Urban Stargazing
Here’s a project which is particularly interesting for its subtlety. Designer Oscar Lhermitte created twelve groups of artificial stars and added them to the night sky of London, titling the project Urban Stargazing. Oscar and his team installed a group of lights on thin transparent lines. These lines were then anchored to nearby structures. I find [...]
Swings: Los Angeles
People installing swing sets throughout the city of Los Angeles. I believe to be an interesting use of public spaces that citizens all share! Its interesting way to think what other things people could do to evoke feelings of community within shared spaces…or to imagine using certain spaces in different ways. I really enjoy the [...]
Blasbichler’s Twenty-One
Architect Armin Blasbichler recently presented 21 of his architecture students at the University of Innsbruck with an interesting and secretive assignment. His students had been assigned to “pick a bank in the city, study it, identify its Achilles’ heel and plan a bank robbery.” I’ll include the assignment statement below because it is incredible. “The task: [...]
City Counseling (Session #1)
Last night, in front of city hall, we had a conversation about the ways we want to shape our city. In the midst of rising tensions around existing city services and new infrastructures, there seems to be a renewed wish for not just more public dialogue with the city, but a dialogue based on transparency [...]
9:30pm tonight, an open conversation on the walls of city hall, you’re invited
It would be great if you could come. We’ll be at 350 City Hall Sq West, across the street from Charles Clark Square at 9:30pm. We’ll have a projector and a bunch of bristol board. We want to look at what public consultation could look like and how we might imagine the changes we want [...]
Mid-Week Work Period
Yesterday a group of us met at the School of Visual Arts building to work on completing the sub-projects which will appear in our How to Forget the Border Completely publication. It is exciting to see our ideas come to fruition and our publication take shape. We are now at the stage of roughly laying [...]
Outside the Planter Boxes
At the end of last month, 30 planter interventions were created by a group of Toronto-based artists, gardeners, and concerned citizens. These individuals each took a neglected planter and adorned it, modified it, or annotated its condition. This statement is made stronger by a collective approach to highlighting the issue of urban engagement. The following [...]
![We had ordered these screen printing supplies in anticipation of using them for our upcoming Civic Maintenance project, but before we could embark on that large-scale production, we needed to test. We got process colours cmyk and the basics for screen printing – photo emulsion and photo emulsion remover and two screens. We haven’t screen [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wpid19672-IMG_1253-150x150.jpg "1-Day Project: “Find Something Worthwhile”")
![Well, our strawberry-thyme-apple jam slow cooked overnight, but it’s now ready, and we’ve jarred it and added the labels from last night’s All Tomorrow’s Preserves workshop. Special thanks to Jen Delos Reyes for walking us through the wonders of jam making and Fallen Fruit for the tasty idea. Next week, All Tomorrow’s Problems returns as [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wpid22625-IMG_2936-150x150.jpg "All Tomorrow’s Preserves: It’s about thyme!")
![Lea Bucknell arrived from British Columbia to take over the window display of 424 Pelissier, Andrea Carvalho sent pictures of her last tactics in Windsor from Montreal, and SRSI participants get a surprise gift from a local fan. During the last few days of Andrea’s residency, she performed public interventions at bus stops and inside [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0660-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 12 &13: Tactics, Presents and Garden Party Plans")
![Just back from an incredible week installing at Eye Level Gallery for our show, Unrest Everywhere (tools for playing with Halifax), which runs until May 12, 2012. The show features a number of multiples and interactive works, all of which are yours for the taking and borrowing. The premise for the show was to create [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/IMG_7792-150x150.jpg "New Exhibition: Unrest Everywhere (Tools for Playing with Halifax)")
![In preparation for Art’s 1,000,046 Birthday Celebration this Saturday, January 17, 2009 at Phog (starts at 8:30pm, $3 for students and unemployed and Artcite members, $4 for everyone else), we spent Sunday evening making Broken City Lab fortune cookies from scratch. There’s lots of pictures of our adventures in baking after the jump. The process of making [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1964-150x150.jpg "Making Fortune Cookies")
![All Tomorrow’s Problems doesn’t aim to necessarily solve anything, but it takes up the position that we can’t wait for anyone else’s solutions either. Every Monday night, a group of people (artists, communicators, designers, academics, students, researchers, strangers, and just all-around passionate people) get together and try to spark conversations around the problems we’re encountering [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wpid22180-IMG_3779-150x150.jpg "Poster Sketches, outcomes from the Workshop with All Tomorrow’s Problems")
![It would be great if you could come. We’ll be at 350 City Hall Sq West, across the street from Charles Clark Square at 9:30pm. We’ll have a projector and a bunch of bristol board. We want to look at what public consultation could look like and how we might imagine the changes we want [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/bcl-citycounsel-150x150.jpg "9:30pm tonight, an open conversation on the walls of city hall, you’re invited")
![Starting on January 15, 2013, we’ll be offering a new workshop series for anyone and everyone interested in learning about electronics and physical computing. Hosted by Paul Anderson – a man of too many hobbies who holds the advanced qualification for ham radio in Canada, and has been working with electronics on and off since childhood [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/BEDO-POSTER-150x150.jpg "New Workshop Series Starting in January: Building Electronics / Designing Originally")
![Another Friday night open house gave the SRSI participants a great opportunity to show projections and engage in discussions about their experiences and feelings about working in Windsor. Denise St. Marie came down from Toronto to install her work Talk 2 Strangers. The piece is made from cut vinyl on easy to transport plastic sheeting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_06824-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 15: Evening Projections & Conversations")
![The details: Sunday, January 24, 2010 (8pm) at Phog Lounge (157 University Ave W, Windsor) As part of the Broken City Lab: Save the City project, Broken City Lab researchers will facilitate a community workshop to brainstorm, uncover, and share personal histories of Windsor, inviting a range of community members to participate in the process. The workshop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/BCL-STC-Jan-5x7-front-outlines-1024-150x150.jpg "Save the City: Listen to the City")
![Equipped with a vehicle, Michelle and I spent a few hours on Wednesday out and about in the city gathering materials to further the process on our upcoming project in Hamilton. Our first visit was to The House, a thought factory of sorts where Jodi has been fruitfully working on our collection of sewn squares [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screen-Shot-2012-01-28-at-11.58.23-AM-150x150.png "Errands! The Next Steps for Two Tales of a City")
![We’ve been talking about picking up on some of the ideas we put together for the OPEN panel discussion from earlier in the month, and it seemed like posters were a natural fit. Given the text statements that we made to address the an idea of economies and creative practice that served as the backdrop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wpid20573-IMG_1771-150x150.jpg "Fail to Meet Expectations: Vinyl on Paint Posters")
![The epic adventure with Arduino, LCDs, and PHP continues. I’ve finally made some progress in terms of breaking up the words and lines appropriately. It felt like a huge achievement, since I had been trying to figure out this line-break thing for quite a while. You can check the majority of the progress in the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7336-150x150.jpg "Arduino + LCD + PHP, Part 2")
![The weekend brought all of the artists together to collaborate on each other’s projects. The Imagination Lab engaged lots of young creative minds, and Thom Provost began work on his installation. Imagination Lab had open workshops for kids today. The amazing array of supplies and ingredients made for a fun and yummy smelling time in [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_07201-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 16 & 17 : Collaboration")
![Thursday night Cristina and I were up in Toronto at Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts, participating in the Christopher Hume curated exhibition, Public Realm. We did a series of projections with short texts / fill-in-the-blanks that dealt with issues of public and private space, which were generated from the answers to the questionnaires we [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_8787-copy-150x150.jpg "Talking to Walls: A Conversation About the Public Realm")
![It’s taken a number of weeks, but we finished wiring the LED sign at tonight’s Office Hours! It was a pretty incredible moment to plug in the sign, turn off the lights, and realize that we made this come together. I’m really, really, really happy with how it turned out!!! There are still a few [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2667-150x150.jpg "The LED Sign is Finished!!!")
![As part of FAM Fest 09, we did a projection performance on the roof of Metro Cleaners accessed from Empire Lounge in downtown Windsor. For about an hour and a half, we presented our 100 Ways to Save the City and then asked for ideas from the folks on the ground, at Phog, and on the Twitterverse. After the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_1761-150x150.jpg "100 Ways to Save the City Projection")
![Last night Danielle and I went to the downtown Transit Windsor terminal to install the first five test panels we had printed for Text In-Transit. The panels read: everything is possible, YOU MADE MY DAY, YOU ARE THE CITY, YOU CHANGED EVERYTHING, and changing the world starts by changing this city. We had to install [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_9143-150x150.jpg "First 5 Text In-Transit Panels Installed")