Rainbow City NYC: Interview With Sam and Tury Of FriendsWithYou

Part of this weeks’s upcoming High Line section 2 debut will be the opening of a temporary public plaza called ‘The Lot’ at 30th Street. For the next month, Miami-based FriendsWithYou will stage an installation called Rainbow City which is presented as part of the AOL Artists program. The ambitious project by FriendsWithYou is happening concurrently to a gallery show of their work which will open later this week at The Hole Gallery. PSFK met up with FWY founders Sam Borkson and Tury Sandoval to get the story about the High Line installation and what they hope people will experience visiting it.

What is the Rainbow City NYC project about?

Sam:
We have an installation at the High Line as well as an gallery show in the Bowery both happening at the same time. Rainbow City is like a garden of spirits and magic that we have been traveling and installing around the globe. This is our third time staging it. It was first done in Toronto, then we installed it in Miami during Art Basel in 2010 and this well be the third time we’ve put it together. And every time has been unique because the settings are vastly different and this time I think by far is the most exciting because it is a really unique opportunity for this larger than life kind of extravaganza to happen in New York City. It’s very cool and we’re very lucky to have it happen in the city.

What was the initial idea for the project and since this is the third staging of it has the idea evolved?

Tury:
The initial idea for the project followed what we do with most of our products which is taking ritual acts and reinterpreting them into acts of play and evoke an experiential and interactive environment that is open to everybody. For Rainbow City specifically we borrowed from a ritual that takes place in India called Holi, it is a festival of color. People shower each other with color pigment and paint basically to celebrate the coming of spring. What we do is build these colorful monolithic totems that are like giant gods that dwarf the viewer and they have these striking colors that radiate on to the people. We’re colorizing every person that comes in and giving them this experience where they’re getting fully immersed and getting this almost hallucinogenic dose of color. We’re trying to evoke something very beautiful from the visitors that is a sense of togetherness and connectivity. It’s about them experiencing this unique thing together and exploring it.

The challenge was to make something gigantic that could be scaled down so it could travel. Now we’re installing it in probably the most befitting place. We did it in a park first, next was the design district in Miami and now we’re doing it as this beautiful color explosion bursting out of this concrete jungle. We’re adjacent to a huge area of seats near the High Line so people will be able to sit and view the installation or wander in and experience it. We’re really trying to tap into what we feel humans are meant to do which is not just going to work and doing your normal routine, we’re supposed to be hanging out with each other and exploring the surprise of everyday life; not isolated but together.

Working at this large scale must present certain challenges. How do you tackle the planning and do you feel pressure to constantly grow the size of Rainbow City?

Sam:
We’ll usually think of something really crazy and then settle down to something more realistic. Scale plays a huge role in what we do. Since we are trying to evoke this kind of child like state of either exuberance or immersion in the experience so we always try to dwarf the viewer somehow whether that’s by making very large things or placing viewers in an awkward way to look up at things to give them the perspective of being a kid again. So scale plays a role in that sense.

In another way, scale has a lot to do with a religious experience and has the pseudo feeling of something being more supreme. We take away the usual iconography and reinterpret what that feeling is placing it with something that is unusual and new and giving it like no meaning at all. We’re giving you an experience that is grander than you with no dogma at all so the scale really helps with doing that.

Logistically to put this installation together it’s insane, it can be like a nightmare. That’s why I feel that most art is not to be touched or interacted with because it makes it infinitely harder to produce and infinitely harder to bring to the people. It takes a huge crew of people and a lot of money. We’ve never made a dollar from making any of these installations. It’s usually us investing the money placed by corporations or who ever is sponsoring and us putting in even more of our own money to make it happen.

How did the partnership with AOL come about with the NYC installation? Were they involved at all in the creative and planning process for this event?

Tury:
They really gave us full reign. They supported the Rainbow City installation last year in Miami with Paper Magazine. They were really into the work we had produced prior and gave us carte blanche to make what ever we wanted to happen. After we had such a success in Miami and people enjoyed it so much, this was the most important and best opportunity to let us do it again in New York City. We jumped at the opportunity and working with AOL has been really awesome, they see the vision and are into the same kinds of things we are. We really appreciate their willingness to give is this platform. Money for public art really doesn’t get approved like this that often so we feel really great full for the opportunity.

We had been offered to do events in New York in the past but we only wanted to come and do something in the city were we could be acting responsibly and giving something amazing to the city and I think this is our opportunity.

Sam:
The alignment with the High Line organization and the opening of the new section is very fitting as well for us.

What can you reveal about the installation? What do you think will be the most memorable part for visitors?

Sam:
It is really a surprise as you are walking through the High Line since you are covered by all the adjacent buildings and you’ll find this kind of thing that almost grew out of the cement somehow. On one level, I think seeing the whole installation will be something you remember.  And then going inside of the bounce houses and being within the installation is something to be experienced. When you see grown ups playing in those bounce houses, and really experiencing that kind of joy during a regular day, that’s kind of what we’re in the business of; making those moments happen. Hopefully they’ll experience playing in it and remember how fun playing is.

Tury:
I think the unknown is the really amazing thing. The things that we really haven’t accounted for. We’ve planned and designed it in Auto CAD and built it virtually in 3D. But when you actually have these huge inflatables, like living things almost interacting with this many people for a month, we’ve never done anything this big for this long. It will be exciting to see how visitors take it in and see how the installation will gain a life of its own. It is here for so long that I think people will come and start making their own stories out of it and having their own kinds of adventures.

Something else that will be cool is that we’re going to be taking pieces of the installation and sprinkle them around the city unexpectedly. So you might see some cute characters of ours by the Statue of Liberty or Times Square at any unknown moment. We’re really trying to approach New York City, as big as it is, with color, magic and whimsy.

The interest in people living in cities has been continuing to grow. And certainly the High Line is an example of an amenity to make life in NYC more enjoyable. What sort of value do you think play brings to an urban setting?

Sam:
I don’t think it is the city though, it’s more a symptom of the human psyche that you get so involved in a routine that you forget to appreciate these kinds of moments. I think that is what this is more about, not really addressing the concerns of the city.

Tury:
But this is a good example though, in a city where you are right next to people that you may see every day on the subway, you can’t even talk to those people. You are in a city surrounded by people and you are isolated.

Sam:
I feel NYC is a city where you are most likely to randomly talk to someone. I think it is one of the friendliest cities on the planet. The amount of interactions between people that happen on the streets of NYC I think is unmatched.

Tury:
But I think a lot of people close themselves off because you are bombarded with a lot. People value their space and I think for us this is a perfect testing ground to install Rainbow City.

Sam:
New York has an amazing setting because it is such a concrete jungle and it is so void of nice and colorful sites outside of like Central Park which is probably the best thing in the universe. But if you’re not there, it is basically concrete. So stylistically, what we are trying to do is something refreshing but emotionally we’re hoping people have a more personal connection; getting you out of your routine and getting you to experience something that is bizarre and impact-full.

We were referring to it as ‘service art’. In the sense that we’re procuring art that is just for you, it is in service of the viewer. From the get go we really though about art like that. Our first project was making toys to mass distribute them as art. We really thought that art should be accessible, not on the wall, not for rich people and not in the hands of a select few.

The stuff that we do that’s in a more traditional sense in a gallery still has that to an extent it has that same mentality where it is really about experimenting with the actual ideas. The stuff that is there is our exercises and a way to explain ourselves for the people who are interested in that. But Rainbow City is really the meat and bones of what we want to put into the universe. It is for everyone.

“Rainbow City” at the High Line opens June 8th and runs through to July 5th
30th Street at 10th Ave

:) by FriendsWithYou
Opening Night: Thursday, June 9th, 7-9PM
Dates: June 9th – August 6th
312 Bowery at Bleecker, New York City