Eye Candy

A Q&A with Revel Host Dale Pollekoff about her monthly event, Eye Candy: Down the Rabbit Hole of Visual Wonders.
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I’ve heard incredible things about your Eye Candy event, and haven’t yet been? Can you please tell me what it is?

The full title is 'Eye Candy: Down the Rabbit Hole of Visual Wonders.' It is a presentation where I take you on a tour of about 30 fabulous photos and short video clips of the best of what I've found on creator platforms — sites where artists, designers, dancers, scientists, architects, etc. go to upload their latest creations.
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How many pieces of content do you share?

I greedily squandered stuff in Eye Candy #1 by showing 67 slides, which took 2-½ hours! Some stalwarts stayed till the bitter end. But I now limit the number of slides to 30, and the length of each video to 5 minutes.
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How do you choose them?

What makes you like one color, painting, song, movie over another? It's very subjective. But, the visuals have to grab, and the time can't be over 5 minutes —though sometimes I'll clip a video to get us there.
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Does the audience interact, or is it more like an art show?

It's a bit of both. I open the event 30 minute early, so Revelers can meet, greet, and chat beforehand. Once I start the presentation, because of tech limitations, I can't see attendees' faces, so I encourage the audience to react verbally. When folks yell out, 'Wow this is unbelievable!' or 'Where was this photo taken?,' it adds to engagement, and let's me know that I'm not alone.
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How long have you been doing this, and why?

The 1st Eye Candy event was in March, '21. The concept is closely related to the pandemic and the closures and confinement that resulted from it. I found myself filling time, and escaping, by looking at amazing video clips I was finding on Youtube, Vimeo, and other creator platforms. It brought me solace on many levels — not just the entertainment factor, but knowing that while so much sh*t was going down IRL, creative people were doubling down on their efforts, and, against all odds, continuing to create, and to recreate ways to display their creations. I figured that if I was finding so much enjoyment in this, others would too. Curating what I find to be worthy can be laborious. But, presenting to others the results of my curation is pure pleasure for them and for me.

Being an artist, something arresting to look at taps into the same reward center as eating a delicious sweet, so Eye Candy was an obvious point of reference. I made it tangible by making a graphic that shows a candy box, but instead of candies, it is filled with a detail from each of the slides I show in the upcoming presentation.

If you had to choose one image or video as the one thing you just can’t forget, what would it be?

Ugh. That's an impossible task! I've seen so many amazing things! But, here's just one unforgettable little animation by Fabio Friedli from the last event:

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REGISTER FOR THE NEXT EYE CANDY (9/19)