Media circus
The Synesthesia festival brings big-top art and music to Fort Lauderdale
Synesthesia puts art, music under one cohesive tent.
To celebrate the communion of DIY doers and shakers he calls Synesthesia, Kris McDermott will invite local musicians to sing, painters to paint, dancers to dance, at a metal junkyard in Fort Lauderdale.
He will also invite the public to use his fake currency.
Called Synesthesia dollars, McDermott’s funny money will be in full circulation Saturday night at Makers Square, at an event he says will be an “interactive circus.” The faux bucks, which can be spent at vendors’ booths like actual money, is designed to encourage the public to buy more locally made merchandise.
“We’re like a local support system,” McDermott says with a laugh. “We’re just trying to encourage more interactivity with the event, because I know how frustrating it can be for a vendor to sell their art.”
McDermott, 31, says Synesthesia is a new monthly gathering combining live-art contests, raffles, food trucks and handcrafted goods by a dozen vendors. Revelers who buy raffle tickets are entered into a drawing for the evening’s prize: Synesthesia dollars. The winner must spend the loot on vendors before the dollars “expire” that night, he says.
McDermott, who paints art about the “intellectual value of being creative,” says selling at indie-craft events in the past — the FAT Village Artwalk, at Stache bar, around Wynwood — has yielded low sales.
“Me and my partner have been fine-tuning this idea for the last four years so people take the community’s creative side more seriously,” says McDermott, who co-founded Synesthesia with Luke Rohenaz.
Local bands will perform throughout the night, including Shorty the Giant, Hot Whiskey, Oh My Bad, Adrian Russell and a handful of DJs. More than a dozen artists will also livepaint, McDermott says, and visitors can vote on the best creation between Jan. 3 and the next Synesthesia in February.
“It’s kind of our campaign to celebrate the love of art and music and all things creative,” McDermott says. “But more important than that, it’s about being an incubator for new, underdeveloped artists.”
Synesthesia begins 8 p.m. Jan. 2 at the Makers Square Social Club, 1142 NE Sixth Ave., in Fort Lauderdale. Admission costs $5-$10. Go to UniteYour Senses.com.