Add & Pass from Eduardo Cardoso (Sines, Portugal)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Eduardo Cardoso (Sines, Portugal)

July 22, 2014 - Eduardo sent me an add & pass. The add & pass is a distinctive mail-art form popularized by Ray Johnson. Essentially, the add & pass is collaborative. Someone starts the work (as Eduardo has), mails it to someone else (like me) who adds to it, and the process is repeated. I sent this to The Blessed Father in San Diego, California.

Sometimes specific directions are provided about who should receive the work. More often, the document can drift through the network receiving numerous additions. Sometimes copies are made and distributed further so variants are created. Sometimes the work is returned to the originator; other times, it comes to rest in someone else’s archive and/or appears in an exhibition and/or on someone’s blog. I have no idea what will happen to this add & pass after it has been received by The Blessed Father. “Please add and return to Ray Johnson” is a well-known mail-art quote. Contributors usually add their names and addresses on the reverse side:

An important thing to remember is that there are no rules. Trying to fulfill the originator’s concept is certainly a courtesy, if any instructions are included. Generally, the collaborative composition of the work is organic. The add & pass can bring together artists and writers who have never worked together before, and the results can be fascinating. I see numerous add & pass pieces, both digital and snail mail, posted on Facebook. Two or three-person collabs are very popular right now, which are a variant of the add & pass concept. Here is the envelope:

And the reverse:

I will keep the envelope. The add & pass is on the way to The Blessed Father in San Diego:

I do hope a completed piece (whatever that means) finds its way back to Portugal and Eduardo’s blog. And I do appreciate being included!

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Just perchance found this fab link on Letterism being circulated on FB:

http://www.divisionleap.com/akd52/images/pdfs/catalogseventeen.pdf

[De Villo Sloan]

TY again for the link, Gina. I'll also revisit that closely. It's always great to find people w/an interest in this area. My own trajectory into this goes back to concrete poetry and the "Old Fluxus" as well as the Black Mountain poets, Aram Saroyan, etc. I'm sure you know FB has a lot of really excellent groups devoted to this area, and you'll recognize a lot of m-a people there as well.

When Cheryl Penn was at IUOMA we did some great collaborative book projects. Cheryl is still doing a lot of calls & is looking for material:

http://cherylpenn.com/wpb/

[Gü]

Many thanks for the link, I'll read that over time.

[De Villo Sloan]

French Letterism would be important to someone interested in fonts, I guess.

Two important concrete poetry anthologies were published in 1967 & 1970 - important because they can help track the emergence of vispo through the 20th century - historical significance. Strains derive from high modernism & dada & surrealism, other cultures as well. I'm sure many folks are currently trying to map the whole thing out:

http://minxuslynxus2.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/mary-ellen-solts-conc...

[Gü]

I live with a font addict, so I've come to appreciate wordy works! You're right in how it seems to be mainstream now and its interesting to imagine if there were a flow chart how all the various routes/styles and beginnings overlap. I'm liking the fusion with collage too. 

[De Villo Sloan]

Great link w/great work, Gina. No, had not seen that one. They refer to typographical fiction & that's part of this huge thing going on with people working with language-image relations called visual-verbal, visual poetry (vispo), concrete poetry, on & on. Mail-art (the Fluxus part in particular) has supported this kind of work for decades & at times when there was no audience anywhere else. Vispo is practically mainstream now. Many different approaches.

All done with the single letter "H" in one font

image & letter mix using overlays - very rooted in collage

[Gü]

I came across this the other day which may be of interest if you haven't already seen it http://ficciones-typografika.tumblr.com/submission

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi Gina, thanks. Eduardo is an excellent visual poet so it seemed appropriate to add something language-centered.

The Add & Pass is certainly alive and well. I think it's important not to impose rules because it's very likely the lack of rules in mail-art that accounts for the constant innovation.

Ray Johnson's A&Ps do seem to have been more directed than those you see today. In particular, he made it clear in so many cases you see that he hoped the piece would be returned to him or he specified participants. With all this interest in m-a in the universities, I suppose someone will eventually do some kind of typology thesis (if they haven't already). It's also really interesting to see how earlier a&ps were a prototype for page design and content in the later m-a zine movement. (Zines are also alive and well.) Here's and example of a RayJo a&p. You can see many online:

[Gü]

I really like your additions, I received one too via DK recently and wonder about its journey and how it looks in the end..