[2] Although the community privileged a rural, rustic lifestyle with an emphasis on family life, it was also linked to the international avant-garde and the New York City experimental arts scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
[5] It saw frequent visitors from NYC and became the site of both organized and ad hoc events associated with Fluxus, Happenings, Judson Dance Theater, Expanded Cinema, and intermedia and other movements fostered by interdisciplinary and transitory creative collaboration.
[2] The poet Robert Duncan, who had been one of the last remaining faculty members at Black Mountain College before its closure in 1957, was critical of the New York avant-garde scene, but saw Gate Hill as a positive exception.
"[6] Gate Hill Cooperative attracted significant press attention and an increase in visitors in 1966 due to the unveiling of Stan VanDerBeek's prototype structure for his Movie-Drome, an immersive audiovisual environment built using the top of a grain silo.
[7][8] The Movie-Drome garnered national media coverage in Newsweek, Film Culture and the Village Voice, and the Lincoln Center sponsored a bus tour to visit it, attracting visitors including Shirley Clarke, Ed Emshwiller, Agnes Varda, Andy Warhol, and Annette Michelson.