RUCKUS NYC is a one-day conference and concert on art and the web happening September 29 at Cooper Union. We spoke with the RUCKUS team…
What is the idea behind RUCKUS?
Artists are experimenting right now. Everyone is making up their career path as they go. Deciding how to make art, what art to make, and how to try to make money at it makes a lot less sense than it did even five years ago. Neil Gaiman said that this means that you get to just go and do whatever you want, because no one’s made up a rule to stop you yet. And that’s true. But it also means that we need to be talking each other, compare notes and trying to learn from the hard work and experimentation that our colleagues are doing.
Ruckus NYC is a chance to come together and learn from each other. Painters, game designers, musicians, filmmakers, and everything in between are joining the discussion. Someone else in some other field has something figured out that can help you be a better artist. This Saturday, come find out what.
Who should come to RUCKUS?
Ruckus NYC is part conference, and part concert. The conference is for working artists who are building their careers in any genre. And the evening concert is for everyone.
The conference schedule is linked at the top of our tumblr page, and the day is filled with individual presentations from artists about what they do, and how they make their careers happen, and panel discussions about the topics that challenge all of us: time management, audience development, distributing our art, and how to get money.
The evening concert has a staggering variety of music and film, from contemporary chamber music to gypsy rock to acting saxophone to improvised grunge, and award winning animated short films that have screened at Sundance and SXSW. Ruckus is about new ways to build an audience, and we’re artists. So since we’re all together anyway we decided to put on an amazing show and build an audience right there.
Networking is also big part of RUCKUS. Can you tell us more about Casey Middaugh’s project?
Often at conferences there are a bunch of amazing people that you really want to meet, and who really want to meet you, but who you never talk to. Casey’s game is a way of taking the fact that we’re all artists, and turning our networking process into a flash collaboration process. Instead of just meeting and exchanging names, projects, and backgrounds, you’ll create a collaborative idea with a group of like-minded people over the course of the day, and come out with a new set of collaborative relationships, and a possible future project.
For a group of forward-thinking creative types, we thought this would be a little bit cooler than trading business cards.
What do you hope to spawn with RUCKUS?
We really want people to learn things that can help them in their careers. Beyond that we want a group of creative people to become more interconnected across different genres, and therefore stronger. We want a conversation to begin on Saturday about how we can learn from each other’s experiments. The arts world is basically exploding right now, and everyone is dealing with it in their own way. We’re learning a lot of great stuff, but we’re solving our problems on our own. We want Ruckus NYC to get artists sharing their hard-earned wisdom about how to make it work.
And of course we want to learn ourselves from everyone there – we make art, too!
Where/how can people register?
Through Wednesday you can get your conference and concert tickets through Kickstarter. The concert tickets are $25, and the full day is $75. If you can’t afford $75 (it’s cheap for a conference, but a lot for a working artist!) email Kevin. There are a limited number of sponsored tickets available that will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
After the Kickstarter campaign ends, we’ll be accepting walk-up registration on the 29th itself.
What: RUCKUS NYC arts conference and concert
When: Saturday, September 29, 2012
Conference 10am-6pm (registration begins at 9:30 am); Concert 8:30 pm
Where: The Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square at 7th St., NY NY 10003
6 to Astor Pl.; N/R to 8th St – NYU; B/D/F/M to Broadway-Lafayette St
Information: http://ruckusnyc.tumblr.com
Tickets: http://kck.st/PFds5F