Hats in a Box
Franchising ourselves for fun and profit
What we did
We put filled two boxes with all the tools and instructions necessary to stage your own Season 2
style paper hat making event. We then posted them to two random friends, without their knowledge.
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The long version
The thinking behind this event was to further prove that you don't need to be anyone special to make art. We can all do it.
Sometimes it seems like so-called artists use their difference, their apparent uniqueness, to justify what they do. This is basically egomania and elitism. We don't want to make art about us. We want what we do to speak for itself. Then, if the piece works well, it will reflect well on us, which is of course a good thing. But it should be art first, artist second.
And so, we came up with the idea of taking ourselves out of the equation entirely. In packaging up one of our old events and challenging someone else to do it, we can take a few steps back, until what we initially produced has to stand or fail on its own merits.
Well, of course it's not quite as simple as that, because of course the event doesn't exist in a vacuum. Having planned and created it initially, we can never truly remove ourselves from the thing, and likewise, whoever performs this event next will leave their own touch on it. But that's the joy of it for us, to see what we've made have a life outside of just our own little world.
And so, yes, undeniably we are the creators of this event, but we're also now facilitators, letting other people take it in the direction they want.
And who knows what direction that is? There's a dilemma facing the recipients of the hats in a box event - do they perform the event, thus breaking up the only coherent artefact we've produced over the years? An artefact which, if we were to ever become Turner winning artists (or win the Eurovision, or ideally both), would have value in being kept intact. Or do they keep the box of stupid trinkets together (perhaps removing the £50 for personal use), thus missing out on the (albeit fleeting) magic of the potential performance?
The box contents:
- Three pages of instruction sheets, with full instructions for staging event, with diagrams showing the process for constructing a hat out of newspaper. Laminated sheets sealed into labelled envelope, to be opened when needed.
- One copy of the Financial Times, to be used as raw material for hat construction.
- £50 in cash, to be used to buy a drink for everyone that got involved in the hat making event, also in a sealed, labelled envelope.
- One disposable camera, to be used to capture images of the event.
- One stamped and self addressed padded envelope, to be used to return the disposable camera to us for developing the photos.
- Flyers to hand out after the event, with I Could Do Better Than That logo and branding. These were also provided in a sealed envelope.
- Packing material to stop the contents of the box being damaged in the post.
Note that this is an ongoing event, awaiting the return (or not) of the cameras.
Read more about newspaper hats and our Season 2 events >>
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