Create:Fixate's "Backscatter"

(Credit: Daisy Rast )

The story is this: One night, I was supremely bored by a singer songwriter's cathartic wailings at the Hotel Cafe, so I drank two too many vodkas in order to cope. My comrade and I then stumbled down Cahuenga toward Amoeba for some inebriated shopping. Along the way, passing a nondescript and urine-stained doorway, a tongue poked out of a hole.

While scenarios like this are usually reserved for porn or horror films, I stopped to investigate. The tongue was attached  to an artist from Create:Fixate who was chillin' in the gallery space the night before a show, with a dozen or so others hanging pieces, and frightening passers-by to stay awake. I instantly liked these people.

Create:Fixate is a collective which shows in a huge, hollow hangar and draws the type of weird, dreamy-headed artists who are not afraid of pressing their tongues through grimy holes. Thick crowds kick down a suggested donation to enter and are treated to live art installations, music and scores of emerging artists showing their latests works.

This year's photography show, "Backscatter," is named after the effect of airborne particulates catching light—the way that light is bent and an experience changed and corrupted just by the act of being photographed. "Backscatter" features work by 26 photographers, as well as a live installation by Michael Rababy, author of "American Bachelor," who'll be shooting the event and projecting the images moments later.

When: July 28, 7 p.m.- 2 a.m.

Where: 1535 Ivar Ave, Hollywood (enter through the loading dock in the back)

Why: Because once a year is barely enough to showcase all the bitchin' photography.

Alie Ward is Events editor for Metromix Los Angeles.