Performance Pedagogy: Performing Fluxus Pedagogy in a Contemporary Lithuanian Context

Educators practice performance pedagogy as the method where an educator/facilitator is seen as a performer or actor (Pineau 1994, p. 4). This paper presents an analysis of the historical roots of performance pedagogies in Fluxus pedagogies and performance pedagogy practices within participatory art events in Lithuania as exemplified by festivals AN88 (1988) and AN89 (1989). The case of my research rests on the contemporary implementation of performance pedagogy techniques during the course The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action for BA students at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania. This research aims to define the concept theories within performance pedagogy in the art academy education, which developed behind the terms Human Semiotics (Andersen 2002), Hyper Performer,1 and InterMedia (Higgins 1984). This project was implemented using the strategy of critical utopian action research in the context of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. The empirical material was gathered during my employment as a guest lecturer and the implementation of my pedagogical internship at the Vilnius Academy of Arts.2 These concept theories are defined through. a reflexive analysis of archive material on the historical origin of performance pedagogies, originating in Fluxus pedagogies, local Lithuanian participatory art, and data from the contemporary case of my project The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action (2018), in the form of archive material, photographs, interviews, observations, notes, and my diary. The results of this research are the application of performance pedagogy concepts and terminology to the art and education projects and the definition of the key concept theories within this field. These results can be useful for artists and those practicing university pedagogy.


Background
This article is built on my research on the historical and conceptual connections between the Fluxus pedagogies and the first performance art festivals in Lithuania -AN88 (1988) and AN89 (1989). I address these conceptual connections in designing my pedagogical project, The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action, which I conducted at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, in Lithuania, in 2018. Performance pedagogy (Pineau 1994, p.4), seen as involving the performative behavior of the educator/facilitator, is within this paper merged with the concept of Fluxus pedagogies . Participatory artworks, by their content methodologically reminiscent of Fluxus pedagogies, had been observed by me from the photo and video documentation of the early Lithuanian examples of participatory performance in the late 80s, such as artworks conducted during the festivals AN88 and AN89. Teaching methods, which are close to Fluxus pedagogies, were only practiced outside the Vilnius Academy of Arts. The innovative approach of this research is in my contemporary exploration through The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action of learning environment creation possibilities, methodologically using performance pedagogies (based on Fluxus pedagogies) as a situation for learning. I am attempting to connect the local tradition of Vilnius Academy of Arts and the tradition of Fluxus pedagogies within my pedagogical project, The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action. My assumption, based on Krikortz, Triisberg, and Henriksson (2015), is that contemporary art students' training should include the development of their collaboration skills, due to the contemporary work environment, where artists need to be ready for different forms of collaborative engagements. The collaborative approach is at the core of the Fluxus Network's members' art and within the concept of Fluxus pedagogies . Therefore, Fluxus pedagogies can be a useful method in the contemporary context of Lithuanian artistic training in participatory performance, socially engaged art, and cross-disciplinary practices.
This paper aims to define the concept theories behind the terms Human Semiotics (Andersen 2002), Hyper Performer, 3 and InterMedia (Higgins 1984) contextualizing them within performance pedagogies. I utilize the archive sources on Fluxus pedagogies, festivals AN88 and AN89, and Kes Zapkus's pedagogical program descriptions, and data from The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action to explain and exemplify these terms.

Method and Theory
The preliminary research started in 2016 at a meeting with Arvydas Baltrūnas (now a Lithuanian educator, painter, and choreographer). He, in the late '80s, participated in Lithuanian artist-run activism: festivals with happenings and actions AN88 and AN89. The Fluxus network inspired the festivals AN88 and AN89. One of the Fluxus network's collaborators, composer and scholar Vytautas Landsbergis, was in 1988 a professor of Gintaras Sodeika's. Landsbergis introduced to Sodeika the Fluxus network by showing the art he had been receiving from the members of the network through the mail. 4 So, in my assumption, the festivals AN88 and AN89 were directly inspired by the mail art objects of the Fluxus network members.
During 2018, together with students from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, who were involved in my pedagogical project The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action, we worked with constructing narratives from the video and photographic images of the artist-run festivals AN88 and AN89 and contextualizing them in a contemporary perspective of art and art education. They co-produced two publications based on this visual material, together with me. The aim of The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action was to investigate performance pedagogy, based on Fluxus pedagogy, as a method in teaching in the contemporary pedagogical context of an art academy. Besides the work with this visual material, the students self-organized either the art events or performances and expressed their visions of the possible future connections between the art academy milieu and the knowledge from the artist-run and performance pedagogy archives. The data was collected in the format of interviews and students' learning diaries. The questions addressed their perception of performance pedagogy and whether they were actively involved in the learning environment and satisfied with the received knowledge through texts, group discussions, and practical work during the collaborative project development.
The strategies of the design and implementation of The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action were A/r/tographical work and critical utopian action research. A/r/tographical work is a specific category of arts-based research practices within education research. A/r/t is a metaphor for the artist-researcher-teacher. In a/r/tography, these three roles are integrated, creating a third space (De Cosson & Irwin 2004). A/r/ tography merges "knowing, doing, and making," and the practitioners involved in A/r/ tography occupy the space "in-between" (De Cosson & Irwin 2004). In other words, the A/r/tography is the strategy, in the case of this research, of merging the multiple roles of an artist and educator within one practice of facilitating the study course. Action research is a form of research where conditions and effects of social action are concurrent with research causing social action (Tofteng & Husted 2012, pp. 362-363). Action research is bound around the role of research in making social and societal change (Tofteng & Husted 2012, p. 363). In the case of The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action, the strategy used was critical utopian action research. Specifically, critical utopian action research (Nielsen & Nielsen 2016) is critical of the power dynamics inherent in society and institutions that oppose the wishes, dreams, and conditions of the individuals they consist of and serve; it is critical of ingrained -reified -structures and ways of thinking and does not require an exact time of implementation of the proposed outcome or realization of the research (Tofteng & Husted 2012, p. 366). Using A/r/tography, performance pedagogy, and critical utopian action research are similar to qualitative studies, because the data are collected using interviews and learning diaries, where the participants discuss, analyze, and reflect on the project (i.e., how they experience the learning in action).
The terms Human Semiotics (Andersen 2002), Hyper Performer, 5 and InterMedia (Higgins 1984) I introduce as the elements of performance pedagogy, originating in the works of Fluxus network artists.
The term Hyper-Performer within performance pedagogies I extract from the participatory performances of the early '60s by the Fluxus network artist Eric Andersen, the artist whose profile within the network was focused on the active involvement of the audience. He came from the classical music field, and his interest in participatory practice was due to dissatisfaction with the formal passive-listening situation during concerts. During his first performance within the festival at Nikolaj Church in 1962, he stepped onto the stage and asked seven people from the first row to switch places with people in rows ten and eleven. This reorganization of audience members, with the accompanying sounds of movement, laughter, and talking from the audience, was meant to be part of the performance. 6 By this, I see him as the figure who senses and navigates the audience; i.e., he is the Hyper-Performer in the performative situation who involves all the members of the audience.
The term Human Semiotics within performance pedagogies, in my interpretation, originates from the participatory performance by the Fluxus network artist Alison Knowles, whose "Make a Salad," performed at the Nikolaj Church festival in 1962, is an early example of food-making activity as an artistic activity. The 30-minute activity entailed the relaxing preparation of a fresh salad for the entire audience. The salad ingredients were placed on the stage, among the audience, or on the street outside. In this way, the audience members were active participants and performers (Andersen 2002). This collective attention is directed toward one activity, which I read as being in the liminal space of collective co-creation or moving from the individual to communal and sharing a single goal with others (Andersen 2002).
InterMedia, as a term, is defined by the Fluxus network 7 artist Dick Higgins (Higgins 2001) and means the space between media, focused on the sensorial experience of the participants. In performance pedagogy, this approach would mean experimenting with 5 In conversation with Eric Andersen, he describes his performances at the Fluxus festival at Nikolaj Church in 1962, 9.05.2019 6 In conversation with Eric Andersen, he describes his performances at the Fluxus festival at Nikolaj Church in 1962, 9.05.2019 7 In conversation with Eric Andersen, he refers to Fluxus not as a movement but as a network; I therefore use the term "Fluxus Network," 9.05.2019 different formats of teaching and education in the non-conventional spaces outside of the classical classroom or studio setting. What could be called an InterMedia way of art education was practiced during The Temporary Department in the spring and fall of 2018.

AN88 and AN89: Human Semiotics, Hyper Performer, and InterMedia
I argue that the terms Human Semiotics, Hyper Performer, and InterMedia can be applied to the description of the first participatory projects, containing performance pedagogy in Lithuania -the festivals AN88 and AN89. An example of such could be the happening "Veteran Morning" by author Tomas Juzeliūnas and the involved artists Šarūnas Nakas and Arvydas Baltrūnas. 8 The performance consisted of two parts. The first part was planned, and the second part improvised. During the first part, the performers would talk in Russian and interact with the magazines. 9 During the second part, the performers involved the audience members into active participation. They all would move as a crowd towards the scenographic column. During their movements, the performers and the audience would interact with a variety of objects and throw smoke grenades. 10 This artwork falls between the media of performance, choreography, and land art. Hyper Performers are the facilitating artists sensing and reorganizing their audience. Human Semiotics here is seen as the space embodied by the performers and the audience members.
The InterMedia way of facilitating the participatory performance allow Human Semiotics to happen, in the same way as in the pedagogical situation, when learning is not an act of passive listening but rather an instance of active involvement in discussions, informal talks during food making, or immediate reflections on the material, such as archive material or video documentation. This approach requires the facilitator to be a HyperPerformer by working with the participants.

Kes Zapkus and the Painting Department, Vilnius Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts
The material on Kes Zapkus's pedagogical practice I retrieved from the Painting Department, Vilnius Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts archive. He used the pedagogical approach, unusual for the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 1992. I describe the pedagogy by Kes Zapkus as having elements of performance pedagogy, such as Human Semiotics and InterMedia.
In 1992, Kes Zapkus (born Kestutis Zapkus) was teaching at the Painting Department, Vilnius Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts, using his methodology where he sets focus on the individuality of the art student as one perceiving the art education through their own multi-experienced voice. He stresses the necessity of communication, experience sharing, and discussion via the group as the core for feedback situations and connecting with the outside-academia world while one is a student. By using this approach, I can see the involvement of the Human Semiotics in the pedagogical process, where experience in network building is at the core. He stresses the importance of self-awareness and discipline within the plan of daily education, such as showing up and showing up on time during the course. Kes Zapkus proposes outside-motivation. 11 Internal and external motivation as psychological terms are often used in the pedagogical theories of student motivation (Skaalvik & Skaalvik 2002). Internal motivation is self-motivation, while external motivation is motivation by the teacher, e.g., coming in the form of graded academic achievements. In the art academy, the motivation for learning is directly connected with the acceptance of active participation, identified in two patterns -one based on the students' own goals and the other based on the group's goals.
Kes Zapkus proposes, as well, something which I see as InterMedia. For example, one of the tasks involves the union of performance and painting as the preparation of the painting surface is happening as an act of construction, which can be made from the material which is constructed around one's body. 12 When the construction is ready, the students paint on it, resulting in a painting-installation in the exhibition space. The other example is the emphasis on the development of the student's writing manner via diaries and project descriptions. 13 Kes Zapkus suggests writing practice as a core practice in developing creative thinking and analytical experience for painters.

The Contemporary Role of an Artist and Educator
The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action was conducted at the Vilnius Faculty and Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts, within the Painting and Textile and Design departments. In this paper, I will focus on the case at the Vilnius Faculty's BA study program of painting and on the contemporary role of an artist and educator, based on the sources found in the literature. The Vilnius Faculty's BA study program of painting is described on the website of Vilnius Academy of Arts as "the program, which develops the basics of competent and independent evaluation of painting art processes, fosters the ability to be aware of the field of art criticism, gives subject and humanitarian skills to present personal creation in public space, communicate with mass media and society. It teaches to reasonably express one's evaluative stance, ground one's opinion." 14 In the description is the list of the program's goals, though it lacks any hint on method, educational environment, or values. 15 There is a general lack of information about the international study program. This program could increase the diversity of viewpoints and experiences and bring the study programs into a completely different and 11 Zapkus, Kes, Painting department archive, Vilnius Academy of Arts.
14 From the program description at the Painting Department, Vilnius Academy of Arts 15 From the program description at the Painting Department, Vilnius Academy of Arts broader environment of discussions and possibly cross-border student activities. As it is currently, the program is entirely domestic.
The Vilnius Faculty's BA study program of painting has always passed the university study quality measurements on all levels. The 'E's -empowerment, enthusiasm, expertise, and excellence - (Kember & McNaught 1988) have been reshaped throughout the years in the department, but until spring 2019, there has never been a suggestion for a new approach to any pedagogical methods related to the improvement of the educational setting, that is, student involvement in the co-decisions and the drive toward the openness of the study process to the public.
I see The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action as a quality enhancement initiative in collaboration with colleagues from the art field and students, and the Vilnius Academy of Arts' allowance and awareness that the project is the research. Educator and scholar David Kember suggests that quality enhancement aims for an overall increase in the quality of teaching and often encourages the better teachers to seek practices of a higher quality and more significant innovation, benefits expected to create a knockon or trickle-down effect on the majority of educators (Kember & McNaught 1988). Moreover, as quality enhancement initiatives can begin at any level and have a bottomup orientation, and are also characterized as action research, it is open to all interested professionals and students in the field and is aimed at re-examining the structure and improving it together.
Respect of authority sometimes conflicts with the openness of the critical approach. In describing the navigation between the official national and international minimalquality evaluations and the hunt for up-to-dateness, innovation, and maximum student involvement, Kember emphasizes the contrast between official policy and what happens in practice, or between espoused theory and theory in use, as "[…] a two-dimensional classification system used to distinguish and classify quality schemes. One dimension distinguishes quality assurance and enhancement schemes with subcategories for each. The second dimension relates to the nature of the scheme to the positivist, interpretive, and critical research paradigms" ( Kember & McNaught 1988).
Facilitating a beneficial educational milieu in the institution requires ongoing navigation between the quality level, judged via quality schemes, and student expectations. The contemporary situation of art education, art educators, researchers, and artists is, besides being in the physical space of the Art Academy, entering the "cyberspace" as a pedagogical habitat. It is based on multilayered cross-border and cross-institutional experiences, which often require awareness of what values and what institution one represents and in what situation. The contemporary art educator, especially in the cases of international pedagogical practice, often needs to be capable of being present in a few places at the same time for communication, collaboration, and work planning reasons. The impossibility of the placement of body and mind in one (physical) place demands new rules for the educator, de-learning, de-schooling, and de-tutoring oneself from the static form of education into the context of "liquid modernity" (McWilliam 2015). Referring to teacher, educator, and writer Erika McWilliam, we begin to destabilize the obvious truth of our time-honored pedagogical mantra -that learning is all that matters (McWilliam 2015). The application of the means, which are most likely to bring success, include time-taking to "[g]et the routines right -the routines of thinking, of engaging, of problem-solving -and they will equip you well both now and in the future. If you have a complex problem, break it down into its parts or some simple tasks" (McWilliam 2015). This statement is illustrated by the painting tasks, as painting a still-life in a warm or cold color gamut. Learning techniques can be similar to the writing practice, generalized in a system: "Plan your project systematically before you start work. Introduction-bodyconclusion. Tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just said. Begin with lower-order questions before moving to higher-order ones. If Plan A does not work, move to Plan B. Make a 'to-do' list. Seek feedback." (McWilliam 2015). These are all elements that when applied to the current way of structuring painting education seem to be rational and positive as a way of learning the painting technique. Although in my speculation, developing one's own style and visual language and professional networking skills is difficult in the concrete task-built assignments; neither is there much room left for an individual input into the assignment by students. Semester show works are all the same due to the students' focus on the same techniques and the same tasks.
Though, according to Deleuze (1994), repetition can mean not sameness, and multiple repetitions lead to their own variability; the question of learning the painting technique by repetition and developing the own visual language here is discussed from the reflexive standpoint, regarding the technical and conceptual aspects of painting education. My reflexive position is that I come from the extreme of the painting technique instructionsix years of education in painting conservation was my first formal art education. I appreciate the technical knowledge I acquired; however, technical knowledge alone does not make a successful contemporary artist. The technique is there, and it does not question itself or anything around it. On the contrary -a contemporary artist without technical training would need assistance to develop good ideas that require technique.
As another lens to look through into methods of art education, I refer to the written published material by the Lithuanian-born Fluxus network artist George Maciunas. Flat structure, explicit equality, and interdisciplinarity as the content of art education are taken from Learning Machine and Preliminary Proposal for a 3-Dimensional System of Information Storage and Presentation, a publication by Maciunas. 16 He refers to the American art education system of the late '60s as characterized by premature specialization and fragmentation of knowledge. Inefficiency, in turn, is caused by the inability of the slow, time-consuming, linear narrative method of information medium (books, lectures, TV, films, memory computers, etc.) to communicate even the essentials of the everexpanding field of knowledge within a limited time. This lack of general comprehension among students leads to specialization being randomly chosen, representing neither the student's real intent nor their aptitude, with the final result being constant dissatisfaction, indifference in future study and work, and an imbalance in the job market. 17 We usually do not talk about the job market within art education; it feels like a taboo while one is still in school, yet it becomes a challenge once one graduates. Maciunas proposes replacing "the millions of publications and other information media with a time-saving, speedily comprehensible, chart-like, 3-dimensional system of information storage and information presentation..." 18 In my performance pedagogy project The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action, the focus was on a diversity of educational formats, where the information is transmitted in the Human Semiotics format (see above), Hyper-Performance (see above), intense meetings with art field professionals aligned with the traditional format, as lecturing or group discussions. In my assumption, within the northern European region, many of the young graduating artists will most likely work in the international collaborations, due to the close geographical connections. The main problems of self-organized or artist-run activities in the 1960s and today are similar to the ways of organizing events -fundraising for each event or the exhibition/event program planning. In the early '60s, the main funding source in Europe was private sponsorship, 19 today it is different, with a broader spectrum of both public and private funding for artist-run art activities. Yet, the main rules of navigation for the young artist are the same: to have an idea, to formulate the concept clearly, and to connect with different actors in a way that convinces a private or public institution to fund the event. These qualities were in my focus during The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action. The main goal was to discard the taboos about these elements of artists' professional work in the artist-run field.
I stress Fluxus pedagogies as authentic, aim-oriented learning, where the primary goal is surviving as a practicing artist in the professional art field built on the development of a multiplicity of skills rather than the mastery of only one media or a few. I address Lars Ulriksen's approach to the values of active student participation in shaping the direction of study content and discussions and thus co-create the study environment (Ulriksen 2014). Within The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action, I had a big focus on language-using, which underlines equality between all involved -for example, in addressing all as colleagues and never using the word "student" within the group communication. I had discussions with the co-facilitators, also continuously during the short breaks, about group dynamics, and we worked on making the place safe and comfortable for every participant to be actively involved. I focused on the confidence and respect of each contribution and flat structure of discussions. In this way, I create a learning environment within collaborative projects, which can be described by the term Human Semiotics, having fun while making art and learning from each other's skills during the project. The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action was implemented during Spring and Fall semesters in 2018. It involved twenty-five BA students, divided by three groups, according to their program of study. I worked with one group at a time with the duration of a course from one up to two weeks. The 18 From the publication Maciunas's Learning Machine. 19 From conversation with Eric Andersen, 09.05.2019 entire Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action involved nine international guest lecturers, with their field of expertise in interdisciplinary art, curating, and artistrun activity, who would co-facilitate the course together with me by giving a lecture or doing a workshop. The project had a significant focus on local collaborations and study visits to the local artist-run activity spaces in Kaunas and Vilnius. During the course, the Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action has organized as well the network meeting between the students of Vilnius and Kaunas Faculties of Vilnius Academy of Arts. By this collaborative approach, the course was designed to embody the idea of the value of collaborations. Human Semiotics was explicitly spotlighted as the core of artistic practice.
I must stress that I am not promoting a project-based education because my primary goal is to spotlight the contexts and expand the local Lithuanian art education tradition with a focus on painting training, since it is one of my fields of expertise. Being the Hyper Performer type of the facilitator of the space of education, within the project The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action, the core importance was to attempt to meet the participants as a group, but alongside with this, also as individuals who have their own artistic practices and needs in gaining new knowledge; being a Hyper Performer meant sensing the dynamics within the group. Each group is different. In the case of The Temporary Department of Time, Space and Action, being implemented with three different student groups, and the content of the course needed in the real-time to be adjusted to each new group. Being attentive and able to act in real-time situations within pedagogical space involving interdisciplinarity requires a broad spectrum of knowledge or the proper network and possibilities to participate in the course, which is facilitated by experts from the relevant to the students' fields. For example, in one of the days during the course, I learned that one of the students was interested in comic books, which encouraged me to reach out for my network and involve in The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action an artist specializing in this field.
Summarizing The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action, this project emerged from the mock situation and stepped into the area of performance pedagogy, usually not practiced as the art teaching manner at Vilnius Academy of Arts. This performance pedagogy project aimed to propose an InterMedia approach to uniting such media, as painting, performance, and art-writing, and having part of the activity in the non-conventional, non-classroom spaces. The teaching manner involved facilitators as Hyper Performers, and the dynamics of the group of facilitators and learners as Human Semiotics. Contemporary art education is elastic, shapable, and changeable on top of the existing tradition. It could be addressed as revitalization, in other words, the contemporary interpretation of the local (education) tradition (Härkönen, Huhmarniemi, Jokela 2018). Without erasing this important tradition, it is possible to integrate critical thinking in reading and to interpret it. It is possible to be creative and imaginative in visualizing the potential short-and long-term future.

Conclusion
In this article, I have defined the concept theories behind such terms as Human Semiotics (Andersen 2002), Hyper Performer, and InterMedia (Higgins 1984), found within performance pedagogies. The use of these terms was exemplified by the cases of historical projects within the Fluxus Network, pedagogy by Kes Zapkus, the festivals AN88 and AN89, and my pedagogical project The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action.
The contemporary role of an artist and performance pedagogy facilitator at the art academy is defined by the literature sources and material retrieved from the Vilnius Academy of Arts databases. It is focused particularly on the Painting Department at the Vilnius Faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts. Performance pedagogy is focused on the performativity of the facilitator and has a collaborative approach to teaching and learning. The Temporary Department of Time, Space, and Action was designed and implemented using the following strategies: A/r/tography, performance pedagogy, and critical utopian action research. The terminology and concepts are suggested as the liberation of the conventional ways of describing and performing pedagogy in the art institutions and art event spaces in Lithuania. The findings of this research expand the existing terminology on art education, and these results can be used by artists and those practicing university pedagogy.