The Creators Project, a diverse multimedia exhibition curated by
Intel and
Vice Magazine, landed in London at Victoria House this weekend for the second of five scheduled stops in major cities around the world. Featuring a vast array of artists who push the boundaries of thought and technology to produce their works, the event was an eye-opening experience. The curators hope to expand the reach of the event to more cities next year after taking in New York, London, São Paulo, Seoul and Beijing in 2010.
At the press conference on Friday night, John Galvin from Intel and Vice co-founder Shane Smith discussed how the partnership and project came together with the aim to get people to think about technology, and its application, in different ways. Also on the panel were
Mark Ronson, a long-time proponent of musical collaboration, and
Trevor Jackson, who arguably changed the aesthetic of record sleeve art through his label Output Recordings.
Many of the exhibits on show had some foundation in commercially available devices, and hacking them to produce something new. Prime examples of this are
Mark Essen and
Paul B. Davis who take Atari's and Nintendo's 8-bit consoles to create new DIY games and chip-tune music. Essen's
Jetpack Basketball game looked impossible to control but was great fun to watch, and when players finally managed to score points they were rewarded with spectacular pixellated explosions of colour.
Patrick Jean's excellent film
Pixels also celebrates the retro style of the 8-bit era with cameos from
Donkey Kong and
Pac-Man running amok in New York.
The screening of
I'm Here,
Spike Jonze's robot love story, was followed by rapturous applause in the auditorium. The film was produced in association with
Absolut Vodka, and looked beautiful on the big screen.
Ladj Ly's
Go Fast Connexion, a gritty documentary which follows a drug gang in the projects outside Paris was also well received.
United Visual Artists' installation
Triptych was a personal highlight. Three monolithic LED structures stood a few paces apart, reacting to human proximity and emitting a loud, unsettling hum from hidden speakers. After a few minutes the lights would turn red and flash, while the hum grew louder and more violent, almost like the
Master Control Program from
Tron.
Music was a strong influence on the event, from the entrance area placement of
Felix Thorn's instrumental sculpture
Felix's Machines, to the final performances of the night from
Tinchy Stryder in the ballroom and Trevor Jackson DJing in the auditorium. The
Pop Song Panel resulted in the creation of a party jam by
Mumdance,
Jammer and C-Gritz,
Sampha, Rodaidh McDonald and a few audience members, and it was exciting to watch them collaborate on the brink of anarchy. Compere
Eddy Moretti entertained the crowd during the moments when the panel had to concentrate hardest on the job at hand. The finished track should be available online soon on The Creators Project website, along with the track produced by the
NYC event panel of Mark Ronson, Alex Greenwald,
N.A.S.A.,
Alan Palomo (Neon Indian, VEGA), and Donnis.
Later, the ballroom started to fill up in anticipation of the post-Lovebox live set by Mark Ronson and The Business Intl. The new band he has assembled includes Alex Greenwald (who previously sang on
Just),
Rose Elinor Dougall (formerly of
The Pipettes) and
MNDR (Amanda Warner).
Spank Rock joined the band on stage, having guested on Ronson's new album
Record Collection, and told me that he was touring with them to "fill in the gaps" on tracks such as
Bang Bang Bang when we had a brief chat on the way out. It was great to get a preview of the new material, with Ronson singing lead vocals for the first time on
Lose It (In The End) and Rose Elinor Dougall fronting
Hey Boy with her usual sass and a little help from Spank Rock. Singles from Ronson's last album
Version,
Just and
Valerie, were big hits with the crowd.
Kyle Falconer of The View took the lead on
Valerie as he did previously during
BBC Electric Proms in 2007.
There was so much going on that it was impossible to see everything, so unfortunately I missed
Peaches DJing with her broken, plastered leg perched on the decks,
Filthy Dukes, Mumdance and
Kele live. The free bar was definitely popular, courtesy of Bacardi, Becks and Red Bull. After the successes of the New York and London events I am very interested to see what comes out of the next shows, especially the Pop Panel workshops.
