Artist-Musicians, Musician-Artists

The phenomenon of artists working in several disciplines at the same time is as old as the artistic genres themselves. It was not until the boundaries between the genres were broken down, however, and an interest in synesthesia and universalism developed during modernism that artist-musicians and musician-artists were able to develop within the bounds of an established practice. Various interdisciplinary trends, such as happenings, the Fluxus movement, and multimedia, strongly accelerated this trend during the 1960s. With the belief that intensity comes before virtuosity, the punk movement of the 1970s and 1980s motivated numerous people to reach not only for the guitar but also for the paintbrush. In the age of techno and house music, it was the multifunctionality of the computer that made it possible to work on both images and tracks. Now, since the 1990s, a new self-evidence regarding the freedom to use different forms of expression has burgeoned. Ultimately, it is success and its related economic factors that decide whether people call themselves musicians or artists, even if they themselves have a foot in both camps.