In 1962 Andersen first took part in one of the early concerts given by Fluxus held during the Festum Fluxorum in the Nikolai Kirke (Nicolas Church) in Copenhagen.[1] He soon took an early interest in intermedial art.[2][3] In his Opus works from the early 1960s, Andersen explored the open interaction between performer and public,[4] developing open self-transforming works, such as arte strumentale.
Andersen’s performances depend very much on the public. This is true of not only his Fluxus actions but also his installations, to which the public may be prompted to contribute. From 1962 to 1966 he worked closely with Arthur Kopcke, turned in the late 1960s to mail art and then in the 1970s was concerned with geographical space. His most eminent works include Hidden Paintings, Crying Spaces, Confession Kitchens, Lawns that turn towards the Sun and Artificial Stars.
In 1996, the year in which Copenhagen was Europe’s cultural capital, Andersen arranged a three-day inter-media event involving parachute-jumping, helicopters, mountaineering, live sheep and 500 singers walking on water.
In 2017 the book The Glorious Way of Unproductivity was published by Per Brunskog. A textbook in inter-media, based exclusively on Eric Andersen's work.[5]
^Hannah B Higgins, "The Computational Word Works of Eric Andersen and Dick Higgins" in H. Higgins, & D. Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, p.283
^Higgins, Hannah. Fluxus Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN0-935640-40-1 p. 150
Moren, Lisa. Intermedia. Baltimore, Maryland: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2003.
Paull, Silke and Hervé Würz, eds. How we met or a microdemystification. Saarbrücken-Dudweiler (Germany) 1977, Engl.-German, AQ 16, Incl. a bibliography by Hanns Sohm.
Phillpot, Clive, and Jon Hendricks, eds. Fluxus: Selections from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1988. ISBN0-87070-311-0
Schmidt-Burkhardt, Astrit. Maciunas’ Learning Machine from Art History to a Chronology of Fluxus. Detroit, Michigan: Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, 2005.
Annual Bibliography of Modern Art, 1991 By Museum Of Modern Art Library ISBN0-8161-0557-X Page 176
"The Computational Word Works of Eric Andersen and Dick Higgins" by Hannah Higgins in H. Higgins, & D. Kahn (Eds.), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, pp. 279–287
