Adan De La Garza’s April BYOB at Chestnut Studios

I’m seeking video artists for a projected video art show at Track One (beside Ovvio Arte) for the September ArtsMusic @ Wedgewood/Houston, Saturday September 7th. The new monthly Wedgewood-Houston art crawl had its inaugural show the first Saturday in August. Last month I teamed up with Mike Kluge to curate an electronic art exhibition at SNAP Center. In addition to Track One, the September crawl will also feature Zeitgeist Gallery, Fort Houston, Ovvio Arte, Cleft Music, Infinity Cat Records and more.

Track One is letting me set up a pop-up show in their HUGE warehouse space, and I figured, “What better way to fill the space than beamed light?” I decided to host a Bring Your Own Beamer show after being inspired by Watkins professor Adan De La Garza’s BYOB at Chestnut Studios in April.  And no, we’re not talking about BMWs. In Europe, projectors are sometimes called “beamers.”

What is BYOB? From the official website:

BYOB is a series of one-night-exhibitions curated by different people around the world. The idea is simple: Find a place, invite many artists, ask them to bring their projectors.

BYOB is a way of making a huge show with zero budget. It is also an exploration of the medium of projection.

Who created BYOB?

BYOB is an idea by Rafaël Rozendaal. The first edition of BYOB was initiated by Anne de Vries & Rafael Rozendaal in Berlin.

For the Track One BYOB, I’m hoping to fill an entire corner of the room with light. We’re looking for video artists with vivid, eye-catching work who can provide their own projector and playback medium. The art needs to work without a soundtrack as we’ll be featuring a separate selection of sound art through a PA system. Your art can be digital video, 8mm or 16mm film, slides through a slide projector, live manipulations via overhead projectors, magic lantern art, projected shadow art, reflected light art, laser art, and whatever you can imagine, as long as it’s the medium of thrown light. We can project on walls, floors and ceilings. We can hang white fabric from the rafters and back project. We can tie a projector from a rope and swing it. Anything is possible, and I’d love your input. The idea is that people will open the door into the warehouse and be transported into an alien world of moving light.

I took a few pictures of the space, included here. Much of the storage materials in the room will be moved out of the way. Notice that arched ceiling with the white cloud insulation? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

The event will happen Saturday, September 7th from 8pm to 11pm. If you participate, you must arrive by 3pm at the latest to set up your projector. You must not break down your equipment until after 11pm. You provide your projector, adapters, video source and short extension code.

If you’re interested in participating, write to me at tony@theatreintangible.com.

Thanks to Track One’s Boyer Barner and Fort Houston‘s Ryan Schemmel for putting this thing together. Big thanks to Rafaël Rozendaal for the BYOB concept and to Adan De La Garza for hosting the first Nashville BYOB and giving me his blessing to set up this one.