Chris Milk & Arcade Fire Participatory Follow-up to 'Summer into Dust' Beach Balls -Where Are They Now?| The Creators Project

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"At Coachella 2011, Chris Milk, with the help of Arcade Fire and a bunch of beachballs, turned the summer into dust.

Where did your Summer Into Dust beachball go?

We want to know where your beachball ended up. Send photos, stories, or videos of your beachball, or your experience at the show, to summerintodust@thecreatorsproject.com."

Arcade Fire: 'We're not a band that's out to party until we die' | Music | The Observer

Arcade Fire Arcade Fire: 'the first rock group in a long time that have dared to be so unashamedly uplifting, to shun irony'. Photograph: Eric Kayne/http://erickayne.com

In a concrete room backstage at the Palau Sant Jordi arena in Barcelona, I am midway though a post-show interview with Arcade Fire's unfeasibly tall, quietly charismatic lead singer, Win Butler, when the door opens and his bandmate, Richard Reed Parry, enters. He roots around in a cupboard for a few moments, then exits again, having found what he was looking for – a yoga mat.

It strikes me later that this may be a small, but revealing, indication of a bigger pop-cultural shift that Arcade Fire exemplify: an illustration of just how far rock music has travelled from its rebellious roots, how much it has shed the emotional baggage – the angst, the self-destructive habits, the dissolute lifestyle – that once defined it. Suffice to say that there was a time, not that long ago, when yoga would not have been the preferred means of post-gig relaxation for a hip young rock star, but, my, how times have changed.

"The cliched rock life never seemed that cool to me," says Butler, who, as we chat, is eating brown rice salad from a small plastic container and sipping on a throat-soothing brandy. "We're not a band that's out to party until we die every night. We did a lot of shows with a lot of bands that were living that dream, but it's a dream I never bought into. It never seemed that fun. In fact, it was always kind of embarrassing to me. That isn't what I think is cool about rock."

In case you have not noticed, Arcade Fire – a multi-instrumental, mixed gender, seven-piece indie-rock group from the very un-rock'n'roll city of Montreal, Canada – are what is most cool about rock right now. The group's debut album, Funeral, was released in 2004 on the small independent label Merge Records. Initially championed by influential American music websites such as Pitchfork, it became one of the most critically lauded albums of the year, selling more than half a million copies globally.

read the full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/28/arcade-fire-interview-sean-ohagan#

Behind the Work: Arcade Fire 'The Wilderness Downtown' - Creativity Online

Great interview with B-Reel Creative Director Ben Tricklebank and Producer Nicole Muniz and here's the coolest bit:

"On Something Cool You May Not Know:

NM: One of the key moments of interactivity in the experience appears in the second act, when one of the pop-up window invites users to type or draw a message of advice for their younger self. This is what we call the "postcard." At the end of the experience, viewers can continue to engage with the postcard by continuing their message (or starting over if they wish). Once happy with the message they can submit it to "The Wilderness Downtown." What viewers may not know is what happens then—here their postcard is given a code, which is now reflected in the bottom/right hand corner. They also get a special URL for their virtual "post box." Now is where it gets interesting—their postcard is submitted to be Visuals for the Arcade Fire Suburbs Tour and is submitted to be printed by The Wilderness Machine.

The Wilderness Machine is special creation that will print postcards submitted (with their code) on special cards that have birch seeds embedded within. Fans at the concerts can print a postcard and reply to the sender by using the code. The sender can see this response in their Wait Area. On top of that, fans who receive a printed postcard from The Wilderness Machine can plant it and a tree will grow!"