Is Mail-Art dead?

A visual statement sent out in the mail-art. Original stamps made for this.

To enter a museum

Repetition

When long enough inside the mail-art network you realize the circle.

1. You enter the network
2. You learn inside the network
3. You build your own network
4. You are the center of your network
5. Your network grows as time and money allow.
6. It grows too large
7. You leave the network

After leaving, you can return any time you want by making anew the contact.

Ruud Janssen, September 23rd 2013

Creating the Flux Us Rubberstamp

A new statement ; FLUX US

Social Networks

The current social network cause the mail-art network to grow once again. A new generation (the 6th) learns online about mail-art and joins in.

QUESTION

6th Generation of Mail-Artists

New Generation of Mail-Artists

After writing the article on 5 generations of mail-artists I wondered what the 6th generation would be like. Now I know.

Online, in social networks, people discover the mail-art movement where ther speak of snail-mail used as a medium for art. They join online and start to send out their first mail-art piece after being online for such a long time.

So the 6th generation are the artists that move from the digital communication-world into the oldfashioned snail-mail world.

The new mail-Art Projects

A lot of new mail-art projects I see lately are simple of construction. The mail-artists thinks of a theme. Want the network to send him/her mailing (postal system only). What is the reward for the senders? Their artwork will be documented on a blog, and that is all the documentation that will ever be made.
For me it seems like a trade that isn't in balance. The artwork and sending costs a lot of money. The digitizing and making of a blog entry only takes a few minutes. I can understand that a lot of old-time mail-artists don't send in things to projects like these. Are these the modern times where the digital information is all we can afford for documentation?

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