Visit with Marc Fischer

In addition to meeting with Amy, I was lucky to host Marc Fischer of Public Collectors and Temporary Services and meet with him one on one. I started this visit by showing Marc the 1st edition of the Book of Selected Maps published by the MOST last fall. I also showed him our website after the map book. Marc had a very different reaction to the work of The MOST and Mostlandia than Amy.

His first question was whether there are any real world consequences to Mostlandia, whether there is anything at stake for people who interact with Mostlandia aside from The MOST. We had interesting dialogue around the fact that I refuse to call Mostlandia a fake or fantasy country, in that he refuses to describe it as anything but fake. I have had conversations similar to this one before, however found Marc to be adamant about wanting Mostlandia to have real-world consequences. This makes sense to me in light of the socially-engaged, political, and critical artwork he makes. I also appreciated his honesty about his thoughts. I think that other people have this opinion about our work and I like getting to talk about it.

We also talked about the group structure of Temporary Services, and how they will sometimes break off to do individual projects when one person in the group is more interested in an idea than others. They also will invite other people to become part of the group on a one-project basis, in order to bring in energy or expertise. I have always admired Temporary Services for their writings and thinking on the subject of collaboration, and I valued being able to talk with a group member about these ideas in person.

Here's a little snippet of email conversation the MOST had when I relayed this information:

------------ Original message ------------
From: "Rudy Speerschneider"
> My responses are in blue (if they aren't blue, then they have a T in front)
>
> On 1/11/08, Katy Asher wrote:
> >
Marc Fischer suggested we try adding people to the group on a single project basis. what do you think about that?
>
T: In the interesting way of thinking about the vast number of ways we could work as a group and as a necessity to go beyond ourselves, into the mysterious, I think that this ideas would be worth exploring. Right away, i'd say we'd have to have a very specific reason for doing this, it would have to fit into our process naturally in a similar way to that of Matthew (Yake), or Bob (Ice Cream), or Molly (Embassy). They'd have to already be half way there.
>
He also wanted to know if there were any real world consequences to Mostlandia, and refused to call it something other than fantasy or a fake country. It was interesting. He just wondered if there was anything at stake for anyone who interacts with Mostlandia aside from us. I can elaborate if any of you are interested.
> >
T: That' bullshit! Of course there is. What's at stake??? WHAT'S AT STAKE!!??? Only our ability, as humans, to think and imagine a world beyond the fucking real and known one!!!! To expand our minds!!!!!
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From: j_rhoads@comcast.net
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:58:21 +0000

best response ever re: what's at stake :)
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From: katy@mostlandia.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2008

That's funny because I had an awesome creative writing teacher in Boulder, Daniel Weinshenker, who would always bellow at us "What's at STAKE?!" He was an English Grad Student and would have us write poetry while simultaneously watching flamenco dancing.
"What's at stake guys?" he'd say, "What's at STAKE. That's right" and pace around the room.
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From: Khris
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008

I think that it would be interesting to talk more about Marc's suggestions. I could see it working out pretty well, as long as we were all on the same page before any sort of project like that was initiated.

Real world consequences of Mostlandia? I've pretty much stopped talking to people because of their ideas of Mostlandia. Mostly because how they understand (or, more accurately, don't understand) Mostlandia gives me an insight into how they think of things. That's a real world consequence, but it's kind of a personal example, I guess.