SHORT BIOGRAPHY
KEVIN BALKTICK is an organizer of experimental arts & culture experiences living and working in Brooklyn, NY. His current projects include Winkel & Balktick Present, FIGMENT,The Lost Horizon Night Market, Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics and Auditorium.
Participation, interactivity, play and collaboration are re-curring themes in his work. He has passion for activating overlooked and unlikely venues. Past conquests have included churches, ferry terminals, vast warehouses, colonial fortresses, small islands, historical libraries, parks, museums, subway trains, airplane hangars, fleets of rented box trucks and city streets.
His projects have been featured in The New York Times, Flavorpill, Time Out NY, BoingBoing, Huffington Post, Wired.com, NY Daily News, New York Press, NY Metro, Gothamist and other publications.
His services are available for creative direction, event design and production and other conspiracies of imagination. He can be reached at kevin@balktick.org.
THE LONG STORY
My parents are from Queens, and I grew up in Long Island, Atlanta and occasionally Brooklyn Heights. I received two very different educations on the Civil War. Through a series of coincidences and opportunities, I started working at R&D in information security startups in Atlanta when I was 16.
Five years later, in the Spring of 2005, I quit a lucrative job in computer security consulting. I knew I wanted a different life than I had been living, but was not sure exactly what or how. After moving to a live/work building in Dumbo, Brooklyn and visiting a remarkable festival in the Nevada desert, I wandered into New York City’s DIY (“underground”, if you must) arts an event community.
Since then, I have found a calling as a creator of events and experiences that explore the intersections of imagination, community, participation, public space, psychogeography, art and entertainment.
That autumn, I started working at loft parties thrown by my neighbor and future partner, Winkel, who had managed the Lunatarium a few years earlier. I joined the planning group for Decompression, an annual celebration for New York’s Burning Man enthusiasts. In October, I attended Cargo Cult by the Madagascar Institute, which opened my eyes to the joys of unpermitted public spectacle.
In the winter of 2006, I began helping out at the Complacent Nation (now Danger) events, which were just beginning to explore the frontiers of Bushwick. My role in Decompression grew to include venue scouting and production management. Winkel and I continued to collaborate on loft parties in Dumbo.
In the summer of 2007, a small band of Decompression veterans led by David Koren launched FIGMENT on Governors Island. The very next weekend I led crowd control team for Complacent’s One Night of Fire, a multithousand person street parade and train party from the Brooklyn Bridge and ended in Coney Island.
In the autumn, I founded Horizons, a conference about the resurgence in research using psychedelic drugs. That winter, I brought Decompression, which had outgrown its warehouse party roots, to the Queens Museum of Art. Winkel and I formalized our partnership and rented our first space outside of Dumbo for New Year’s Eve, with mixed results.
In 2008, One Night of Fire gave way to Kaleidoscope, a deliberately smaller and more joyful interborough parade. FIGMENT and Horizons continued to grow. Decompression moved to Floyd Bennet Field as the Queens Museum’s renovation project started. Mark Krawczuk’s secret noodle truck in the parking lot stole the show.
Winkel and I threw the first Stranded party at a majestic former Brewery warehouse in Bushwick. We celebrated New Year’s Eve in a 10,000+ square foot former knitting mill.
FIGMENT’s attendee numbers swelled past the 10,000 mark, with hundreds of artists participating. Horizons was now a full weekend featuring international speakers. Kaleidoscope returned, bigger and better, to conquer Roosevelt Island. I stepped back from Decompression to focus on my own projects.
The unique vision and scale of Winkel & Balktick solidified with ultimate wedding party that went till 5am at a gorgeous old church, and the discovery of expansive tracts of warehouse space in Sunset Park. That summer’s Stranded party featured dozens of art projects, and over 1,200 believers made their way to Industry City at the Bush Terminal to discover life beyond Bushwick. Industry City has been our home for warehouse parties ever since.
Almost a year after the Lost Horizon Noodle Bar made its debut at Decompression 2008, Mark K and I introduced the Lost Horizon Night Market, featuring ten establishments run out of trucks on the outskirts of Dumbo.
In 2010 was a year of building on the models pioneered the previous years. Three more New York Night Markets were held, and one in San Francisco. Three Winkel & Balktick warehouse parties, all in different locations, rocked Sunset Park. By New Year’s Eve, our crowds were topping 3,000 people. The New York Times put our names and photos in print in a touching article by Penelope Green about alternatives to commercial nightlife.
In the still chilly days of March, I participated in Jeff Stark’s “trespass theater” play The Sweet Cheat. In one of the strangest House Manager gigs in the history of drama, I led groups of 40 people from Grand Central Station to a stunning abandoned power plant in Yonkers.
It is now 2011, and Winkel & Balktick, The Lost Horizon Night Market, FIGMENT and Horizons continue to grow and develop. In addition, I am starting an ambient music series called Auditorium with Taylor Kuffner, creator of the Gamelatron and long-time Winkel & Balktick and Danger collaborator.