Patrick Burns headed out to survey the scene at the inaugural Creators Project event, a daytime warehouse party jam-packed with video, art, and live music from the likes of Graffiti Research Lab, Radical Friend, the xx, Takeshi Murata, Spike Jonze, and more. Here, he reports back on what he found.

The other weekend, I checked out the first ever “Creator’s Project,” a much-hyped daytime party in a Chelsea warehouse. From 2pm to 2am, the young, hip, and over-stimulated imbibed from open bars and took in three floors of video and art installations, and even live music! Attitude was on high, and the place was way overcrowded, but there’s little room for complaining with an open bar.

Takeshi Murata’s multicolored wall illustration was first installation guests encountered after walking into Milk Studios. The Chicago-born illustrator filled a corner with his characteristic Rorschach-like multicolored blobs of paint. It provided for a great picture background, if nothing else!

A highlight for me was Brazilian Muti Randolph’s Deep Screen, and installation of over 6,000 thousand lights hanging from the ceiling in a square.

Like most of the other pieces, the piece was interactive–upon entrance through a passageway in the rear, the lights would jump into a routine, bursting into dizzying patterns of colors. Sound effects, also triggered by movement but digitally altered, accompanied the movements.

Randolph makes light and sound installations for fashion shows and nightclubs around the world.

There were two screenings of Spike Jonze’s short, I’m Here. Based in a dystopian Los Angeles populated by humans and robots, the story is a take on an abusive relationship that eventually leads to death. Jonze’s 31-minute movie premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to much fanfare. Its subtle, haunting mix of sci-fi and deadpan realism was a great antidote to the overstimulation of the Creator’s Project.

UK buzz-band The xx had the most subdued of all the installations. Their "Sculpture of An Album" was simple in design – three pillars with video screens, one for each member of the band, which displayed them playing a song. Lights on the bottom of the pillars would rise and fall in intensity as the song progressed. But competing with the UVA exhibit next-door, it was nearly impossible to hear the song.

Another crew of Brits, the United Visual Artists, had a jarring sound and light installation called Triptych. The piece was three floor-to-ceiling video screens, in front of which people would stand and nearly go deaf and blind as light zapped and music pounded to each movement. UVA creates architectural installations, and have constructed tour visuals for Massive Attack, U2, UNKLE, and The Chemical Brothers.

New York’s own Graffiti Research Lab couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate surface to project their LED-based designs. During the band Interpol’s set the technologically minded graffiti artists made the audience turn away from the band to see these lovely, nonsensical scribbles.

After New York, The Creator’s Project will head to London, Sao Paolo, Seoul and Bejing this year.

Words and photos by Patrick Burns.

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