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The 'Eternal Network' is the concept of an ongoing, global artistic network in which each participating artist realises that s/he is part of a wider network. It is a model of creative activity with no borders between artist and audience, with both working on a common creation. The concept of an 'Eternal Network' originated with the poets and Fluxus artists Robert Filliou (France), who died in 1987, and George Brecht (U.S.A.). They introduced the idea of the 'Eternal Network' in April 1968 on a poster and mailed it to their correspondents. This was the first mention of a model of an international network of artists working together by communication.

The ideas of Filliou and Brecht find their origin in a time when experimental art began to flourish. The ideas of Marcel Duchamp (France) re-emerged, and avant-garde art groups such as Fluxus and Nouveaux Réalistes appeared. Daniel Spoerri (Romania) introduced Filliou to the arts after they met in Paris. As was common in the experimental arts of the sixties, also for Filliou technique was important only as a means to realise ideas and concepts. For Filliou, art is a "permanent creation" and entirely embedded in and inseparable from daily life. Art is one part of the society, as the world is one fragment of the universe, and the universe itself a product of a permanent creation. Art is direct action in the world, in the same sense that religion is only possible in its practice - creating art is art, finishing it is not, and exhibiting it is anti-art.

The idea of a "birthday" for Art grew out of this philosophy of "permanent creation". In 1963 Filliou declared January the 17th as 'Art's Birthday'. According to Filliou, it was exactly one million years ago on that date that Art was born when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Filliou's declaration of 'Art's Birthdau' fits into the Fluxus tradition of absurdum and humour. Even today artists all over the world connect, usually through the internet or at actual parties and exchange-art events, on this date to keep alive the concept of the 'Eternal Network'. The only condition is that each group having a birthday party send and receive birthday presents for Art.

"Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a loose network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners - working with the ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art. Artists have celebrated Art's Birthday with lavish parties and gatherings, correspondence and mailart, and through Telematic networks using SloScan TV, Videophones, music composed for telephone lines, modem-to-modem MIDI connections, early bullentin board and chat systems, and (starting in the mid 1990's) the Internet." Art's Birthday.Net. (n.d.). Art's Birthday [WWW page] URL http://artsbirthday.net/ 

From 1965 through 1968, Brecht and Filliou had a shop, the 'Cédille qui Sourit', located in a small fishing village in the South of France. The shop, never registered with the chambers of commerce, was open only upon request, and was the centre for their international creativity. Here they created and manufactured objects and poems, all according to the philosophy of "permanent creation", and sold them by correspondence. In 1968, as a result of the closing of the shop and the imminent departure of Brecht back to the United States, they came up with the concept of the 'Fête Permanente' or 'Eternal Network'.

The 'Eternal Network' seeks to close the gap between artists and non-artists by encouraging collaborations together on common creations. Brecht and Filliou's vision of collaboration, established in their shop, should continue, now disconnected from an actual space. As other artists were invited to participate in the late Sixties and early Seventies, the 'Eternal Network' idea found its form in the Mail-Art network, the postal system being the primary long distance communication form of that era.

"In a few short years this idea would find fertile ground in an emerging and geographically dispersed network of self-identified correspondence artists. Rejecting the exclusiveness and competitiveness of existing art world institutions in favour of open and collaborative exchanges via the postal system, a community of participants slowly established themselves as a parallel counter-institution during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is for these reasons that correspondence art, also known as mail art or postal art, has often been referred to by its practitioners, as the Eternal Network." Perkins, S. (n.d.). Utopian Networks and Correspondence Identities. [WWW page] URL http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/atca/subjugated/two_5.htm 

Since the Mail-Art network is true to Filliou and Brecht's concept of a network in which common creation through communication is more important then the resulting piece of art, many Mail-artists refer to Mail-Art as the 'Eternal Network'. For example, Chuck Welch (U.S.A.) named his book, the first publication about Mail-Art Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology. The 'Fluxus Bucks' of Julie Jefferies aka. Ex Posto Facto (U.S.A.) bear the heading "United Eternal Network", with the instruction to modify the 'Fluxus Bucks', and then return it or pass it on in the Mail-Art network.

Related Topics:
[01] Network
[02] Fluxus
[03] Filliou, Robert
[04] Brecht, George
[05] Nouveaux Réalistes
[06] Internet
[07] Mail-Art
[08] Welch, Chuck
[09] Fluxus Buck
[10] Jefferies, Julie

References:
[1] (C. Welch, e-mail, December, 2002)
[2] Baroni, V. (2003). A concise chronology of artists' money. In P. Ciani, & V. Baroni P. (Eds.) Bank of fun, Banknote delle nazioni unite fantastiche (pp. 8-9). Bertiolo, Italy.
[3] Friedman, Ken. (1995). "Eternal Network." Eternal Network, Chuck Welch, ed. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, xiv-xvii. [Introduction.]
[4] Perkins, S. (n.d.). Utopian Networks and Correspondence Identities. [WWW page] URL http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/atca/subjugated/two_5.htm 
[5] Music & technology. (n.d.). Art's Birthday 2006 [WWW page] URL http://www.eevolute.com/index.php?assetname=text&id=99 
[6] Art's Birthday.Net. (n.d.). Art's Birthday [WWW page] URL http://artsbirthday.net/ 
[7] Friz,A. (2004). Essay from Scrambled_Bites / Art's Birthday [WWW page] URL http://artsbirthday.net/2004/essays/ab-essay.html 
[8] Ouy, C. (n.d.). The New Media Encyclopedia [WWW page] URL http://www.newmedia-art.org/cgi-bin/show-art.asp?LG=GBR&DOC=IDEN&ID=D000657 

Date last update: 18 November 2006