The 621 Gallery in Railroad Square held its inaugural ART + TECH Festival this past weekend. The two-day event, filled with workshops and music, was dedicated to how local artists incorporates technology into their craft.
For the past year, 621 Gallery has been hosting a concert series called Laptop Sockhop, an event focusing on electronic music and video media. Lauren Baker, director of the gallery, and Seth Traylor, the event coordinator, saw how much this concert series affected local artists and wanted to expand the series into a whole month of expeditions.
“We began to invite artists to showcase their work and then we created a workshop series and a concert series that would happen over a two-day event,” said Baker.
Traylor didn’t believe that the contemporary gallery was doing enough for Railroad Square’s popular First Friday.
“I wanted to give us something unique and contribute to the community in a way that only 621 can,” said Traylor.
He believed that there should be a space for experimentally inclined performers to express their creative talents.
With the help of some friends, they created an event, extending Laptop Sockhop into a 2-day art festival. The ART + TECH Fest was a mixture of interactive exhibits, technology-use workshops, and music. Along with three other experts, the event featured Keith Roberson, a professor at Florida State University. His Saturday evening workshop focused on virtual reality and how it works in today’s society.
Traylor said, “He was one of the main individuals giving us credibility for this festival because he is a nationally recognized as a technology artist.”
Trinise Evens, art lover, Tallahassee native and student at Florida A&M, attended the event and could not stop mentioning the virtual reality art piece in the gallery.
“I put on some cool headsets and I entered a virtual world. It was like I was looking at the gallery in some other form I had never seen before,” said Evens.
While 621 Gallery’s ART + TECH FEST was filled with local artists, they hope to expand this event to include artists outside the Tallahassee area. Along with the addition of more guests, 621 hope to make this event happen annually.
If you missed the festival, don’t worry; you can catch technology-based art in the museum all month.
For more details about this month’s activities, follow 621 Gallery on social media or visit its official website.