FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

ABSOLUT

Stepping Into the Night

I’m walking quickly down the street. The sun is setting over the city and the buildings are growing longer. Restless after a day of work – staring into a screen trying to make the words come out, I’m easing into the night as best I can, and all I want...

Photo by Chase Reyes

I’m walking quickly down the street. The sun is setting over the city and the buildings are growing longer. Restless after a day of work – staring into a screen trying to make the words come out, I’m easing into the night as best I can, and all I want to do is collide into my friends, so I walk faster, so that maybe the night will come faster as well. Somewhere in between the subway and my destination I can’t help but think about how I got to this place and why I still go out.

Advertisement

Since time immemorial, creatives have been drawn to the night like moths to a lamp, and I’m no different. I walked into a graffiti covered punk club as a kid and decided to never stop being a teenager. The dingy light, the collection of characters, and even the odd smells have woven themselves into me and now I can’t live without them.

You grow familiar with your routes to your watering holes; you have your favorite ways home. I know if I catch the J train over back to Brooklyn after midnight there’s a good chance a classically trained Cellist I’ve grown to love will be there making his rent in singles. Sometimes all you want to do at the end of the night is stare at New Jersey from the train, the car is shaking but the musician’s hands are steady. In the years I’ve been catching his performances I haven’t had the nerve to ask what he’s playing. In those moments, the MTA train car is as good as any bar or club. In its own right, he’s turned it into just that.

What can make an ordinary night extraordinary varies. You can’t just throw anything together and wait for magic (though lord knows we all do that from time to time). It’s the company, of course, but it’s more. It’s the moment when a night reaches beyond drinking with friends and becomes an artistic experience unto itself, existing in a space transformed by the power people creating. Whether that means building an electric birdhouse in an abandoned building or throwing an underground party is entirely up to you. Why can’t those two experiences merge?

A longstanding friend of the Art world, and the creative community at large, Absolut Vodka has conspired to bring this nocturnal creative impulse to the fore. Thirty years ago, Absolut tapped Andy Warhol for his unique take on art and commerce, they have continued to reach out to new and unexpected individuals to create and build ever since. Since I can remember, their iconic print ads have blurred the lines of what advertising has to be, a reflection of the people, rather than a cold third party. They are participants, as opposed to voyeurs or bystanders. You get the sense that the people behind the brand might be at the same odd party you are (and, as it turns out, often times they are)

What will transpire in the coming months is the elevation of expectations and goals for what creativity can do for nightlife, and vice versa. Absolut’s Nights programis a truly world wide effort to bring creative immersive experiences to the night (get it?). Along the Brooklyn waterfront in Ridgewood, Arabmuzik will perform his unique percussive electronic music in an environment created by renowned innovators Vita Motus, who are bound to  Arabmuzik, originally recognized as much for his complex mix of traditional hip hop and electronic music as his dizzying skills on an MPC, is a particularly compelling artist. Vita Motus, a growing legend in their own right, create dazzling stages for performers around the world, creating immersive structures that often appear to be floating. What exactly does that mean? It’s a gigantic reimagining of a disco ball. What exactly that entails I’m not even sure yet, but I can’t wait to see.

As I finally reach the party and step inside, I think about all this and remember why I go out, and what I’m expecting. I could talk about balance of work and play, day and night, but really we all find ourselves in these places because we’re all compelled to be there, and we create because we have it. It gets better because we can make it better.