Tuesday, September 29, 2009
About Luke and his artistic work...
BIOGRAPHY
"lucky dragons" means any recorded or performed or installed or packaged or shared or suggested or imagined pieces made by Luke Fischbeck, Sarah Rara, and/or any sometimes collaborators who claim the name.
the name "lucky dragons" is borrowed from a japanese fishing boat caught in the fallout of hydrogen bomb test at bikini atoll in the 1950's. the crew stricken ill, and the boat itself contaminated, the "lucky dragon" became a crystalizing symbol for the previously diffuse worldwide anti-nuclear sentiment. eventually the boat was painted black, renamed the "dark falcon", and put into reuse as a fishing vessel, until it was retired and disposed of on the man-made trash island "dream island", where it remains today.
lucky dragons are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures--equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, building up fragile networks held together by such light things as skin contact, unfamiliar language, temporary logic, the spirit of celebration, and things that work but you don't know why. There have been hundreds of these simple yet shifting and unpredictable instances--with audiences ranging from the intense intimacy of one person to the public spectacle of thousands of people. At the heart of it all is playing together--building up social collectivities, re-engaging the wonder and impossibility of technological presence. It sounds--and looks--like simple and ancient patterns coming together and falling apart in a sincere attempt to let wires and screens and words become clear and crystal.
they keep a busy schedule of performances and visits and festivals and workshops and things, in the present, and in the past: the 2008 Whitney Biennial, NY's PS1, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Philadelphia Institute for Contemporary Art, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle, Los Angeles' The Smell, NY's The Kitchen, The Smithsonian Institute's Hirshorn Museum, Cooper Union, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, etc. Lucky dragons live in Los Angeles California and have recorded 19 albums which are all available for downloading.
lucky dragons' sister projects include "sumi ink club"--a weekly collaborative drawing society, and "glaciers of nice"--a small press and internet community.
today's influences: nikki de st phalle, joan didion, CoBrA group, crass, hieronymous bosch, thomas jefferson, tina turner, allan kaprow, joan jonas, bruce nauman, mayan codices, ivor cutler, jacques ranciere, helio oiticica, lygia clark, giorgio agamben, pauline oliveros, terry riley, plastic people of the universe.
Luke Fischbeck and Lucky Dragons
Please peruse Luke's Web site "Hawks and Sparrows" and think of questions you would like to ask him-- about his work, about life as an artist, his artistic influences and development, what he thinks makes "good" or "interesting" art, what his artistic practice is, etc. Come to class with two questions for his Thursday visit.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
John F. Simon Jr. installation on Uiowa campus
This is an interview with John Simon Jr. in his studio.
There is one of his installations on campus in the college of medicine's Medical Education and Biomedical Research Facility (MEBRF).
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
So gimmie yo number, and I'll call.
"Bridge"
For video:
http://www.michaelcross.eu/bridge1.html
Project #3... Site Specificity, Installation, Performance, Intervention
Project 3 – Critiques/Due Sept. 29 and Oct. 1
Site Specificity, Installation, Performance and Intervention
For this project, you will create a site-specific work, installation, intervention, or performance work. You can work individually or collaboratively. Below are some ideas and things to consider.
Installation
Installation art engages the viewer’s entire sensory experience in four-dimensional space. It dissolves the line between art and life (see Kaprow). It moves away from viewing art as discreet objects isolated from the environment in which they are encountered.
An installation artist uses almost any material and media to create an experience in a particular environment. Oftentimes, installation art is highly site-specific. It is not confined to gallery spaces but can be material intervention in everyday public or private spaces.
For this project you will be working individually or collaboratively to make an installation that fundamentally alters the viewer’s experience and perception of a space.
Performance Art
Performance art involves the artist and is created in real time. What makes performance art so intermedial in nature is that it is slippery and truly defies most boundaries and definitions that are imposed on it. On one end of the spectrum you can argue that a performance begins and ends in the place and time that the artist says it does. But if you are in a room waiting for a performance to start, isn’t that part of the experience, hence part of the performance too. And approaching the place of the performance: part of the experience. Getting ready to go to the performance: part of the experience. So on the other end of the spectrum, you could argue that we all are involved in a lifelong performance, that every social act is essence a performance, that there is no boundary between performance and life.
For this project, you will create a performance art piece. When developing your ideas, try to get away from the idea that performance art is a sort of “art-theater”, that is, a “detached, closed arrangement in space-time” in Kaprow’s words. Instead, think of the performance as a way to direct and alter the experience of your audience in real-time. There is no limitation on how you choose to do this.
