Noah Wall Combines Art & Technology For Manhattan Musical Scavenger Hunt
Noah Wall celebrated the release of his album HÈLOÏSE on LP and cassette with a scavenger hunt in Manhattan. The relatively modest concept was amplified by the web and media coverage giving his release a much higher visibility than might otherwise be expected. It's an interesting example of using the web to revisit a fairly established idea, the artistic scavenger hunt, and giving it a fresh look by presenting it in a different context.
Electronic musician Noah Wall recently released the album HÈLOÏSE which is also currently available on SoundCloud.
Wall chose to promote the release with what might seem like an extremely local project. He created a scavenger hunt with old-school artistic packets containing his album and arranged them around Manhattan in a pattern that spelled out the word "Hèloïse" on Google Maps. The scavenger hunt project is called 38 FIGURES IN HIDING! and I find it evocative of a wide range of late 20th Century visual art with a personal D.I.Y. aesthetic.
The combination of the homemade art packets and Google Maps updates a pre-Web approach to art making. In a sense, it could be said to be an example of changing the context for artistic ideas to give them a fresh look.
In the process, Wall managed to get some coverage from Wired that was picked up by a variety of web publications that he might not otherwise have generated for his release. So it's also an example of how expanding one's art into other realms can provide a marketing boost without having to be approached as a form of marketing.
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He blogs about web business models at Flux Research and the world of dance at All World Dance. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
