Mail Art!

The form of mail art, though only mentioned briefly in today's lecture, really peaked my interest, both because I thought the performative element of it was really neat, and because I was curious about the kind of aesthetics and materials that might be involved in mail art. I looked it up online and was not surprised to find that mail artists often appropriate things like rubber and postage stamps, tickets, and other utilitarian 2D objects in their art. Something I think is cool though, is how mail artists have been known to design and create their own stamps (both rubber and postage)--I think that would be really could exercise to do sometime.

I was drawn to the the idea of mail art partially because of how it reminded me of zines and the zine community; zines are frequently sent through the mail, are often made by hand, or with low-tech tools, and they often (but not always) are meant to have an aesthetic appeal. Many zines contain pieces of art (especially on the cover), but I personally consider most of the zines that I've seen to be works of art in and of themselves. If you think of it this way, zines are like a form of mail art. Zines and mail art have other things in common too, such as the appropriation of other media (like utilitarian objects, and stuff from popular culture), low cost, lack of censorship, the use of copy art, and the opportunity for the development of friendships through these exchanges.

Work Cited

"Mail Art." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Mar. 2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2013.