Fluxus Heidelberg Center
End of the year 2003 Litsa Spathi had made 13 collages that formed the basis of a calendar. She proposed to make this a digital calendar for the Fluxus Heidelberg Center. The collages would be placed on a calendar format (in German language), and each calendar-leaf would give access to all the data from the Fluxus Heidelberg Center connected to that specific month.
Litsa suggested she would make a special drawing for this performance each month and that she would include the details in the drawing. This way a whole year of activities would be documented in the calendar as the year passes by.
That data would only be accessible after the month has passed. Because we just changed the menu-structure of our site (see Sitemaps) we needed to adjust the structure again. For this we made a combined drawing on which Ruud made the HTML-structure and Litsa added her drawing (like she has done to several other sitemaps of our site). This drawing was constructed in a way that you could view it in two different ways. That is why we added the drawing to the sitemap-collection as well.
In the whole concept Litsa Spathi would be directing the visual part (collages, drawings and the texts in the drawings) while Ruud Janssen would be responsible for the online work (scanning the images and formatting them in HTML for online use).
The drawing of the concept convinced us both to start with this project. A long-term Calendar Performance was born, since it would both cost us a lot of time to make this monthly update to our site. We also planned to place the access to the calendar in the menu so visitors of our site would be able to follow our activities. Without knowing it, the year 2004 is a very important year for the Fluxus Heidelberg Center.
Because the Fluxus Heidelberg Center is located in Heidelberg (where Litsa Spathi lives) and Ruud Janssen lives in Tilburg (the Netherlands). The concept involves also the passing on of infomation. Litsa will collect all the data of what happens at the Fluxus Heidelberg Center (actually her private life and how the Center influences her life), and will make the drawing with the details. That drawing has to get to Ruud Janssen so he can digitize it. Sometimes Ruud travels to Heidelberg for that, sometimes Litsa goes to Tilburg to bring the drawing. If time isn't there the mail is used. The making of the drawing is mostly done in Heidelberg. Digitizing is mostly done in Tilburg. Putting things online can happen anywhere since one only needs access to Internet (a good Internet-cafe would do..... like Netlounge in Ploeckstreet, Heidelberg).
After thinking out this concept the following procedure was followed to make the calendar reality:
The Concept and the procedure are followed for 4 months when we thought out an experiment to make the calender more known to others. It is decided to make a copy of the original calendar-drawing on A3 sized paper. These copies will be marked by both or one of the Fluxus Heidelberg members (sticker with address, copyright stamp and highlight the name of the person that is mentioned on the calendar-drawing and receives the copy).
Starting from the April 2004 issue we did this, and the copies reached the mentioned persons or institutes. This also caused reactions to the Fluxus Heidelberg Center, but also caused some confusion by receivers. Some started to send in mail to actually get mentioned on the calendar. Also some mixed up who did what in connection to this calendar.
After sending out the copies of the calendar to the mentioned persons, we found out that some people inside the mail-art network aren't that concerned about concepts and copyright. The Fluxus Heidelberg Center works with concepts purely. The copyright on all we do is there and we will not tolerate misuse of this legal protection. A sample of what we are confronted with: "Hello, Ruud, Always good to hear from you and to see my name on your calendar.". So someone received a copy of a calendar-drawing from the Netherlands and hasn't realized that the drawing is made by Litsa Spathi (it contains her signature, is made in her style and is obviously written with her handwriting). He writes to Ruud Janssen to say how much he likes "his" work, and doesn't write to the creator of the drawing. Also he writes to the "wrong" address. All mail in connection to the Fluxus Heidelberg Center has to be addressed to Heidelberg. There it will be processed.
As a result of such reactions we even tried to make things clearer for the receivers and we made rubberstamps stating: "Drawing by Litsa Spathi". Even that didn't help, and it seems that especially mail-artists don't care about these copyrights and the ownership of concepts. So this text is written to make our concept clear and also to document who has done what in the performance that lasts one year. The Fluxus Heidelberg Center will act when someone violates the copyrights that belongs to the visuals. If someone want to use our visuals than they need our written permission so that things are clear. We have previously been confronted with the wrong assigning of work to other names, so hopefully you will understand this.
Once again we would like to emphasize that we work with Fluxus concepts, not mail-art. All our work is very well documented and thought out in advance. This documentation of the calendar performance could serve as a sample of how we work.
Click on that month below. You will then access to collage by Litsa Spathi. Click again and see all the activities combined with the drawing:
Cover 2004 | January 2004 | February 2004 | March 2004 | April 2004 | May 2004 | June 2004 | July 2004 | August 2004 | September 2004 | October 2004 | November 2004 | December 2004
Litsa Spathi & Ruud Janssen January 19th 2005
