AH:  Early on, it was clear that there was little voice for young, up-and-coming galleries — I mean those galleries that were showing great, emerging artwork, but hadn't had the coverage, connections, or money that was part of an unwritten policy for exhibiting at the larger, more conservative fairs. A hotel provided a low price point, a place to stay, and — now a Scope hallmark — intimacy and a notably relaxed atmosphere alongside site-specific projects and installations. It was the unconventional context that captured my imagination: the opportunity for a young gallery to take over a space, and really make it unique.

AH:  Scope has had galleries with live installations in their hotel rooms such as Daniel Reich's room in Scope New York 2003, where Christian Holstad spent the entire fair knitting a graveyard of skulls and bones — a notion of humanity's demise. David Hunt curated a room where Mark Dean Veca transformed all the furniture, bed covers, lights, everything. These artists made the spaces their own. Beds were removed, furniture upended — it was a re-appropriation of space like I had never seen at more run-of-the-mill art fairs.

As we grew, all the good things that the small, intimate package of a hotel offered became constricting. The hotel was our learning lesson, an incubator and a way of pulling together different ideas and learning from them. Then the incubator exploded; Scope's emerging galleries became well known and needed a larger environment to realize their potential.

AH:  Our goal, from day one, has been to expand what an art fair can be. We've always had that mentality; maybe that's part of our attraction.

Scope New York 2006 was our fifth Scope New York, but frankly, it felt like it was our first Scope. It was clear to me that we had to pull out the walls, the strict grid of the hotel format, and let our fair grow organically from program to program, and gallery to gallery. We wanted to generate the energy of a miniature Documenta or biennial. We have no interest in being the best miniature Art Basel, Armory Show, etc. We are different because Scope is solely owned and run by an artist.

AH:  The Perpetual Art Machine (PAM) will be our featured project for London, with visitors being initiated into the fair through a video cube in which 600 videos, projected on every wall, will be literally at the fingertips of visitors inside the fair. Like Scope, PAM democratizes the once-closed curatorial process for the artist and viewer through open access, allowing video artist and visitors to freely interact, upload their own videos, and curate.

Performances include a huge hugging machine, drinking contests, a woman making the biggest map tracking art-buying trends, solicitations for boob job funds, and some truly outrageous things that I cannot even mention.

Scope Sound will present Goldsmith College's Cate Schindler, part of no.w.here, the Tate's answer to Rhizome.org. She will be creating a sound installation called Archetypes in our VIP lounge. Archetypes plays on the natural associations between sound and image; it's a surreal walk-through experience in which installation-goers move through their own imagery, all triggered by the chaotic stimuli around them.

AH:  This year, young galleries like Dina4Projekte from Munich, Light Contemporary and Charlie Smith from London, Greener Pastures Contemporary Art from Toronto, Priska C. Juschka Fine Art and ART&IDEA from New York, among others, will be given the opportunity to bloom. I believe Scope is not only making the best effort to grow our emerging galleries, but is filling a major vacuum by supporting the artists. I am particularly proud of the newly formed Scope Collection, whose mandate is to support emerging artists through acquisitions. From Scope London, we are purchasing a painting by Andre Ethier from Greener Pastures Contemporary Art.

AH:  We are quite close to the Hoxton Square galleries such as Jay Jopling's White Cube, which is showing Neal Tait and Katharina Fritsch. The nearby Whitechapel Art Gallery has intense shows of Hans Bellmer and Pierre Klossowski. Bethnal Green galleries, including Maureen Paley, Wilkinson Gallery, and Vilma Gold, are also close, and Victoria Miro Gallery on Wharf Road is not far.

We have a sneak preview on October 10 that coincides with the opening of Haunch of Venison's James Rosenquist exhibition. We are honored that Haunch took a chance and moved in right next door to Scope London.

I'm struck by how quickly the East End is becoming a major cultural locale. And, of course, all the best new restaurants, artist bars, and underground clubs are within stumbling distance.