Neo/N (Uber AlleS) by Nye Ffarrabas (formerly Bici Forbes)
In his article titled ‘Freedom? Nothingness? Time? Fluxus and the Laboratory of Ideas’ (2012), Ken Friedman reflects on his involvement with Fluxus, a collective and laboratory for art, architecture, design and music. I’ve always been interested in the event scores produced by Fluxus artists and would consider it’s instruction-based format, concern around capitalist/consumerist art, and the connections that are drawn between art and the everyday to be central to my own performance making/everyday life.
Of particular interest in this article is the argument Friedman makes that Fluxus stands out in the history of art practices and approaches because of its ‘tricontinental membership, including women and men from dozens of nations… [and] the strong presence of women’ (2012: 375). He writes,
‘Fluxus artists and composers would include a major group of groundbreaking women: Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann, Mieko Shiomi, Takako Saito, Shigeko Kubota, Alice Hutchens, Nye Farrabas, Kate Millett, Carla Liss, Alice Hutchins, Charlotte Moorman and others played key roles in Fluxus. While this revolutionary aspect of Fluxus has not been as well noticed as should be the case, more women were active in Fluxus, and more were central to the work of the community, than in any art groups before it.’ (2012: 375)
As a result of my attention being drawn towards Fluxus as an important historical route to the project, I have decided to develop a score that results from some of the work I recently undertook in Palestine. I’ll publish the score once it’s better formed.
Friedman also suggests a range of feminist scholarship around Fluxus, which I need to explore:
Kathy O’Dell (1997)
Women and Fluxus: Towards a Feminist Archive of Fluxus (Fredrickson, 2009; Kawamura, 2009: Kubitza, 2009; O’Dell, 2009; Petrel, 2009; Yoshimoto, 2009)
Stiles (2010)
Schneemann (2002)
Friedman, Ken (2012) ‘Freedom? Nothingness? Time? Fluxes and the Laboratory of Ideas’ in Theory, Culture & Society 29(7/8)