Stephen
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Posts by Stephen:
- Janine Marchessault & the Leona Drive Project
- Urban Camouflage And The Potentials of Commissioned ‘Street Art’
- Between Social Networks and Real Space
- New City Reader And The Return Of Print Media
- Images For A New Activism: The Posters of Green Patriotism
- Theoretical Geography: Bill Bunge and the Quantitative Revolution
- A Tree Grows in Detroit
![Monday night marked the last Broken City Lab meeting of the year!!! We’ll be taking a brief break over the holidays and then gearing up for a series of events starting at the end of January. For anyone who has been wondering how to get involved or if we’d ever hold open office hours again, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_72891-150x150.jpg "Last Meeting for 2009!")
![We recently decided to demarcate some of many accidental meadows across Windsor with these Naturalized Area signs. In hopes that these signs might momentarily allow residents of Windsor to look at these naturalized spaces for what they are—that is, wonderful additions to our urban landscape—instead of the result of a politically-charged issue, we spent the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_3023-150x150.jpg "Making the Signs for Naturalized Areas")
![In just a couple days, Danielle and I will be headed down to Lexington, Kentucky, where I’ll be presenting at this year’s Creative Cities Summit as part of the Using Art to Change Cities panel. The summit runs from April 7 – 9, 2010, I’ll be presenting on Friday, April 9th. Here’s the panel description [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/lexington-150x150.jpg "Creative Cities Summit: Using Art to Change Cities in Lexington, Kentucky")
![We’re gearing up for Homework. It’s going to be fun and you should really consider attending! There’s a few spots left. If you do decide to attend, you can look forward to receiving one of these fine sketchbooks. Designed by Liisa Salonen, the sketchbooks are recovered paper sample books, rewrapped. They still need to be stamped, maybe [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMG_4871-150x150.jpg "Homework Prep! Resampled Notebooks")
![From yesterday afternoon — testing the stamp that Rosina set up and the cards we just got back from the printers. We also got a fun package from Hamilton Artist Inc. that included some of the “questionnaires” we did from the last art crawl. These will eventually make their way into our forthcoming publication. Detail, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_9738-150x150.jpg "Letter Library Card & Stamp Test, Example, etc.")
![We spent the last couple of daylight hours on Friday working with rope and one of the fences at LeBel. We needed to test some techniques for communicating via rope (or ribbon, as we later decided) on a fence for another project. After moving inside to the warmth, we also settled on a preferred material, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/img_08971-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – Nov 28, 2008")
![Physical civic improvements are an important step for Windsor. Our gateways, if you’re unfamiliar with the city, are a bit lack-luster at present. Where gateways do exist, the markers are underdeveloped, poorly executed, and are the kind of “this could literally be anywhere” design strategy. Why do gateways matter? Physically and visually defining space is [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gatewayDay-150x150.jpg "This Probably Isn’t Helping: When Gateways Fail")
![As part of Green Corridor’s Open Corridor festival, I’ll be working with 500 biodegradable balloons with “YOU ARE WORTH IT.” printed on them. The balloons will be filled with helium and some wildflower seeds, 200 of them will be launched anchored throughout the Green Corridor area and handed out to those in attendance next Thursday, June 18th. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/balloons-printed-150x150.jpg "You Are Worth It: Biodegradable Balloons")
![On Monday, Norman Eberstein patrolled the alley, The Department of Unusual Certainties decorated their office and did some brainstorming, Thea Jones and Stephen Surlin moved in. Simon’s return to Windsor brought a lot of activity to the back of 410, where Chris had been sitting at his desk for a few days prior. The workspace [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0783-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 11: Norman’s Crush and Getting Organized")
![There’s a lot of BCL-related events coming up… First off, I’ll be giving an artist talk at the University of Windsor’s School of Visual Arts tomorrow, November 16 at 12noon. I’ll be discussing Broken City Lab and how I think about collaborative social practice in general. The talk along with follow up questions should run for [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG_2420-150x150.jpg "You’re Invited: Artist Talks, Conferences, and other upcoming events")
![We’re back to Friday nights. Someone thought to move the tables outside. In the dimming light, we worked. Many things are on the task list. We’re starting to work on a publication of sorts for How to Forget the Border Completely. It’s been a really clarifying decision to pull the strands of research we’ve been working [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_9947-150x150.jpg "We’re outside around a table, together. It’s May. How to Forget the Border Completely.")
![We’re packing up and heading down to Chattanooga, Tennessee tomorrow to attend CreateHere‘s City Share Mini Conference. What the conference is all about: “City Share is a conference for seeding innovative projects.We bring great minds from across disciplines together in Chattanooga, Tennessee to teach, share, plan, and change. The result? International knowledge-sharing; a growing network [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Screen-shot-2010-02-16-at-11.50.51-AM-sm-150x150.jpg "City Share Conference in Chattanooga")
![These are early days for a spontaneous new project, but here’s how we’re starting. Rosina, Hiba, and I met on Friday and after going through our usual to-do list, we started discussing some new projects. These new projects are all going to be tied together, and we’ll be writing about what that tie might look [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_8365-150x150.jpg "Early Research: Letters from Styrofoam (letter library)")
![I got the needed resistors right before Christmas, though hadn’t had a chance to post this yet. As you can see, there’s a 270Ω resistor, a 9V battery, and a 10mm LED working… along with the resistors, I got a 9V power supply, so we can make signs and run them off the wall, rather [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1496-150x150.jpg "LEDs, Resistors, 9V Power")
![Over three days this week, we got a lot done. And, as I write this, stuff is still getting done. This is why collaboration is such a valuable model for art practice. But, it’s not just about getting stuff done, it’s the challenges, the insights, the novel perspectives that can be brought up around a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/IMG_9628-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: End of April, 2011 (the Art of Planning & Collaboration)")
![I’ve made some really great progress on this ongoing Arduino + LCD project over the last couple of weeks — some of the two larger hurdles are now out of the way, the results of which you can see in the video above. Since the video was shot, I’ve improved the PHP script some more [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/IMG_8202-150x150.jpg "Parsing RSS Feeds for the Arduino + LCD + PHP project")
