[MUSIC PLAYING]
STEVE LEWIS: The world is not an easy place,
and art should unfold.
The art of a club, you have to have things that people find.
Things that people think about.
ERIC GOODE: It's about having fun with every part of the
experience, from getting an invitation--
MICHAEL MUSTO: Design started from the second you got the
invite in the mail.
ERIC GOODE: We would fill up four truckloads of
invites for one month.
MICHAEL MUSTO: I think the best one was like a capsule
that you put in water, and opened up to give you like
this fortune cookie-like invitation information.
ERIC GOODE: We made an invitation for a natural
history theme that was an egg.
That you had to crack the egg, but a real egg.
And in the egg, it was the invitation.
Or something that you'd have to light on fire,
and it would explode.
I mean it was diabolical, and we would get hate mail for
sending these things.
The rat trap that snapped on one of these smelling salts.
People opened them.
It just blew their mind.
And they were angry.
MADISON MOORE: The Danceteria flyer, it borrows from the
language of communist posters.
BRUNO SCHMIDT: We really like the '30s and Stalinist
aesthetic, but in a very twisted way.
Instead the sickle and the hammer, you have the sickle in
the cocktail glass.
MADISON MOORE: And you can see the flyers, and all the kind
of work that goes into creating this art experience.
VA$HTIE: We just started it organically.
We were inviting friends.
People we knew.
Having intangible sources of spreading the word was really
important, from the flyer to creating YouTube invites,
where it was just a photo recap, or a video recap of the
last party.
Having tangible pieces of an event was important.
MICHAEL MUSTO: The design drew me here, and now it's a happy
environment to be part of.
Or classy environment, or artistic.
It's something elevated.
NUR KHAN: People are really loving the Electric Room.
I think it's because there's a lot of
personal touches in there.
The neon sign that's in there that says, "All evil things."
That was a drawing that Rene Ricard had done in the '80s in
Francesco Clemente's studio.
My buddy, Sante D'Orazio, had taken a picture of it, and
recreated that into neon.
KENNY SCHARF: The Cosmic Cavern that I did at the
Tunnel was more of a black light installation.
It was very psychedelic, so I kind of made up what I thought
would be fantasy furniture.
VA$HTIE: We put together these little 1992 gift bags with all
the elements that represented the era of the late '80s,
early '90s.
Things from our childhood.
Blow pops, "Yo MTV Raps" cards, stickers that were
designed by Cope that had our logo.
It was just kind of cool to have something that you can
take away and reminisce, like oh, that was a great night.
MARK VAN ITERSON: It can be very little things.
Not everything needs to be huge and big.
It's the little things that make you smile, maybe.
That's what makes it very thrilling and exciting.
SANDRA GARCIA PAGOLA: So I found this image of an origami
pattern that I really liked, and then I started to try
different ways to play to the bottle.
MARK VAN ITERSON: So Sandra is working on this bottle, and I
think it's typically also her strength to come with an idea.
Not just style a nice bottle.
It's conceptual thinking.
That's what she's particularly strong at.
SANDRA GARCIA PAGOLA: My objective was to create
something that could expand the drinking experience.
The club is going to be divided by colors.
Three colors.
Red, green and blue.
Think about a sign that will change, depending on the light
of the area.
If you are in the red area, your are going to see the
green design.
If you're in the green area, you are going
to see the red sign.
And if you are in the blue, we thought about using this
UV-sensitive ink that reacts in dark environments.
So it reveals a hidden sign that you couldn't see when you
got the bottle.
It is like this surprising element that makes the
experience more exciting and memorable.
It's not only that you are going to talk about it while
you are in the club, but also the day after.
MARK VAN ITERSON: It triggers imagination and inspiration.
It's a fun detail, and especially because it's so
clever, and maybe even obvious, that you think, wow.
Why didn't we think of that before?
That's a really nice conceptual thought
MADISON MOORE: I find spaces that don't have any creativity
in it a little bit boring.
There is an art to creating a space that people want to be
in, and are dying to be in for hours, and hours, and hours.
AMY SACCO: Art brings another capacity to evoke a thought
process, create fun, create energy, and create talking
points for the space, and interest in the space itself.
At Bungalow 8, we did the large murals.
They were the original bungalows at the
Beverly Hills Hotel.
So we had these one front to back murals that kind of
captured the space.
Or at Lot 61.
When you see the Damien Hirst painting, or the Sean Landers
painting, you knew where you were.
And that gives it a flavor for people.
When they see it in photos, it was like, I've been there.
I've been there.
Or, I want to go there.
MADISON MOORE: So I think also it's about, what can we put
into this space that will completely
fuck everyone's minds?
BRUNO SCHMIDT: You have a huge aquarium full of pearls, and a
snake inside.
BILLY GILROY: Or the cage downstairs
with all the dildos.
But they're actually Tibetan fertility sculptures.
In my neighborhood, they called them dildos.
PETER GATIEN: A slide going from the second floor to the
first floor.
And it was lined up like all night.
People love it.
ERIC GOODE: I probably did the first bar inside a bathroom in
a nightclub.
-Like I go into spaces, and I think that's really strange,
that they would put that right there.
But then you couldn't really imagine that space without
that awkwardness in it.
-Pump a balloon.
[SOUND OF PUMP]
-Now that is fucking cool.
[SOUND OF BALLOON SQUEAKING]
-I don't even know if you could spray paint balloons.
I thought that the balloon might actually pop.
[SOUND OF SPRAYING]
-It's fucking pretty cool, I reckon.
I can imagine that hanging in the space.
Maybe a little bit more-- like not a balloon animal, but more
like a controlled--
sort of, maybe following a geometric sort of form.
I think the idea of walking into a space and having
something sort of floating, hovering above, that maybe has
projected elements on as well could be pretty amazing.
It still looks totally wrong, but it might get people
talking in the club.
MARK VAN ITERSON: I do believe that the ideas that we're
bringing in, and the visual space that we're creating,
that it will play and can play a very important role in the
atmosphere, and how people interact.
But it's not what it's about.
It's about people having a great time, coming together,
having a beer, having fun.
KENNY SCHARF: You want to have fun, they have to let loose.
They need to dance.
MATT KLEIGMAN: I think the goal is a room where you know
100% of the people in the room are having fucking the time of
their life.
PETER GATIEN: When I tell you everybody was dancing, I'm
talking everybody was dancing, from the 300 pound security
girl, to the guys outside, to whatever.
I mean, it was just an insane night.
-In the large dance clubs, of which there aren't so many
anymore, I think the sound system and the acoustics, the
idea was to basically--
you lose yourself in there.
CARLOS QUIRARTE: For some reason people really like to
look at themselves when they're dancing.
At least the people that dance on this stage.
So the mirror provides that.
KENNY SCHARF: In the old days, people would go out, and there
was nothing on the wall.
It was just like raw concrete, and nobody cared.
It was just the music.
NUR KHAN: I don't want to sit in a room and like one of the
three songs that I hear.
I want to like every song that I hear, and I try and do that
in my room.
ANDRE SARAIVA: I played like slows in my club.
I don't know how many clubs today still play slows.
I do that.
You can dance with your girl and talk,
and kiss, and whatever.
BRUNO SCHMIDT: A good DJ can really make a party, or not.
But the lighting has a lot to do with it, too.
STEVE LEWIS: Early on, it might be more lit.
As the evening gets later, the lights get dimmer.
The atmosphere gets darker.
MADISON MOORE: Darkness creates a sense of intimacy.
Something secret can happen that other people don't need
to know about.
A quick grope, a quick touch.
If you go to a club, and you're there until they close,
and they turn on the lights, that's the worst part, because
you're taken out of the fantasy.
MARK VAN ITERSON: You can often not tell it's that
element, or it's that detail, or it's that thing that is
making it.
-It almost doesn't matter what a room looks like.
ERIC GOODE: Everything we did was really
just to lure the people.
VA$HTIE: Fun things happen when you put a bunch of random
people together.
STEVE LEWIS: We need each other, and going out at night
is as natural to humans as going back to caveman days.
That's the way I figure it.
-The design is imagining the fantasy life of
that group of people.
[MUSIC - IDIOT GLEE, "PADDYWHACK"]