Empire Drive-In
Empire Drive-In is a full-scale theater made out of junked cars and a 40-foot screen constructed of salvaged wood. Audiences climb in and out of cars rescued from the junkyard to watch films projected on the big screen. Low-power radio transmits stereo audio directly to each car.
Empire Drive-In asks a series of questions about cars, car culture, and creative reuse, and then invites audiences to be a part of this conversation. The films and performances programmed reflect the themes of the overall project, and every element, from the glowing marquee to the personal items left in the salvaged cars, offers an opportunity to re-examine mass entertainment, easy nostalgia, and why we still want to experience the spectacle of cinema together.
Empire Drive-In was first created by Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark to screen Chandler's Flood Tide: Remixed, an expanded cinema piece with a live score by Dark Dark Dark. Empire Drive-In was commissioned in 2012 by the Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Manchester, UK, and again in 2013 by the New York Hall of Science in Queens.
more: http://empiredrivein.com
YOLO
True/False, Columbia, MO, 2017
Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark
YOLO turns the drive-in cinema inside out, transforming late model junk cars into a public screening environment. The screens — the car windows — feature 100 clips from Hollywood films of cars driving off of cliffs, one crash feeding into another in an absurd and hypnotic American elegy.
Empire Drive-In: Single Car Cinema
Headscapes, Long Island City, New York
Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark
Building Something Bigger
Sculpture and assembly collaboration with Brent Green and Rooftop Films for their 2013 season trailer.
Directed by Mark Elijah Rosenberg
Cinematography by Wyatt Garfield
Being Here is Better than Wishing We'd Stayed
At MASS MoCA members of the Miss Rockaway Armada transformed the Hunter Center Mezzanine into a dynamic, interactive space using materials salvaged from MASS MoCA's campus.
Miss Rockaway Armada
The Miss Rockaway Armada was a collective of artists, performers, musicians, cooks, travelers, and organizers that built and navigated sculptural junk rafts down the Mississippi River staging performances during the summers of 2006-07. This voyage led to two more raft projects spearheaded by the artist Swoon: Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea (Hudson River, 2008) and the Swimming Cities of Serenissima (Venice, 2009).
Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea
The Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea was a project led by the artist Swoon in 2008. A group of artists, performers, musicians, cooks, travelers, and organizers built and navigated sculptural junk rafts, designed by Swoon, down the Hudson River from Troy, New York, to Long Island City, staging performances along the way.
Theater performance directed by Lisa D'Amour. Music by Dark Dark Dark.
Swimming Cities of Serenissima
The Swimming Cities of Serenissima was a project led by the artist Swoon. A group of artists and performers navigated a fleet of sculptural rafts across the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to Venice, Italy in 2009. After crossing the Adriatic the Swimming Cities 'crashed' the Venice Biennale, staging a series of performances around the island.