Why Are Artists Performing at Such Unusual Venues? By Isabel Cook

By Isabel Cook

Every Tuesday I take a piano lesson. Today, I arrived a bit early. I let my eyes wander, and I saw a quote on the wall “Art is how we decorate space, but music is how we decorate time.” I love this quote because it brings about a perspective that considers how different types of art take effect in different continuums. Just a few days before, I had a similar thought. In discussing an experimental movie that we had just watched, my friends and I came to the conclusion that art is not necessarily meant to be purely entertaining, but it is supposed to provide an experience. We also noted that watching a movie in a movie theatre often feels much more vicarious than watching it at home. Physical surroundings and auditory experiences can be interdependent. Many of my art professors have said that there is no wrong reaction to art. Art is effective by simply provoking a reaction.

The creation of experiences is all around us, at concerts, in art museums, at music festivals, the movie theater, etc. Recently I have seen the EDM scene explore this precedent in an interesting way. Ear, an electronic music duo, has been promoting a tour that is taking place in unusual settings. They have been performed at an active heliport, a historic armory building, a historic church, a church basement, a high school gym, and a 19th century industrial complex. There is a steep contrast between the energetic, synthetic music and the peaceful and historic nature of the locations that makes an experience like this so interesting. The concept of this tour supports their newest album Rumspringa, named after the Amish tradition where young adults step outside their traditional community to experience the world before choosing a life path. It is also notable that the spaces they choose to perform in reflect the local community more deeply than a commercial concert hall.

One of my friends, an EDM DJ and producer, has been experimenting with this as well. A couple of weeks ago, he performed a rave at a construction site inside the trunk of a Uhaul. One of the next raves he is starring in is planned to be in a secret tunnel in a nearby city, a passcode required to enter. There is something very immersive about combining visual and auditory art in order to create experiences. It seems intuitive to us as humans– we enjoy curated movie soundtracks, music videos, musicals, dance performances, etc. Sometimes it takes more than just music to elicit a specific feeling. An untraditional space allows people to let their guards down and interact with the music, dance, and step out of their comfort zones. This is one reason people tend to feel freer and have new experiences at music festivals.

Setting the scene is very important. The setting for a jazz performance is traditionally at a jazz club/bar, and the setting for dance music is traditionally at a night club– but I would argue that is important to take creative liberties and to be exploratory in how we deliver our art. There are so many ways to experience music, and artists are taking liberty over the experience that they want to produce. This can also be observed the other way around– many settings include music in order to make people feel more comfortable (nail salons, restaurants, stores, etc.) It is very interesting to see what settings artists choose as a complement to their art. It is almost as if our eyes and ears are symbiotic. We put babies to sleep with lullabies, we sing happy birthday, we sing in the car and the shower, we have curated a playlist for all kinds of settings– so why not explore the combination in the form of consumable experiences.