Processor giant Intel and Vice, the growing media empire behind Vice Magazine and VBS.tv, launched The Creators Project in New York on Monday to showcase creative talents discovered or championed by Vice.
The core idea sprang from a dinner conversation between Vice’s Shane Smith and (excellent) film and video director Spike Jonze. Jonze asked Smith what he would do if he could do anything he wanted, with no financial constraints. Smith said his dream was to launch something along the lines of 1920s salons in Paris, where writers, artists, musicians and playwrights gathered to exchange ideas, resulting in a rich cultural cross-pollination.
With Intel answering most of the “no financial constraints” part of the equation, Smith’s dream is now a reality. The Intel Creators Project event series, featuring “curated artworks and installations, screenings, a panel discussion and dozens of performances by creators from all over the world,” followed by massive music parties at night, will take place in New York (the launch, June 26), London (July 17), Sao Paolo (Aug. 14), Seoul (Aug. 28) and Beijing (the finale, Sept. 17 to 19). In addition to the events, The Creators Project includes a website and will add print, television and mobile aspects later.
What do Intel and Vice have to gain by assembling these creators and launching this project? When people use computers to create, as opposed to simply consume, Intel wins. Digital creation generally requires fast, non-Apple processors.
Vice, for its part, hopes to solidify its stature as a major cultural force, having evolved from a snarky magazine for hipsters into a worldwide media empire with its own video network, thanks in part to inexpensive technologies.
“When we were looking at creativity and creation [as part of a series of meetings with Intel over the past couple of years],” said Smith, “Vice started when, basically, idiots were allowed to publish. Desktop publishing and technology allowed us to start our own magazine, and then when we started VBS, cheap editing equipment, cheap cameras and cheap, usable software allowed us to make a network online. Technology has always been at the heart of what we do, and that’s why Intel is such a perfect partner. Then, we found all these creators around the world.”
Once you look past the impressive lineup of creators who are involved with this — including Phoenix, UNKLE, Stefan Sagmeister, Mira Calix, Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, NASA, Sleigh Bells, Mark Ronson, Gang Gang Dance, Interpol and “the next generation of innovators working in indie film, futuristic architecture, avant-garde electronica and fashion” including Brazil’s Muti Randolph, China’s Peng Lei, Britain’s United Visual Artists and the United States’ Radical Friend — the Creators Project might end up as yet another music-technology-culture festival, this time sponsored by Intel and curated by Vice, with the creators on one side and the audience on the other — just like at other festivals.
That said, Smith says he expects to be inundated with people wanting to get involved and that he aims to accept some of them into the project, so this could become a new, dynamic cultural center both online and off. And there is potential for artists who work with different types of media to interact in new ways, if only to help bands find someone to direct their next videos.
“The outcome of this should be to encourage people to start collaborating,” said Alan Palomo, lead singer of Neon Indian (updated), who was on stage to help announce The Creators Project. “I’ve always seen this weird segregation, even in college, where the film kids don’t talk to the music kids — it’s like the awkward eighth grade dance thing. This can hopefully bridge some of those gaps.”
Guitarist, DJ and producer Mark Ronson, also part of the announcement, agreed that technology has become part of the creative process. “I see firsthand how technology absolutely makes everything that we do possible, whether you’re a kid in a basement in Iowa making a thing that you’re going to upload to your blog site that I’m then going to rip off of Hype Machine’s streaming site and then play on my radio show that night or in a club using Serrato [DJ software with a simulated vinyl interface] — whatever it is, technology just is the way we live.”
Vice knows what it’s doing culturally, and Intel appears ready to commit serious funding to this effort. Intel vice president and chief marketing officer Deborah Conrad said that if it’s a success, the company sees it running years into the future.
If The Creators Project succeeds, it will become a welcome, major creative force for digital technologies, all the more refreshing when other digital developments such as the Apple iPad are designed for consumption. But if it fails, the haters will surely be on hand to cry “sellouts!”
