Drive in theaters, where you could sit and watch a movie in your car were popular in the late 1950s, and there were between 4000 and 5000 drive-ins. Today it is reported that there are about 422 that are open around the world. (1)
Brooklyn-based artists Jeff Stark and Todd Chandler have created a drive-in movie theater experience that mixes upcycling and drive-ins in a new way. Titled The Empire Drive-In, the project uses cars from local junk yards and repurposes them as the seats for an outdoor theater. The screen used to project the movie is 40 feet tall, and is made from salvaged wood. A Low-power radio transmits the movie’s stereo audio directly to each car.
The first Empire Drive-In was created for a viewing of one of the artist’s films and was located in San Jose, California in 2010. The project has now traveled, and has been a featured installation at a number of festivals and events, including the 2012 Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Manchester, United Kingdom.
During the Empire Drive-In experience, viewers are invited to change seat and switch cars, to check the glove compartments and to even sit on the cars. The cars selected are not flashy, but often are cars that we see every day (like Nissans and Fords.) The artists have included these familiar brands in an attempt to demonstrate the planned obsolescence of cars with so many people getting new cars every few years.
This past month, the Empire Drive-In showed a variety of movies at New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York between October 4-20th that included a series of Bollywood films, Animation shorts, movies made by youth groups, and some movie shorts about transportation.
What to experience the Empire? The schedule of events and screenings are listed on the project website.
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