Pike Loop: Architectural Fabrication

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Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler are using R-O-B, their Mobile Fabrication Unit robot, to New York to build Pike Loop, a 22m long structure built from bricks at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

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Positioned on the central mall on Pike Street, the robot will work for up to four weeks – in full view of the public – to construct a brick wall, a highly sculptural response to the specific identity of the site. For the Pike Loop installation, more than seven thousand bricks aggregate to form an infinite loop that weaves along the pedestrian island. In changing rhythms the loop lifts off the ground and intersects itself at its peaks.

Beyond awesome.

[via today and tomorrow]

ArtPrize: Or How to Put a City on the World Map Right Now

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Have you heard of ArtPrize? Not familiar? Check it: Over 1200 artists showing their work throughout the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan; the public votes on their favourite works through a variety of online methods; the winner gets $250,000.

A citywide exhibition at this scale is pretty much unheard of and this amount of prize money is a first too.

So, I of course posted this with Windsor in mind. I’ve been to Grand Rapids before, once, it seemed like a great city—the downtown had a few great coffee shops near the DAAC, and a few boarded up storefronts, a decent mix of people, generally not that different from Windsor. And so, I have to ask, what would Windsor look like if we opened up the entire city to an arts festival?

Of course, Grand Rapids had the good fortune of having a wealthy family throw in the prize money from their foundation, and also stepped up to the plate first, but the attention that’s being focused on Grand Rapids is incredible and admirable.

I’m not suggesting that I think that the best way to experience art is to cram over 1000 works onto every open floor or wall space in the downtown area, nor do I think that there’s likely even a lot of great art in that batch of 1200 artists, but this idea, as a novel way to inject some interest into a place, is huge.

What might Windsor’s ArtPrize look like? I’m not sure, but we need to start thinking at this scale if we’re ever going to get this place moving in the right direction.

[via Good]

Rolling Economy

Last Wednesday at The Green Corridor‘s Drive-thru Symphony event I showed a projection entitled Rolling Economy. This site-specific piece served as a digital representational count of the Windsor-Detroit border trade that passes through the corridor. The piece, which lasted about an hour, was visible to those in cars and trucks coming off of the Ambassador Bridge.

Rolling Economy

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Conflux 2009 Day 2

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Day 2 of our trek to New York was filled with excellent adventures, some more great lectures, and lots of discussion. It was amazing to get to see some of the artists we’ve talked about before right here on the blog, and it continued to inform what we were continuing to try to define as our collective practice.

It’s already been five days since these pictures were taken, so I hope you’ll excuse my poor memory for some of what we saw.

Continue reading “Conflux 2009 Day 2”

Open Community Video

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In tandem with The Open Corridor and Drive-Through Symphony events, Green Corridor has also installed another exhibit, Open Community Video.  This installation features videos from local students and community members.  The videos are rear-projected through the front window of one of the The Green Corridor’s new Ecohouses located at 372 California Ave.

Window projection

Open Community Video will take place Thursday (tonight!), September 24th from 8-10pm and Friday, September (tomorrow!) 25th from 8-10pm.  If you have any short videos that you would like to contribute to this installment, just bring a dvd copy of it to the house tonight or tomorrow night!

Drive-Thru Symphony + Border Bookmobile + Laboratory Ecologies

Nature Bridge Pedestrian Overpass, Windsor, Ontario

TODAY in Windsor, there’s an incredible amount of activity happening. The Green Corridor will host a talk / workshop from Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council grant officers, two artist performances, and one huge outdoor event to bring culture to the NAFTA freeway.

Lee Rodney will launch her Border Bookmobile—a Windsor-made 1993 Plymouth Voyager stocked with a collection of artist books, theoretical texts, maps, and ephemera about the urban history of the Windsor-Detroit region and other border cities around the world.

Jennifer Willet will conduct ongoing laboratory research and hold a bio-art workshop with the general public in the presentation of her work InsideOut: Laboratory Ecologies. This piece explores the laboratory removed from its sterilized artificial setting and placed in an outside world full of environmental organisms and ecologies.

The Green Corridor along with composer Brent Lee, visual artist Sigi Torinus, Assumption High School musicians, What Seas What Shores, CJAM 91.5fm, and others will create a one-hour performance of music and visuals that interact with the passing traffic on Huron Church Road near the Pedestrian Overpass. Drivers can tune-in to the performance in near-realtime and contribute to the Drive-Thru Symphony by honking their horns, or revving their engines, or generally making noise. Broken City Lab will also be contributing through a number of projects by us as individuals.

Here’s the schedule:

1:00 – 2:30 – Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council
Integrated Arts Programs Information Session
Room 115 LeBel Building, University of Windsor
3:00 – 6:00 – Border Bookmobile, Lee Rodney
InsideOut: Labratory Ecologies, Jennifer Willet
8:00 – 9:30 – Drive thru Sympony Performance
Nature Bridge Pedestrian Overpass,
Huron Church Rd. at Millen St.

1:00 – 2:30 – Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council / Integrated Arts Programs Information Session / Room 115 LeBel Building, University of Windsor

3:00 – 6:00 – Border Bookmobile, Lee Rodney / InsideOut: Labratory Ecologies, Jennifer Willet

8:00 – 9:30 – Drive thru Sympony Performance / Nature Bridge Pedestrian Overpass / Huron Church Rd. at Millen St.

This is going to be an amazing event, dare I say, history-making. You need to be there.

Humanities Week 2009: Urbanism in these Border Cities

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This week is Humanities Week 2009, presented by Humanities Research Group (HRG), and it’s focusing on urbanism, cities, and the past and the future of Windsor / Detroit.

Here’s the rundown of the events, which I copied / cut / pasted, so please excuse the list:

Tuesday 22 September • Philosophers’ Café 8pm • Phog Lounge, 157 University Avenue West
Come participate in a wide-ranging discussion concerning cities, their possible futures, and the future of Windsor with Justin Langlois [Broken City Lab], Tom Lucier [Phog, tomlucier.com], Melinda Munro [City of Windsor], and Jeff Noonan [Philosophy, University of Windsor]. Cash bar.
Wednesday 23 September • MASSH Lecture 4.30pm • Room 1115, Medical Education Building, University of Windsor
In the first of the MASSH Lecture Series [Medical Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities], Steven Palmer, Canada Research Chair in the History of International Health with Steve Malone, graduate student, Department of History will speak on the history of medicine in Windsor and Detroit, in a talk entitled “Border Cities Medicine: Towards a History of Medical Practitioners in Windsor.” A free reception follows in the atrium of the Medical Education Building.
This event is co-sponsored by the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Windsor Programme, the Canada Research Chair in the History of International Health, and RREHS, Reason, Rhetoric, and Ethics in the Human Sciences.
Thursday 24 September • HRG Distinguished Speakers’ Series 7.30pm • Freed Orman Centre, Assumption University
Jerry Herron, professor of English and American Studies, Wayne State University, will talk on the contemporary history of Detroit. “Borderama Detroit” will explore the city as a spectacle, and what Detroit, that ‘life-in-death’ city, means for the future of urban areas around the world.
Friday 25 September • HRG Colloquium 10am • Location to be communicated
“How Not to See Detroit: What Tourists Always Get Wrong When They Come to Look at Us, and What One Got Exactly Right” is a wide-ranging discussion with Jerry Herron about Detroit and the way it has been documented by the photographer Corine Vermeulen-Smith. Seating is limited; contact the HRG office for more information and to register.

Tuesday 22 September • Philosophers’ Café 8pm • Phog Lounge, 157 University Avenue West – Come participate in a wide-ranging discussion concerning cities, their possible futures, and the future of Windsor with Justin Langlois [Broken City Lab], Tom Lucier [Phog, tomlucier.com], Melinda Munro [City of Windsor], and Jeff Noonan [Philosophy, University of Windsor]. Cash bar.

Wednesday 23 September • MASSH Lecture on the history of medicine in Windsor and Detroit, in a talk entitled “Border Cities Medicine: Towards a History of Medical Practitioners in Windsor.” Lecture 4.30pm • Room 1115, Medical Education Building, University of Windsor

Thursday 24 September • HRG Distinguished Speakers’ Series 7.30pm, Jerry Herron, professor of English and American Studies, Wayne State University, will give a talk entitled, “Borderama Detroit,” which will explore the city as a spectacle, and what Detroit, that ‘life-in-death’ city, means for the future of urban areas around the world. • Freed Orman Centre, Assumption University

Friday 25 September • HRG Colloquium 10am • Location to be communicated – “How Not to See Detroit: What Tourists Always Get Wrong When They Come to Look at Us, and What One Got Exactly Right” is a wide-ranging discussion with Jerry Herron about Detroit and the way it has been documented by the photographer Corine Vermeulen-Smith. Seating is limited; contact the HRG office for more information and to register.

There’s a lot going on this week, so contact HRG for more information on any specific part of the activity you see listed above, but plan to attend at least one of these events if your schedule permits!

Conflux 2009 Day 1

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We’re in New York for Conflux 2009 and we’re participating as part of Conflux City! We spent the first day catching up on some sleep, then venturing out into the city and touching base at Conflux HQ. There were a number of presentations we wanted to see, all of which helped us to start articulating some bigger questions we’ve been having about our own practice lately.

We’re scrambling right now to finish up our prep for our Algorithmic Subway Adventure at noon today (Sunday), so more details in the next posts later.

Continue reading “Conflux 2009 Day 1”