Henry Flynt


Henry Flynt is a philosopher, musician, writer, and artist associated with the 1960s New York avant-garde. An influence on the concurrent Fluxus movement, Flynt coined the term "concept art" in 1961 and received attention for his anti-art activism in subsequent years. In recent decades, he has focused on philosophical work related to nihilism, science, and mathematical logic. A number of his archival musical recordings were released in the 2000s.

Background

Henry Flynt was raised in North Carolina and was a trained violinist. He later attended Harvard University on a scholarship, where he studied mathematics alongside later companions Tony Conrad and John Alten. He soon dropped out and visited New York in 1960, where he was introduced to La Monte Young and other figures in the city's avant-garde scene. Young would dedicate his 1960 composition "X for Henry Flynt" to Flynt. In 1960 and 1961, Flynt took part in the monthly concert series held at Yoko Ono's Chambers Street loft.
Flynt’s work developed from what he called "cognitive nihilism", a concept he first announced in the 1960 and 1961 drafts of a paper called Philosophy Proper. The concept derives from insights about the vulnerabilities of logic and mathematics, and aims to turn the empirical principles of scientific positivism and analytical philosophy against themselves. Flynt refined these dispensations in the essay Is there language? that was published as Primary Study in 1964.

Concept art and activism

In 1961 Flynt coined the term "concept art" in the Neo-Dada, proto-Fluxus book An Anthology of Chance Operations that was released in 1963, alongside works by Fluxus artists such as George Brecht and Dick Higgins. Flynt's concept art, he maintained, devolved from cognitive nihilism. Drawing on an exclusively syntactical paradigm of logic and mathematics, concept art was meant jointly to supersede mathematics and the formalistic music then current in serious art music circles. Therefore, Flynt maintained, to merit the label concept art, a work had to be an object-critique of logic or mathematics or objective structure."
In 1962 Flynt began to campaign for an anti-art position. Thus he demonstrated against cultural institutions in New York City with Tony Conrad and Jack Smith in 1963 and against the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen twice in 1964. Flynt wanted avant-garde art to become superseded by the terms of veramusement and brend—neologisms meaning approximately pure recreation. Flynt read publicly from his text From Culture to Veramusment at Walter De Maria's loft on February 28, 1963—an act which can be considered performance art. In the 1960s, Flynt also performed music both solo and in collaboration with others.
In 1987 he revived his "concept art" for tactical reasons; and spent seven years in the art world.

Music

Henry Flynt is also known for his musical work, often with him performing on violin, ukulele, or guitar, that attempted to fuse avant-garde music with hillbilly music. Other influences included the free jazz of Ornette Coleman; rhythm & blues and Delta blues music; garage rock protest music; and the North Indian classical music learned with singer Pran Nath. He briefly performed with the Velvet Underground in 1967 as a fill-in for John Cale, and received guitar lessons from Lou Reed. With the exception of his 1981 cassette release You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power, none of his recordings were released until the 21st century.
Much of Henry Flynt's subsequent recorded output has been release on the Recorded and Locust record labels. His first CD release was You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power on Recorded, quickly followed by Spindizzy and Hillbilly Tape Music also on Recorded. Later Recorded released NAEM 4, Ascent to The Sun. Recently, Flynt's Glissando No. 1 was published by Recorded. In 1966, he recorded several rehearsal demo tapes with Walter De Maria and others as Henry Flynt & The Insurrections, a garage rock band, which were later compiled and released in 2004 on Locust Music as I Don't Wanna.
Purified by the Fire, recorded in December 1981, repeats the format of C Tune: Catherine Christer Hennix on tamboura and Flynt on electric violin. The 41-minute raga is dominated by the languid phrases of the violin that tests the border between melodic fragments and distorted tones. The "Indian" element is the background of hypnotic tamboura drones, but Flynt's improvisation at the violin betrays the influence of jazz music. Henry Flynt & Nova'Billy collects material recorded between 1974 and 1975 by his rock band Nova'Billy. Dharma Warriors showcases another meeting between Catherine Christer Hennix & Flynt recorded in 1980 in Woodstock, New York.

Philosophy

Flynt's early philosophical writing, including the 1961 draft of Philosophy Proper, was published in Milan in the book Blueprint for a Higher Civilization. From about 1980, Flynt has written on philosophy and economics in mostly unpublished papers, focusing on two concepts which did not achieve the notoriety of the early actions: his concepts of meta-technology and personhood theory. Deriving broadly from his early arguments around "cognitive nihilism," Flynt's work in these areas aims to challenge the dogmatic scientism and apparent coherence of contemporary scientific and mathematical discourse. In the late 1970s, he organized several meetings on the "crisis in physics" in an attempt to identify the areas where modern science represses incoherent or irrational logics in order to propagate its "objective" worldview. Much of his writing is available on his website.

Relationship with Fluxus

Because of his friendship and collaboration with La Monte Young and George Maciunas, Flynt sometimes gets linked to Fluxus. While Flynt himself describes Fluxus as his "publisher of last resort" he claims no affiliation or interest in the Fluxus sensibility. In fact, he is a strong critic of the neo-Dada sensibility.

Discography