Kenneth Masloski: Thank you very much, Luke Fischbeck, for being here. Luke is the, um, half of the creative force behind Lucky Dragons whose recordings include “Relax in a Hurry”, “music for no reason”, “Widows”, “Dark Falcon”, “Shape Tape” – those are some of my favorites so I named them. The founder of the Sumi Ink Club, um, KCHUNG [mispronounced] radio, Human Resources which is a not-for-profit organization seeking to expand public engagement with contemporary art and wonderful catalog of performances you’ve done as well. So thank you so much for being here and talking to me.

Luke Fischbeck: Yeah.

KM: All of the projects that you’ve done, or a lot of them really seem to have this, uh, theme of community and connecting people together and I was wondering if there are any challenges that are associated with community that are sort of inherent with working with many other people that kind of prevent a project from getting off the ground and working.

LF: That’s a really good question. I think in my experience the difficulty kind of comes in several waves. Yeah I think there is initial difficulty sometimes in – yeah this is a really (laughs) very big central question that I should think about how to answer coherently.

KM: (laughs) Sorry – that’s ok!

LF: I think also to say it comes in waves in the process of a project but also kind of in one’s own experience working collaboratively or in community-centered practices – the kind of knowledge you gain from working that way can help you to see both how fruitful it can be but then also how inevitable some of the problems can be both in terms of assumptions that people might have coming in to these kinds of work, or in terms of expectations in terms of the responsibilities and accountability for kind of stewarding community-centered projects. Especially thinking about projects that have longer lifespans, what happens to the project over its life as the individuals involved with it maybe their attitudes about it change.

Yeah so things like – you mentioned KCHUNG: it’s a community broadcast experiment or low power AM station online streaming platform and digital archive which was from the beginning very community run, not in the sense that it developed in response to an existing community but more in the sense that it filled a need that sort of travelled across communities and sort of called out to people from different communities as a sort of meeting point. And I think that because of that kind of travelling identity it brought many different sets of expectations of what work looked like, what value for that work would be like, what resources could be shared and what kind of resources people felt a need to maintain ownership over. So I think that, whether it’s working on a very small-scale collaboration between two people or between three or four people just, even over a short term, you might not encounter all these kinds of issues but if you work on something five or ten years or more, then you really start to see kind of - - speaking of collaboration (laughs).

(Child enters room)

Do you want to say hi? (laughs)

KM: (laughs) Hi! How are you?

LF: Do you go by Kenneth or Ken?
KM: I go by Kenneth, but yeah…

LF: This is Kenneth. This is Sia.

KM: Hello!

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LF: You know it’s really I think a little bit about identity and kind of how you, you know, for lack of a better way of describing it, how you kind of work with yourself.

KM: Mmhmm.

LF: It’s like if you’re just entering into a short term collaboration with a small group you might not have to completely get into what each person in the group, what their past experience is, where they’re from, what their expectations are to, like, a very deep level but once you start working with a group of people over many years you learn a lot about yourself and I think - some ways of working in more participatory ways where it’s like very short term kind of cooperation with people where there’s not really a need for – well I guess I’m kind of skirting around the idea of consent. It’s like how much do you consent to be a part of a group and let yourself be taken in to it completely and how much do you want to reserve privacy and kind of, yeah, let yourself have – let the work be for you what it will be and let it be for other people what it will be for them. Yeah.

KM: Ok Yeah!

LF: That’s sort of where my mind is at right now. Consent is a big part of experiencing art or music. You can kind of set yourself up to be, to receive something or to create something.

KM: Sure yeah. So shifting gears a little bit, not entirely – I was talking to my husband about art and quarantine and was sort of saying that because we’re all kind of experiencing this pandemic and quarantine the sort of concept of, like, the quarantine album or art that responds to the quarantine is not, to me, inherently interesting because we’re all going through it I think. And so an artist maybe has to bring something a little bit more to it in my opinion. But because your work seems to be so community driven or focused in some ways I would really love to hear how this has impacted what your, sort of, current work is and how that – because it really put a huge hold on getting together and communicating in spaces with other people. So how has that impacted you?

LF: Yeah it’s actually really interesting. Right - you know for like the past year or so a lot of what I’ve been focusing on has been – this is totally strange but I was actually like really thinking a lot about quarantine last year and also kind of, you know, virtual bodies and kind of the futility of a lot of humanitarian impulses and especially thinking about the strength of kind of solitary experience and, or very intimate kind of one-person – or like, and also the possibility for unmediated experience.

Things like at Human Resources we put on a show where the gallery was not staffed and the doors were just left open 24 hours a day and the artwork was just a, like a lightboard sign installed high up in the space with a poem, two poems that would unfold. One side was Dylan Mira and the other side was Sarah Rara, and the poems would unfold over – each day we’d come in and change a stanza of the poem, like get the next part of the poem out. But it was just set up in a way that people could come in and spend their own time with the artwork and I think it opened up the possibility for people to have much more kind of – both more fluid but then also kind of thoughtful interactions with the work. But it also, like there was, for that work, this kind of threat aspect to it that was being alone in a public or semi-public space and not knowing who you would find when you entered the space, or who would enter while you were also in there. So thinking about how charged interactions could be.

I think it was more like wanting to acknowledge certain aspects of access that were taken for granted in art that was so public-facing and to highlight the way those public interactions can be very charged for anybody and I think there was a lot of privilege in taking part in public kinds of performance or artwork that didn’t fully acknowledge who maybe didn’t feel comfortable in those situations or who was – who found themselves in situations that they didn’t fully consent to be in. Yeah so I think that was important to me to kind of find ways of addressing that and it’s hard to do that in a big group because I think in a big group you’re maybe, you don’t have the same kind of presence of mind all the time. I think that sometimes you can get – you might think about it later but in the middle of the group experience there’s a different kind of sensation happening.

So this is to say in quarantine I think people had a lot more time to think about access and I’m very excited to see what comes out of that.

KM: Yeah. Yeah. I should say I’m not disparaging the art that comes out of this. I felt like people were sort of maybe getting comfortable with the idea that, like, ‘I’m a musician and I’m in quarantine and so I’m recording a cover song and it’s interesting.’ To me, like, I don’t know – I’m kind of talking myself into a hole now (laughs).

LF: No no no –

(crosstalk)

KM: When something is presented as being interesting or like presented to you, you have to find something that you – that resonates with you that you respond to I think, for me anyway, that I will see myself in it or – to really sort of care about this piece and I think sometimes a lot of what’s coming out, though a lot is coming out and a lot of it is good, some of it is sort of just maybe a reaction as opposed to something that’s sort of more put together and thought out. I’m trying not to sound like a curmudgeon or mean or like a jerk, but yeah (laughs).

LF: Well, yeah, I think questions about what is worth sharing or what is, you know, what’s important to put out into the world – I remember there was a meme a couple of years ago about, oh I can’t remember, ambient music on bandcamp and it’s like, being forced to listen to all the ambient music on bandcamp or like –

KM: (laughs)

LF: There’s more music there then you could possible ever –

KM: Yeah.

LF: I forget what it was. But it was something to the extent of like, there’s such an ocean there, what reason would you possibly have to want to expand that ocean? Or it’s like something that has – but I don’t know, I mean, I like the idea that you’re kind of practicing or taking part in something.

KM: Absolutely.

LF: It’s a practice. It’s like, I don’t know. It’s kind of cheesy but, yeah I don’t know, this idea that like – well if – Oh well I think I can think of a metaphor that’s not super cheesy hopefully.

KM: Ok.

LF: There’s a piano tuner in Los Angeles who, he tunes pianos as pay-what-you-like or kind of, you know, basically free, or maybe you pay for his gas or something. His whole idea is that if more pianos are in tune and more pianos are being played then the world is better. This is his mission: to make the world a more tuneful place and I’m like, ‘Ok.’ If people are practicing making music and responding to their situation through music then that’s a good thing I think. (laughs)

KM: Yeah yeah, I see it that way too. And I think maybe I’m a little harsh because I’m sort of criticizing myself in some way too. I have this impulse to be like, ‘Well I’ve been sitting here and I’ve been making things and now I want people to hear what I’m making,’ and, you know, being sort of a little self-critical.

LF: Yeah I don’t know if I want people to hear what I’m making, especially since I have a lot of trouble listening to what everybody else is making.

(both laugh)

Especially, like, streamed performances. I’ve been really really interested in the history of kind of telematic performance or, you know especially like from the 60’s – kinds of radiophonic or telematic performances like Max Neuhaus or Maryanne Amacher, even Pauline Oliveros had some stuff. And then like through the 90’s with early internet stuff, just the way people were really interested – in the 70’s and 80’s there was satellite stuff. Anyways there’s a long history of people wanting to you know make something out of the fact that, ‘We’re in different places but when we do a performance in that space it creates this third space that’s neither here or there,’ and I really like that history. I like a lot of the work that was made from that history but I can’t sit through livestreamed performances now. Like I can watch like 15 seconds or so of it and I love it but then I’m like, okay. Or I can like leave it on in the background but that sense of shared presence is just gone. It’s just – I don’t know whether I’ve seen too much.

KM: Maybe yeah I don’t know. I know Bandcamp is for instance trying to launch a – the ability for anybody to be able to stream concerts from their space, home or wherever. I wonder if that will become the new form of expression that there will be too much of and then people will want to try to maybe find something else to move onto. I don’t know.

LF: It was a big thing with starting KCHUNG because I had a show on another internet station, Dublab, in Los Angeles for many years and loved the community that they have going and I think there was really this idea of what should – you know at the time Dublab wasn’t doing like a regular schedule of programs. It was mostly just special events. And this idea that, you know, a live stream if it was always on, that’s a nice feeling of this thing of you can always go to this place. So it’s not so much like a scheduled time and we’ll meet in cyberspace or whatever (laughs), it’s a place that exists like any other place and you can go there any time and be there. I thought it was a very nice idea for music, you know? It’s a sense that music should exist in a place where you can go visit it rather than something that happens at a scheduled time.

KM: No I think that’s a cool way to look at that.

You operate in academic spaces. Are you currently a student or (trails off)?

LF: I am, I’m a PhD student.

KM: Ok, yeah, yes same here (laughs). So in the natural sciences, which is what I’m studying, it’s a very much ‘publish or perish – what have you done lately?’ and in the artistic world which is, I guess I’m assuming maybe and I shouldn’t that that’s what you’re pursuing your degree in…

LF: Yeah.

KM: Ok. Is it similar in that there’s this sort of need to produce and kind of constantly be producing or is it, uh, are things more valued for their longevity?

LF: I think there’s different ways to go about it and it really is sort of a matter of who your audience is or like who you’re speaking to and a way of maintaining legibility to the audience that you want, I guess. So I’m in this practice based media art discipline, but it’s very much about interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinarity. So the big idea with this program which is not totally young, I think it’s like 15 years old now, is that we should be able to demonstrate why what we do is valuable or how it’s valuable, however we do that.

So there’s a lot of kind of setting up what our methodology is, pointing to other examples of it, and sort of saying what valuable whether it’s exhibitions, publications, intellectual property. You can like really go crazy with how you demonstrate that what you’re doing is valuable, which is in some ways like, it’s a good exercise but it can be very isolating, you know?

KM: Sure yeah.

LF: There’s not kind of a – I guess I can imagine that the world of strictly operating in peer-reviewed journals is also isolating in a different way. You know, I went back to academia after being out of it for a long time. Got a master’s degree and then took like 15 years off before doing a PhD and the reason I went back in is because I didn’t want to be just kind of like a – I kind of wanted to find my people a little bit (laughs) I guess or kind of find a way of discussing things that wasn’t so, I don’t know, that wasn’t so lonely I guess, I don’t know.

It seems like – that’s been amazing to do that, you know?

KM: Sure.

LF: That said, this world of like, ‘Oh you come up with what the value structure is’ has been a little bit too freeing. (laughs)

KM: (laughs) Ok.

LF: Yeah. So I, yeah – now these days I’ve been like really into poetics of AI, kind of poetics and ethics in artificial intelligence, which means just really kind of playing around with models and teasing out what the edges of them are and not really generating something that is human-listenable or human – it’s really just ‘This is for the machines.’ (laughs) I hope that answers your question.

KM: No that’s great!

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KM: Just thinking about what it means to produce – I can’t help but come from this perspective of like having to be producing a lot sort of consistently, you know? You’re working on a manuscript, you finish it. While you’re working on it you should be doing other research to then work on that manuscript and continue that, so I can’t imagine that that makes a good sort of environment to express yourself and to work on art, I guess for lack of a better term.

LF: Well, there’s a lot of kind of safe harbors in art because of the really long arc that peoples’ careers have and the really like kind of ultimately impossibility of comparing one person’s value – the value of one person’s output to the value of another person’s output. I mean there’s so many different metrics for trying to do it in art that none of them make any sense. You can meet somebody who appears to be doing very well and they haven’t done anything in 15 years and that’s great. They’re just in the middle of a long thing, you know? There are a lot of people like that, especially in art academia. There’s a lot to learn from that kind of really dilated way of thinking about subjects.

I mean, I kind of like the – I always have really liked the kind of project-based way of thinking which I think is, publication is a lot like going from project to project. I like having secret long-term things that you haven’t shared and, you know, they’ll come out fully formed one day. I think that’s great.

All of a sudden I became very excited about sharing some of these AI things with you. (laughs)

KM: Oh yeah!

LF: I don’t know.

KM: I mean I, if you, I’d love to hear them at some point that would be – I mean if you wouldn’t mind. But yeah ok –

LF: It’s like when things come up conversationally it’s much easier than kind of thinking about the right forum for them. You know what I mean?

KM: Yeah, I think so. Yeah you, if you’re talking with somebody and you touch on something and you’re like, ‘Oh well I have this thing and I’d love to share it with you.’

LF: Yeah.

KM: Versus like, I don’t know an album release or something like that.

LF: Just getting anything into a format that can be, that can travel is an effort in itself that maybe doesn’t speak to the reason for the thing being, I guess.

KM: Yeah. Alright well, I have one more question if you’ve got time for that.

LF: Oh yeah, totally.

KM: In your opinion, because a lot of what I think about is rejection and failure and how that shapes what one creates – is something that has been, say, released or performed, do you think that can be considered a failure at some point, like, just because it was released or just because it was performed does that make it an immediate success in your opinion or (trails off)?

LF: Well there is a kind of nice – I don’t know if I’d call it success but a kind of like proof of life or something maybe (laughs) in the sense that it can kind of do its own thing. Like it can find other contexts that are out of your hands and people can either identify with it or reject it but at that point it’s, you know it becomes part of the world which is – I mean also kind of on the other hand it’s this idea of being able to, you know, moral rights, what they talk about in intellectual property. This thing of being able to say, ‘I created that, I did not create that. That is my work, that is not my work,’ is kind of nice and I think a lot of times you’re asked to give that up. So you don’t sell an artwork and then say, ‘Well I didn’t make that artwork,’ later. Like people are concerned about that but I think that that should be an option. You should be able to, you know, detach yourself from something. (laughs)

I’m thinking in terms of failure – do you know Jack Halberstam?

KM: No, I don’t.

LF: ‘The Queer Art of Failure’?

KM: No I’m going to write that down though.

LF: It’s good. I think it, it kind of proposes you know that failure can be in itself like kind of something to go for as just kind of like an affect of stance. Of like you know not – not succeeding in the sense of living on through your work. So I would say that, yeah, sometimes failure is the thing that you’re, that you seek I guess. (laughs) It’s to have things that just kind of you know have their moment and then do something different. (laughs)