This idea of Collective Architecture speaks forcefully to the work of our design team. Every year the combined efforts of visiting artists, production staff and assisting volunteers transform downtown Columbia for four magical days, creating a utopia where new discoveries lie around every corner. The Art and Design page has a complete a venue by venue, installation by installation run down of everything happening around town. You also shouldn’t miss Rebecca Allen’s stunning photo essay of our production team hard at work.

Downtown’s main artery is Alley A, running from the Tiger Hotel over to Ragtag Cinema, and cutting right behind our box office. “Stilted”, California-based artist Yulia Pinkusevich’s ambitious take on The Collective Architecture of the Impossible, will cover the length of this passageway. You should visit Yulia’s homepage for numerous pictures and videos of her extensive body of work. Here’s a picture of small piece of “Stilted”.

The Mud Stencils, Jesse Graves and Morgan Herum, will be returning for their third True/False, decorating Columbia’s sidewalks and walls with their environmentally friendly street art. Last year they created this excellent bee mural next to Willie’s.

Moveable Type is setting up shop in the parking lot of the Picturehouse, our theater at the Missouri United Methodist Church. Kyle Durrie and her letterpressing 1982 Chevy van will be making custom prints using methods that have been around since the 1500s. Here’s a poster they made last year.

Right around the corner on the Picturehouse lawn members of St. Louis’s SPORE Collective are building “Migratory Hive Project” entirely out of reclaimed materials. This project will be massive when finished, but be sure to note the details.

For the Oddfellows Lounge Chicago based artist Theresa Vishnevetskaya created a piece called “Organ No. 2″, a hypnotic aggregation of ambient light, animatronics and interactive sound. See for yourself in this brief demonstration.

At the Southeast corner of Ninth and Cherry Gabe Meyer and Brian Doss are presenting “From Here To Home”, their dumpster-turned-work-of-art. This piece challenges traditional notions of what makes a house a home while tempting passers-by to curl up and take a nap beneath the warm glow of discarded plastic bags.

Artist Greg Orloff, the man responsible for both Ragtag’s digital conversion robot Lumen (hanging out at The Missouri Theater) and T/F 2010′s Time Machine, is turning a mishmash of gadgets and light into a film reel in the lobby of Jesse Hall. Meanwhile designers Gabrielle Parish, Audrey Keiffer, Madeline Carl and Dan Bugnitz are transforming our box office into an interactive playground of the miniature and the gargantuan.

photo by Stephen Bybee

At The Blue Note Glenn Rice’s returning sea creatures will be joined by coral incrusted TVs featuring video from the Chicago Film Archives. And Camellia Cosgray’s beautiful lighted megamap continues to adorn the wall of The Globe.

All of this just scratched the surface, as each and every venue at T/F has its own character and design. Be sure to refer back to the Art and Design page of your program all weekend to help navigate the art of True/False.

—Kristin Torres

The conception and layout of each venue has been carefully planned, and set-up is a meticulously scheduled, highly strategic affair, designed to create a total experience for festivalgoers. Here are a few highlights (there are many more!):

For festival veterans, there are new pieces to see, as well as much-loved works recycled from years past. At the Blue Note, be sure to take in your surroundings, especially in the upward direction, where several of St. Louis artist Bob Hartzell’s sculptural paintings will be suspended over light fixtures. Barb the Buffalo returns to the Globe Theatre, with a fresh new look, and she is accompanied by some new pieces (be sure to check out the stanchions—those velvet ropes that keep people in line. They will knock your socks off).

The Picturehouse, located in the Missouri United Methodist Church, is a new venue this year. To transform the multipurpose room into a theater, the production team obtained a half-mile of black draping, which will be hung against the walls of the twenty-seven-foot-high ceiling. Two smaller screens in the theater will feature video portraits of Columbians taken by local photographers and videographers. The installation will run a half hour before each film—a good incentive to arrive early.

The beloved Trash Tree, by artist Greg Orloff, will be at Jesse Hall this year, and Orloff will have a new piece at the Missouri Theatre. The production crew refers to it as “the giant film reel.” It is an imposing, hefty piece—a bit like a giant Cyclops with gorgeous lights and details.

Sitting in the middle of the production bunker is another piece—an interactive sculpture—which will be installed in the Missouri Theatre. Details are hush-hush, but it looks like a mad scientist’s dream, a wonderfully Seussian metal machine tricked out with all manner of lights, gauges, and switches. I have been expressly forbidden from saying more.

The production and art at True/False are labors of love, brought to you by a group of fiercely talented and creative people. The docs you see, however great, are only part of the experience. This weekend, peel your eyes away from the screen for a bit, and take in your surroundings.

—Caitlin Oliver

Photos by Scott Pham. See more behind-the-scenes photos of the venue-design team at work in Rebecca Allen’s excellent photo essay on the Como Collective.

What started this expansion craze was that our flagship venue, the 1,200 seat movie palace Missouri Theatre, is being refurbished in time for the summer symphony (and our 2009 season).

But the folks at Stephens have been so friendly it seems like the fest has found a long-term eastside home. Then of course, we are neck-deep in building the brand-new, two-screen theater, Ragtag Cinema out of an old Coca Cola factory on Hitt Street. Let’s all cross our fingers in unison that it will be open in February.