George Maciunas's Postal Strategies in Fluxus Examined Through German Media Theory

On November 5, 2018, an article contributes to Fluxus studies by investigating the tangible mechanisms that unified the movement, shifting away from a focus on its global network. Utilizing German media theory, it explores the 'paperwork' that formed a significant part of Fluxus's material output. The study highlights artist George Maciunas's strategic employment of the postal system to cultivate a sense of community and integrate Fluxus's innovative compositional techniques within broader power dynamics. It tracks Maciunas's use of newsletters for event organization and his mail-based sabotage ideas, along with collaborations with Mieko Shiomi and Ben Vautier, and his conflict with the New York State Attorney General, termed 'Flux Combat.' The article begins with Maciunas's diagrammatic representation of Fluxus's evolution, known as the John Cage chart, arguing that the focus on these concrete mechanisms has been overlooked in discussions of Fluxus's relevance to contemporary global connectivity. This analysis is pertinent to Conceptual art, mail art, and other transnational movements linked to communication and the dematerialization of art objects. Access to the article is available through MIT Press via subscription only.