(1981) Volume 4, Number 3

              volume 4 number 3 may 1981 aim interview with wolf vostell fluxus reseen editor's note this is the transcript from the videotape made by artist jeff perkins while wolf vostell was in los angeles for his exhibition at the los angeles institute of contempo rary art many thanks to vostell and perkins for permission to print this vostell was on the grounds of california insti tute of the arts in valencia california when he made this tape when he is not in valencia or los angeles he usually is in berlin or in barcelona what is fluxus yes look at this highway the highway for me is a fluxus stream a fluxus concept and all this multiple activity from the people driving their cars hearing the noise seeing the light being aware of the accidents which can happen co vering miles-all this is a contemporary piece the light the noise and time and space-it is a real fluxus piece you're looking at what is this word accident how does it pertain accident came from my philosophy of the de-collage events-events in modern life which involve situation-chan ging forms the car is driving and if there is an accident the car is the opposite of a car-it is no longer car it is a wreck so the wreck makes alot of psychological and economical troubles.so the objects of today a car and an airplane and a television set you have implicated the positive and nega tive ways of behavior a constructive and a destructive you cannot do anything today without the destructive moment behind the event so did you think about this event in 1959-60 no when i was in paris in 1954 when i was walking as a young artist through the streets the street life and its com plexity were more interesting to me than any other painting at that time i knew a little about dadaism but for us in eu rope in germany especially in west germany there was a date which was very important it was the first dada retro spective show in dusseldorf in 1958 there we really saw for the first time the originals before we only saw the things in books sch witters duchamp max ernst-everybody a com plete retrospective paik told me he was very shocked and in fluenced by this exhibition i mean my concept has come from the fascination of the material involved in daily life and the fascination of the life of objects that means when i began to see that a turned down poster is more interesting than a new poster then immediately i also liked more a dis torted television program than a real program at the same time it was also a comment on abstract art and at the same time something very new to get to a secondary reality it 9 c/3 o means that all the meaning which have the objects like car airplane and television sets after they are normal news where they are prepared f or-so the artist and myself have given them a second reality a second news which is an anti-news something which gives a final destination to the objects and man dealing with those objects in time when we began to use the time with the object the action-music the event the performance and the happening were born to me the happening was some years before fluxus fluxus is a second union of american and western european artists who were interested in the phenomenon of acoustic produced through the body and through objects what is that word acoustic acoustical production-noise production music done by the human body and music produced by objects so there we have the same thinking the same base and everbody did it differently you see danger music produced by dick hig gins produced and shown and performed in wiesbaden in 1962 was just putting his hand in 20 kg of butter and mo ving the butter as a material nothing else than moving butter for ten minutes so this : is a very new concept as la monte young's idea of feeding a paino with hay the same thing by paik putting water over himself during his painting the floor with his necktie for example i called my fluxus piece kleenex it was in front of the audience erasing with a li quid tetrachloride double page of life magazine and the audience could see how the image was erased by my hand and in my hand i had a microphone so when i was erasing issn 0160-0699