> Congress /

A congress of Mail-artists is defined as one or several meetings organised and held during for one particular year, called a 'Congress year'.

In the nineteen eighties Günther Ruch (Switzerland) began promoting his long held idea of a centralised congress of Mail-artists. Initially, he proposed a one-time gathering, however, when Hans Ruedi Fricker (Switzerland) joined the project they agreed, on a decentralised version to be held in several locations. They realised that if they did not decentralise the gathering, few people would have the opportunity to participate due to the former iron curtain, long travel distances, or not much money. Each agreed that decentralized congresses were ideal and would give more artists the opportunity to confer face-to-face. Both also had their own personal ideas about going from postal contact to meeting in person, so decentralizing was the inevitable step for giving more Mail-artists the possibility of meeting each other.

In 1986 they organised the first 'Decentralized Mail-Art Congress' (DMAC86) which involved eighty different meetings with over five hundred participants from twenty five countries. Ruch acted as co-ordinator and gathered photos and reports from the various meetings in a 160 page catalogue. Six years later in 1992, Fricker co-ordinated a new 'Decentralized Networker Congress' (DNC92) with a final count of over 250 meetings and a book-documentation produced by Peter W. Kaufmann (Switzerland). Fricker called it a "networker" congress as he tried opening the meetings to other independent networks and sub-cultures such as home-tape, graffiti, zine publishers, … who are not directly related to the Mail-Art network.

Vittore Baroni (Italy) strongly felt that it would be a great loss to the international Mail-Art community if no one promoted another 'Congress year'. A tradition was born six years later when Baroni conceived and developed a six-year cycle by initiating the 'Incongruous Meetings 1998' (IM98). Baroni acted as central co-ordinator and over that year collected and distributed plans and proposals to the network by e-mail and postal mail. Baroni's intention was to inspire someone to organise more congress years in the future.

… why not make it a little different every time? That's why I organized in 1998 a year of Incongruous (Decentralized) Meetings: to go forward to something new (after the "Mail Art" Decentralized Congresses of 86 and the "Networker" Decentralized Congresses of 92) while going back at the same time to the roots of mail art (the "Meetings" idea of Ray Johnson and his NY Correspondence School). (Vittore Baroni, personal interview, September 2003)

The congresses were also an important part in the development of the Mail-Art networking. Festivals, events, exhibitions give opportunities to meet other Mail-artists and make it something different than just an exchange at distance. The focus of Mail-Art was never specifically on the postal system; rather, it was on the transfer of aesthetic communication, co-operation and creativity which can also be expressed through personal interaction.

The congresses developed into series of open meetings with the same theme, freely organised by various networkers in different parts of the world, in the course of one year. The congress is a search for open relation systems, for the interchange and co-operation in art and Mail-Art as well as in other culture institutions on a communal, regional and international level development.

For the three 'Congress Years', a networker or a group acted as a coordination centre. Local event organisers sent out invitations prior to the event and afterward sent a report of the results to the coordination centre. During 1992 and 1998 some concept meetings were also held. These did not take place face-to-face in real spaces between real persons, but electronically such as e-mail, internet, fax and even through thought such as telepathy. Regarding 1992, over two thousand congress items, mostly from that year, have been catalogued by Chuck Welch (U.S.A.) aka. Cracker Jack Kid in the 'Networker Databank collection,' in his 'Eternal Network Archive.' He also donated them to the 'University of Iowa' for its 'Alternative traditions in the Contemporary Art Archive'.

Guy Bleus (Belgium) formulates that "the" Mail-Art network does not exist, instead, the Mail-Art network is a collection of overlapping networks, a network of networks. A Congress year is a perfect reflection of the Mail-Art network and its networks. Each congress reflects a part of the network in which the organiser and the participants flourish. The centres of the decentralised congresses are always different and each Mail-artist is at the centre of the whole network. A congress year is a congress of congresses.

In the Mail-Art network you may wonder if meeting a correspondent personally after a long acquaintance through the post is a positive event or even if it is a logical step at all? Some Mail-artists prefer otherwise.

"… I would not call it a "logic step" in mail art (it's probably just an "inevitable step"): when you meet, it is no more "mail art", regardless to the fact that you do cooperate "live" on a performance or creative work or you just sip tea and chat, it's a totally different kind of experience." Janssen, R. (1995). [Interview with Vittore Baroni]. TAM Mail-Interview Project [WWW page]. URL http://www.iuoma.org/ 

During congresses, discussions were organised focussed on Mail-Art themes. Through decentralisation of the congresses, the organisers can propose their own themes for discussion. Networkers from South America, Australia, Europe or from behind the former iron curtain have different problems and matters which they want to explore. Two examples of constantly returning concerns are: the "Future of Mail-Art" and "Mail-Art and money don't mix". The latter was influenced by the writings of Lon Spiegelman (U.S.A.) and was presented in several congresses in 1986.

Baroni's idea to have every sixth year a 'Networker congress' started to become reality as Peter Küstermann (Germany) held the 'Netmail Congress' at Minden in April 2004. Sztuka Fabryka initiated another yearly 'Independent Arts Festival' and Piermario Ciani (Italy), a 'FUN of FUN' convention of the 'Funtastic United Nations'. Baroni noticed that the 2004 'Congress Year' was the first not co-ordinated by networkers as before but was the result of a mixture of different projects and approaches, crossings and overlappings.

Networking art had become internationally recognized and widely collected through internet and other art galleries. The term Mail Art had also been entered into art dictionaries and in 2003 became part of the prestigious Biennale of Venice. Because Mail-Art had become so well accepted, Baroni felt the need to retire into obscurity again. Baroni stated his desire to leave these congress rooms and crowded museum halls to explore the darker side of the ethereal urge and he invited networkers to join a campaign in 2004 for 'A year of Obscure Actions'.

Related Topics:

[01] Meeting
[02] Ruch, Günther
[03] Fricker, Hans Ruedi
[04] Decentralized Mail-Art Congress
[05] Catalogue
[06] Decentralized Networker Congress
[07] Kaufmann, Peter W.
[08] Networker
[09] Home-tape
[10] Zine
[11] Baroni, Vittore
[12] Incongruous Meetings
[13] Johnson, Ray
[14] New York Correspondence School
[15] Festival
[16] Event
[17] Exhibition
[18] Postal system
[19] Aesthetic communication
[20] Co-operation
[21] Culture institution
[22] Invitation
[23] E-mail
[24] Internet
[25] Fax
[26] Performance
[27] Theme
[28] Spiegelman, Lon
[29] Welch, Chuck
[30] Küstermann, Peter
[31] Ciani, Piermario
[32] Biennale
[33] A year of Obscure Actions

References:
[01] (V. Baroni, personal interview, September, 2003)
[02] Janssen, R. (1995). [Interview with Vittore Baroni]. TAM Mail-Interview Project [WWW page]. URL http://www.iuoma.org/ 
[03] Held, John Jr. (1995). Key to the Collection: Correspondence, 1976-1995 [WWW page]. URL http://www.geocities.com/johnheldjr/ 
[04] John Held Jr. (n.d.). The Open World of Dobrica Kamperelic, John Held, Jr., Part II [WWW page]. URL http://www.geocities.com/johnheldjr/ 
[05] (V. Baroni, invitation, OA04 a year of Obscure Actions, October, 2004)

Date last update: 7 February 2004