Atlanta sculptor Charlie Smith is both a gregarious family man and a bit of a rabble-rouser, creating flame-filled metal works of art that are simultaneously surreal, sinister and silly. His numerous playground-like fixtures have traveled to events such as Burning Man, Bonnaroo and similar festivals, offering interactive art experiences that the viewer can, quite literally, see and feel. The self-proclaimed instigator of the Art of Such n Such collective, Smith presents a 10-year retrospective of the work of Such n Such, Inspire, Incite, Ignite, which opens at Eyedrum Oct. 9 and includes photography, sculptures and performances by more than 70 artists and performers.

Tell me what people can expect at the opening night of Inspire, Incite, Ignite.
I went to Eyedrum about a year and a half ago with an idea to do a retrospective look into my involvement in the Burning Man and alternative arts culture nationally and internationally. The Art of Such n Such is a group of artists and some artists come and go, but there’s a mainframe of people. It’s performers, visual artists, sculptors, musicians, DJs and all kinds of different artists that are involved in the group.

And the Art of Such n Such has really been focused on creating an overall art experience in a time and space, and working on interactive installations where we try to incorporate the person coming to the show into the artwork. Either you feel the presence of the art through heat or touch, or you’re asked to push something or spin a wheel or come onstage and interact with the art. In this show, we have the naughty photo booth where you go into a closed room and get your portraits either by yourself or someone else or however many people can fit in there and do whatever.

There’s also going to be some performances happening in the space that are random. There will be different human interactions going on where someone might come up to you and recite some crazy poem or ask you to help them do something, getting you to interact with them to create an action and reaction in the space. It’s a real experiment.

And what will the content of the show itself consist of?
The show is a retrospective look at all the different interactions we’ve done over 10 years. It focuses on different photographers’ work that have been in these different environments, different artists that have been involved that are doing physical installations of their sculptural works, and the stuff that I’ve done and instigated. I mean, I instigated this show and came up with the idea to do it, as well as the idea of the Art of Such n Such. Jaime Ladet has worked hand-in-hand with me to develop this project and a lot of the sculptural projects and she’s going to be one of the main focuses in the main gallery space. She’s going to have a 10-by-12-foot projection of her photo-documentary work from the last seven years of running around the world taking photos of all these different experiences we’ve been able to take part in. There are short stories that are going to be put on the wall, thank you letters and all kinds of intimate tidbits of information. This is our chance to show the art community in Atlanta what we’ve been up to, because I think we’re sort of a mystery.

A lot of what you do doesn’t happen in Atlanta, so you often seem like a bit of outsider in the local art community. Why have you chosen to stay in Atlanta?
We are definitely living the outsider art world within this city, but we’re on the inside outside of here. But I like the atmosphere of Atlanta, and I like my space. Picking everything up would be overwhelming, to think about moving tons of metal and figuring out where my giant body of work is going to go. I’ve honestly sort of been on the lookout for the perfect new place to go, and within that search I’ve spent time in San Francisco, L.A., Portland, Seattle, Austin, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, the Northern Midwest, New York City… But I don’t want to live where it’s cold, and New York City is a monster. I don’t have any desire to move to the monster belly. I’ve chosen to stay in Atlanta because I can get anywhere I need to go pretty easily, and they have trucks everywhere. You just have to be able to drive or fly, and you can fly anywhere from here. This city’s great for shipping in and out of. Terminus is still alive and well. Atlanta’s pretty convenient.

A lot of your work is very childlike and whimsical. That was true before you had children, but how much has being a parent affected your work?
In 2001, I really turned over a new leaf where everything had to be like an overgrown toy. Sculptures on wheels, things that rock and move, teeter-totters… I have a rooster that’s going to be installed in the gallery that Jaime and I built together in 2005. It was the first thing we built together and she kind of cut her teeth on building fire cauldrons with that piece. It’s a teeter-totter that you ride on and it’s like the beginning of the world’s most dangerous playground. We went into that thinking it’s a big toy. It’s a potentially dangerous toy, but everything is potentially dangerous. It’s what you do around it. We won’t be burning that one for the opening because it’s been all around the country and seen some days. It’s been in Texas for the past year and it’s been to Burning Man a couple of times and it’s made a circuit around the United States. Almost all of them have made circuits like that, going to different community events.

Did you do anything new for Burning Man this year?
This is the second year in a row that we didn’t attend Burning Man. It isn’t because we didn’t want to go, it’s because we were approached by other events outside of Burning Man. Part of what I’ve been trying to do with this style of art is share it outside of that culture. We went to Ireland over Labor Day weekend in 2009 and this year I went down to Texas and was part of a music-oriented project called Nocturnal just outside of Austin. It featured a lot of DJs and was basically a giant rave, and those people had never seen anything like that. I took the Fleeble Flobbler, which is a 20-foot-tall fire clown that you ride on, and those folks freaked out. They had never seen anything that crazy. But I considered that a chance to show what I do to another group of individuals.

The Fleeble Flobbler is still in Texas for an event called Art Outside, which is all about exterior art and making the gallery the outside. There are still paintings and photography and all the things you would normally see in a gallery space, but the challenge to the artists is to create the space outside. How do you put your work outside of the white walls, how do you get outside the box to show your work?

Sounds a lot like your upcoming Eyedrum show.
Yeah, there will be a lot of work outside. There’s going to be a group of art cars from the Tribe art car community. These are people that have been part of my life for about seven years, maybe longer. Most of them learned how to meld and make things in my studio and now here they are, bringing art cars for the opening. We’re going to have three or four fire cauldrons and a bunch of flame effects. The Hot Toddies Flaming Cabaret is going to perform, there will be some aerial performances from Sadie Hawkins and Melissa Coffey, there’s going to be a lot of eye candy. It will be a visual playground.

I’ve also gotten in cahoots with Chantelle Rytter, who is the Captain of the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons, and she’s doing the lantern parade with the Beltline. She’s bringing a bunch of these giant skeletons to the opening, so it’s going to be a wild visual experience. Inside, there will be photographs and video, with more than 30 photographers’ work scrolling in one room. There’s going to be a giant skee ball machine in there that’s really a flame effect machine, but we’re putting it inside as an artifact and taking it out of it’s normal element. Basically, the goal is to say, “This is interactive artwork, and it’s flame effects, but it does stand on its own as artwork in a gallery space.” I’m not trying to prove anything, but these are artists creating these works and all we’re trying to do is really show what it looks like when we put this stuff indoors. And the content that supports what is inside is going to spell it out.

Inspire, Incite, Ignite Oct. 9-Nov. 20. Opening night artists’ reception begins at 8 p.m. 290 Martin Luther King Dr. S.E., Atlanta. 404-522-0655. www.artofsuchnsuch.com. www.eyedrum.org.