Scattering of Information

The communication tools artists can play with have been widdened a lot. After the websites, the groups, the blogs and social networks, all these Internet Tools are now connected. The ones who can use all tools build their own social networks and arrange the processes to let the information flow easily. Not all have the technical skills to understand these tools completely, and the digital systems start to dictate what people can do or can't do.

So, in a few years people will start to go back to basics. don't want to be in social networks that cause side-effect in cominication.

You don't get many 'normal e-mails' anymore. The networks generate e-mails just to attract your attention to join in again. But the real communication from one person to another is what Mail-Art was all about. We will have to discover that again.

The future of Mail

When I see in several countries that the postal systems are reducing their services because the amount of mail being brought to be processed is decreasing I get worried on the future of Mail. In Mail-Art things will go on as long as mail is sent. The die-hards will test the system to the last possible ways of sending out mail

Digital Mail-Art

Mail-Art has to do with the process. With digital Mail-Art there are no artifacts left other then bits and bytes. I prefer the hardcopy Mail-Art where the artifacts are objects and paper and other materials one can hold and treasure.

Definition

Any definition written by a mail-artist to explain MAIL ART is not what it is about. An outsider is the only one who can give a good and clear definition

IUOMA TV-Channel

Yes, it is there. IUOMA's own TV-Channel, available at:

http://ruudjanssen.blip.tv/

For you to see some of the videos that were made.

11-04-2010

Fluxus and a good definition do not mix.

28-03-2010

Reading to much about history of Mail-Art makes you wonder what will come next in all the developements in communicationtools we have available nowedays.

1-1-2010

When you take part in Mail-Art for some decades, you discover that there are only few new things to be done in Mail-Art. So what you do is focus on that, or repeat just what you enjoy the most. The cyclus for a mail-artists is like that.

22-12-2009

A rubberstamp tells more because it is in fact a reproduction-machine that -if used in the right network- can have quite an impact.

21-12-2009

After working with the mail-art network for so many years it becomes more and more difficult to give a good definition of what Mail-Art is about.

19-12-2009

Discovering Mail-Art is a happening on its own. If you accept it in your life, it will change your life and your circle of friends is a very short time.

Ruud Janssen - Breda, 19-12-2009

Overview of all Statements in BOOK-form

Paperback book €19.99 Printed: 280 pages, 20.99 cm x 29.7 cm, perfect binding, white interior paper (55# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (90# weight), full-colour exterior ink


Description:

B&W Version of Statements Collection on Mail-Art by Ruud Janssen. Reprint of statements written in period 1993-2008 on the subject of mail-art. These statements were first published as pamphlets. Later on the Internet, and now as a collection in one book. Some statements and texts were also published on the Internet first and later as print-out sent into the network. The last part of this book contains visual statements made when the Millennium came about and most recent is an overview of the slides used at a lecture at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam explaining the concept of mail-art. In the past 28 years Ruud Janssen has intensively written about how E-mail and Internet would change mail-art, and it has.

A colour-version of the book is also available. See an overview of all publications at:

http://stores.lulu.com/iuoma

Enjoy reading this book!

Thoughts on Mail-Art

A hard-copy version of the first 10 thoughts I wrote for the Internet. The online version is still available at: http://www.iuoma.org/overview.html and a direct access to all the texts you can find though: http://www.iuoma.org/secret_9.html. All the texts are hyperlinked, so you can jump from one text to another. Realize that the texts are old ones. They are my views from back then.

Just one Sticker

Internet and Mail-Art

Newcomers to Mail-Art discover this artform on the Internet and only then learn about the wonders of Snail-Mail

Mail-Interviews - PART 4

Yes, a next book with Mail-Interviews got published. This time a combination of complete mail-interviews and a collection of unfinished interviews. 21 mail-artists in total.

Printed: 343 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink. Print: €16.96
Download: €2.50

Description:
A selection of 21 more Mail-Interviews conducted by Ruud Janssen with International Mail-Artists and Fluxus-Artists in the years 1994 till 2002. This time also unfinished interviews! Includes interviews with H.R. Fricker, Julia Tant, Raphael Nadolny, John Evans, Bern Porter, Birger Jesch, Patricia Collins, Daniel Plunkett, Patricia tavenner, Judith A. Hoffberg, Peter Küstermann, Robert Rocola, Rod Summers, Marie Stillkind, Roy Arenalla, Rudi Rubberoid, Stephen Perkins, Klaus Groh, Ruggero Maggi, Vittore Baroni, Svjetlana Mimica and a reprint of the mail-interview Newsletter that explains the Mail-Interview Project.

Orderdetails: http://www.lulu.com/content/2354626

All books: http://stores.lulu.com/iuoma

Because I know some people don't want to order online I will see how I can help there. When I order the books myself and send them out, postage is paid twice. Cheapest way is to order straight from LuLu. But when I have stock here in Breda I can determine how heavy a package is and what the extra postage is. Next month I will give the details.

Cover of the Mail-Interview Books

You can order at : http://stores.lulu.com/iuoma

Center of the Network

Every mail-artist is the center of his/her own network. The people he/she meets and doesn't like, he/she ignores them. Only the persons who play the way he/she likes stay part of the network. That is why eveybody has his/her own personalized network.

Millenium Statements

These statements I made in the form of a banner. booklet is also available in .PDF format on www.iuoma.org/ot_pub.html

Onvious