Erica Cox Intermedia 1

A Child's History of Fluxus-Dick Higgins:
"Long long ago, back when the world was young - that is, sometime around the year 1958 - a lot of artists and composers and other people who wanted to do beautiful things began to look at the world around them in a new way (for them)." This is the first sentence of the essay and it really caught my attention. The first thing that caught my attention was the "back when the world was young...1958". I really liked reading that because we all know technically the world was not young in 1958 but it makes me wonder what he meant by that. Did he mean the enlightened world? The artistic world? The freethinkers world? The second thing that caught my attention in that sentence was the last part- "began to look at the world around them in a new way (for them)". I like that because Higgins did not generalize the population. He realized it was possible that other people had already been thinking in this fluxus manner but it was new for these specific artists. Fluxus reminded me of the Dada essay we read last week. It is inspiring to think that just one day a group of people decided that the sloshing of a wet foot in a boot is a beautiful sound all on its own, then those thoughts started a movement. Reading this essay got me thinking on photography. Sometimes I wonder why people need to edit their pictures so much in photoshop. What is wrong with the original picture? Why do they have to make it something bigger and fancier than the natural thing? Personally, I'm attracted to the very basic and natural looking pictures. I understand that sometimes it can definitely improve the picture quality, but I believe a lot of times people take it overboard.


The Origin of Happening-Dick Higgins:
I am starting to really enjoy Higgins' writings. I feel like I can comprehend them well and he has a hint of humor to what he writes. You can also tell he is passionate about what he writes. In this essay I liked how he wrote about how one artist named his new technique and it caught on very fast. I also liked when several different people had different opinions to what “happenings” even meant exactly. Even Allan Kaprow seemed like it was hard for him to put in words what he thought it meant. “I didn't know what else to call it, and my piece was something that was just supposed to happen naturally”. It seems like at one point, many people were saying what they were doing was “happening” and it got away from the original meaning. It is interesting that it seems like intermedia can really be compared to so many different movements that has happened, like this happening movement, and the dada movement.

Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life-Allan Kaprow:
It is so interesting to me to read about the breaking of barriers in the world of art. I love reading the writings of people like Kaprow and Higgins who were apart of this movement where the boundaries have been broken. It is so inspiring to know that it is okay to paint a collage, and to combine that with a performance, then photograph it. “But this has brought sharply into focus the fact that the room has always been a frame or format too”. I like the idea of thinking “outside of the box”, which I think this class is all about. Kaprow was thinking yes, the painting is the piece, but what about where it is hanging, and what is it hanging from? Do the other things going on in the room correspond with my piece of art? I believe that whether you like it or not every other thing in that room is part of the impression your piece is giving off. Spectators notice their surroundings whether they're supposed to or not. And those surroundings will effect their thoughts of your piece.

Paragraphs on Conceptual Art- Sol Lewitt
I had a really hard time understanding this essay. Maybe its because it was longer so my mind wasn't in it or I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I'm looking forward to seeing what other people had to say about it to get some different opinions.