage's quote and the "notion that one should embark on an artwork without a conception of its end, and his understanding of the work as a site of interaction between artist and audience." is also strangely appropriate as this piece of work is laced with a spirit of adventure and as of now i am still unsure how it will eventually end.