W+K On the Side: Mad Science

We spoke to strategic planner Brandon Thornton and designer Justin Morris about their upcoming art show, Mad Science—an exploration of how art, science and the future converge to solve the world’s problems (imagined and real).

W+K Blog: Give us some background on the show. When is it, what is it about?

Justin Morris: The show is July 12 at Gallery 135 from 7-12. The premise is that it takes place in the year 2045. We went to the past to get some of Earth’s greatest minds to solve the problems that plague Earth in the future. We worked togetherad with the artists to come up with what these problems could be.

We told them that the solutions didn’t necessarily have to be based on science—it could be fantasy, or more abstract, because things are usually solved the best when itid’s approached in an unconventional way.

The tagline for the show is “What would the future look like if it were envisioned by an artist, what would an art show look like if it was curated by a scientist.” It’s about how science and art have a symbiotic relationship—you can use one to solve the other.

W+K: How did you come up with the idea to put on an art show like this?

Brandon Thornton: We did a show last year, “Adventures in Milk” that was a big success. A lot of people came to it. It was all based on nostalgia and Saturday mornings as a kid, and cereals you ate while you were watching cartoons or getting ready for a soccer game.

Justin: Near the end of that show, one of the people we were working with was like, You know what would be cool? A science fair. But we didn’t want to get put into a box by doing another nostalgia show, so we decided to switch gears and think about it as a more imaginative thing, where we could invent things, rather than say, Hey guys, remember this?

Brandon: The concept challenges us to just come up with the craziest shit. We want people to actually come into an experience, to feel something unexpected and wonder how the artist thought about it. A lot of the stuff you’ll see was actually way bigger. What you will see at the show actually had to be scaled back to make things happen and feasible.

W+K: A lot of the released information so far has been pretty mysterious. What do you mean by “come into an experience”?

Brandon: We liked the concept of a science far and bringing science and art together, but we weren’t sure a science fair could get people excited. We didn’t know if it would blow anyone’s minds. We didn’t know if we would be excited to work on this for 9 months.

On a trip to Miami, I bought a book by Kanye West about his “Glow in the Dark” tour, and it was really inspiring. He actually changed concepts for different parts of the tour. The European tour was like a standard rap show with a DJ, a rapper rapping and all the stuff that is overdone and can get boring quickly. But for the United States tour, he switched the concept: he remixed all the songs, he made a whole world for it, he created robots, all the songs told this story—it was a totally unique experience for the audience.

The idea that you could do that and just change things up, it forced us to really imagine and think about how we could tell this story from when you come into the door, to when you see the website, to everything we’ve released.

Justin: Throughout, we’ve had [W+Ker] Brooke telling the story of this futuristic laboratory through these videos. There’ll be another video at the show that’s like, ‘You’re here! You made it!’

Brandon: A lot of the feedback has been like, What is this about? It’ll all come together at the show.

W+K: How did you connect with the artists for Mad Science?

Brandon: With Adventures in Mik, we had 39 artists. It was a painful process to manage that many people, seeing their concepts, hanging the art. From a logistical standpoint, we knew we wanted to have fewer artists. We also wanted artists who could really immerse themselves and get into this concept.

Justin: People who could create sculptural elements to fill out the space, to create this experience.

Brandon: It won’t just be paintings on the wall. Some of it will be experiential, some of it will be interactive, some of it will be like, Damn?!?! What is that?

Justin: The criteria was people who make amazing work, who can work in different mediums. There was a long process of weeding out and curating. It had to fit with our goals and our aesthetic. There were some that were an obvious match. We needed some people that could bring something slightly different. I think we got a good bunch of people.

W+K: How did you get the artists on board, and how did you challenge them?

Brandon: We gave each of them, as the mad scientists, a problem to solve from a pool that we made. Some were based on religion, weaponry, communication, wildlife, plant life, things in nature. They‘re all attacking these specific issues. Some are real solutions and some are imaginary, but who are we to say this couldn’t be a real solution in 2045? We wanted people who had an imagination.

Justin: And people who were excited about doing it. To reach out to artists, we made these artist packets that were confidential folders with all the problems. It was like a government dossier.

W+K: What does your creative team look like?

Brandon: The aim was to make a big show and it takes more than four people to keep all the moving parts going. There’s people helping us with the site, films, space design, copywriting, etc. In total, there’s probably 10 of us who work consistently on the show to build this up.

We’re also collaborating with iDL Worldwide—they’re an experiential marketing company, they deal with retail spaces and create in-store experiences amongst many other functions. We’ve been working with them very closely to create this experience—we brought them our ideas and they’ve been helping us figure out how to make it all happen. We would basically say, “We want to build a telescope that came out of the building or we wanted to drill a hole in the floor and have shit coming out of it.”

Justin: Then they’d tell us how much it would cost.

W+K: What are you trying to get out of this experience?

Brandon: We wanted to do these shows—I’ve been here for three years, Justin’s been here for a year and a half—we met while we were out and honestly, we go out to a lot of events and shows in Portland, and we just felt like there was a void that we could fill. There are very few things that are here that are experiential, immersive, exciting. Most of what you go to, it’s pictures hanging on the wall and people standing around. How do we make an art event that people would get excited about, that you don’t wanna leave even when you’re ready to leave? How do we prevent people from just making one lap? That’s the challenge we set for ourselves. When they enter, how do we make them feel they walked into a completely different world?

We did “Adventures in Milk” in two months—the complete show. We got positive feedback from everyone. We accomplished our goal of having an experience—what we learned is that we could really do it, if we gave ourselves time. We took two months off and then met again to start this whole Mad Science thing. The first three months was strictly planning and coming up with the craziest ideas, the next few months we were figuring out how to or if we could do all that we wanted. Then the last couple of months for building the assets to promote, creating and building all this stuff, working with artists and just creating the energy. Having no budget for this show is another challenge. We are always thinking how we can hustle and figure out how to do this stuff. We know we have to do this – instead of whining about money it’s like, okay “How can we do this?

Hopefully we’ll see how successful this can be. When we started out we wanted this to be one of the best experiences that Portland has maybe ever seen. It’s kinda big and lofty, but that’s our goal. We’ll see if we can accomplish that.

We meet a ton of people in the city, we meet a ton of people working out here, trying to figure out stuff, going to different shops. It’s a good way to expose ourselves to the city. Why just sit around and watch stuff when we can make it and have people be a part of it. It’s just fun. It makes the experience of being here in Portland better.

Mad Science is at Gallery 135 on July 12, from 7-12.