1.9.1 Whereas Happenings developed primarily in response to second-generation action painting and only secondarily in response to Cage, Fluxus was much more identified with the composer and with new music in general. The term was coined by George Macunias, who used the actual dictionary definition of flux as part of the definition of Fluxus: "Act of a flowing; a continuous moving on or passing by, as of a flowing stream; a continuos succession of changes." (Schimmel, 1998, pg. 71) It is important to note that two influential members of the Fluxus group, Yoko Ono and Nam Jun Paik, made the transition from music to the visual arts through Cage. Korean-born Paik studied music and art history at the University of Tokyo after completing his thesis on composer Arnold Schoenberg. While Paik worked at the Studio for Electronic Music of West German Radio, with which the serialist composer Stockhausen was affiliated, Cage was in residence at the International Vacation Course for New Music in Darmstadt. Paik's intersection with Cage revolutionised his artistic development. (Schimmel, 1998, pg. 72) After a series of action, anti-music performances dedicated and inspired by Cage, Paik exhibited for the first time the installation Exposition of Music Electronic Television at the Rolf Jahring's Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Paik took Cage's invention of the prepared piano to a new level of complexity by presenting three prepared pianos with thirteen television sets.

1.9.2 Paik's work had a profound effect on a generation of video artists in the late 1960's and early 70's. Yoko Ono's work, on the other hand, had a similar impact on performance artists and anticipated the body-works. [7] In 1964 she premiered the Cut Piece at the Yamiachi Concert Hall in Kyoto and presented it again at the "Destruction in Arts Symposium" held in London in September 1966. Dressed in an elegant cocktail suit, she invited the audience to cut away at her clothing while she sat calmly in a state of contemplation. Later, in collaboration with John Lennon, she performed a number of events that involved press manipulation and creation of a mass media persona. (Smith, 1993, pg. 24)

1.9.3 Movements away from traditional forms of art-making were international, and it is not the intent of this thesis to cover this territory. But it is important to note that in the 1950's artists started collaborating and even forming groups. Most important to mention in this respect is Gutai from Japan, New Realism in France and Fluxus which, significantly, did not have a specific location. Communication technologies had already started to spread the influence of artists on each other across borders. For instance, Yves Klein, associated with the New Realism group, was influenced by the Japanese group in his experimentation with using the human body as a brush. It is unfortunate that he failed to acknowledge this influence and even blamed the international press for making the connection. (Schimmel, 1998, pg. 33) He too contributed to the carefully constructed persona/myth of the artist becoming the valuable commodity by documenting performative works and indeed staging some of them specifically for the camera. [8] As Schlemer notes in his introduction to the Out of Actions exhibition catalogue documenting the work of artists from 1949-1979, it is difficult to imagine the work of the French artist Gine Pane or the American Chris Burden occurring without the precedence of Klein's leap. (Schimmel, 1998, pg. 33)

1.9.4 But, why this digression and how does it connect to Buckminster Fuller and the thesis on networked arts and the Information Personae? As artists in the 1960's move away from the end product as the central aspect of art delivery towards a more interactive relationship with the audience through media, they began to personify process. The persona connected to the process became central to the delivery of the concept. Fuller was certainly conscious of this movement of the centrality of process, and his persona was very much tied to his work. His performative lectures were key to the delivery of his concepts and philosophies.

1.9.5 In her catalogue essay for the Out of Actions exhibit, Kristine Stiles foregrounds the emerging tendency of art to be viewed as much in terms of an artist's process as end product. Quoting Mark Boyle, Stiles describes artists as "antennae of this multicellular organism humanity" and "not so much artists as feelers, not so much transmitters as receivers." Thus, as Stiles attests, the subject/object relation inscribed in traditional art experienced a major reversal. (Stiles, K. 1997, pg. 329) In this respect, we can consider Buckminster Fuller as a receiver/transmitter extraordinaire. [top]