Write me a love letter: Postal art in the multitude of the tourist

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Volume Title
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
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Date
2023
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master’s Programme in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art
Language
en
Pages
139
Series
Abstract
The core of this study is Write Me a Love Letter, Send Me Anything, a postal art based work and a autoethnographical study, which started in 2021. Postal art, also known as mail art or correspondence art, is a complex, global community of artists, writers and musicians. It dates notably from the late 1950’s Gutai and Fluxus art movements. This study aims to understand the logic of various correspondent artists notably Ray Johnson, On Kawara and Ryosuke Cohen. The tourist forms the foundation to this research. I argue that postal communication, in this context, can form a unique way for both the sender and the receiver to reposition them-self in their surroundings and view their role in the society from a new angle. I argue that Postal art, in general can be a way to understand the complex topics of the philosophical discourse around the idea of the Other and the Self and possibly form a deeper look towards the idea of a Multitude. This study opens up also briefly the concept of the Misdelives, as part of the Multitude. The work Write Me a Love Letter, Send Me Anything can be seen as the autoethnographic part of the study. It can be seen as a participatory installation, mediated with moving image and photography. However this research leaves the material of the qualitative part of the study very open, free for the viewer to freely interpret it.
Description
Supervisor
el Baroni, Bassam
Thesis advisor
Euro, Pia
Keywords
grand tours, mail art, postal art, correspondence art, tourism, multitude, Flâneur, Ray Johnson
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