By Justin on September 30th, 2009, 9:29 am 0 Comments

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.

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]

Tagged: architecture brick fabrication installation machine

By Justin on September 29th, 2009, 11:24 am 0 Comments

We met last night and started our list of 100 Ways to Save the City for our projection on Saturday night as part of FAM Fest.

We’re also spent some time putting together a rough schedule for 2009 Micro-Residencies, which will likely start in November. If you’ve thought about applying, but haven’t yet, now would be a great time to put forward an idea!

Tagged: 100 ways BCL FAM Fest list projection research Windsor Word

By Justin on September 28th, 2009, 1:44 pm 2 Comments

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]

Tagged: art city festival Grand Rapids ideas Michigan prize

By Michelle on September 28th, 2009, 12:00 pm 2 Comments

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.

Tagged: border citynoise Detroit Drive-Thru Symphony economy Green Corridor trade trucks Windsor

By Justin on September 27th, 2009, 11:32 pm 1 Comments

Interesting design idea from Brittany Veitch and Ben Landau using plants, laser-cut components, and a dystopian view of our future.

Bio-Accessories suggest a personal take on the responsibility of greening our cities, or at least our personal space within them, while imagining new and very personal relationships with ecology.

[via Inhabitat]

Tagged: air city design DIY fashion green plants

By Justin on September 24th, 2009, 11:49 pm 3 Comments

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: BCL city Conflux lecture New York presentation research travel

By Cristina on September 23rd, 2009, 11:44 pm 0 Comments

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.

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!

Tagged: ecohouse Green Corridor open community video open corridor projection projector

By Justin on September 23rd, 2009, 8:14 am 1 Comments

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.

Tagged: art bio book border music NAFTA performance street Windsor

By Justin on September 22nd, 2009, 12:11 am 2 Comments

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!

Tagged: border Detroit discussion humanities talk university Windsor

By Cristina on September 20th, 2009, 10:17 am 1 Comments

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: airport BCL Conflux lecture New York photocopying research travel