Internet of Things and Mail Art

Mail Art History: The Fluxus Factor” by Ken Friedman

During “Mail Art, Then and Now”, specifically in the article by Ken Friedman, I thought it was interesting to see the timeline of events and what really was mail art and correspondence art. The reading went through explaining that correspondence art was reciprocal and interactive whereas mail art was always one-way mail that did not require any response back. Then, the reading explained the creation of the New York Correspondence School as well as Europe’s Nouveaux Realistes, both conglomerate of artists started mail art as a new art expression of creativity. After connections and communication between artists, the Fluxus movement was developed to organize mail art in the forms of events, exhibits, festivals, etc. I believe the reading about fluxus commemorates times where analog technology had more freedom and romanticism since there were less constrictions. But similar ideas can be applied to the 21st century with new digital technologies and programming.

The starters of correspondence art and mail art as well as the Fluxus movement, as I understood from the reading, let me understand that their ideas applied to the 21st century are really not obsolete. Their experimentation, and definition of intermedia answered their questions of how to seek new concepts by asking themselves “Why?”, “How?” “Why not?”, ”How else?”. In the 1950s through the 1960s and early 1970s, many new technologies were applied to improve people’s lives, but the so called “routine” complicated lifestyle. And nowadays, based on the ideas from Fluxus, we as technologists can create new simple concepts with playfulness, but with a meaning to find issues in the pursuit of serving society.

Written Response: Mail Art History – The Fluxus Factor

This post is a written response for Ken Friedman’s piece titled “Mail Art History: The Fluxus Factor” in a magazine published by Franklin Furnace.

Correspondence art has been an important part of the Fluxus movement since the 50s – 60s. It used to rely heavily on postal service to transmit small scale media, thus it has always been famously known as “Mail Art”. The type of media that is commonly used include things such as postcards, photo collage, rubber stamps, or anything can be put inside an envelope and sent via post.

What I found the most interesting from the reading is how he talked about how today’s new forms of electronic communications blur the edges of the kind on medium taking place in correspondence art or mail art. The main challenge is how we can fit in today’s technology into replacing transmission method for sending art instead of using the postal service. In a way, to me this entire thing sounds exactly like the type of solutions that can be done in the domain of “Internet of Things”. As the computing resources become incredibly less expensive than it was few decades ago, the technology itself become widely accessible to everyone and especially DIY maker or artists. I think this perfectly adheres the spirit of Fluxus which emphasizes heavily on Do-It-Yourself culture and hack.

HW1: Response to Mail Art History – The Fluxus Factor

The article was an introduction of correspondence art. I was not quite aware of the concept until I happened to the read the article. I realized that what started off as a medium of expression turned into a whole movement called the Fluxus movement. Reading on how post cards, artists’ postal stamps and rubber stamps became an art movement, I pictured how ideas are converted to actual practice.

The article demonstrates characteristics of true entrepreneurship. Even though the movement was spread across two continents, they identified a problem of displaying big pieces of art and solved it by using easily transportable options. They created the concept of ‘intermedia’ by bringing together expertise of multiple backgrounds and providing a public platform for communication of ideas. It was a small group that worked in a restricted environment to bring about a radical transformation in the world of art, creating a large network and establishing the need for interconnectedness.

The movement exhibits the power and importance of communication in a restricted manner. Ideas can be better implemented with limited resources as more alternatives can be created and simpler concepts can be put to use. All it took was one idea to change the way the world looks at art. Technology back then was as simple as the use of paper. Interconnectedness that began with postal technology has deepened and widened over the decades to create a parallel virtual world to our real one. It will take one more radical expression of art to absolutely blur lines between real and virtual as we progress through the decades.