Michael Cianflocca

Intermedia is a term that describes the state between two forms of art.  This term (intermedia) helps best describe the many artworks of today.  Original artwork conforms from its original source to find a location between the original form and the new form. May artists see intermedia as a tool to remove the idea of separation between the artwork and the audience. Allan Kaprow incorporated mirrors into his project to engage the audience by breaking down the barrier between the work and its audience. Various artists added their idea of intermedia within their works which help make their works more unique. This idea of separation between audience and art work gave way to the new idea of happenings.  To some each work establishes its own standard and from according to its desires. The concept of intermedia within the fine arts is becoming well accustomed in today’s complex world.  
Although there are many objections to the idea of intermedia critics such as Rosalind Krauss are quoted as saying “I am devoted to the idea of trying to bury the avant-garde,” creating more of a welcoming state for intermedia within the arts. The two concepts share similar qualities but seen as though many artists today create work from their impulses intermedia  fits best with the art world because there are no limitations to the creation and it’s reaction.
*Does intermedia co-inside with the idea of interdisciplinary?

Zdravko Jovanovic

This article written by Dick Higgins is separated into two sections. One is written in 1965, the other one in 1981.

Higgins begins by station that “the concept of the separation between media arose in Renaissance” (Higgins 18). He says that this is primarily due to the social structure of the time; the population was put or born into “classes” and it was reflected in the arts.

He proceeds to state that in 1965, when the first part of this article was written, is “the dawn of a classless society, to which separation into rigid categories is absolutely irrelevant” (18). This is an example of how Higgins try to argue that the socio-political structure has a strong impact on the art.

His main point is that art should not be put into rigid forms. It should not be classified. He gives the example of “pop art”, criticizes it as being “bland” simply because it is confined to the “older function of the art”. This function is previously explained to fall into the category of “pure media”, which according to him is irrelevant and it does not “allow of any sense of dialogue” (18). He even goes as far as to say that Picasso’s “voice is fading” because his work is “readily classifiable as a painted ornament” and that almost becomes its sole purpose. On the other hand, he mentions Duchamp who made objects that are between sculpture and “something else” and John Heartfield whose work falls between photography and collage and talks about them in terms of not only being innovative, but stating that their art (the art that falls between the media) is “the most powerful political art” (19).

The way he talks about art that falls between media, which he calls “intermedia” is what is needed for our changing times. He says that theatre is still divided: there are “performers, production people, a separate audience and an explicit script” and adds that we need more “portability and flexibility” that “traditional theatre cannot provide” (21). For instance, he says that traditional theatre was made for Versailles and for “the sedentary Milords, not for motorized life-demons who travel six hundred miles a week” (21). He also says that the reason why Versailles, for instance becomes irrelevant to us in these changing times (again, this was written in the 60’s, a decade of large social and political change) “since we think at eighty-five miles an hour” (21).

Furthermore, he constantly attempts to prove that art must be relevant for the sake of having a loud voice that in order to “speak” to us and not simply for us to be entertained or so that we can say that we are art-literate (or even as a symbol of prestige). Art has to be current; it has to have a strong impact and change with and within its time, follow, reflect and “move” our mindsets. We cannot put art into categories, we cannot keep it separate and restricted to their media; “each work determines its own medium and form according to its needs” (22).

He finishes this segment by saying “The use of intermedia is more or less universal throughout the fine arts, since continuity rather then categorization is the hallmark of our new mentality” (22).

In the second part of his article, written in 1985, Higgins explains that the word “intermedia” is being often confused with the concept of “mixed-media”. He gives the example of opera (“where the music, the libretto, and the mise-en-scene are quite separate) and “paintings which incorporate poems within their visual fields” (24). The point is, “one knows which is which” (24). In “missed-media”, therefore, every single element is known although they are put together to form one piece. This is contrasted by “the visual element (painting) [which] is fused conceptually with the words” and that, to him, is intermedia (24).

It is explained that just because an art work falls into the category of “intermedia” (“works which fall conceptually between media that are already known” ) it does not “present a model for doing either new or great works” and continues to stay that this term “says only that intermedial works exist” (25). “There was and could be no intermedial movement. Intermediality has always been a possibility since the most ancient times” (25).

The most interesting sentence in this article, I find is, when Higgins says, “NO work was ever good because it was intermedial… The intermediality was merely a part of how a work was and is; recognizing it makes the work easier to classify, so that one can understand the work and its significance” (26). Later on he also says, “But if the work is ever to become truly important to large numbers of people, it will be because the new medium allows for great significance, not simply because its formal nature assures it of relevance” (27). His main point, therefore, is that we need to allow ourselves to use whatever media(s) is (or are) necessary for us to be current, relevant and to portray and get our message across in the most authentic, accurate and vivid fashion.

Question: Is coming up and fusing (and crossing) new and already-existing forms really the only way to create relevant artwork?

Meelad Moaphi

1965:

• Old works had their own specific medium.
• Now, feudal conception has ended the need to put each art in a certain category.  Today, people no longer have a “compartmentalized” approach towards viewing art.  As a result, new artworks tend to fall between different media.
• Intermedia, works that fall between different media, is becoming more fascinating.  For example, artworks of Marcel Duchamp and John Heartfield are so attractive because their pieces fall between media. 

• Mid 1950s, abstract expressionism went out of style. 
• Painters moved towards collage—artists began to include, replace or alter elements of their work. 
• Kaprow based his works on the relationship of the spectator and the work.  After making and putting various things in his works, Kaprow finally included live people as part of his collage in 1958.  This he called, “happening.”

• Drama has yet to change however.  It is still “mechanistically divided: there are performers, production people, a separate audience and an explicit script.”(21)
• Interest in the traditional theatres is becoming less and less.  This phenomenon can be observed, for example, in the fewer number of people who attend Broadway shows every year.
• The medium of our drama is fake and awkward for our new social environment. 
• More suppleness is needed in theatre and our traditional theatre does not provide us that. 
• Higgins himself took a step to change theatre by “declaring war on the script.”(21)
• He created Stacked Deck, which deferred time by allowing any event to occur at any time.  Cues—produced by colored lights and audience reactions—signaled when an event would take place.  Consequently, the separation between the performance and the audience was eliminated and a happening was established.
• The happening then developed “as an intermedium, an uncharted land that lies between collage, music and the theater.”(22)
• Use of intermedia is universal within the arts, and is a result of our new mentality that is more interested in “continuity rather than categorization.”(22-23)
• Besides in theatre and paintings, there are similarities to the happening in music.  Examples of such musicians would be Philip Corner, John Cage and Joe Jones, who explore the intermedia between music and philosophy or between music and sculpture. 

1981:

• Intermedia is used to define works that fall conceptually between media that are already known.
• Intermedia is not mixed media, although it is misused often with it.
• In mixed media one can identify each the use of the different media—“one knows which is which.”(24)

• Intermedia did not result from a movement. 
• It has always been an option wherever there was the need to fuse two or more media that already existed. 
• No work can ever be considered a good piece simply because it is intermedial—intermediality is only a part of how a work is.  Identifying a work’s intermediality makes it easier to understand the work.   
• In using the term intermedia, we are allowed an entrance to a work that would alternatively seem not understandable.  It is a useful way to read a work when we understand it is intermedia.  It is useless, thus, to dwell on a work’s intermediality once we have understood it to be so. 

Question: When did the term “intermedia” and its concept begin to formally come into existence? Was the pioneer of the term “intermedia” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who Higgins refers to?

Kristen Smalley

The essay “Intermedia,” by Dick Higgins focuses primarily on defining the title-term. Higgins discusses the history of the term, explains why he thinks Intermedia is a more socially relevant way of categorizing art than ever before and finally, evaluates the potential of using inter-mediums to make art. He provides several examples of intermedial art he considers to be important.

Higgins compares the method of conceptually separating arts, as was common in Renaissance, to the all-inclusive approach of intermedial art. He argues that the synthesis of Intermedia is more relevant today because we are no longer as greatly divided into rigid social or economic classes. Also, the former produces less interesting art. Higgins proposes that pure mediums are often considered to be high arts, whereas intermedial arts are more popular art. He makes a comparison between Picasso and Duchamp, suggesting that Picasso is fading into the background because his art is a pure medium, whereas Duchamp’s focus is on combining art and life, which makes it intermedial. Higgins is essentially arguing that intermedial art is the future, or avant-garde art.

Higgins next discusses the movement from abstract expressionism to dé-collage in the fifties. Eventually, this led to the invention of the Happening by Allan Kaprow. Kaprow further explored the intermedia by not only incorporating several mediums into his art, but people as well. Other intermediums Higgins lists include: Joe Jones’ self-playing instruments and the constructed poems of Emmett Smith and Robert Fillilou.

Higgins states that we are a much more pop-culture oriented today than ever before. Our mentality towards art has changed. The hallmark of our new mentality is continuation, not categorization. We continue to bridge gaps between mediums, rather than separating them.

Higgins amends the above article originally written in 1965, 16 years later, in 1981. Higgins states that his original intention was to offer insight into already existing works around at the time. He chose the word ‘intermedia’ to do this. Intermediality was merely a part of the previous work that could be recognized and used to better understand the art’s significance. He re-defines intermedia as “works which fall conceptually between media that are already known” (23). He adds, intermedial arts are different from mixed-media in which the components are not synthesized. This idea is extremely reminiscent of Jerrold Levinson’s “Hybrid Art Forms.” Hybrids must be conceptually fused; otherwise they are merely gedanken hybrids.

Higgins next says the term intermedia is not self-praising, nor does it guarantee the production of avant-garde art, as avant-garde is a relative term. What is avant-garde changes over time. However it does always allow for new possibilities, through the fusion of older arts. As an example Higgins points to Alison Knowles’ performance art, which fuses the same elements as Happenings, but in different way. Higgins concludes that in order to create truly memorable art, intermediality is not enough, the medium must allow for new significance to great numbers of people.