It’s back. And if it’s anything like earlier incarnations, Robot Love 2017 is set to be quite the artsy thing to experience this weekend.
Organized by a team of four professional artists – Derek Gores, Marty Mercado, Cliffton Chandler and Ryan Speer – Robot Love is, despite its planning, a happening.
“Robot Love is a playground, an outlet for raw, individual creativity,” Gores said.
Held this year in a 30,000-square-foot industrial space on U.S. 1 in Melbourne, Robot Love invites people of all ages to come see the exhibits, listen to music, maybe climb a wall or two, get inspired and engage with others who like their art sprinkled with a liberal amount of imagination.
The two-day event has at its heart visual and performance art and enough energetic music to give anyone a contact cool. There will also be modern dance performances and demonstrations of an unlikely duo – technology and climbing. You even can find a fashion boutique (don’t you dare expect Eileen or Hugo).
And, yes, plenty of craft beer and food trucks to please every taste.
“There’s something unexpected at every turn,” said Robot Love enthusiast Joan Crutcher of West Melbourne. “Not your normal art show setting. Fantastically creative mix of art, music, high tech and art that makes you think, music that makes you move, quirky people that turn your head. Like nothing else in Brevard. A party within a party.”
Speer, in charge of the event’s “propaganda,” rightfully calls this event “the legendary culture mashup.”
Indeed. It bubbled up over eight years ago in the imaginations of Chandler and Gores and has been marinating, adding flavors ever since.
Having launched pop-up galleries in Atlanta, Chandler itched to do the same thing in Melbourne, where he had moved. He approached Gores, a very successful Melbourne-based artist who has sold big work to many big names, including the Orlando Magic, the Kentucky Derby, Prada and a host of others.
The two of them came up with the edgy idea of Robot Love.
“At first glance an event named Robot Love may seem eccentric,” Chandler said. “Understandably so. The name itself is a reference that started out tongue in cheek. But I can say with confidence that there is no other event or activity that provides such a unified interest throughout this community’s media outlets and residents.”
It became a cultural grassroots success story because of its broad appeal to something very human – the urge to create, Gores said.
“Much of society is organized into tidy cubicled definitions: artist or scientist, left brain or right, on and on,” he said. “We are all about aggressively crossing the streams – art mixed with tech, music mixed with dance, every combination we can stir up.
“The startup industry buzzword for that now is ‘radical inclusivity.’ It’s about getting the gems from diversity. I am on a crusade to invite those little hobbies, those tiny creative quirks that I believe nearly everyone has, out to play. That superpower skill that people don’t put on their resume. We want that skill.”
Armed with a good idea and solid reputations as artists, Gores and Chandler quickly got sponsorships from companies craving an edge, such as Audi, Fractel Telecom and top area realtors. Co-presenters have been venture capitalists Bud and Kim Deffebach, both serious art collectors. This year Robot Love also got funding from Brevard’s Tourism Development Council.
Robot Love first saw light in 2009 at what is now the Foosaner Art Museum in Melbourne. More of an edgy art show with works by non-mainstream artists, many of them graffiti artists, it featured large works and unusual installations and attracted an audience of all ages, many of them young and many of whom had never been into the fine arts museum.
The next year, 2010, Robot Love moved into a larger, multi-gallery venue. It featured even more art by a wider array of artists with provocative aesthetics, a stage for rock musicians and large, unusual installations. The event attracted so many people that officials in West Melbourne threatened to close it down.
In 2015 it popped up in the Foosaner Education Center, where it added performance art and even more provocative appeal.
But for all these years, it has remained rather a sub-cultural phenomenon. The event comes, people flock to it and love it, then it drifts into the ether of memory.
Until it pops up again.
This weekend, it’s going into Adventure HQ, a huge state-of-the-art bouldering (read: climbing) and adventure facility on U.S. 1 in Palm Shores, just south of the Pineda Causeway.
There will be colossal murals, immersive art installations and other works by more than 60 visual artists. Music performers include SWIMM, Allison Weiss, Davinci, Gary Lazer Eyes, Dull Blades, Kongom, DJs Casey DeCotis and Luis Diaz. And, yes, expect more to be added to the roster by the time the robots invade.
Dance performances will be provided by Muscle Memory Dance Company, Sole180, Tech Wars BBoy Battle, Desiree Parkman, Dance Arts Centre and Michael Sloan.
“Robot Love is a way for us to give the community a weekend of amazing,” Mercado said. “The energy, creativity and humans make this a moment in your life that you won’t forget.”
Robot Love kicks off with opening-night party atmosphere 6 p.m. to midnight Friday. Tickets are $20 online and $25 at the door.
A “Family Experience” runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. In addition to the art show, the Family Experience features hands-on art projects for all ages, dance performances by Dance Art Centre, an interactive dance lesson with Marty Mercado and live music performances. Tickets to the Family Experience cost $5 in advance and $10 at the door.
Robot Love winds up with a closing night party 6 p.m. to midnight Saturday. Tickets are $20 online and $25 at the door.
All Robot Love experiences will be held at Adventure HQ, 5270 North U.S. 1, Palm Shores, Florida. To get a map to Adventure HQ, visit http://adventurehqfl.com.
To buy tickets online, visit RobotLoveArt.com.
