A mob of people decorate a car - genius or scary?

May 6, 2015 7:40 AM

We're hosting a Maker Fair later this summer. This is my first crack at organizing such an event, so everything is new, exciting, and freaking me out. Our theme is "City of Makers", and we'd like to include a collaborative installation that builds into a big piece of art over the course of the day. In this way, people will see that it's not hard to be part of making something awesome. Key to this is that the end result is awesome, and not a giant pile of crap (unless that too is awesome).

Our first idea is to bring in an old car and turn it into an art car. We would have paints, sticker sheets, garland, and whatever other junk we can get. We would also invite visitors to bring their favourite "X" from home - toys, or memorabilia or whatever, and have them stick it on the car with mack-tack. Finally, we'll try to solder up some neopixels for lighting effects. When the whole show is done, we'd like to parade the car around the grounds.

So, esteemed mefites: Does this sound awesome, or a disaster / disappointment in waiting? How can we direct the work to make the best of it? Should we try to keep the decoration to a theme, or pre-plan some of the additions? Is the car a good idea to decorate, or should we stick to something less mobile like a wooden framework. Any ideas, advice, or experience is welcome.

posted by Popular Ethics to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

What is going to happen to the car after the event?
posted by kellyblah at 7:59 AM on May 6, 2015

I had a friend who liked to have friends build on his art anytime he came over. When I was there for a halloween party, it was a giant white canvas and everyone was tracing body parts with marker. It was engaging, and in the end it was going on his wall (giant loft converted warehouse walls) so it had a purpose. To me, that's the best kind of collaborative art.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:02 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

What are you hoping to end up with? Because I'm pretty sure it is going to be a giant pile of crap but also awesome.

Keep in mind that it is going to be a lot of kids decorating so scribbles and things around their height are going to dominate. This isn't going to be a collaborative art project among artistic minded adults, this is going to be the actual community sticking crap on a car.

Again, I think this is great idea though, I'm all for it.
posted by magnetsphere at 8:30 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm picturing something like the Kensington Car in Toronto.

The way to prevent a giant pile of crap: Don't have people draw or paint on the car. Have people epoxy things to the car. So have buckets full of beads and sequins and small pieces of dollar store crap. Invite people to bring small objects from home. Then they can glue them on...say someone might glue on beads to draw a little flower or whatever. Kids can do it and it won't look like scribbles, even if it is just randomly placed beads. Inspired by those cars you see with plastic insects glued all over them. Here's something similar.

And yeah, you need to display the car somewhere afterwards. Does the local maker space have a front lawn?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:41 AM on May 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: We haven't planned what to do with the car afterwards. One possibility is that it will be entered into a demolition derby, which would be fun :)
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Remember that a limited palette is one of the best ways to encourage creativity.

If you decide to have beads, choose two or three colors, not twenty. If you decide to use paint, choose analogous colors. The chaos of a collaboration will be somewhat mediated by a chosen scheme.
posted by General Tonic at 9:17 AM on May 6, 2015 [6 favorites]

If you want something that will look more cohesive, consider having a single craft that everyone can make one of, and then have an actual artist put them on the car in an interesting design.
posted by MsMolly at 9:32 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oooh, I wish I could do this. But I'd probably make sure you can do something with it afterwards. Maybe ask some Burning Man folks if they'd like it?
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:15 AM on May 6, 2015

If you do an art car, consider limiting the materials available. Maybe metals, including all manner of mesh, wire, cans, cookware, or beads, and ask people to bring beads, or plastic, which could be kind of cool.
posted by theora55 at 10:31 AM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

If you want to display it afterwards (and I really think you should find a spot for it), then you should probably avoid metal and wire. They will scratch the car's original paint and it will rust over time.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:46 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

I really like this collaborative art piece for a 6 ABC Morning Team Commercial (make sure you watch at least to the "reveal"). You could come up with your own Maker Fair wording/logo/design, do it on a canvas, and use it as a banner decoration every year. It will be a cool-laborative reminder of your first Maker Fair and something you can keep and use for years to come. Whatever you decide, good luck.
posted by NoraCharles at 1:18 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

The "limited palette" comments gave me an idea -- here in Philly, there's an artist (Isaiah Zagar) who creates murals out of glass, beads, mirrors, found items, etc. I've seen a couple of his designs in progress, and the way he does it (now) is outline the final mural, write in what color item to place, and then other people can fill it in with that color object. The education center I'm volunteering at has these designs up around the window frames, and a group of kids comes and works on it, and slowly they're piecing together a flower-mosaic window frame that is really cool, really collaborative, and super easy for anyone. You could do this with the car -- get an artist/artsy person to conceptualize the final "mural," sketch it and label what color to use, provide a bunch of beads/other small items in those colors AND ask people to bring "small items of various colors," and then the collaborative bit would be everyone gluing on the items in those colors. It would end up looking really cool and cohesive! Here's an example of this idea in progress (although here they're doing black for the writing and "anything goes" for filler space).
posted by DoubleLune at 4:08 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you intend on entering it in a demolition derby, I'd limit your decorating to paint. I can't imagine other competitors being too thrilled to run over bits of debris knocked off your car, potentially flattening their tires. Additionally, there are likely rules in place to prevent you from entering a car with add-ons.
posted by sardonyx at 7:03 PM on May 6, 2015

Response by poster: So, as it turns out, the answer is genius! The idea went through a couple of iterations though:

- We scrapped the idea of glued on trinkets for cost reasons mostly. We also scrapped the idea of using paints because we were worried kids would get paint all over themselves
- Turns out flat black tremclad (rustoleum) turns a car into a great chalkboard. We were able to put a couple of jars of street chalk nearby and let our visitors have fun with it on their own
- We were going to take the idea in this thread to have an artist "pre-mark" a design over the black paint. Unfortunately we ran out of time. Maybe next year.
- The car we got wasn't mobile, so no parade unfortunately. It would have been hard to drive anyway with the blacked out windows :)

The result was a really popular and photogenic activity. Thanks everyone for the input!
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:09 AM on June 22, 2015