Intermedial translations: Storytelling Fluxus

Based on insights from producing Radio Fluxus, a podcast series featuring narratives about Fluxus’s works, this chapter investigates storytelling as a method for transmitting intermedial art. It begins by examining how intermedial works translate across media formats, exploring narration as a documentary tool for conveying experience. Within the framework of intersemiotic translation between images and words, it evaluates ekphrasis—its potential and constraints—in transmitting intermedial works. Building on this foundation, the chapter presents the “conservator’s lens”—an analytical approach enhancing ekphrasis through the integration of the technical, material and sensorial dimensions of an artwork. The discussion then turns to storytelling’s distinctive characteristics, using oral history theory to examine parallels between podcast production and the creation of oral history sources. Through critical evaluation of podcasting as an activation tool for Fluxus works, the analysis demonstrates how storytelling offers alternatives to traditional conservation practices. It suggests new approaches to collecting and preserving art that embrace both its tangible and intangible dimensions while catalyzing further creative expressions.