Fluxus: thinking about time, marking time and playing with time.

Owen F. Smith, November 2002.

Fluxus type work is part of a long established tradition of utilizing art as a means
of investigation, whether it is of art itself, or of political, social or philosophical concerns.
In such a process Fluxus both mirrors as well as rejects numerous practices often
associated with the avant-garde. Key among these is a culturally critical stance towards
the paradigmatic values and operative structures of the status quo. The critical role played
by Fluxus in reevaluating aspects of art, music and performance from the early 1960s has
gained increasing recognition, a similar important role played by Fluxus in an
investigation of the structures and influential aspects of time, language and meaning has
been overlooked. Fluxus and the artists who associated themselves at various times with
this rubric had a significant roll in the development of, and explorations in, intermedia in
the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The considerations of the nature of these intermedial
explorations, however, have often been limited to just media, when in fact the most
critical nature of this reevaluation is not media driven but a rejection of media
determinism. If instead of seeing the explorations of Fluxus as media centric, they should
be understood as a fundamental reconsideration of cognitive processes and their social
extensions into cultural frames such as meaning systems, evaluative processes and
chronological structures.

This discussion of some of the explorations that Fluxus artists pursued and/or
raised is not an attempt to historically locate Fluxus or define its project, rather it is a
consideration of some Fluxus works and ideas as related to their use or relation to time,
particularly as related to the interconnected mechanisms of experimentalism and
intermedia. Prior to discussing any such particular concerns and ideas it is necessary to
consider the general philosophical attitude which pervades many of the works and
activities often grouped under the term Fluxus. Three central questions practiced by
Fluxus artists, are repeatedly returned to in this period: what is the relationship between
the artist and the audience?, what are the materials of art?, and what are the process of
manipulation and/or creation available to the artist? Although many artists throughout the
twentieth century considered such questions the key here in the context of Fluxus is not
so much the general nature of the questions themselves, but the nuances of related
explorations. Particularly unique in Fluxus is the way in which the individual answers for
each of the three questions become combined in a shift from a text based linear culture to
a visual or field oriented culture. In all activities associated with Fluxus there were a
number of general, yet formative, aims and concerns that shaped both the nature and the
form of the works produced, whether they be in literature, poetry, music, performance or
the visual arts. These include but are not limited to the following:

A rejection of the notion that art is first and foremost a process

of production that creates a unique object.
A stress on the non-hierarchical nature of the world outside of
human impositions.
Eschewing the role of the artist as special and as the
principal focus of the work and/or its appreciation.
An emphasis on the primary significance of process, change and
duration in the creation and presentation of works.
and
Discarding the significance of boundaries between types of
works through the use of new media, intermedia and even
non-media.

Although much has been written about Fluxus and its intermedial emphases what
I would like to suggest here is another result from the interconnections between Fluxus
and intermedia, and that is a network mentality, or as Dick Higgins himself called it a
"postcognative" awareness. As the focus of work in Fluxus shifts from product to process
and from producer to a shared interaction between artist, performers and audience the
result is a self–perpetuating engagement that emphasizes the totality of materials and
participants, even though either may, and do change. The resultant focus, based in a self-
critical investigation of media, rejects media distinctions and posits a focus or core of
activities that exists in the spaces between media (intermedia). It is the connections and
spaces between media and/ or categories that take precedence in the intermedial activities
of Fluxus. The decentralized community and social networks that result from this
interactivity highlight shifting associations of activities, objects and people. In addition to
physical expression and forms of intermedia fairly evident in the descriptors applied to
Fluxus type work, such as "visual poetry," "action music," or "performance art," Fluxus
works also establish an intermedial role for the artist/poet/musician and even a cognitive
intermedia. One aspect of the intermedial role of the creator is fairly evident, that is, if the
artist is creating works that exist somewhere between media, they themselves must act as
creators in that same space between media. Another potentially less evident intermedial
role for the artist was indicated by Ben Patterson when he wrote in The Four Suits that "I
require that the central function of the artist be a duality of discoverer and educator:
discoverer of the varying possibilities for selecting from environmental stimuli, specific
percepts and organizing these into significant perceptions, and concurrently as an
educator, training a public in the ability to perceive in newly discovered patterns." Thus
for Patterson and many other individuals associated with Fluxus the artist/musician/poet
is no longer a person tied to the craft of a particular media, but becomes an explorer of
perception and a public educator who moves between traditional media categories in a
process of discovery and communication.

Central to this process are two interconnected aspects for Fluxus, first, the
primacy of the event (or act) with a correlated concern for participation and, second, a
centrality of information exchange, modeling and education. Dick Higgins was referring
to such aspects of a new mentality when he wrote his "An Exemplativist Manifesto."
Although the whole essay is worthy of consideration two short passages are most relevant
here:

Our arts . . . seem always to involve some aspect of performance - we enact, we

do, we perform or commit aesthetic acts. We commit an act of education when we
teach or when we present our live manifestations. Even our most static works are
the result of such acts and, thus, have a performance aspect . . . . - the action of
the artist . . . is always sensed in the work and so the work can never be a fixity.
Like life itself, our works are impure- always the centers of emanations of
experience. [Higgins, A Dialectic of the Centuries, p. 158
Such works can not be ends in themselves. Instead they always participate in the
ongoing process of sharing an experience. Among the criteria for evaluating such
works must always be the efficiency and force of their suggestion and proposal.
Since this processes not the single realization as the work, but the dialectic
between any single realization and its alternatives. . . . [p. 159]

Of the multitude of directions and ideas that Fluxus explored one of the most significant
is that it models an alternative way of being creative; it offers a communal, participatory
and open-ended alternative to the traditional forms and functions of art making. Fluxus
works and performances often emphasize collectivity and collaboration rather than the
traditional art practices of individuality and exclusivity. Additionally, they should be seen
as existing not at a specific time or in a particular place, but as processes of enactment
that relies on continuation, participation and engagement. Although many if not most
Fluxus works involve the viewer, a work such as George Brecht's Event Score (1966)
does so explicitly. The score reads: "Arrange or discover an event. Score and then realize
it." By placing some, or in this case all, of the responsibility back in the hands of the
audience (what I increasingly think of as the user), Brecht makes it clear that we are not
only necessary for the creative act but ultimately accountable for both the work and for
our own time as experienced through the work. We are no longer passive receptors
suspended in time by the artist and their work, but become owners and thus responsible
for the nature, function, and existence of the work. The meaning evident through an event
score and through Fluxus events and objects shifts and changes because they require
personal participation in the work or in the experience of the work. As a result the works
are not based on the source of original artistic conception, or solely on the artist's intent,
but occur in the mental realm of the viewers/participants or in the cognitive space shared
by the artists and the viewer that Marcel Duchamp labeled the "art coefficient."

In Fluxus works, processes are enacted to establish multiple possibilities

containing both patterns of presence and absence. Additionally, these processes can
simultaneously create an ambiguity of meaning as well as its opposite. The referential
nature of Fluxus works and performances reflects a recognition of meaning as a construct
of the particular framework, or situation in which it is placed or occurred. Fluxus works
can never claim to be completely original or distinct entities, even though Maciunas often
sought to stress this as an aspect of Fluxus, because their meaning and significance
change in relation to the context in which they are experienced. The contextual
relationships of most Fluxus work is a kind of plagiarism of a prior discourse - of life
itself and thus the work receives its own life and meaning from what it defines itself
against (its difference), whether it be other objects (including works of art) or experiences
and the expectations that prior experiences generate. Let me give an example of how such
relational processes work in Fluxus pieces. In "Shadow Piece II" Chieko Shiomi gives the
following instructions:

1. Project a shadow over other

side of this card.
2. Observe the boundary between
shadow and lighted part.
3. Become the boundary line.

In this formally simple, but conceptually complex piece Shiomi sets into play a
multiplicity of possibilities that extend the problem/questions about the nature and
function of perception, language, meaning and value. The key to this piece by Shiomi as
well as many other Fluxus Events is both a shift in the nature of our perception, in this
case from shadow to lighted part and back again, and a call for direct action by the
viewer/reader, "become the boundary line." This work sets in motion a series of
processes related to our awareness of reality and how our perceptions are shaped by the
operation of conceptual frames, most especially language. In general "Shadow Piece II"
suggests a reevaluation of the concept of the work, and the materials of language used to
express it, as static from the point of view of the reader - implicit in the role/place of the
performer/reader is a proposition that meaning comes from a situational interaction not a
static presence of an/the author. The work also questions and thereby criticizes processes
of differentiation, particularly those enacted by language - a focused awareness of the
interconnected but shifting relation of the shadow and the thing that casts the shadow can
be seen as analogous to the unfixed play between the sign and the signifier in language.
Shiomi proposes that shaping awareness by the creation of boundaries is the principal
function of language, not just transparent communication - a focus on the difference
between the shadow and the light as a kind of presence and absence is, I believe, parallel
to linguistic shaped cognition which seeks boundaries in order to define and thus to
exclude.

What Shiomi's ‘Shadow Piece II’ exemplifies is the wide range of potentials
existent in many Fluxus Events. A seemingly contradictory range from simplistic to
complex, accepting to critical, humorous to serious, but in all of these possibilities what
remains a nexus is the modeling of a potential new paradigm beyond the traditional
confines of language. In this piece and many other Fluxus works the meaning evident
through the event score, its performance and the object or physical form it takes shifts
and challenges us to make sense of deceptively simple propositions. Because Fluxus
works are intentionally tied to, and activated by the situations in which they are viewed or
enacted they can have no fixed existence or meaning. Fluxus pushes this recognition to
the point where the existence of contradiction (or at least its possibility) becomes
recognized as part of the extended creative engagement. In Eric Andersen's "Opus 46"
we are instructed that "This sentence should not be read by more than one person at the
same time." The reader performer is thus presented with the very real potential for
contradiction: between the intent of the artist and our actions when we read the score and
between the whole nature of the work and our expectations, insisting on an exclusivity
and singularity of experience that seems to contradict the nature of performance as shared
and public. In relation to these situational processes Fluxus seeks to shift from traditional
utilitarian based proscriptions to an open-ended, less evaluative, participation in the
processes themselves. By enacting such operations Fluxus seeks not to reconstruct what
makes thought or experience coherent, but to demonstrate the ultimate incoherence of
thought and action when removed from its operational contexts and time frames. Fluxus
manifests itself not as a series of fixed points but as a conditionally determined field.
Cognitively, as well in real world terms, Fluxus is most appropriately understood as
situated in an ever shifting time frame, bound up with contradiction or the potential for it,
but tied to a referential whole, that is the works or the event scores that "makes" the work
a possibility.

One of the more fundamental challenges in thinking and acting precipitated by

Fluxus was to no longer require a clarity of concept or purpose as it relates to
communication. The general Fluxus attitude seeks to open up the possibilities of
enactment as a manifestation of direct participation. Such participation should be seen as
part of a process of engagement that emphasizes the power of play, association and
creation without predetermined definitive characteristics or goals. This form of
multivarious exploration is also key in the creation of a cognitive space that either
problematizes or rejects the concept of time as linear, measurable or even relevant. Such
an awareness of time is particularly important as it relates to the concept of "play" in a
variety of forms in Fluxus. Although play is evident in many Fluxus works as it is
manifested in gags, games and humor, its most general importance is of another kind.
Play in Fluxus is most significant as a model for open-ended discourse that stresses
relations and the enactment of duration, rather than a linear production and
communication of discrete pieces of information (in works and performances) in a
specified or fixed timeframe. In this way play is important for Fluxus because it stresses
participation and breaks down the normal physical and conceptual barriers between
categories of things or types of experience such as between the spectator and the work or
between an art experience and other types of experience. The kind of play that I am
referring to here is evident as an attitude more than a reference to a form, such as playing
a game. For in the Fluxus worldview play has no specific beginning, middle or end and
no spatial or numerical boundaries. This kind of play is thus most aptly described as
infinite play and it is also a central process in what I am calling cognitive intermedia.
Infinite play is reflected in Fluxus works in many ways but I will mention two ways here:
first, through the nature of the event score and its performative extensions and second,
through the relation of Fluxus works to culturally determined concepts such as time and
language.

The use of chance, which has been stressed by many participants in Fluxus, is not
so important as a productive process (chance as a means to produce some end) but as a
reflection of the recognition of fluid and shifting nature of the world: the flux in Fluxus.
This awareness is particularly important as it relates to the concepts that I am describing
as infinite play. Infinite play, as expressed in the Fluxus performances, works and
attitudes, stands in sharp contrast to traditional notions of structured play. Fixed or
traditional games can be played within infinite games whether they be recreational
games, such as those played in the Fluxolympics, or social games, such as in the Flux
Wedding and the Flux Divorce. In all cases, although the form of the fixed game may be
followed, it is not played with the same seriousness. The Fluxus world view and its
expression in such infinite games is not, however, inconsequential or trivial, rather
everything that happens is of potential consequence and it is this aspect of the Fluxus
world view which seeks, but does not always arrive at, a non-hierarchical density of
experience. For this reason play's significance in Fluxus is transformative rather than
formative. Because infinite play is expansive, the only motivation that exists is in the
perpetuation of the process of play, to insure that the players are kept in the act of play,
and to recognize duration as a fundamental aspect of life. In Fluxus type works there is
often no strong invocation of an anticipated future (the end in a finite game structure), but
rather a preference for immediacy, for the intensity of experience found in the constantly
changing flow of present moments. The rejection of hierarchies, fixed meaning, and
denotative forms in Fluxus are all related to a concern for a reconceptualization of the
work in, and as, time. To understand Fluxus is to realize that its works are timeless, but
not in a universalizing, rather a particularizing sense. We may experience a Fluxus work
at a specific time or think of Fluxus as related to a specific period in time, but this is only
one small part of the Fluxus experience.

Fluxus may adopt and participate in directed actions and activities that make use
of time, refer to time and/or exist in time, but these are a mechanism and a means to an
end, not and end in themselves. When we are instructed in Tomas Schmit's Sanitas No.
13 to relay the time to the audience for an hour or in Kosugi Chironomy 1 to "Put out a
hand from a window for a long time" the function of time becomes self-destructive. The
presence of time in the work is not a reinforcement of the work itself as it is in most
traditional performative experiences. Instead in these and many other Fluxus works time
exists as a question focused on the performance and on its own value. The presence of
time seems to counter, undermine, and invalidate traditional performative frames. Many
Fluxus works involve long periods of time - hours, days and even years. The situations
we are presented with in such works are intended to make us question the nature and
function of time as it shapes our awareness. How are we to know or experience a work
such as Bengt af Klintberg's "Flour Game" which gives the following instructions:

At the same time every day, using the same words, in the same store, for 100
days, you purchase 10 dkg. of flour

On 101st day, you buy 1 q. (200 pounds) of flour.

For the next 100 days, buy l0 dkg. again. On 202nd day, buy 1 q. (200 pounds)
And again, and again, and again.

Can this work be performed? Yes - Is it intended to be performed? Possibly; or how

about another piece, this one by Eric Andersen, in his "Opera Instruction" of 1961 the
score reads:

Dec. 11, 1963: Sit down from 7 PM to 8:03 PM (Danish Time) and think about
the people all over the world who may be performing this.

Can this work be performed? We assume that it might have been on the day and time
given, Could it be performed again? Possibly, or possibly not; or how about Dick
Higgins', "Danger Music Number Nine (for Nam June Paik)" that instructs us to
"Volunteer to have your spine removed." Can this be performed?, Why certainly. Should
it be carried out? Hopefully not. In all of these works and others like them what is
undertaken is a process of deconstructing the usually transparent operation of time. Time
is no longer central and hidden, as in most performances, but it becomes central, evident
and problematic. As Henning Christiansen states in his piece "Dialectical Evolution V"
"To know is to believe in time, exact time. To do is to spoil time, exact time."

Many of the traditional values bound up with the experience of a performance,

such as, entertainment, passivity, and the suspension of one's daily life are highlighted
and questioned in Fluxus works. We are no longer able to exist outside the flow of time
but become excruciatingly aware of it. The performance of many Fluxus works highlight
time through a variety of mechanisms such as duration, elongation or attenuation,
compaction or abbreviation and simultaneity. Although much time could be spent on
discussing the specifics of these processes in Fluxus works, the more fundamental key,
and that which I would like to stress here is that they are all part of a process that seeks to
get us to question and reject our assumptions. In a general sense all Fluxus activities seek
to question meaning, significance and worth as fixed, pre-determined, or even
determinable. Although Fluxus has at various points been referred to (incorrectly I might
add) as Neo-Dada it is not concerned with a nihilistic antifoundationalism but attempts to
legitimate experience and even a possible moral basis for actions as keyed to human
practices within communities. It is this recognition of the centrality of context and
relations that pushes Fluxus to seek modes of transformation based not on external
models of action, but on participation in the processes of community. In discussing the
value that he felt Fluxus had Dick Higgins stated that:

I do not believe in amateurishness: that isn't what it is all about. But in

amateurism, is simplicity. An art (by which I also mean non-art, if you prefer, so
long as it is aesthetic in some way) on which one cannot hang a cycle of
professional crafts and dependence. An art which by its very nature denies its
perpetrators their daily bread, which must therefore come from somewhere else.
Such an art must be given, in the sense that experience is shared: it cannot be
placed in the market place. . . . Much of that work I enjoy - I even love. . . I must
reject, not because it isn't officially Fluxus, but because it isn't free. It's just so
many hat racks for careers to be hung onto. When the name of the artist
determines the market value of a work and not its meaning in our lives - beware!

By rejecting both the romanticized frames of art as visionary and transcendent as well as
the modernist notions of art as professional and exclusionary praxis Higgins and by
extension Fluxus returns to a simpler engagement open to all. Although this open, often
seemingly uncritical and playful aspect of Fluxus is sometimes dismissed as insignificant
or lacking a serious motivation it is of fundamental import for a collective, collaborative
and global based mentality. Art becomes not a way to become famous, a carrier or even a
way to make a living but something more important. In this way art becomes an
extension of cognition and gains a new existence in time as part of our lives. It is not art
as an escape to a different time and place but a return to the real world at a particular time
and in a particular place. As participants in the Fluxus experience we are offered a place
to act, a set of approaches with which to think, and a value structure that makes sense of
the world. These ideas are as significant today as they were 40 years ago. To make this
point I would like end my presentation by reading three scores by Jackson Mac Low:

3 Social Projects
Social Project 1
 Find a way to end unemployment, or
Find a way for people to live without employment.
Make whichever one you find work.

Social Project 3

Find a way to produce everything everybody needs,

And get it to them.
Make it work.

Social Project 2

Find a way to end war.

Make it work.

29 April 1963
The Bronx
.