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ETERNAL NETWORK:

A MAIL ART ANTHOLOGY

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Chuck Welch, editor,
University of Calgary Press:
Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 1995.
ISBN: 1-895176-27-1.

Eternal Network is the first university press publication to explore the historical roots, aesthetics and new directions of contemporary mail art in essays by prominent, international mail art networkers from five continents. Fulbright recipient and Dutch scholar Eric Voss states, "In my opinion Eternal Network stands out as the finest reference and source book on the history, theory, practice, and aesthetics of mail art to date."

This forty-chapter illustrated book examines the free exchanges and collaborations of an international community whose mailboxes and computers repalce the museum, where the address is the art, and where "mail art is not fine art, it is the artist who is fine." Readers will find numerous photographs of mailed artifacts, performance events, congresses, stampsheets, posters, collages, artists' books, visual poetry, computer art, mail art zines, copy art and rubberstamped images.

The book is divided into six parts: Networking Origins, Open Aesthetics, New Directions, Interconnection of Worlds, Communication Issues and Ethereal Realms. Appendixes include mailing addresses, mail art exhibitions, a listing and location of over 350 underground mail art magazines and a compreshensive record of public and private international mail art archives.

Edited by Chuck Welch, longstanding mail artist and writer, Eternal Network is an illustrated philosophy threading its course through the fabric of networking theories, ethics and values from 1960 to the present. Artists, non-artists, students and scholars are invited to corresponDANCE with global villageartists who quick-step beyond establishment boundaries of art. The texts, proposals, poetry, parables and visions of Eternal Network are a testament to the future of alternative art and the role of artists as networkers.

 


Ordering Information

The University of Calgary Press published Welch's edition
Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology in January 1995.
Write to Shirley Onn, editor
University of Calgary Press, 2500 University Dr. N.W.,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4

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