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The Mail Art - Internet
Link
by
Chuck Welch

The following text appeared in ETERNAL
NETWORK: A MAIL ART ANTHOLOGY, published in 1995 by University of Calgary Press, a
work edited by Chuck Welch. The essay is reprinted here with the permission of the author for the
benefit of those scholars wishing to retrieve an
accurate account of the merging of mail art and
telematic art. Some of the pioneering projects and
texts by Welch, notably Telenetlink, The Emailart Directory, The Electronic Museum of Mail
Art (EMMA) and The Reflux Network Project,
created by Brazilian artist Dr. Artur Matuck are
central to the bridging of mail art and the internet
from 1990-1995.
“Tele” is a Greek word for “far off,” “at a distance.”
Netlink is terminology meaning “to interconnected networks,” especially communication
networks that are perceived to be distant. Artists
impart attitudes, values, and sensibilities in their
shared communication with others. Aesthetic
sensibilities, when coupled with social hierarchy
and economic inequality, create media boundaries, “netclubs.” Mail art networking attempts to
soar above these distances, to fly beyond all media
boundaries-to telenetlink!

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The Artist As Networker
Distance between mail art and electronic art is sometimes
more imagined than real. The notion that mail artists are
hostile to high technology is one common misconception.
Experimentation with mass-media technology hastened the
evolution of mail art long before the advent of telecommunications technology. Mail artists experimented with electrostatic (copier art) technology in the 1960s, and in the late
1980s embraced the technology of telefacsimile. Throughout
the 1980s mail artists matured into networkers who reached
for an inter-cultural transformation of information.

Time has obscured the fact that many idealistic, democratic values of early mail art were
carried forth in the development of today’s
online telecommunications community.

Evolution of the Telenetlink Project

The international Telenetlink evolved in June 1991 as an interactive part of
Reflux Network Project, an artists’ telecommunication system created by
Brazilian artist Dr. Artur Matuck. Reflux Network Project was an ambitious,
progressive experiment that interconnected 24 on-site nodes located in
university art departments, art research sites, and private internet addresses. Through Reflux, the Networker Telenetlink became mail art’s first
active online connection with the world of internet.

Networker Telenetlink: The Open Proposal (Telenetlink 1991-1996)
THE MAIL ART CONGRESS BODY LEFT IN 1992/ A SPIRIT NETWORKS NOW/ THE SPIRIT LIVES IN EVERYONE/ WE MET-A-NETWORK INFANT/ A MEDIA-CHILD WAS BORN/ TELENETLINK
IS ITS NAME/ IT LIVES IN NETLAND NOW/ THE FUTURE OF THE NETWORKER IS TELENETLINKED/ MAIL ART IS EMAILART/ FAXMAIL ART/ EMBRACE THE CHILD/ TELENETLINK IN 1995
AND BEYOND!
OPEN OBJECTIVES
Objectives for a Networker Telenetlink Year in 1995 are open for discussion, but encourages interACTION now. Possibilities? Embrace the telematic medium and explore its
parameters; develop a local/global emailart community; exchange cultural communications; interconnect the parallel network worlds of mail art and telematic art through
internet and the World Wide Web; contact online communities of mail artists working on
commercial networks like CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, and other connected
email gateways; place networker archives online; experiment with telematic technology;
participate as a FAXcilitator; exhibit in the Electronic Museum of Mail Art; interact in
public and private forums; merge media; mail and emailart; and enact networker ideals
invisioned for the millennium.