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Art Hack Day coming to Capitol Hill, fostering collaboration between artists and hackers

Artists and hackers will take over 11th Ave’s V2 space later this month to spend 48 hours creating pieces that marry art and technology.

The collaborative project, Art Hack Day, which has been held in cities around the world, provides the participants with a space and equipment. “It’s a great environment for artists and engineers to collaborate closely on projects,” Julia Fryett, an organizer for the Seattle event, told CHS. The time constraint and theme can lead to exciting and unexpected creations, she said.

In Seattle, organizers settled on the theme “Erasure,” which the 30 to 40 artists and hackers mostly from Seattle and Portland will create pieces around.

“We watch as cities, people, and landscapes simultaneously become visible and invisible, pixel by pixel, cell by cell. What stays? What goes? Who decides? Is anything ever truly erased? In an era of infinite possible storage, we are only now beginning to understand what erasure really means,” the event website describes the theme.

Fryett said the group of Seattle organizers including Joshua Noble, Matt Schoenholz, Quin Kennedy, Troy Wolfe, and Yasaman Sheri, also looked for a space to hold the event that followed the theme. V2 lives in the home of the old Capitol Hill Value Village but operator Velocity Dance doesn’t expect to continue in the space much into 2017 before a development project begins, fitting into the theme of “Erasure” with its temporary status.

After 48 hours of work in the space, at 7 PM on Saturday, September 17th, the exhibition will be open to the public. A $5 donation is suggested.

While what the artists and hackers will create will happen on the fly during the Art Hack, Fryett said the large scale media exhibit could feature some performances or live events, projections, interactive pieces, and video or audio projects.

Many of the pieces are expected to be demos or first iterations of future projects. “Art Hack Day really illuminates the production of the work… It’s also a way for artists to test ideas,” Fryett said.

The organizers with the Seattle event have been working with one San Francisco-based co-organizer of Art Hack Day Olof Mathe to bring the event to Capitol Hill. Along with providing the space, the organizers will bring in food and some equipment such as projectors, media players, tablets and cords. Some artists are bringing their own equipment as well.

Most of the about $5,000 the organizers received from corporate sponsors Teague design firm and Microsoft are paying for the space and food. People who want to attend the Art Hack Day in Seattle can RSVP at arthackday.net/events/erasure.

The event is also serving as a kick-off to the Black Box Festival, which explores how technology transforms art, culture and life. Fryett founded the festival in 2014.

Black Box 3.0 will run from September 17th to October 2nd and feature screenings premiering new work at the Seattle Art Museum, pop-up media installations, and community meet-ups exploring digital innovations.

A detailed Black Box 3.0 program can be found at aktionsart.org/black-box/

Correction: Due to an editing error, we erroneously reported that a previous Art Hack Day had taken place in Seattle in 2015. That event took place in Brooklyn. Sorry for the mistake.

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