Projects
The Pow Wow Festival was held at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park; a 500 acre park and campground along the Suwannee River, in Live Oak, Florida. The park was amazing. It had everything you would need at a music festival plus an amazing natural environment to discover and enjoy. This was like going away to summer camp with your best friends and the bands you grew up with. 
OBJECTIVE:
The essential idea behind the installation is to provide an area for shade and gathering in the back of the main concert field during the day, and serve as visual stimulus at night. We want to bring something functional into the crowd, something that they can use for very practical purposes – like shade – and also bring some stage production techniques into the crowd to make the environment more immersive. The structures help to enhance that “fantasy world” vibe of a music festival. We wanted our project to help transform the festival environment into something that helped the theme and branding of the show. We took our inspiration from traditional native american architecture used by tribes of northern Florida as well as minimalist sculpture and architecture and new media art to create something unique for the pow wow.
THE SITE:
The installation needed to be close enough into the crowd that people are going to want to sit under them and listen to music during the day, but not so far in as they will disrupt viewing or obstruct crowd movement near the main stage. We set up around a drainage vent/utility area. This area was fenced off and was sort of a dead spot in the back of the field. I was happy that we were able to turn this area from a dead spot to an active and exciting part of the festival. We were able to get power from this area easily and it provided a secure place to set up the projectors. We were able to keep all of the power and video lines within this fenced in area, minimizing crowd impact. Crowd impact is very important. The more you start running wires across a field and the more exposed your equipment is the more issues you are likely to have. We have to be as low impact as possible. Whatever we build, it has to be built under certain limitations. The entire installation needs to fit into a reasonable vehicle. We have to be able to assemble it by hand on site, quickly and easily with only hand tools, and we need to be able to break it down just as easily. It has to be able to flow in the wind yet be stable enough to maintain its structural integrity at all times.
DESIGN PROCESS:
Our original design involved using a lot of piping and some complicated angles. We needed to change it so that we could use pvc pipe and connectors readily available at any lowes or home depot. As with any of my projects, what I start with and what I end up with are often very different things. The important thing is to trust in your instincts and know that you will eventually reach the solution. What happens along the way is the fun part. If you are truly making art, then you know that you are not smart enough to realize your solution before you start the process. The process is how you find the solution that you were not yet smart enough to anticipate. The project I built at Camp Bisco in 2010 (with my lovely and brilliant girlfriend, Reed) taught me things I could have never arrived at without going through the harrowing process of putting that project together. And we applied what we learned from that project to this project.. and what we learned from this onto the next. Each time raising the stakes and pushing on to uncharted territory. Each time we are more prepared, but each time we push it further.
CONSTRUCTION:
Robie Wood, my brother and architect, lent his immense talent and knowledge to our project and designed the main structural component of the 3 main tee pees. With some elegant geometry and over the counter connectors, we had a stable and low impact base for the structures. Using Reed’s ideas about creating the structure out of rope and fabric combined with Chalmers Hood’s experience as a production manager and theater set designer, we figured out the rest through experimentation. It became apparent to us that using single sheets of fabric for each tee pee would be much easier and it would look much cleaner than cutting sections of fabric and attaching them to the pvc directly, which was our initial idea. So we cut 3 square pieces of fabric, around 126″ each. We drilled holes through the top section of pipe. We tied one corner of the fabric to the middle of the pipe. Out of the sides of the pipe we ran two ropes down to the ground to stakes. In total we had 5 lines coming down from the top of the pipe, 2 from each side of the pipe and one down the middle. The fabric was then attached down the sides of the two front lines using plastic zip ties, and at the base of the other two lines. This made the install and take down of the fabric very easy. All we had to do was take the lines off the stakes and pull out the top section of pipe and roll it all up. To reinstall – unroll the fabric – stick the pipe in and tie down the lines. Very easy and low impact. Having that flexibility in terms of dealing with the elements must be considered when designing a festival installation.
The side structures were made with prefab stretch shapes tied to leaning sections of pvc and to the ground. Again, we utilized the fabric to create the majority of the structure. These were nice and open and provided a great spot to sit under and get out of the sun.
THE SHOW:
At night the visuals looked great on the cambio fabric. The were bright and showed through nicely on the front side as well as the back. The shape of the fabric mixed with the industrial look of the pipe gave them this great alien tee pee feel which was perfect for the vibe of the festival. A lot of people were taking pictures of them and taking pictures in front of them. Again, we had a lot people asking what they were for which is a question that I love hearing. When someone sees something and they don’t know what it is or what it is for, you are already opening up their thinking. We give them something to question and throughout the weekend the purpose is revealed to them. And again people naturally gravitated towards the tee pees and sat under and around them. We heard that they were being used a meet up location for a lot of people. Again, we had one person write on the fabric – something to consider for the next project – make a part of it writeable… All in all it was very well received. Some people laid on the ground staring up at the fabric – some took pictures and acted like it was a big hang-glider. . I sat up close for a while also. It was really cool to watch the projector pixels up close. The overall imaged faded into a series of circle patterns and it became this wonderful dance of pure color and temperature. I liked that the up close experience of the structure was different from the broad view.
On the first night I mixed visuals during Soja and Deftones. Soja’s visuals had a more laid back earthy vibe, and I went static grunge and bizarre for Deftones. The next two nights the visuals were for 311. It really didn’t get dark enough to see the visuals until around 8:30-8:45, so we had them going at the end of Sublime and for 30 minutes or so of G Love.
I know 311′s music. I grew up following them in high school. So I was very excited to get to work with them. Without a setlist in hand, I could only try and prepare a variety of visuals to fit whatever was thrown at me. In the end it is all improv anyway. I cut up some of their videos and since they announced that they were playing their album, Transistor, in its entirety, then I knew what to expect from that set and was able to prepare a little more. The sets flowed nicely and the crowd was very receptive to the installation. The only negative comments were from people who wished the visuals were closer to the stage so they could see both the band and the visuals at the same time. This is tough balance to achieve because we want to be a part of the show, but we don’t want to compete with the bands stage production, and we don’t want to obstruct the crowd if we can help it. I am definitely considering how we can find a better medium next time out.
The crowd at the festival was great and treated everything with respect. We didn’t have any incidents of any kind. Big thanks to the 311 management, Adam and Peter Raspler, as well as the 311 production staff, especially Daniel Choi. They helped us along the design process and helped coordinate a lot of things before the show and they helped us out and made sure everything was good with us on site. Very down to earth and easy going guys, professional and unpretentious. It was a pleasure to work with them. Big thanks also to 311, Live Nation and all the staff at the park that was so helpful in helping us achieve our project. Special thanks to Sonny Perez, who by the whim of the great magnet, ended up being instrumental in helping us pull off both the Camp Bisco installation and the Pow Wow install. It also didn’t hurt our image to have someone there who had heard of us. Huge thanks to all the fans who treated the installation with respect and made the festival such a joy to be a part of. It is watching you guys have fun with what we contributed to the festival that makes all the effort worth it. We just hope we helped make the festival a little more special for all of you.
Camp Bisco Installation – Genres Demolished
There has been a lot of discussion regarding whether live visuals are art. Most people liken it to an extension of stage production – and in the vast majority of cases it never goes beyond that. …Cool shit to look at besides the lights – maybe some content specific imagery mixed in for specific songs – but something relegated to the stage and off limits to the crowd. I don’t consider the video itself art. Not the way I am doing it. I am looking for funky cool looking visuals that vibe with the music – I am not trying to make any statement or propose any ideas through the visuals.
I think this project achieved the level of what I would call Art. The idea was to create an installation that was made out of a series of white structures projected on from all sides. Now, I have seen this approach before. Maybe not in the 360 sense, but certainly white columns projected on. The projects that I have seen were for the intention of projection mapping. I just like cutting up the screen surface. Playing at small clubs in NYC, where the projection covered the whole band, gave me the idea to project onto a variety of surfaces. I noticed how some video would seem to move from the front of the stage to the back of the stage. The projections looked almost 3d. I started thinking about placing white objects in and around the stage to capture more of this.
I made a model of my idea and projected on it from both sides. I did some projection mapping – but very minor stuff. Mostly just played with the space and how the video interacted with the structures spatially. My proposal was accepted and I began planning for the installation.
I should have done a little more in the way of planning the building of the structures as it took me and my girlfriend 10 hours to install it. Luckily I had spent a small fortune at Lowes on all sorts of things to make it come together. This is a common thread of all my work – improvisation. We started with one idea, and ended up with another, better, idea of how to build and wrap the structures.
Art is not something you usually find at a music festival. There are always attempts at something that is supposed to be art – but they almost always end up in the graffiti/outsider-doodle art genre. Live Painting – that kind of thing. I believe we achieved what was a serious art installation. Not groundbreaking in design – but I believe how the sculpture was used made it a significant project.
As soon as the structures went up people started asking what they were for. I don’t think a single person thought of them as minimalist sculpture. The exact same project in a city setting or in an art gallery – and no one would ask the question of function. They would fit right in with thousands of other public art and sculpture projects that look like them – big monochrome cubes and rectangles. In the context of a music festival – their presence seemed very alien.
It worked as a sculpture. I am art school trained, and I know about how a sculpture is supposed to change the space it inhabits and how important the visual is as you move around the piece and experience it through time. I really didn’t spend much time working on this aspect of the idea, but once it was set, it did work as you moved around it. The planes interacted with each other nicely.
During the first day of the festival we had a lot of people trying to use them in some way. A lot of people lifted them up and climbed right inside of them and used them as a shelter (we had to kick them out continuously – they were not designed for interior access, so when people got in them, they had to pull up the ends or tear the fabric away from the piping.) Even more people used them for shade. They were positioned towards the middle-back of the concert field, so people could sit in the shade of the structures and watch and hear the music. Some people leaned on them – as the night set in the uses got more and more depraved.
When the sun was setting, the structures started to catch a lot of shadows. People were constantly flowing towards and away from the stage, and their shadows were all caught on the structures as they walked by. When it was fully dark, the projections lit them up nicely. On the first night I went colorful disco funk with the visuals to match the music that LCD Soundsystem was performing on stage. The sculpture was positioned in an area that served as a sort of entrance way to the concert crowd. People walking down from their camp sites towards the stage on the right walked right through the middle of the sculpture and sort of threw their hands in the air like “I have arrived!” It seemed to mark the night as “officially started” for a lot of people that passed through it.
A lot of people danced in and around the installation. They liked to play with their shadows as they immersed themselves physically in the projection. Some people used their green laser pointers to add themselves into the mix. Some people sat and watched for a while – some people came up to me asking what I was doing, what software I was using, how it works etc. This is also when they started to be used for the purpose of privacy. Privacy for urination and, at some point during the night, sex (judging by evidence left behind). My truck was also being used as a pee shield. (Note to festival organizers: go dutch style and place those urinals right in the crowd.) One shithead decided that they were supposed to be used as a graffiti wall. This genius wrote “MAJO (next line) R-LRZ” on it in awful bubble letters apparently playing tribute to the DJ Major Lazer that just finished performing. Luckily it did not affect the projections and it didn’t serve as an invitation for other people to vandalize the sculpture.
The next day I found the main tower laying on the ground with people sitting inside of it. I am not sure if the wind knocked it over or if it was pushed over but we decided it was best to stake them down a little better. On Day two people continued to use them as shade shelters. A small commune sprouted up around it as people pulled up cots, air mattresses and blankets to lay in the shade and listen to music. Some just laid on the ground – kind of gross considering all of the urinating that was done around them. We had to battle with some people who tore the fabric and got inside of them. And by “we” I mean my girlfriend Reed who was monumental in helping realize and maintain the project. She yelled at these people for me. I did not consider that so many people would want to get inside of them or I would have made them accessible.
This night I performed visuals during both disco biscuits sets and it looked really really cool. The video playing with the 3d projection surface really worked well. It was like some mix of video cubism and op art. The projections showed up nicely on the ground too so you could trace the graphics from the ground to the structures and watch them fold across multiple surfaces – up down around and back again.
Just as it was getting dark on the final night a wicked storm rolled in. Everyone was told to go back to their cars for shelter because of lightning and tornado warnings. We stuck it out in the field right by the installation with really nowhere to go. My girlfriend and I along with some friends and some friendly strangers weathered the violent downpour and lightning storm together under a small tent. I had never been exposed in the middle of a field in a storm like that. It was pretty scary at times. The great thing about it was the fact they every time lightning would strike, the sculpture would get lit up. So it started to function as a kind of land art project. Lightning projection screens. If you looked out at the field you would see darkness, then BAM, lightning would strike near by and they would be lit up bright white.
During this time we were talking about the sculpture a bit and someone mentioned that they liked the contrast between these pristine white structures and the dirty grungy festival that surrounded them. I hadn’t thought of this. As a music festival goes on, the site gets worse and worse. More garbage – the bathrooms get worse and worse and the people get grungier and grungier as they are not showering. I really liked this idea of the pristine whiteness of them becoming more and more evident as everything else got dirtier and uglier. This paralleled the start of the minimalist movement. It was a reaction against the messy abstract expressionism of the time.
The storm really gave the sculpture a test in its structural design. The wind was blowing up hill very hard. The main tower started to lean up hill. The shape changed with the wind. At first it was standing more or less straight up – but leaning down hill with the slope of the land. The wind reshaped it and made the structure lean up hill – which was the opposite of what you would expect given the topography of the site. By the end of it, I would say it was leaning a good 30 degrees up hill giving it a very funky-mighty mouse skyscraper- look.
So what started as an innocent enough projection project turned into an exciting mix of minimalist sculpture, public art, land art and performance visuals – not to mention the very practical uses as restroom and shade farm. I learned a lot from this experience. I learned a lot about construction, about how people interact with objects placed in their environment and about the function of art in people’s lives. High art is largely lost on a music festival crowd. An Art Gallery tent curated by art world elite would mean very little. Placing objects in a field and sort of inviting people to react to them worked.
I was very happy with how the project left the area of my intention and became something that I did not plan for. It brought high art to a music festival in a real way and I think serious site specific-temporary sculpture will become a significant part of festivals to come. Music festivals are getting more popular and more and more money is being put into them and made from them. I believe projects like this can bring real art to a music festival in a way that is appropriate and functional within the environment.