Pass It On: How Mail Art Can Inspire Music

I recently picked up a book, originally published in 1967, that was reissued called Bean Spasms, featuring two noted poets: Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett. The book is playful, funny, poignant and dark. What struck me about the book, besides the wonderful material, was how much fun the collaboration seemed to be. In the late 1950s / early 1960s, Ray Johnson, an artist affiliated with Fluxus, a conceptual art collective, began a movement that became known as Mail Art. Art was shared, collaborated on and passed on through the postal service.

Johnson, R. Please Add To & Return To Ray Johnson. Retrieved from  http://images.rayjohnsonestate.com/www_rayjohnsonestate_com/MA51.jpg

With widespread broadband access, and cloud storage like Dropbox and Google Drive, why not begin collaborate on music in the same fashion? All it requires is a partner. Or multiple partners.

References

Berrigan, T., & Padgett, R. (1967). Bean Spasms. Kulchur Press.

Johnson, R. Please Add To & Return To Ray Johnson. Retrieved from  http://images.rayjohnsonestate.com/www_rayjohnsonestate_com/MA51.jpg

Ray Johnson Biography. Retrieved from http://www.rayjohnsonestate.com/biography/