About 2RE Factory

2RE Factory is my personal incubator for new projects. I give each one a number instead of a real name. Why? If a project tanks (and plenty of them do) I haven't wasted energy building a brand around a corpse. My attachment stays with the idea, not the label. I borrowed this idea from Flagship Pioneering, the biotech incubator that launches medical companies. They called Moderna "LS18" for years before it became a household name.

Some projects never reach escape velocity. That's fine. A few eventually earn a real name, but the number keeps my head straight: am I building something that matters, or just polishing a logo? The incubator itself is 2RE00. The null project. Ground zero.

The top-level number is the project category. Example: 2RE01 is my postmodern art work. The sub-number is the specific project. Example: 2RE02.06 is a 1998 photo of a cotton swab. (Yes, really.) I stole this numbering scheme from software versioning numbers.

2RE

2RE is Pronounced "Torrey" as in my first name. Back in the '80s, arcade games only allowed three letters for high scores. So I'd put 2RE whenever I topped the leaderboard. It stuck. I still use 2RE as usernames, especially for videogame characters.

Factory

There are two main inspirations for the Factory concept.

Andy Warhol's Factory, New York ('60s to '80s)

The Factory produced a huge volume of art, had great parties. and was the ultimate place to hang out. It also launched the careers of many New York artists. Most of what I do is solo, but I want to do more collaboration. I got a taste of that with Floorspace in San Francisco, which I have now retroactively named 2RE04.

Factory Records, Manchester (late '70s to early '90s)

Factory Records started as a club night in Manchester in 1978 and then became a record label. They gave everything a FAC number, not just the albums they produced. Some examples are:

  • FAC 7 - New Order's seminal track "Blue Monday"
  • FAC 51 - Their legendary Manchester nightclub The Haçienda
  • FAC 148 - A bucket on a restored watermill
  • FAC 191 - The cat that hung around the The Haçienda

I only discovered them after I launched 2RE Factory, but it's really close to what I'm trying to build.

About me

More about me on my personal site: 2re.me

You can find out about what I'm doing right now on my now page: 2re.me/now.