lucky dragons

http://www.hawksandsparrows.org
angryclouds_k@yahoo.com

to download print-resolution images click here

BIOGRAPHY

"lucky dragons" means any recorded or performed or installed or packaged or shared pieces made by Luke Fischbeck, Sarah Rara, and any sometimes collaborators. They try to do as many different kinds of things as they can, high and low, fast and slow. They would say they are "artists who use music" and if they make performance art it is to alter and append it, but they give respect to history and the people who live there.

today's influences include: nikki de st phalle, joan didion, COBRA, hieronymous bosch, thomas jefferson, tina turner, allan kaprow, joan jonas, bruce nauman, mayan codices, ivor cutler, jacques ranciere, helio oticia.

lucky dragons shows are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures--creating equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, to build a fragile network of digital signals connected by touching on the skin. 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 over one thousand people. At the heart of it all is playing together--building up social collectivities, re-engaging the wonder and impossibility of technology and live performance. 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: 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, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial, and The Smithsonian Institute's Hirshorn Museum,Tokion's "Creativity Now" conference, 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.

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PRESS QUOTES

"Lucky Dragons... create ecstatic music that completely transcends genres. My attempts to describe what their music actually sounds like always fall short of the magic they are making. I guess you could say it sounds like—ecstatic magic. Challenging stereotypes that electronic music is cold and sterile, Lucky Dragons' live show, though conducted via computers, is a truly great celebration of the human spirit, giving real hope for the techno-future our society is racing toward."

-artforum (March 2006)

"a line between the handmade and the distanced digital... ...a successful forging of the personal detritus, the mic-ed moments between moments"

-all music guide

"Lucky Dragons have managed to create a completely new strand of West Coast American psychedelia"

-frieze

PRESS BIBLIOGRAPHY

2008
google

2007
frieze
Wilson, Tony -- reviews September 2007
Village Voice
<http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/music/archives/2007/08/no_context_summer_of_love.php>
LA Record
<http://larecord.com/blog/?p=575>
TimesSquare.Com
<http://timessquare.com/Music/Concert_Reviews/Getting_Lucky--and_Dirty--at_the_Whitney_Museum/>
BlogCritics.Org
<http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/07/27/233948.php>
Pitchfork
<http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/42212-widows>
Artforum
<http://artforum.com/diary/id=15587>
Anchorage Daily News
<http://community.adn.com/node/108284>
Identity Theory
<http://www.identitytheory.com/audio/truths_luckydragons.php>

2006
Artforum
Fowler, Brendan --Top Ten March, 2006
Dusted Magazine
<http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/3114>
Slightly Confusing to a Stranger
<http://www.sctas.com/21/Luckyview.html>
Not This Or That
<http://www.notthisorthat.com/sblog/index.php?/archives/94-LUCKY-DRAGONS-make-a-baby.html>

2005
San Diego Union-Tribune
<http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20051007-9999-1c07fest.html#>
Deli Magazine
<http://www.thedelimagazine.com/luckydragons/index.htm>

2004
Pots
<http://publish.pots.com.tw/english/ThisWeek/2004/11/29/337_17bionicmusic/index.html>
Portland Mercury
<http://personals.portlandmercury.com/2004-01-15/music2.html>