Baby Army: A Fluxus Experience

Brief

The 2nd semester project of 2023 focused on Fluxus, an avant-garde art movement from the late 1950s. To celebrate Fluxus' 50th anniversary, the dance group Startbahn performed at Staatstheater Darmstadt. Students from the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt developed installations showcased in the Foyer of the Staatstheater during the performances. Four groups created installations based on their interpretations of Fluxus. The Baby Army group focused on interactive art installations, developing their concept around the idea of Fluxus as a baby.

What is Fluxus?

Fluxus is an interdisciplinary art movement that includes visual art, performance art, music, poetry, and design. It breaks traditional boundaries between art forms and merges art with everyday life. Fluxus emphasizes process, ideas, and concepts over the final artwork, often incorporating humor, playfulness, and audience participation. Fluxus events are known for their unconventional and spontaneous nature, aiming to challenge conventional art notions, promote social and political engagement, and encourage audience interaction and collaboration. Fluxus has a lasting influence on contemporary art, particularly in performance art, conceptual art, and multimedia installations.

Solution

Our Fluxus Persona

‍Fluxus is portrayed as a baby, specifically Benjamin Button, representing a grown-up acting like a baby. Babies naturally embody Fluxus principles through their creativity, spontaneity, and imaginative play without concern for final outcomes or established rules, aligning with Fluxus' emphasis on the process over the product.

‍Fluxus values unpredictability and interaction, with the core idea being visitor engagement with the projection, embodying Alison Knowles' idea that the meaning lies in the experience and 'happening' of the event.

Key Factors of Our Experience

The experience aims to make visitors feel like conductors of chaos by controlling an anarchist army of babies in a monotonous museum setting. Audience gestures control the babies' actions, who cluster around and respond to an "adult figure" approaching them. The babies respond by destroying pieces of artwork based on the audience's gestures. The pieces of artwork spawn endlessly and destroying them represents the dismantling of traditional notions of art, which is another aspect of Fluxus.

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