Category: Art news

Amidst all the wonderful, creative swirl of Flipside, the Island is set back a few paces from the chaos.  

Just over a bridge, on the way to one of the most well-used beaches, this year the Island is being set up to exhibit some of our citizens smaller and mid-sized art. Power and lighting will make this a night time destination, as well as a chill spot to spent time during the day. So…

                      The Island Wants Your Art!!! 

Do you have some small to mid-sized art you’d like to share with your fellow Flipizens? Requirements are minimal: it needs to be somewhat weather resistant, and fit under a tree canopy of roughly 10′. If it is Really small, we will work to find a way to secure it to one of the display stands (read “stumps of various sizes and heights”) we have on site. If you have a piece, or pieces, of art you would be willing to share with Flipside, please contact JadeRumour, Island Lead, at islandhost17@burningflipside.com  We have some wonderful submissions already headed that way, but could use 5 to 8 more, depending on size. 

Whatchagot?! 

Burning Art: Flipside 2017

Hello, and welcome to the inaugural edition of Ste. Michelle Judges Your Art.  In this series, Ste. Michelle plans to judge your art by assessing its ability to burn and how spectacular it will be to witness its burning destruction.  A necessary caveat:  Don’t Burn Other People’s Art, no matter how cool I make it sound.  

I’ve got a lot of art to judge before Flipside, and I may need to postpone some of it to after the event, but I literally just thought of this idea, so that’s my own fault for not thinking of it sooner.

Community Masterpiece

A blank canvas for the community to create a masterpiece (or just paint and have fun).

The artist for this art describes it as “A 5X8 blank canvas(es) with paint supplies open to the community to express themselves day or night.”   This one is interesting, as it doesn’t provide enough detail of the materials to properly assess it.  So I’ll guess.  According to Google, canvases are typically cotton or linen stretched across a wooden frame.  Although, at this size, that would be pretty costly, so there’s a good chance this is not a stretched canvas.  This is where I have to split into two factions: Team Paper and Team Canvas.

Team Paper

Team paper means the canvas will be some sort of large paper canvas, like we used in grade school for our water colors.  This version is super simple to light on fire, a single match, a lighter or even a lit cigarette could ignite a paper canvas.  No amount of paint will make a difference, even soaking wet, paper will ignite.  Any structure that is supporting the paper will be harder; a wooden frame probably won’t ignite if just the paper is lit.  But with a little kindling or sustained exposure to a fire source, a wood frame will ignite, relatively easily.

The fire would be fast, the paper would light and burn up completely in a minute if it’s lit in the middle.  The first few seconds would be fun to watch the flame spread, but fairly quickly it would be over, except for the embers which would be light and float off.  A night time burn would allow them to appear pretty as they float away.  The frame would be slower, but it would like flame up and collapse fairly quickly.  It may even get extinguished before it’s completely burned if the ground is wet.

Ease of Burn:  Very Very Easy

Quality of Burn: Short and kind of dull.

Team Canvas

Thick woven cotton and linen are much harder to catch fire than paper.  They will eventually burn when exposed to normal flame (like a lighter), but will burn slowly and without much excitement.  (I suppose if you put the canvas on top of an already lit fire (really hot) and it would be a little exciting if it got caught in an updraft and the flaming canvas flew out over a crowd, but you’d really have to work on that and it would require more infrastructure than is planned.)  The frame would be dried softwood, so it would burn fairly quickly (maybe faster than the canvas if it wasn’t wrapped in canvas to start with.)  A slow steady burn with a small collapse and minimal flames.

Ease of Burn: Very Easy

Quality of Burn:  Not long and kind of dull.

Regardless of its makeup, this art is probably more interesting not on fire.  

Freefall Simulation

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

The Freefall Simulation is a giant gyroscope with a VR headset and a bunch of fans that will make you feel like you are plummeting towards earth from very high up.  Which sounds pretty neat.  But I need to know:  Would it burn?  

Once again they didn’t list their components, but I’m going to guess that the gyroscope device is steel and/or stainless steel, the fan is one of those big ass metal fans, and the electronics are plastic, PVC or polyethylene coated copper or aluminum, silicon circuitry and steel cases.

When presented with flame, and it will take a lot of flame, the first to go up will be those tiny cables and the plastic VR frames.  If there’s any glass in there, I’d expect it to crack and fall under the flames pretty quickly.  After that comes the gyroscope.  If there are any lubricants to make it move smoothly, those will burn off fairly quickly (and smell awful), but the steel itself will take a lot more that your average flame thrower.  My research indicates that steel wool will ignite with just a lighter, and all of the other sites that discuss igniting steel involve 9/11 conspiracies, and I’m not getting put on that list anytime soon, so I’m just gonna make some wild assumptions based on my understanding of physics I learned by watching movies and studying medieval metallurgy (aka watching the history channel).

Steel is hard to ignite, but it can melt if you have gallows and plenty of combustible material to heat it.  So if you yanked the fans out of from under the gyroscope, replaced it with a bunch of hardwood lit that wood and the used the fans to force air into the fire, you could melt the whole thing in place.  Though you might need a way to encompass the heat of the fire.

Perhaps if you were to toss some thermite in there, that would speed things up a bit.

Ease of Burn: Very Very Hard

Quality of Burn: Initially interesting and smelly, overall a grueling dull process with little to show.  Unless you use thermite.  

It really seems like it would be more interesting to play in, and not light on fire.

Imagine you’re skipping merrily down a path at Flipside. It’s a lovely clear evening and you are making your way back to your camp to get ready for the night’s affairs, when suddenly, you see something off in the woods. It may be a mysterious light, a particular intriguing sound, a tall figure, or…giggling? You creep closer to the installation.  What is it? What was the artist thinking about? Is there a particular message? Also, who is the badass that built it?

Leading up to Flipside 2017, we’ll be having an Art Spotlight, focused on the art pieces that your community members will be bringing to the event.  This is a chance for you to get a preview of the pieces, to get excited about seeing them in person, and also to celebrate the person(s) who put their sweat and time and creative brain into making such a thing for our community to enjoy. Self-expression is one of the main arteries of our event. It’s time to focus on the art!

Art Spotlight #1 : The Ectoplasmic Stargon Rainbow Generator (ESRG)

-Is there anything you want the Flipside community to know or understand about your piece? 

 This year’s art is a spin on past years pieces.  ESRG starts with all the basic pieces including my favorites PVC, Bungee, ZipTies, Rope, 80lb test line, spray paint and did I mention PVC.  After breaking out more power this year for even more light, ESRG will illuminate the night and brighten the spirit in all of us.

-What inspired it?

Just being mesmerized by pretty lights and spinny things.  A fun theme this year adds a little more spice. 

-Any funny stories or challenges in the creation?

As with previous years this years art starts off in November in my back yard.  Being rather large it draws many lookers from the community.  I guess where I live in Marble Falls I’m getting to be known as an official nut job. 

I feel unbelievably honored to be able to exhibit this art piece to the many many people who make Flipside possible and the wonderful participants that make it real.  It is a great pleasure to be involved in a 1 week event that lasts literally the entire year.

Meet Sven

Sven and I have been together for over two years.  We’ve been to Flipside together twice and really enjoyed our time together there.  But.  Sven doesn’t camp with me.  Because, Sven is a car.  And cars camp in parking, not in the city.

Sven’s job is to get me there safely and while some other cars will get dressed up for the event, Sven is demure, and doesn’t like costumes.  Sven is no mutant vehicle.  So Sven spends the event with the other cars not dressed for the event, in parking.  He tells me that he has fun in parking, and enjoys the companionship of the other cars (Sven spends a lot of time at home alone with my junk in the garage).  

If there ever comes a time where I need Sven to camp in at Flipside, I know that he will appreciate being off the road, and covered.  Maybe even in something decorative.  Because, although Sven is shy and reserved, he knows that we are in this together and he will take one for Pyropolis and wear a costume, for me.  For us.

Because this city we build is not like other cities, where all the cars hangout in front of the houses.  This city is for people.  It’s for art.  It’s for the Flipiziens.  It’s for leaving the real world for something better.  There’s just not enough room for shy and reserved cars in our city, when we want to fill it with awesome.

Cars camp in Parking.  People camp in Pyropolis.  

-Ste. Michelle

(Need more info? Of course you do- go read your survival guide)