Long Live the Dodo

A few years ago Michael Lumb compared Mail Art to the dodo and articulated what many old-school mailartists were sensing – that Postal Art wasn't the dynamic force it once was? Artists, like everyone else, are re-assessing their communication needs. Sharp increases in postal costs, poorer service and the closure of small Post Offices have signalled hard times for snail mail as electronic mail wins favour. Fast connections are now cheap and convenient. Computers themselves are cheaper than ever, many users already own one or access one for other purposes.

An artist who is interested in networking in the twenty-first century is likely to regard the internet as the vehicle of choice, despite the lack of tactile and sensual qualities, and probably image quality, compared to paper-based Mail Art. Michael Lumb points out that you can't email books “in their proper form”, so one task is to find successful, “improper” book forms for the unprinted page. And as transfer speeds and file sizes increase, screen definition improves, and the virus threat associated with email attachments is managed, objections to emailart will diminish and its inherent qualities valued.

It is tempting to paint Mail Art as the dodo, doomed to extinction, but whilst a postal service survives artists will undoubtedly be drawn to the enduring qualities of physical exchange, qualities beyond the realm of electronic communication. Indeed, one of the jobs of the artist has long been to breathe life into materials and techniques that have been left for dead by mainstream society.

Just as books were not replaced by radio, and radio not replaced by television, so Mail Art will not be replaced by emailart. And traditional mailartists should take some comfort for providing a networking model of free exchange that has been embraced by the internet.

Mail Art is Dead. Long Live Mail Art.