Hyde Park Drive In

Here is where this project started. One of several drive in theatres in the area, Hyde Park Drive is one of two still showing films in the summer. Sitting on land that once was owned by the Roosevelt Family, the site sits directly across Route 9 from the Roosevelt Historic Site, part of the National Park Service. At present, I am in negotiations with Scenic Hudson, the present owners, for use of the site in the Fall of 2008.

Busy - DCAC Meeting

I had hope to be a bit further at this point in time, but the last week has been a blur with my job and other projects coming to a head.

I did have the chance to attend the Dutchess County Arts Council Annual Meeting on Thursday at the Rhinebeck Center for the Performing Arts. Beyond the typical aspects of a business meeting, there was great excitement in the announcement that the council had funded three projects in Hyde Park. The Hyde Park Video Project, being one of these projects, was noted as an example of how the efforts of the council were working to make an impact in the community.

Getting footage

I have started down the long road of finding footage for the project. My first efforts focused on institutions that I knew would have some information. Thus far, I have spoken with the Roosevelt Library and the Culinary Institute of America. Both have been willing to discuss a donation and facilitate further dialogue.

I meet with Paul Scatoneto of the Hyde Park School District to see if there might be a way to make a connection to students. I was delighted to hear that they have a documentary film course which has similar goals and objectives as the project. I hope to hear from them soon about meeting and finding ways to move further with a collaboration.

At the moment I'm sitting in the Hyde Park Free Library. This is something that I will be doing every weekend over the next few months. It is not only an effort to get footage, but to be available publically for questions. In talking to the librarians, I have heard that interest has been expressed, which is very exciting.

Hyde Park in Film

Several months ago I spoke to a faculty at Vassar about the idea of doing a project in Hyde Park. He mentioned a film that had been made in the 70's about Hyde Park. I had the chance over the last week to view the film and speak with the director.

In viewing the film, I became aware of the ever challenging issues that a town such as Hyde Park faces. These battles between the past and future, the new and old are constantly being fought. With a such a deep history, I can see how Hyde Park might exemplify these struggles.

When I consider this dialogue, I see it as not being about which side is right or wrong. It is about taking the time to listen to what both sides have to say and negotiating a new direction that takes all those ideas into consideration. This is not an easy task.

What amazed me though about the film was the energy and beliefs of those who were involved with the town. Everyone was greatly concerned with Hyde Park. This to me was very exciting to see and something that I hope to get involved with now that I live in the area.

The Weekly Beat

Here is an article about the project in the Weekly Beat - http://www.weeklybeat.net/

Desperately seeking video
Hyde Park project hoping to compile historic, contemporary video footage
By Babette Fasolino

Calling all Hyde Park video shutterbugs: If you have video footage of Hyde Park from any era, from Fourth of July town parades to grandma’s backyard barbecue in 1956, artist Matthew Slaats would like to hear from you.

Slaats recently received a grant from the Dutchess County Arts Council through the New York State Council on The Arts Decentralization Department to create a video art installation focusing on life in Hyde Park. Slaats will collect video from town residents that will be edited, transferred to a digital format and screened at the Hyde Park Drive-In this spring with the potential for future screenings at other Hyde Park locales.

The artist’s final work, which includes cutting-edge motion-activated technology, will depict everyday life in Hyde Park spanning generations; he is also hoping to gather historic footage from the Roosevelt Library and local historic sites. “I’m leaving it open – I don’t want to exclude anything,” said Slaats. “I think of home movies, people having a barbecue or just living their lives in town.”

Slaats is an academic computing consultant for visual resources at Vassar College, where he is working on a large-scale project with the art, drama and film departments converting archival images from slide format to a digital system. “A lot happens at Vassar – it’s an amazing place,” he said.

A native of Green Bay, Wis., Slaats moved to the Hudson Valley a year ago when his wife began studying at the Culinary Institute of America. Slaats is interested in creating art in public spaces and previously created an art installation at a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sports Stadium in Wisconsin that had been slated for demolition. When he visited Hyde Park, Slaats saw the potential for an innovative public art project that could combine history and everyday life.

“You can’t even turn around in Hyde Park and not see something that has some historical significance,” said Slaats. Hyde Park’s drive-in was particularly interesting to him, so he developed an art project that could combine video, digital technology, the drive-in as well as participation from the community. “I’m collecting a visual history similar to an oral history, but through images,” he said.

Slaats has been busy making contacts with community members, including teachers at FDR High School who lead a program in documentary filmmaking with Upstate Films. Slaats is hoping that budding filmmakers will contribute clips for the project, as well as families with video footages from years past. “I’m really looking at what fills in that space between here and now,” he said.


Examples of life

Brandon Berrian, a freshman at FDR High School, recently recorded some video with a classmate that he plans to submit to Slaats. “It would be awesome to participate in the project,” said Berrian, who was filmed as he snowboarded down a hill, completed an impromptu somersault and managed to unintentionally break his snowboard in half upon landing. Berrian’s video, he says, is a good example of everyday teenage life in Hyde Park. “It would be cool to show people how we act away from school,” he said.

Berrian is also intrigued by Slaats’ idea of combining archival video of the past with contemporary video, particularly as it relates to teens. “I think that the project should show the difference between teenagers of then and now, show differences between what teenagers did then and what they do today,” he said. If his video is included, Berrian is certain that people, especially adults, may have questions. “They’ll probably look at our clip and say ‘What the heck are these guys doing? What’s wrong with them?”

While Slaats is first to admit that his project is somewhat risky because it relies on the collaboration of many individuals and organizations, his ability to take a chance also drew attention of the Dutchess County Arts Council when his grant application was submitted. Loretta Spence, director of programs and arts services for the Dutchess County Arts Council, served as facilitator for the grant panel that reviewed Slaats’ proposal. “I was really excited to see the project because it is cutting-edge and he is a promising young artist who could really benefit from the council’s support.”

Spence, who oversees hundreds of applications each year, said that Slaats’ project stood out among others. “His project exemplifies exactly what this grant is supposed to do: support a goal on a county level to that involves a brand new artistic project or individual artist like Matthew.” Spence sees Slaats an artist with incredible promise. “One of the things that is so exciting is his creative and dynamic use of resources, such as Scenic Hudson and the drive-in theater,” said Spence, who commended Slaats’ willingness to “think outside the box.” “He could become an artist of national or international stature,” she said.


Setting up roots

Slaats and his family recently purchased a home in Staatsburg and are looking forward to getting more involved in their new community. “I lived in a very small town in Wisconsin outside of Madison before I moved here. I was always in Madison and never got involved in the town I was living in. I want to get involved in the community, be an active member and do something fun and interesting,” he said.

Slaats is hoping his art project will allow him to learn more about life in Hyde Park. “I’m not a new person trying to push ideas. I want the community to tell its own story. I hope people see that I’m trying to learn and talk to them,” he said.

Greg Callahan, director of the Hyde Park Library, stepped forward when Slaats was seeking a partnering sponsor for his grant application. “Finding a sponsor was a pretty major hurdle for me to overcome,” said Slaats. “Greg was the first person to respond and it was the perfect connection.”

The library, which serves as Slaats’ home base of operations, is an ideal partner because it serves such a vital role in the Hyde Park community, said Slaats.

Slaats will be at the Hyde Park Library every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon through March to collect video submissions and answer questions about the project. He prefers video in DVD format, but will accept other formats; videos should be under five minutes in length, he said. Slaats is encouraged by the support he has received so far and is eager to review video from residents. “I’m always interested in people’s stories,” he said. Slaats can also be reached via email at mbslaats@gmail.com.

Funding and Support - Thanks

This is a note of thanks to the Dutchess County Arts Council for their support and funding. The grant that I received through them was established through funds from New York State Council on the Arts’ Decentralization Department.

Also to the Hyde Park Free Library, specifically Greg Callahan, for sponsoring my application and helping to provide a connection to the community of Hyde Park.

Press Release

Art Project to Involve Hyde Park Residents

Project focuses on gathering home movies of Hyde Park residents, both past and present, as part of a video installation to take place in Hyde Park in 2008.

Hyde Park, New York - In an effort to engage the community, artist Matthew Slaats is organizing a project that focuses on building a visual history of the Town of Hyde Park through the use of home videos. Entitled “The Hyde Park Video Project,” the artist will collect video from residents of the town, both past and present, to become a part of an installation of the video to take place in Hyde Park in the spring of 2008.

With funding from the Dutchess County Arts Council, administrator of public funds through the New York State Council on the Arts’ Decentralization Department, and sponsorship from the Hyde Park Library, the project will build a cohesive collection of visual material that represents life in the Town of Hyde Park. Starting with footage found at historical archives and libraries, the artist will be gathering material provided by residents to build this collection. The primary goal of the project is to engage the community in a conversation about identity and history that is defined by the residents themselves.

Those interested in donating video or film footage to the project may contact the artist at mbslaats@gmail.com or 845 889 8181. All those that donate material to the project will be included in the final presentation. Material will be returned in the same condition they were received with a DVD version of the footage used.

You may also drop of material and meet the artist, Saturdays from 10 to noon at the Hyde Park Free Library, through out the month of January, February and March.

Any further inquiries can be made to Matthew Slaats at 845.889.8181 or mbslaats@gmail.com.

This Saturday and on

Starting this Saturday, I will be at the Hyde Park Free Library from 10am until noon accepting donations for the Hyde Park Video Project. The public is welcome to come, talk, and donate footage for the project.

In the News

Several weeks ago, I sent a press release to area newspapers. The other day I was contacted by Matt Renda of the Hyde Park Townsman and Babette Fasolino of the Poughkeepsie Beat. We spoke about the project and articles will be published in the next few days.

The ideas behind this project

The main ideas behind this project focus on engaging a community of people and energizing a space that has significant history.

The project began with an interest in using the Hyde Park Drive-In. As one of the few functioning outdoor theaters left in the mid Hudson Valley, this is a place that has significant meaning. It represents a vanishing public space in the history of the United States where families and friends could meet to relax outside of the home. Screens such as these have cult status and hold a vivid connection to a nostalgic point of view that remains prevalent in our culture. These types of environments allowed those attending to escape into another world that they could share with the stars of Hollywood.

Much of my artistic practice has been about bringing people together to meet and discuss ideas. In this type of work, I see myself as a facilitator for interaction. I provide a reason for meeting, which is documented and then translated into visual and auditory media. In this case, I was interested in developing a visual history of a specific community. Much like an oral history, I wanted to go out into the community to collect their ideas of who they are or were, leaving this open to all who are willing to donate their time. This is not about me trying to exert my understanding of what Hyde Park is. As a new member of the community, I could not begin to accomplish such a massive feat. My goal is to give the residents of the town themselves, the opportunity to describe who they are and how they want to be represented.

Upon gaining permission to use the site (which is being negotiated presently) and collecting these moments in time, I want to place this representation of the community up for everyone to see. It will allow all of us to take part in showing the meaning of the past and our hopes for the future.

The last part of this project that I would like to mention is how the video will be seen at the site. This is not going to be a historic film of Hyde Park. It will be a collection of moments that represents life in Hyde Park. These moments of video or film will be put into a computer and processed using a piece of software that will integrate them into environment. This is accomplish by putting out a video camera that documents motion, which then sends a signal to the computer to show a specific clip. The more motion in front of the camera, the more video will be seen on the screen. There will also be a audio aspect to the installation.

How this started

After completing school and relocating to the Hudson Valley in the fall of 2006 with my family, I was eager to get involved in a new community and continue to working on projects that I had been working on elsewhere. Most of these efforts focused on exploring unfamiliar territory, learning about its history and meeting new people.

Late last summer, I was at a meeting of the Beacon Art Community Association (BACA) that took place at Long Dock Beacon. At this event, I had the opportunity to meet Benjamin Krevolin, director of the Dutchess County Arts Council, and Margery Groten from Scenic Hudson. I spoke to both of them about an idea I had concerning the Hyde Park Drive In. Benjamin supported the idea of doing a project in Hyde Park and recommended I apply for a grant through the arts council. Margery and I spoke about Scenic Hudson's effort at the site.

So, I endeavored to apply for funding for this project through the DECA Art in the Community Grants that the Dutchess County Arts Council administers. A major hurdle of applying for the grant was to get a community sponsor. I contacted several organizations eventually speaking with Greg Callahan of the Hyde Park Free Library, who was gracious enough to sponsor the project. So, I applied for funding in late September.

In mid December, I heard that the project was accepted and have proceeded to move forward.

Welcome

I would like to welcome you to the Hyde Park Video Project blog. The purpose of this site is to document the project's process and as a way for the community to access information about the project. I will be adding to this blog often as a way to reference information and show progress. Feel free to leave comments as you see fit.