Intermedia

...Artworks that don't quite fit any one medium/discipline category

What is Intermedia?

Intermedia is a concept which has been used to describe the hybrid blending of different forms of media, such as music, poetry, art, sculpture, film and paintings to create a work of higher significance and performer involvement. The result of the hybridised combinations of genres and media result in artworks which cannot really be defined into any specific medium or discipline category. Genres which have blended with each other and over time branched off into a new area have had their own names created because of different media blending becoming so specific. Areas such as performance art, visual poetry, visual music or conceptual art have now appeared in the world as a result of Intermedia.

A Brief History…

The term Intermedia was coined by Dick Higgins, who was a pioneering composer of the international avant-garde movement Fluxus. It seems that Intermedia has become widespread following the experimental attitude of the Fluxus artists, so it’s important to understand what Fluxus was all about.

Fluxus was an unusual artistic movement of the 1960’s and 70’s which was formed by Lithuanian artist, architect and graphic designer by the name of George Maciunas. Fluxus included artists, writers, designers and musicians. Belonging to the loosely knit group meant that the individuals were free to express themselves in so many ways, and use basically whatever means they desired. Fluxus was an experimental movement and those involved were open to new and unusual ideas, and welcomed unconventional ways of creating sound. The artists, writers and musicians of Fluxus combined the use of music, art, performance, film and an extraordinary array of objects and publications in any way they saw fit. The term Intermedia was then and has since been used to describe the incorporation of many media in a work that result in it being unable to be classified into a particular category.

George Maciunas officially begun the Fluxus movement on the 9th of June in 1962 in West Germany and Fluxus was also a way of promoting the Intermedia works of these ‘artists’ around Europe and the USA. The first Fluxus performance was held later that same year, attracting much interest and publicity.

The term Fluxus if anyone was wondering has an interesting meaning. In medical terms it actually means a flowing or fluid discharge which makes it sound kind of gross, but Maciunas used the word Fluxus to mean ‘purge’ and ‘flow’, or ‘change’ and he hoped that the movement would likewise purge the world of bourgeois intellectuals, commercialised culture and institutionalised art. Maciunas himself described the Fluxus movement as “a fusion of Spike Jones, gags, games, vaudeville, Cage and Duchamp”. And I think he means here that the movement doesn’t take itself as seriously as other artists of the time.

The spirit of Fluxus was that of youth, play and irreverence and a Utopian dedication to international, collective activity. According to Robert Silberman, Fluxus activities at their best gave a lively critique of false notions of artistic seriousness and accomplishments.

The Fluxus movement seems to be the most noteable group to experiment with creating Intermedia works, and seems to be where Intermedia was first recognised and actively pursued. The movement also gave artists who on their own wouldn’t stand out from a crowd a status and sense of achievement.

Having said this though, the members of Fluxus also believed that artists should not have a professional status in society and also that their work should be accessible to everyone. They even went so far as to produce a newspaper called Fluxus V Tre from 1964 to 1979, which appeared randomly and included announcements and advertisements for Fluxus events as well as publications and works by artists, musicians and writers.

As George Maciunas’s leadership faltered, the Fluxus movement began to fall apart, and many are in agreement that upon his death in 1978 the movement well and truly collapsed. Now all that remains of the movement resides in museum exhibitions around the world…Intermedia however did not end here.

Composers of Intermedia Works

There were so many composers and artists involved in the Fluxus movement who created Intermedia works, and so many others since who have continued to experiment. Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, John Cage, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono and La Monte Young just to name a few, were all composers who were experimental with meshing together different media.

John Cage taught Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research in New York, to many who were involved in Fluxus, and his classes became famous for heavily influencing the movement. Amongst his students was Dick Higgins, who was amongst the first to explore Intermedia extensively and who later coined the term, and also went on to found and direct the ‘Something Else Press’, which was a major publisher of avant-garde and Intermedia works.

The srudents Cage taught included not only musicians, but also painters, writers and dancers. Cage was not teaching his students how to write Cage style indeterminate music, and according to Dick Higgins, “the beauty about studying with Cage was that he brought out what you already knew and helped you become conscious of the essence of what you were doing” Higgins also said that they even took indeterminancy further than Cage without even his ever having telling them about it.

Another thing to arise from the class of Cage were “Happenings” which was a term coined by one of his students Allan Kaprow, and basically happenings are theatrical events which throw aside the notion of traditional stage-audience and occur without a sense of definite duration, instead they are left to chance. They usually have a minimal script without a plot. A ‘happening is so named because if occurs in the present and attempts to arrest the concept of passing time. Kaprow was a performance artist involved with the Fluxus movement, and happenings were also a way of fusing media and involving audience and composers as performers.

The direction and implications of the works produced by these artists studying under Cage is very important in that the attitude towards creating music changed, and the focus shifted. The older position of music placed a higher significance on the sound of the music, whereas the new way placed an equal if not stronger emphasis on the activity of making sound. This attitude towards music in general lead to minimalism, “happening” like participatory events, performance art, concept art, citation and the use of already existing music, concrete poetry, environmental art and so on as being viewed as commonplace and respectable in the world of art.

Intermedia was a term which arose as a result of experimentation with combining different media to create a work, a work which often cannot be categorised into a particular discipline.

Bibliography

Schechner, R., Kaprow, A., (1968), Extensions in Time and Space, An Interview With Allan Kaprow, The Drama Rewiew, Vol. 12 no. 3, pp153-159

Kaplan, J.A., (2000), Flux Generations, Art Journal, Vol 59 pp6 – 17

Silberman, R., (1993) In The Spirit of Fluxus, The Burlington Magazine, Vol 135, pp432 – 433

Higgins, D., (1999), Looking Back, PAJ – A Journal of Performance and Art, Vol 21 pp19 – 32

Klein L., (1968), Twentieth Century Analysis: Essays in Miniature, Music Educators Journal, Vol 54, pp57 – 60

Husarik S., (1983), John Cage and Lejaren Hillier HPSCHD, 1969, American Music, Vol 1. No. 2 pp1 – 21

Childs B. (1975), Directions in American Composition since the Second World War, Music Educators Journal, Vol 61, pp34 – 45

Hurwitz A., (1970), Experiment in Intermedia, Art Education, Vol 23, pp10 – 16

Breder H., (1995), Enacting The Liminal, Performing Arts Journal, Vol 23, pp112 – 120

Higgins D., (1976), The Origin of Happenings, American Speech, Vol 51, pp268 - 271

Performance art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm

John Cage – Wikipedia

Conceptual Art – Wikipedia

Intermedia – Wikipedia