Diffusion Tube no. 1: FAKE NEWS!…In Conversation with Eric Kunsman
Eric Kunsman, with Volume II of FAKE NEWS
I first met Eric Kunsman in January 2019, when he sat behind me for several days in Mary Virginia Swanson’s Masterclass. Fast forward three months, and we met again at Photolucida in Portland, cementing our then-fledgling friendship. In the ensuing time, we have spent quite a few hours together, virtually - via messaging apps and in Zoom seminars, sometimes both at the same moment.
I find Eric to be articulate, funny, intelligent, kind, and passionate about his work. It was the combination of those qualities and the timely importance of his FAKE NEWS project that caused me to ask to interview him about that work for this publication. After some reflection, I felt that this project needed a video interview rather than print…that it was really important to hear Eric’s words directly, rather than my interpretation of them.
We set up an interview time last July and did a 107-minute Zoom interview. It should have been easy; I mean, I used to teach video and motion graphics! But, it wasn’t. I started to edit and that is when the trouble set in…too many things collided together, and the hits kept coming. With the best of intentions to get this out well ahead of Eric’s October FAKE NEWS events, I couldn’t make it happen. Even though I have the highest of the high end in the Macbook Pro line, editing such a lengthy discussion choked my computer and continually crashed it. My personal life changed within a few days of our recording session, and I needed to pay attention to that instead of this. Concurrently I had tons of work to do to create a set of 26 framed objects for the exhibition of Nights As Inexorable As The Sea at Blue Sky in Portland. Add in an unexpected and super-tight-deadlined exhibition of No Ka Home O Ka Hale Kahiko. Finally, an exhibition of Nights that was supposed to take place in April and canceled due to the pandemic was suddenly rescheduled…for an overlapping timeframe with the Blue Sky one, and all of a sudden I was creating, framing, packing, and shipping 52 of these plus 12 of the other. It’s always more difficult to obtain materials here in HI, but add in pandemic store closures, COVID-19 induced manufacturing and shipping delays, Trump administration induced shipping delays…my life became an endless chase to acquire what I needed and get the work made. I felt bad about the delay, but given that I desperately needed my computer for all of this, I could not continue editing pieces of the interview and crashing my system. Then came the holidays and additional obligations. Eric, you have no idea how badly I feel about how all of this ending up in such a lengthy delay.
After missing my self-imposed deadlines several times over, I decided to publish this the same day as the electoral college certification. Then, just as suddenly, I changed my mind and decided it would be the day before the inaugural. I have no idea what possessed me to make that change, but in retrospect it seems as if it was pre-ordained. Because in light of the events of January 6th, along with how divided and angry American citizens are, Eric’s intention to have this project open conversations amongst peoples of differing views has become more central and more urgent than ever.
Hence the first episode of Diffusion Tube is born. It may be late; far later than I ever imagined - but now of even greater import. I hope you enjoy it.
-Diana Nicholette Jeon/January 19, 2021