No. 9: In the Face of Behemoths: A Call to the Artist’s Voice
Proof of Life Series No. 9
In the Face of Behemoths: A Call to the Artist’s Voice
In the shadow of vast institutions, monumental museums, global markets, and cultural engines with unimaginable reach and resource, the individual artist may feel small, outmatched, invisible. These structures seem eternal. Their collections sprawl across continents. Their budgets eclipse lifetimes.
But let me say this, plainly and without hesitation:
You must still speak.
You must still make.
You must still send the letter, glue the scrap, walk the path, whisper the thought, trace the symbol.
Because in the end, we do not need another institution.
We need you.
The Power of the Small
Do not mistake scale for meaning.
A handmade zine sent through the mail may carry more soul than a 200-page glossy catalog. A single line of asemic writing on the back of a receipt may outlast a thousand academic essays. A collage made in silence may awaken someone you've never met.
The work that seems small, vulnerable, or even futile is often the most human, the most necessary.
You do not need a wing in a museum.
You need a moment of clarity, of sincerity, of offering.
That is enough.
That has always been enough.
A Practice of Resistance, A Gesture of Hope
To make your own archive, your own poetic system, your own ritual of correspondence - is to reclaim the sacred from the sanctioned. It is to say:
I am here, and this is what I see.
I am not waiting to be chosen. I am already in the conversation.
This is not rebellion for its own sake.
It is continuance—the artist’s quiet refusal to be absorbed, erased, or diminished by scale.
Every Exquisite Family Record begins this way.
Every addition to the Ontological Museum is one more node in the web of living, personal, irreplaceable contribution.
We Depend on It
And let this be said clearly:
We depend on your voice.
Not someday. Now.
Not when you are confident. When you are uncertain.
Not when you are ready. When you are honest.
There is something only you can say. Some combination of light, experience, form, error, and vision that only your hands, your eyes, your heart can create. And without it, the whole field is weaker. The chorus is missing a tone.
So do it.
Even if no one asks.
Especially if no one asks.
Because the culture we want will not be handed to us.
We must make it. One offering at a time.
The Museum Needs You
The Ontological Museum, like all true museums of the soul, is unfinished by design.
It was never meant to be completed. It is meant to be continued.
And it is waiting, always, for you to find your way to its door
or to build your own archives.
No application required.
Just the offering - the artifact of connection
And if all you can manage today is one gesture, one note, one mark—
know that it is enough, and that it joins a lineage older and stranger and more alive than anything money or power can build.
We are listening.
We are building.
We are remembering you already.
In the mail art community this is called the…
Eternal Network
The Eternal Network (French: La Réseau Éternel) is a concept in avant-garde art that refers to a global, decentralized community of artists who are connected not through institutions or markets, but through ongoing artistic collaboration, communication, and exchange—especially through mail art, performance, and alternative media.
Origins:
Coined in the 1960s by French Fluxus and mail artist Robert Filliou, the term "Eternal Network" emerged from his belief that art is a permanent state of human activity, not confined to galleries or limited by time and place.
Filliou imagined a continuous creative network that connects all artists—past, present, and future—as part of a living, evolving work of art.
Core Principles:
Art = Life: No separation between art and everyday life.
Collaboration over competition: The network thrives through sharing, participation, and mutual recognition.
Process over product: The interactions and exchanges are the art—not necessarily the final objects.
Anarchic and non-hierarchical: There is no center, no gatekeepers, and no official entry point.
Global but local: Artists work in their own spaces but are linked through acts of communication—mail, fax, performance, and now digital media.
Practically Speaking:
The Eternal Network became especially active through the mail art movement, where artists sent artworks, postcards, and zines to one another around the world.
It included artists from Fluxus, Neo-Dada, conceptual art, and other experimental scenes who rejected the mainstream art world’s emphasis on commercial success and individual genius.
Artists created their own exhibitions and put out inclusive calls for participation with the typical statement No Jury / No Fee / No Returns / All Works Documented
Today, it lives on in alternative art communities, artist-run archives, zine networks, and digital collaborations that follow similar principles.
Why it Matters:
The Eternal Network affirms that you are not alone in your creative path—that every act of artistic communication expands the field of shared imagination.
It provides a model for artists who want to create meaning outside traditional systems, and it challenges the idea that art must be validated by institutions to be real or valuable.
In essence, the Eternal Network is an invisible yet vibrant thread connecting artists who value freedom, friendship, experimentation, and exchange—a kind of global artist commune that exists across time and space, always in motion.
The Mycelial Network
"People may come and people may go, but the network itself is eternal."
This means that while individual artists, projects, and initiatives may arise and fade, the underlying web of creative connection, once established, continues—morphing, branching, evolving—independent of any one person’s presence.
Like a mycelial network in the forest, it’s not centralized. It’s not dependent on a single leader. It thrives below the surface of institutions, carried by spirit, correspondence, impulse, and mutual recognition.
The Eternal Network is a living legacy:
It persists because it’s not a brand.
It’s not curated by elite gatekeepers.
It is carried by gesture, practice, and participation.
Every postcard sent, every artistamp made, every zine exchanged, every act of creative generosity strengthens the network—without permission or approval. It welcomes newcomers without ceremony and lets go of the old without fuss.
So even as artists pass on or drift away, the current continues. That’s why it’s eternal.
And those who sense it—who participate in it—become part of something that exists beyond time. A lineage of anonymous, invisible, irrepressible creativity. A global whisper of art that says:
You are not alone.
We are already connected.
Keep making. Keep sending. The network remembers.
This is vision. I live from Core Principle #1and support the rest as well.
Good morning. We’re on vacation and I’m catching up on reading newsletters. Thanks for this-another good one!