Neoism - Background

Background

Definitions of Neoism and Neoist activity are currently disputed. The main source of this are splits within the Neoist network which created vastly different, tactically distorted accounts of Neoism and its history. Undisputed, however are the origins of the movement in the mid- to late 1970s Canada, and the coinage of the multiple identity Monty Cantsin through the Mail Artist David Zack (died ca. 1995) (perhaps with the collaboration of artists Maris Kudzins and performance artist Istvan Kantor). Schisms followed in the mid-1980s. Questions and concerns arose about whether the open Monty Cantsin moniker was being overly associated with certain individuals. Later, writer Stewart Home sought to separate himself from the rest of the Neoist network, manifesting itself in Home's books on Neoism as opposed to the various Neoist resources in the Internet). In non-Neoist terms, Neoism could be called an international subculture which in the beginning put itself into simultaneous continuity and discontinuity with, among others, experimental arts (such as Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and Concept Art), punk, industrial music and electropop, political and religious free-spirit movements, Science Fiction literature, 'pataphysics and speculative science. Neoism also gathered players with backgrounds in graffiti and street performance, language writing (later known as language poetry), experimental film and video, Mail Art, the early Church of the Subgenius and gay and lesbian culture. Neoism then gradually transformed from an active subculture into a self-written urban legend. As a side effect, many other subcultures, artistic and political groups since the late 1980s have - often vaguely - referred to or even opposed Neoism and thereby perpetuated its myth.