Fluxus in Japan

Founded in 1960 by George Maciunas, Fluxus began as a small international network of artists and composers characterized by a common attitude rather than a movement. Fluxus has obvious Japanese color because it is partially integrated with Zen Buddhism. John Cage is a student of the Zen Buddhism writer Daisetsu teitaro, who also introduced Zen Buddhism into the West. One of the representatives of Fluxus in Japan is Yoko Ono, whose work voice piece for Soprano (1961) consists of the word ‘scream’ with three options for screaming given to the performer; to scream ‘against the wind’, ‘against the wall’ and ‘against the sky’. When I finished listening to this work, from my intuitive feeling, her scream was very loud at first, but it became soft at the back.

Another representative of Fluxus, Nam June Paik, is a Korean American artist. I have been to his exhibition in Tate Modern. His works are full of visual sense, and many of them are completed by TV. His Fluxus was inspired by the composer John Cage and his use of everyday sound and noise in music.

Mono-ha (School of Things) was a pioneering art movement that emerged in Tokyo in the mid-1960s whose artists, instead of making traditional representational artworks, explored materials and their properties in reaction to what they saw as ruthless development and industrialiston in Japan. Mono-ha uses natural materials such as stones, trees or industrial materials such as paper and steel plates. To reassess the relationship and influence between ourselves, objects and the surrounding environment.

Hitoshi Nomura’s work Tardiology discusses the process of object decay. He used four large boxes to form a building similar to a tower. Through the accumulation of time, weathering and gravity, this work finally collapsed.

In the work Cowra, it receives electromagnetic waves from the sun and the Milky way, converts them into audio and plays them through speakers.