Factory Performance

Zero 1 Media sponsors regular events that have become known as Factory Performances, during which people from all walks of life gather together to release uninhibited artistic energy. The participants sometimes enter the 'factory' with prepared devices or they may find a metallic relic on the 'factory' floor which becomes their tool of creativity. Anything goes in the factory! There are no rules for the performance.  With total freedom and unabashed expression, amazing sights and sounds emerge from the participants. These sights and sounds are often captured on various forms of media, digitized, and then set free as new devices of the zero and one.

There have been five factory performances to date, each conducted in Charlottesville, Virginia. Links to the right will take you to a section put together by the father-human of the Performances and the most modern primitive, Horchata (aka Mike Palace). Therein you will find videos and stills from the three of the first four performances.



"The Factory Performances were influenced by performance or action art,
such as the Happenings at Black Mountain College in the 1950s. The first 'Happening' was conceived by [John] Cage, and consisted of a number of simultaneous but unrelated and independent events..." Whereas the first Happening included simultaneous readings, dancing, playing of piano and Victrola, and display of paintings, the Factory Performances have included principally spontaneous percussion upon and using found objects, as well as playing of guitars, a thumb piano, a reed flute, an empty water-cooler bottle, manipulation of recorded tapes, etc. The Factory Performance is also a good opportunity to break and/or burn things."

- Jeff Baker 1997