Im getting more and more excited about this city everyday. An arts and technology festival is something that is needed!
QuotePlans for an art and technology festival will be shared today.
Posted: March 13, 2012 - 12:43am | Updated: March 13, 2012 - 12:44am
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KELLY JORDAN/The Times-Union
Doug Coleman (from left), Dolf James and Wayne Wood go over plans for The Epoch Project in James’ Riverside studio. The men, who played major roles in the Riverside Arts Market and Imagination Squared, believe Epoch will bring thousands of visitors downtown.
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By Charlie Patton
Three men who played major roles in creating a hugely popular outdoor arts venue under the Fuller Warren bridge and launched a participatory project that involved creating 902 works of art by local artists will announce plans today for an art and technology competition next year that they believe will draw more than 1,000 entrants and a quarter-million visitors to downtown Jacksonville.
The new competition, which they are calling The Epoch Project, is modeled after ArtPrize, an arts competition that last August drew 1,582 artists from 36 countries and 42 states and attracted more than 200,000 visitors to downtown Grand Rapids, Mich.
The motivation for the project came when Bill Holsinger-Robinson, the executive director of ArtPrize, gave the keynote address to the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville’s annual arts awards luncheon last spring.
That inspired a similar plan by Wayne Wood and Doug Coleman, two of the leaders in creating the Riverside Arts Market, which draws thousands of visitors each Saturday from March to December; and by artist Dolf James, whose projects have included the group exhibit Imagination Squared and the CoRK Arts District, a rapidly growing collection of artist’s studios in old Riverside warehouses.
“We’ve taken an idea that has been successful in a small city in the fall in Michigan and moved it to the most beautiful time of year in one of the most beautiful places in the world,†Wood said.
Coleman said he has attended ArtPrize and found “an invigorated, vibrant, active fun place to be.â€
Like ArtPrize, The Epoch Project will match entrants in the competition with downtown venues for an exhibition that will take place April 3-14, 2013.
Like ArtPrize, The Epoch Project will then select prize winners by public voting. Wood said there will be $500,000 in cash prizes, with $100,000 going to the overall winner and the rest of the money being split proportionally among entrants based on vote totals. ArtPrize gives $250,000 for first place and distributes another $250,000 to about 10 runners-up.
The main distinction between ArtPrize and The Epoch Project will be the inclusion of technology among the Epoch entries, Wood said. He said he believes that adding technology in the competition will attract national corporate sponsorships, eliminating the need to solicit support from local donors.
As for marketing, Wood said that once ArtPrize, which began in 2009, announced its pool of large cash prizes, social media took care of spreading the word. The lesson, he said, is “put out a big prize and you’ll draw exciting entrants.â€
Any downtown building, hotel, restaurant, bar, condominium lobby, retail store, park, parking lot or empty storefront can be a venue for The Epoch Project, he said. Each venue will be its own curator, making offers to the entrants it wants. A website should go live early this summer, enabling entrants and venues to find each other and make a match. There will be a $45 fee for each entrant and each venue. The event will be free to visitors. Winners will be picked by public vote, and voters will have to be downtown at the time they vote.
The Epoch Project, which has offices in the Times-Union building at 1 Riverside Ave., has named Theresa O’Donnell Price executive director. Price worked as Jacksonville’s director of special events under five mayors and was chair of the Super Bowl XXXIX Host Committee. Also named to the executive committee was Joanelle Mulrain, an artist whose marketing career has included 20 years as a vice president of Baptist Health. Dylan Phillips, a software engineer and architect, is the project’s director of technology.
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/arts/2012-03-13/story/epoch-project-aims-draw-big-crowds-downtown-jacksonville-2013#ixzz1oyDHIGOM
WOW! I'm excited.
The Epoch Project has offices in the Times Union building.
Theresa, would you like to kayak under the TU with an outgoing tide and just imagine an Epoch paddle that would allow us all to reclaim access to our St. Johns River our American Heritage River a Federal Initiative during this world wide event?
We have a whole year.
It appears the JEA site by the school board would be a good take out location and within the Epoch zone.
Quote from: Garden guy on March 13, 2012, 06:52:28 AM
Lets make sure we get te permission from FBChurch...they may not think it jesus wants it.
You are one bitter person... :o ::)
I am confused about the technology portion of it. Would it be something like SXSW?
If anyone can pull this off, it will be Wayne and Doug! I'm looking forward to this!
As a Jax resident this sounds awesome and as an artist I'd love to be a part of it!
Quote from: Garden guy on March 13, 2012, 06:52:28 AM
Lets make sure we get te permission from FBChurch...they may not think it jesus wants it.
Really Garden Guy? "C'mon Man!"
Quote from: Garden guy on March 13, 2012, 06:52:28 AM
Lets make sure we get te permission from FBChurch...they may not think it jesus wants it.
What a silly thing to say.
This sounds Great!!!!! I'm there.....
Another reason to stick it out as a downtown resident. :)
Wow, very cool! I just followed them on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/epochproject
I wonder what the submission categories are, what the process for submitting is all about? I'm not on Facebook, so I could not look into the details, there.
FYI, this project will be discussed on WJCT Stereo 90's First Coast Connect program Wed Mar 21 at 9am. Don't know who the actual guests will be.
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on March 20, 2012, 10:02:03 AM
FYI, this project will be discussed on WJCT Stereo 90's First Coast Connect program Wed Mar 21 at 9am. Don't know who the actual guests will be.
On the air right now.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on March 13, 2012, 08:00:18 AM
Quote from: Garden guy on March 13, 2012, 06:52:28 AM
Lets make sure we get te permission from FBChurch...they may not think it jesus wants it.
You are one bitter person... :o ::)
Took care of that offensive comment BT and videojon.
OCK
We'll have to wonder if the brains behind the Riverside - Downtown connection will include a 'streetcar category!' If they do, then I'm in too, call it high tech circa 1900, back to the future.
Here's a new promotional video for the Epoch Project, comparing it to the concept that inspired it in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
http://vimeo.com/39871778
That sounds totally awesome! But where will visitors stay? Are there enough hotels in downtown now to hold all those people or will special arrangements be made? This would be a good push for the next JTA director to get a line going from downtown to the airport!!!
downtown has about 1300 hotel rooms on the northbank and another 1200 on the southbank....me thinks that should suffice, especially considering that some will choose to stay at the beach, by the airport, or off I-95
Quote from: Anti redneck on April 08, 2012, 07:47:29 PM
That sounds totally awesome! But where will visitors stay? Are there enough hotels in downtown now to hold all those people or will special arrangements be made? This would be a good push for the next JTA director to get a line going from downtown to the airport!!!
Grand Rapids probably has less hotel rooms than Jax, so if they can handle the larger event, Epoch is based off, Jax will be fine.
Hopefully the city will do some things to fix the city up a little bit. Like it was mentioned the drive in to town from the airport, maybe other things like that. I would like to see this be successful that it returns again and becomes annual. I don't want to see this be a total disaster to where no one will come back again.
Hotels won't be a problem. Keep in mind that we easily accommodate a comparable number of people for things like Florida-Georgia, Jags games and the Jazz Festival already. As far as being "successful" goes, it depends on how you define it. With that kind of a prize, they will certainly draw real talent. However, as with the Jazz Festival, it would be a mistake to try to put a monetary amount on "success" for this thing. They need to focus on planning and promotion to get people to come out to the thing, that's where success should be looked for.
I'm willing to bet it will draw pretty well. Judging by the recent past, Jaxons really take to organically grown cultural events. I'm pretty hopeful.
Quote from: Anti redneck on April 09, 2012, 12:05:15 AM
Hopefully the city will do some things to fix the city up a little bit. Like it was mentioned the drive in to town from the airport, maybe other things like that. I would like to see this be successful that it returns again and becomes annual. I don't want to see this be a total disaster to where no one will come back again.
I can tell you what the problem is. I dont think its about "fixing things up". If you observe closey, Jacksonville does not build off the interstate. We build behind the trees. When you get to central and south florida, you dont see as many trees because they build right off the interstate. In Jacksonville, our interstate is lined with trees. The only areas that are not wooded is downtown and feel speckles here and there. I had a friend visit from OKC and he stated, " Why are there so many trees??" So I got off on an exit and showed him there were building behind the trees. I think this is why Jax is deemed the country by so many people that paststhrough. Imagine if we built off the interstate like the other major cities in Florida and people could ACTUALLY see the city? It would be a huge difference
DD i have made the same observations. I mean you cant even see the Avenues Mall from I-95. The old original sign still stands there, not visible by the passerbys on I-95. I am not advocating cutting down the trees, just agreeing with the above observation. This should be a great project and hopefully will have long term positive effects for downtown.
Quote from: fsujax on April 09, 2012, 10:41:38 AM
DD i have made the same observations. I mean you cant even see the Avenues Mall from I-95. The old original sign still stands there, not visible by the passerbys on I-95. I am not advocating cutting down the trees, just agreeing with the above observation. This should be a great project and hopefully will have long term positive effects for downtown.
I wonder why we do that. Maybe its our zoing laws here. I dunno.
Quote from: duvaldude08 on April 09, 2012, 10:46:07 AM
Quote from: fsujax on April 09, 2012, 10:41:38 AM
DD i have made the same observations. I mean you cant even see the Avenues Mall from I-95. The old original sign still stands there, not visible by the passerbys on I-95. I am not advocating cutting down the trees, just agreeing with the above observation. This should be a great project and hopefully will have long term positive effects for downtown.
I wonder why we do that. Maybe its our zoing laws here. I dunno.
Maybe we can try to get that changed?
We'll be fine. One thing we can do is pull off large successful events. Our problem is maintaining synergy year round. I find Atlanta to be kind of woodsy. The downtown is vibrant and urban, but many parts of Atlanta from the interstate is hidden as it is here.
That's what I'm concerned about. Maintaining synergy year round.
And, that is what you call an incredible launch to an incredibly ambiguous event (with an ever discreet demise?).
They did say "imagine" the epoch project.
http://vimeo.com/38411626 (http://vimeo.com/38411626)
This is a great video if you imagine a couple of satirist got together after their nightly prayers and were like:
"Mark, this project and this video, specifically, will be great social commentary. We'll add a ton of really buzzy generationally relevant key words like "art" to a badly assembled slide show video and see how many people applaude an event we have made as unclear as possible."
"George, that is brilliant !!! We'll make the tag line "We are going to do something wonderful" to further accentuate the ambiguity of the event but at the same time make the viewer feel that "wonderful" is the something we are doing. That is the explanation. What is epoch? Well, it is wonderful. What is epoch? It is big. Yes, but what is epoch? Just imagine epoch. That is epoch."
so is this dead for sure?
Quote from: stephendare on September 15, 2014, 10:32:58 AM
kids today.....meaning everyone you mentioned, not commenting on your post. :D
Its an old cliche from the 50s and 60s.
From Bye Bye Birdie, "Kids, what's the matter with kids today?"
http://www.songlyrics.com/bye-bye-birdie/kids-lyrics/ (http://www.songlyrics.com/bye-bye-birdie/kids-lyrics/)