The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Not everything about Vaporawave makes perfect sense. For instance, though the krewe was founded in 2016, their logo is dated 1984, they're tribute to the failed, yet fondly remembered 1984 World's Fair.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
Part of the pleasure of visiting the Mardi Gras Fountaoin on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, is discovering bygone krewes you've never heard of.
The Mardi Gras Fountain, designed by architect Harry G. Grimball, lies on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain a bit east of Canal Boulevard. It’s a monument that would be purely incomprehensible to most outsiders, like a knee-high Stonehenge, devoted to New Orleans’ pagan-ish parading customs.
The gates to the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition featured Carnivalesque figures built by Barth Brothers.
The Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave has a unique, high-tech vision of Carnival.
An anonymous representative of the Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave (left) presents the Lakefront Managment Authority with a tongue-in-cheek, giant $943.52 check. LMA board member Anthony Richard, executive director Louis Capo, and board vice-chairman Esmond Carr good-naturedly play along.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Not everything about Vaporawave makes perfect sense. For instance, though the krewe was founded in 2016, their logo is dated 1984, they're tribute to the failed, yet fondly remembered 1984 World's Fair.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
The virtual Krewe of Vaporwave's do-it-yourself addition to the Mardi Gras Fountain at the New Orleans lakefront was removed as of March 11, 2022. Coincidentally, strong winds flooded the fountain on March 12.
Part of the pleasure of visiting the Mardi Gras Fountaoin on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, is discovering bygone krewes you've never heard of.
The Mardi Gras Fountain, designed by architect Harry G. Grimball, lies on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain a bit east of Canal Boulevard. It’s a monument that would be purely incomprehensible to most outsiders, like a knee-high Stonehenge, devoted to New Orleans’ pagan-ish parading customs.
The gates to the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition featured Carnivalesque figures built by Barth Brothers.
The Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave has a unique, high-tech vision of Carnival.
An anonymous representative of the Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave (left) presents the Lakefront Managment Authority with a tongue-in-cheek, giant $943.52 check. LMA board member Anthony Richard, executive director Louis Capo, and board vice-chairman Esmond Carr good-naturedly play along.
Once in a while, things work out exactly as they should. In this case, what started as an elaborate prank may breathe new life into a low-profile landmark.
Last winter, a secretive Carnival organization called the Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave achieved a subversive coup.
The group of avant-garde artists produced a mini-monument to themselves, a colorful ceramic plaque bearing the krewe logo, mounted on a 400-pound, knee-high concrete plinth. Without permission, they stealthily installed it among the 80 other similar mini-monuments to past and present Carnival clubs that circle the 60-year-old Mardi Gras Fountain on the New Orleans Lakefront.
The pranksters’ do-it-yourself creation was in plain sight but went unnoticed. An anonymous representative of Vaporwave told The Times-Picayune that the stunt was simply meant to open up the old fountain to new krewes.
Within days, the Lakefront Management Authority swiftly had the unsanctioned monument fork-lifted off the premises.
Conceived by the late float-building mogul Blaine Kern, and designed by architect Harry G. Grimball, Mardi Gras Fountain was dedicated in 1962. It lies just east of the intersection of Canal Boulevard and Lakeshore Drive. Though it is a splendid feature of the Lakefront landscape, it has gradually slipped from the collective mind of the public.
Newer krewes such as Chewbacchus, Red Beans and Joan of Arc are absent from the collection of krewe crests. The last Carnival organization to legitimately add its logo to the fountain was the Mystic Krewe of Nyx, which did so in 2016.
That same year, the Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave, New Orleans' first and only high-tech, digital Carnival club, came into existence. In the years since, the krewe has produced a series of deliberately confounding video projections, performances and online digital collages that substitute for a conventional ball and parade.
If Max Headroom, Skrillex, and Mr. and Ms. Pac-Man wanted to join a Mardi Gras krewe, this would definitely be the one for them.
Ironically, this most metaverse krewe hacked the Mardi Gras Fountain in decidedly real-world fashion — nothing is less digital than 400 pounds of concrete. In performing the prank, the Vaporwavers had sidestepped bureaucracy, trespassed and possibly made the Lakefront Management Authority feel a bit punked.
But Esmond Carr kind of dug what they’d done.
Carr, the authority's vice chairman, said he spent his childhood in Gentilly, where the Krewe of Dreux — which he fondly recalls as “a bunch of drunken adults” — has conducted a casual, beneath-the-radar, neighborhood Carnival parade for a half-century.
“I love the obscure krewes giving a home feel to Mardi Gras,” he said.
Carr admired “the nondestructive nature” of Vaporwave’s stunt and felt some sort of rapprochement could be reached. But he couldn’t get in touch with anyone in the super-secret krewe.
Carr finally succeeded in making contact with Vaporwave via eBay, where the krewe sells its merchandise. A representative of the group began attending the authority's board meetings, where he successfully pitched the krewe’s case for inclusion in the fountain, as well as other more recent krewes.
The Vaporwave spokesman, using the pseudonym "Art Grant," said he agreed to pay a $943.52 penalty to compensate for the cost of removing the Vaporwave mini-monument from the fountain, and authority Executive Director Louis J. Capo agreed to reinstall the concrete block at no further charge.
As it does with some other Carnival royalty, The Times-Picayune agreed to not reveal Grant's identity.
In a recent telephone conversation, Capo said that from here on out, other krewes can submit a request to the authority to be included in the fountain. They will be charged a yet-to-be-determined fee, and their acceptance will be decided by a board committee.
Capo said one of the three pumps that jet the fountain water into the air is broken. He hopes renewed attention to the fountain will make it easier to get it fixed.
Last week, Grant addressed the authority, emphasizing the earnestness of the group’s intentions from the beginning and noting the group's hopes that it opens the fountain to unrepresented krewes.
“It is here that I will insist,” he told the board, “that the Krewe of Vaporwave plaque at Mardi Gras fountain is neither a joke nor a prank and that any analysis of it as such misses the point entirely.”
Yet, once a jester, always a jester. Grant had arrived at the crucial meeting with a giant cardboard Publisher’s Clearing House-style check made out to the authority for $943.52.
According to the authority, the Vaporwave plinth will be returned to the fountain in early August.
Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate.com. Follow him on Instagram at dougmaccash, on Twitter at Doug MacCash and on Facebook at Douglas James MacCash.
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