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See Music. Hear Art.

Art Strategies for a Music-Themed Resort
Mexico

GENERATIVE ART
Algorithm and Tempo

Generative art refers to art that has been created with the use of an autonomous system. Generally that system is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist.

For example, the artist Andreas Nicolas Fischer worked with Mercedes-Benz to transform the powerful engine sound of the SLS AMG into a fascinating wall sculpture.

For this rock-and-roll themed resort hotel in Mexico, popular rock anthems, traditional mexican folk songs, or any other musical inputs could be interpreted by an algorithm in a computer system to generate any kind of two or three dimensional art.

MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT
Pairing Art and Music

Artworks that feature video or sound are often experienced at art galleries though the use of headphones. This allows the spectator to be completely immersed in the art whilst not disturbing the rest of the exhibition space.

Imagine if every artwork at the resort had a pair of headphones hanging beside it, and when the hotel guest puts them on, a song or soundscape curated by a music expert plays to accompany it.

Alternatively, the hotel brand’s internal “music experience” team could provide the songs, and Farmboy Fine Arts could curate or create a specific artwork to go along with it.

ABSTRACT NOTATION
Deriving Art from Sheet Music

In Marco Fusinato’s series of artworks “Mass Black Implosion”, a selection of scores by avant-garde composers are reproduced at 1:1 scale. A line is ruled from every original note to an arbitrarily chosen point as a proposition for a new composition, in which every note is played at once, as a moment of consolidation and singular impact.

Similarly, for the Mathematics department of a Chicago college, Farmboy Fine Arts produced a glass partition with abstracted mathematical equations and formulae to encourage an environment of free thinking and ideation.

These ideas could be reimagined as an application on the unique glass and curtain feature planned for the hotel’s guest rooms, deriving art from rock or folk sheet music.

SOUND BOOTH
Hear. There. Elsewhere.

In 2009, the Canadian artist Samuel Roy-Bois created an interactive installation titled “Ugly Today, Beautiful Tomorrow”. It is a sound-proofed, rock rehearsal space equipped with drums, bass, two guitars and amplifiers, all of which viewers were invited and encouraged to play. Unbeknownst to them, the sound from this room was piped into a completely separate area of the gallery—the lobby.

In the spirit of songs being sung around a campfire, this idea could be reimagined at the resort, by making traditional Mexican instruments available to guests in an intimate sound-proof setting. When vacationing amateur musicians practice their talents and experiment with local sounds, who knows what magic could ensue in other parts of the hotel where the music is heard.

ROCK EPHEMERA
Concert tickets. Album covers. Collage.

Matthew Cusick is a collage artist who creates visual works of art from maps, magazine clippings and other found materials.

For this music-themed resort, Farmboy Fine Arts could create or commission collages made from rock ephemera to compose images that are evocative of Mexico. This could include landscapes, still life, or scenes of local cultural activities.

Alternatively, Farmboy Fine Arts could use ephemera from Mexico to create interesting compositions that evoke the spirit of rock and roll.

VISUAL SOUNDTRACKS
Narrating the Resort Experience with Lyrics

American artist Miranda July’s 125-foot-long “Hallway” is lined with fifty wooden signs, hand-painted with text. As the viewer walks down the seemingly endless hall, weaving between the signs, the text acts as an internal voice that narrates them through life, to death. Similarly, Douglas Coupland’s “Slogans for the 21st Century” are text-based artworks that use contemporary language to convey messages that could only be understood since the year 2000.

Song lyrics are beloved for capturing the human experience though universal emotions. Imagine if song lyrics appeared as unexpected architectural details, or as wayfinding elements that lead you down the long corridors of the music-themed resort hotel.

PUBLIC FIGURES
Outlandish fashion sculptures.

When American artist Miranda July was invited to represent USA at the 2009 Venice Biennale, she created 11 cast fibreglass, steel-lined sculptures that were designed for interaction: pedestals to stand on, tablets with holes for body parts, and free-standing abstract headdresses.

Sometimes rock musicians and pop stars wear over-the-top and extravagant outfits. In some ways, you might say these celebrities transform themselves into a form of human sculpture and spectacle.

A series of interactive artworks could be installed through the landscape of the resort, to replicate these famous outfits at an even larger and more outlandish scale, creating opportunities for guests to pose and interact with the art for social media.

Proposal prepared for Farmboy Fine Arts while employed as Design Director.