May 2023 – Page 3

Gatekeeping of Art – Fluxus Influence

The art world is notoriously known for holding a self-acclaimed hierarchy. Its pretentious views have often stunted others from creating artistic work due to financial assumptions, classism, sexism, and racism. Within the education and historical sonic teaching nearly all noted musicians are often white Western men (Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy). Collectively, as a society, women and other minority composers are regularly not recognised. The Feminist artistic activists – ‘Guerrilla Girls’ state in their art “(hip’ o-crit) An art collector who buys white male art at benefits for liberal causes, but never buys art by women or artists of colour”. Society has developed sexist assumptions about the artwork they buy, create and observe. This gatekeeping mentality is stunting the influence of new art; instead encouraging a cycle of assumptions of how we think art should look.

After the rise of Fluxus artwork in the 1960s it began to influence new artists. The goal of the Fluxus art movement was to subvert conventional ideas of art and end the elitism that was frequently connected to the art industry. In this way, Fluxus artists aimed to dismantle barriers between social classes and produce a democratic and open form of art. Examples like Yoko Ono’s 1965 ‘Cut Piece’ showed the cutting segments of her hair and clothes on stage during a live performance. This type of artwork showed a sense of accessibility towards the public eye. Anyone could create!

Overall, Fluxus began to break down the boundaries and gatekeeping the art world holds upon the outside world. It was an invitation for minorities and under privilege members of society to perform and invent new styles of work. Anyone can create and with enough context, anything can be art. We must look and listen beyond the “norm” of Western assumptions and gatekept artworkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbQBD06N0Hs

How Global Change Encourages New Forms Of Sonic Practices:

Today’s civilisations are hyper-aware of the crisis we find ourselves in environmentally. Global warming rates are at the point of emergency; as a result, most of society is choosing to change their daily practice, including artists! Issues behind waste consumption are encouraging artists to change/be more aware of the materials they use. Makoto Oshiro is a Berlin – Tokyo-based performer and artist. He focuses his live work on vibration and interference; more often using recycled everyday materials and attaching them to motors or moving devices in order to sound. Working alongside his performance group ‘The Great △(夏の大△)’ their sonic work makes the simple- effective! Oshiro’s performance work could often be considered sculpture-based artwork; creating huge spectrums of sonic machinery from recycled materials. Aware of the fragility of materials, many artists are beginning to blend their practices. There has become a sense of efficiency and frugality within the sound art world; now we know about the delicacy of sustainability of objects. Oshiro’s work is a great example of how he merges more than one medium of artwork; making recycled junk the primary core of the creative process. I believe artists are beginning to create art with an echo wary conscience. Whereas before artists would focus their production process on sound; making it the primary source- searching for materials specifically suitable towards their sonic needs. This would encourage the overproduction of new materials. However, nowadays artists are looking beyond mass consumption and assessing materials before they chose to create sound. This slows down the rate of production and the creation of extra material in the world and ultimately becomes a more efficient and green way of creative thinking and doing.