Every month or so, the Manifart crew convene somewhere in Paris for a very long night of creating, dancing, and all the debaucherous behaviour that goes along with soirées at secret otherwise abandoned locations. Members come from all over France, and get together for the sole purpose of making things. Be it through graffitti, collage, experimental sound, mixing, video art, sculpture or installations, the idea is to manifest in one location and create something.

Case in point: March 17, 2012. While the evening went down before WRG’s Get Up and Move Month started, I only just finished my own creation for the event. A friend and Manifart crew member asked me to film the evening and see what kind of mood might manifest itself through the imagery I captured. To be honest, the night was like nothing I’ve ever really experienced.

For one, as I was filming I stayed pretty sober, which at 5 a.m is surprisingly more difficult on ones psyche than I’d expected. Then again, being surrounded by drunken maniacs and not being able to join in can be a real downer. But more importantly, watching the crew set up for the evening, painting on the walls, getting the installations ready, testing the sound, setting the tone for the night… All these things are what I found to be the most interesting. Everyone was coming together for one purpose, that purpose being to be creative as a group!

Add to that the fact that they opened up the evening to outsiders, and you’ve got yourself quite the night. Anyone could pick up a fat tipped marker and leave their mark on the wall. Everyone could play with the installations set up all over the abandoned school house. It was a sweaty wall, sticky floor kind of night. An I-can-feel-the-bass-beating-through-my-heart kind of night. The kind of night everyone leaves happy.

In light of the type of evening that was had, I decided to keep my video quite “roots”. I didn’t tweak any color, nor did I add any fancy effects in post. There have been a number of really “pro” videos released from that night but I was more interested in letting the images speak for themselves. (As always, best viewed in HD)