Fluxus and Juan Parada Lecture

Fluxus was explored in class today where we saw Neodada artists that were breaking the mold of art. Fluxus artists allowed for anything to be art. They opened to the doors for anything in life to be art, whether that be something positive or negative. For instance the Sonic Youth hammering a piano became art due to George Maciunus. Although may see this as disrespect of the instrument in front of them, they were creating a new way to look at the instrument other than its intentional purpose. Artists like Joseph Beuys created strange art that made people think in new ways. You had to figure out what the possible meaning, if any there was to appreciate the art. The felt suit for instance and other objects that he wrapped in felt was once used to keep soldiers warm during the war, now had a completely different meaning taking it out of contexts. The felt suit hanging on a hanger was not just a regular suit. The felt used created questions of why this material, who this belonged to and you want to know more about the person's life. The art makes you think beyond what you see in a new way that without artists like the Fluxus' we would still be thinking in the same ways, inside the box.
On another note, Juan Parada's Lecture on Friday, March 26, 2010 was very interesting. I found his thoughts on small business and how he runs his company completely through cloud computing and free resources genius. I never knew that there were such aids that could provide small business companies with programs that made their costs almost completely free. I feel that if you need a certain talent that you should search for that and make sure that you make your customers 100% happy, therefore if business owners must reach out to foreign workers to do so, why not take advantage. Another thing that I found very interesting was how Parada would pay his employees with computers, or video games if the currency rate was bad. I think its great since the worker gets paid accurately and its simple for the owner too. Overall I think the small business Parada runs is awesome based on what he does, however I agree with him that certain companies cannot run like and you must be self-sustainable. Once the company gets too big, the resources that he uses are now not to his advantage.