The Contemporary Museum would like to invite you to an ... uh, art-themed get together at NextDoor on Thursday.

New York-based art-world bad boys the Neistat Brothers will show off a few of their short films — one of which famously bashed the very user-unfriendly task of changing an iPod battery. Drummer Jerome James will lead live film scoring to a screening of Orson Welles' forgotten silent short "Four Men on a Raft." Turntablist DJ Keith will rock the sconces off NextDoor's brick walls.

Just don't call the artfully lower-cased "2411: art down the hill" a club party. Or, for that matter, ARTafterDARK 2.0.

It's actually the first of what the folks at 2411 Makiki Heights Drive hope will be a continuing series of off-campus, after-dark multimedia art events enticing people — and hopefully, younger people — back up the hill to discover the charms of The Contemporary Museum.

The 2411 event is also part of a growing national art-museum trend toward after-hours events that attract the kind of urbane, young adult professionals who — fingers crossed twice — might also one day pay to become museum members.

The Whitney Museum's SoundCheck Fridays attracts a twentysomething crowd to its American-art-lined environs with live music, literature readings and turntablists in a lower-gallery-turned-clubby-lounge. Also in Manhattan, Studio Museum Harlem and Chelsea's New Museum of Contemporary Art regularly host off-campus multimedia shows aimed at young adults looking to mingle over art and cocktails at local clubs and lounges.

The Bishop Museum jumps aboard tonight with "Revealed," a jazz-and-wine-themed party featuring music (by Rocky Brown and Friends and Manoa DNA), gourmet eats, wine flights, microbrews and tours of the new Science Adventure Center. Another edition follows later this year with a different theme. Four more are planned for 2007.

ARTafterDARK has proven itself a wildly successful last-Friday-of-every-month staple for the Honolulu Academy of Arts since its February 2004 debut. With changing themes driven by academy exhibitions — a "Voyage to the South Pacific" night designed around the "Life in the Pacific of the 1700s" show, for example — AafterD now draws more than 1,000 mostly twenty- to fortysomething patrons each time out.

As for 2411, "we wanted something that really lined up with our mission ... something that was really going to get people excited about contemporary art," Contemporary Museum director Georgianna M. Lagoria said.

"We've been kind of waiting and watching the trend, looking at what's going on and asking what we could really add to that mix."

An after-hours party at The Living Room last year launching an exhibit by Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara attracted a strong turnout of twenty- and thirtysomethings. Nara made an appearance. His favorite band, Munich-based Tiki Tiki Bamboooos, played live.

The event also created valuable buzz and turnout for the Nara exhibit up the hill.

Current plans are to host 2411 events at least twice a year. Venues chosen for each event will be driven by content.

NextDoor was selected this time because it best accommodated the multimedia needs of the artists involved. It didn't hurt that it also provided an attractive urban venue in an area that's about as downtown artsy as it gets in Honolulu.

"A sort of extension of (taking 2411 off campus) is that art can be everywhere ... that art is where you find it. It doesn't have to be in a museum," said Contemporary Museum membership coordinator Nina Mullally.

Lagoria insisted the museum wasn't angling to appeal to a specific age range or the next generation of Contemporary Museum members. The event is also not a fundraiser. (Here we'll note that 2411's $10 cover will be discounted from an annual membership fee if you sign up at the event.)

That said, organizers see 2411 as an audience builder for the kind of contemporary art that is the museum's namesake. If it attracts a younger audience to the museum and museum memberships? Bonus!

"For people who aren't familiar with going to museums to access art, experiencing art in a different setting will make them understand that museums aren't necessarily places to be intimidated by," said Mullally. "The art here is their art. The art we have is the art of the generation we're hoping to connect with better."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.