Hatchfest

Hatchfest hits Asheville in April, these are mock ups of my intended contribution.



Pay-per-view, 2008/2011, (as imagined on the Pack Tavern building).
coin-operated light installation (interactive prototype).
Dimensions variable.

Pay-per-view is not a new idea in itself, but in this case it operates a bit differently in three areas.

• One person will pay for and instigate a few minutes of projection time, for communal rather than purely personal benefit.
  
• Each purchase of 4 minutes allows the consumer to contribute to the experience by choosing and arranging objects within their own projected image. Consumption does not need to be passive.
  
• And the resulting artwork could be seen as a series of contemporary fine art products conceived and designed by an artist... but produced cheaply in the public sphere by a hired operator and some of the consumers themselves. Facilitated by generated power, just as a factory would be.
  

I won't be there (my exhibition opens at the McColl in Charlotte that night by odd coincidence) which fits in with the concept. Industrial ideology assumes "unskilled" workers will make the product according to instructions and pre-determined procedure.















This is a rough suggestion of what the end of the park will look like with my own installation on the Pack Tavern (right) and Gene Felice's laser tagging and interactive display on the City Council building (left). ( Note : This may not be at all what Gene's piece looks like, I just roughed it out quickly from remembered Graffiti Research Lab Youtube clips). It shows the general idea of scale at least. Also on show (not visible here) will be a screening of Juried entries to the photography competition, as well as a troupe of fire eaters and a local band.

The city committee apparently was reluctant to include any mention of the word tagging when approving Gene's piece ... so it was changed to laser "writing" - this keeps the taggers happy but obviously is not yet part of the committee's graffiti vocabulary.

Still to test locations and equipment to work out any issues before the night itself. Power will be courtesy of the City of Asheville and/or the mobile Art Lab vehicle with generator operated by the city's Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts Department.


Downtown Asheville - shown here with imaginary projections on the Asheville Art Museum, and the Legal building. Interesting for another time maybe... Hatch looks like being more lively at the other end of Pack Place.