Networking Has Changed Our Lives

From the beginning it was connected with tourism in Fricker's sense. In 1981, my mail-art-godfather-to-be Don Jarvis offered me, during a joint poetry reading in London, an 8-page booklet with mail art greetings for the 90th birthday of "Quercus Roburl" i.e. an oaktree facing his colour-xerox-equipped council flat. Innocent me bought it for the horrific sum of 8 £-"to help make, up for the postage" and used its fascinating participants' list for my first mail art project "No war in my city". Off the kuff, this appeal for art brought me 600 contributions. Half of them about my theme, the other half "just to be in the catalog" which became a classic in the scene. The network had made me a mail art author and an editor.

The publisher falsely expected profit from the catalog and almost went bankrupt with it. So I had to do my next one all by hand: "Big Brother is Watching You" - of course in 1984. And again: no rejects und a free copy to every participant. Collating was worst: The network had made me sick und a Publisher.

One contribution especially intrigued me: a large rubberstamped work by Henning Mittendorf. I got the chance to exhibit a whole series of them through a cultural society in my home town Minden. Because of its grent success they asked me to curate a long chain of exhibitions from mail art country. Many a name behind a postcard in my books came here in flesh with their wives and works, and that did not mean only mail art. The network had made me a gallerist.

Considering that in one year alone I exhibited Geza, Perneczky from Hungary, Richard Meede from the US, Ruggero Maggi from Italy, M.O.Nielsen from Denmark, Robert Rehfeldt from the GDR, the gallery work as a point of crystallization establishes a link in the network between mailart and the other contemporary art forms, presenting a rich variety of techniques und themes. Mail art seems rather more the container, the net, the structure of the culture producing communication. Sitting only in one's own proudly gained anonymous pidgeon hole post box is clearly exceeded by the thrill of exposing one's home sphere to the full personalities behind those funny pseudonyms one has been writing to for years. The network had made me a host.

So much the more in 1986, when due to Fricker's und Ruch's perseverance Joki und me organized in our Mail Art Mekka Minden our 10-day-marathon-decentralized-Congress. Established networkers like Gerard Barbot from the U.S., Klaus Groh und Bernd Löbach from Germany met there upon new names, faces und ideas, e.g. in Marcel Stüssi, who later organized his own mail art actions from Switzerland, and Berliner. Rolff Wancke, who later sent me one of the first pieces from China. The network had made me a mediator.

There are few limits to inventiveness und imagination in the network, whether you "cast your shadow" like Fricker on the world, or "print your stamp on it" like Rehfeldt. After mailing my own contributions to running projects I took myself delight in cul-tourism which led me to decorating arty shopwindows for Ko de Jonghe's "symmetry" project in the Netherlands as well as "recycling" mail art in the still-existing GDR with B.E.R.M. Through my reports on such events in SMILE magazines, the network had made me a reporter and a commentator. And also a translator, since soon, as a former teacher of English, I used to trans-late articles in the network, also for Bernd Löbach's artistamp catalog.

Personal meetings with other networkers virtually call for temporary joint ventures. So 1 did not only shake hands und visit archives, like those of Jürgen Olbrich on Kassel's Documenta fringe und Guy Bleus in Belgium, on my extensive travels in mail art country between Box of Water in California und Pawel Petasz in Poland, between Peter Meyer in Sweden und Guido Capuano in Sicily, when the network had made me a tourist.

Our "porto edition" comprines a long series of collaboratively handstamped artistamp sheets, that were virtually, together with local networkers, produced in (and mailed out into the network from) such sounding places like Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art and the Louvre in Paris. But even Graf Haufen would not have to fear foul compromising with the established art business, since this "Mail Art From The Museum" is produced tongue-in-cheek during meetings in the resp. Museum cafetereas. The network had made me a stampartist.

In 1987 I invited networkers to come and create an "Open Air Gallery" on 100 large size posters all over Minden public walls - a project in which networkers like Andrzej Dudek-Dürer from Poland, Carsten Schmidt-Ohlsen from Denmark and Peter Laminger from Austria had a strong public response, also Ulla Christiansen and Lotte Rosenkilde from Denmark who got into Mail Art just then and have been extra especially active hence. The network had made me a godfather now myself.

My share in the recent general dissatisfaction with the vast anonymous mail art trash in the form of a bad copy of a copy (that has nothing to da anymore with the theme of your project, not to speak of interpersonal communication ) led me to search a new medium. It was the constructive, though hard discussion with conceptual networkers like Hans-Ruedi Fricker that helped me to develop further. I learned to film with a small-size semi-professional video equipment, because in a 20-minute-interview I can convey so many more typical features of an artist and his or her work and works, mimics, gestures and speech in order to estimate the whole creative person. "Peter's Endless World Art Video" is now in its 21th volume and turned out rather popular though features of networking artists like Cavellini, Daniel Daligand, John Held or Shozo Shimamoto. The network had made me an interviewer, a filmer, a director and a cutter, common activities that I enjoy now with Angela. I'm in the rare lucky position not to have to defend my network activities against my partner, quite on the contrary: She got infected gradually so much since 1988 that now she dedicates much of her energy, love, time and money to our common networking activities.

Do not ask us for our sponsors: We exploit norselves. But it is worth the investment. Do not even think of making money through networking, you'd better become a pimp. Our development is an example like that of many others - an example of constant mutual interchange and influence between the mobile individual and the mobilizing network. We have met new friends. They have taught us a lot and opened our minds, helped us undig our own creativity. And this is definitely a piece of badly needed peacework in which the process weighs as much as the products, establishing sense in a corrupt world. Let us modify Waste Paper's motto again (the world's first couple who met through mail art and are still going strong like us): Networking has changed our lives!