Fluxus and the Democratic Mundane

This essay argues that Fluxus was an experiment in utopia. Drawing on Jacques Rancière, I suggest that its subversiveness lies neither in avant-garde shock nor Marxist critique, but rather in a visionary extension of the aesthetic. This approach can be seen in works such as Benjamin Patterson's Variations for Double-Bass, Nam June Paik's Zen for Film, and Flux Year Box 2. Fluxus was grounded in radical equality, making visible and audible a range of ordinary, marginal things. In so doing, it established new forms of political possibility bound up with sensory play, nature, mass culture, intermedia, and creative agency.