Being Productive Again: Day 1

Now that Intersession is done, we’ve finally been able to put that downtown space to some use. Cristina and I spent the better part of the day in the space, using it basically as an office, but we’ll be there at least one more day this week and potentially one day on the weekend picking up where we left off on some older projects and inevitably starting some new ones.
On today’s agenda: see the new hybrid buses and look for some Text In-Transit signs (which we found), set up a small work area in the space, make some preliminary decisions about our book so we can get started on it, and photograph a new research site.
Also, we’re looking for any biodegradable plastic bags you may have (hint: Bulk Barn gives out biodegradable bags) for another project. If you have any, please drop them off at 406 Pelissier. We’ll be there Tuesday from 12noon until around 4pm.

We missed the formal introduction of the new hybrid Transit Windsor buses, but we peered through the windows and spotted a sign that had been recently installed. Steven also already saw a couple signs.

Cristina photographing the first sign (of any kind) to be installed on one of the new hybrid buses.

Through the window: “It won’t cost you anything and think of how nice it would be.” This panel was actually written by an old friend of mine who recently moved back to Windsor (yes, that actually happens, I guess).

406 Pelissier with a nice view of the street.

First thing first, posting a photo of the spotted Text In-Transit sign.

Cristina started making a sign to add to the sandwich board that we placed on the sidewalk.

Cristina starts the sign on the sandwich board.

Broken City Lab on the sign. I liked the green and red houses above.

Cristina mounts the OPEN sign next to the sandwich board.

We were open and will be on Tuesday as well.

After moving the desk to get better reception for the DWBIA, we started working on a Google Doc for the book, it’s really great that we can both be working on the document at the same time and it keeps updating itself.

Cristina makes a point, while pictured in front of Steven’s installation.

The document in Google Docs.

A quick Photoshop version of a potential cover?

Though not from today, but still a photo I’ve been meaning to post. This is a biodegradable plastic bag from Bulk Barn that Steven and I were working with last week.

I’m not sure what other stores offer biodegradable bags, but I’m assuming if it is biodegradable, it’ll have a message like this.

So, after we left the downtown space, we headed to the park on Sandwich, near the University / Riverside split.

Cristina got some shots of the fence, which will likely be the focus of the project in the area.

Cristina uses her live view on her new camera.

The fence is pretty ideally situated.

The fence is on the edge of a park, next to an apartment building and on a fairly busy route to the University.

The fence spans all the way along the park, but we’re concentrating on the section nearest the road.

Near the fence is this jungle gym (and a once working fountain).

I tried to get an approximate measurement for the fence.

Doing some calculations resulted in a kind of startling number.

A panoramic view of the site, we’ll be doing more work on this throughout the week.

![City Share Conference in Chattanooga 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)
![The Letters are Done Phase 2!!! We did it. With a lot of help, we plowed through the remaining eight letters, finishing the papier maché part of the process towards completing our ongoing large-cardboard letters project. On Friday night, we had ten people around the table, including our dear Cristina for a short while, and it was great!!! Next on the to-do list — get [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_40091-150x150.jpg)
![Physics Club + Making Paper It’s been a busy last week, getting back from Victoria, and launching the Text In-Transit Call For Submissions, but we still had time to meet for our weekly Office Hours and continue working with the Massey Physics Club. Our adventures in paper making for an upcoming planters project we have in mind, and in learning [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_3378-150x150.jpg)
![A New Project Begins: Cardboard, a projector, and lots of editing In what feels like the first time in months, we got together and worked on making something (that is, as opposed to planning something). We’re getting started on what is going to be an epic project, time-wise. We’re making a bunch of large 3D cardboard letters. Collaborative Apartment Studio is very fun. Danielle and I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_07931-150x150.jpg)
![New Text In-Transit Submission Form! Courtesy of the always brilliant Steven … There’s now a new submission form that allows you to get a quick preview of what your Text In-Transit panel could look like, along with a fun little colour swatch. If you’ve already submitted, it’s worth submitting more just to try this out, and if you haven’t submitted yet—get [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/bcl_textintransit-submit-150x150.jpg)
![New Friends Across the Border: Visiting 555 Yesterday, Lee Rodney (Research Director of the Border Bookmobile) and I headed on a short 4km journey. We visited the fine folks at 555, a volunteer artist-run arts organization providing affordable studios and workspace, gallery space, exhibition programs, arts education programs, and an artist in residency program. We met at their temporary location, while they [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/WindsorDetorit-BCL-555-150x150.jpg)

![Save A City At Windsor’s riverfront, SAVE A CITY, installed this afternoon. We opted out of using monofilament to hang the blocks of ice because there was a nice snowbank already there, and probably the last thing the Detroit River needs is more garbage in it. I’ll post some photos of the process of making these soon (definitely [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2536-2-150x150.jpg)

![Working at & on (forgetting) the Border, Next Week is Show & Tell Meeting outside is the greatest. There’s talk of building some kind of mobile table / bistro to make this possible in other locations, but I suppose that’s further down on the to-do list. For now, we’re immersed in bringing together research and inventions around our How to Forget the Border Completely project to pull into [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_9987-150x150.jpg)
![ATTC Calgary Day 1: Shortcuts for Urban Resistance & Algorithmic Walks We’re in Calgary working with Truck Gallery’s CAMPER Urban Discovery project, doing a residency based on our “…and then the city…” (ATTC) research. Developed after a six-month community research project back in Windsor called, Save the City, ATTC was initially realized as two billboards in Windsor and an accompanying publication that looked at the cyclical [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/DSC26601-150x150.jpg)
![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 [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/bcl-citycounsel-150x150.jpg)
![Making Banners at the Labour Lounge We spent Friday night in Hamilton at the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre as part of their Labour Lounge series (organized by once-Windsorite, Andrew Lochhead). In a little less than two hours, we led a workshop and explosion of creativity with some amazingly great 13-year-olds. We made banners, two really great banners that will be [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_5675-150x150.jpg)
![Naturalized Area: Accidental Meadow Installed across the road from the University of Windsor‘s Naturalized Area, our sign highlights one of the many wonderful accidental meadows, created by the ongoing city workers strike. These naturalized areas allow for a moment in which one might be able to mistakenly believe that Windsor is a progressive city, a place where this type [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_3079-sm-150x150.jpg)
![We Learned Electricity! We’re in week 3 of this LED sign project, and we now know how to finish it up. We had previously soldered all the anodes on the LEDs, but we were a bit confused about the connections of the cathodes and resistors. As we had been working off of a MAKE video, which breezed over [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/dsc_1920-150x150.jpg)
![Community Garden Site I went out to the site for our proposed community garden to take some photos yesterday. It’s looking fairly likely that this will be the site for our community garden starting this summer. This park is located at Russell and Mill near the Sandwich windmill. We’re still working out all the details, but everything has [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_4065-150x150.jpg)
![Keeping Track of the Archives Here it is, or at least, here’s part of the physical archive, the scannable stuff anyways, from 2008-2009. It’s been hanging out in my filing cabinet for a long time, but finally with the help of Miranda Fay during her off-hours, it’s been gradually scanned in page by page. Archives are crucial for taking stock, for remembering, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_2546-150x150.jpg)
![Finishing Up Our Homework (late assignment) Above, Homework Artists-in-Residence presenting their work, Photo by Eduardo Aquino It’s a week later than we had hoped to be making this kind of wrap-up post, but we also know this is just the beginning of a larger conversation that will span far beyond this space. Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices hosted over 120 [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/yes_no_9-3-150x150.jpg)

Re the biodegradable plastic bags – A couple of weeks ago I bought some books at Chapters and when I declined the offer of a plastic bag the clerk advised me that their bags were biodegradable. It would interesting if a list were compiled. Also, what the heck has happened to the paper bags the grocery stores used to offer as an alternative?
It would be great to get a list going to see who is offering biodegradable bags, good call!
And so, I’ll add that to the call: if you have biodegradable bags from Chapters or Bulk Barn, bring them down to 406 Pelissier, we’ll be there from 12noon to about 4pm.
Apparently, paper bags are not as green as once claimed to be.
They are heavier than the plastic bags, have a higher chance of tearing and are less likely to be reused.
And the stores would probably get a lot of arguments if people had to pay 5 cents for them.
You weren’t lying when you said you we’re making an epic post!
Excited to get more done today!
Me too!!! Bring your iron!!
Crap! I’m already downtown and ironless :(
I do have some biodegradable bags though! Gah!
Oh God. Re-looking at these photos, I hope the change in my colour settings today will make the next post’s photos waaaay less gross and over saturated.
Stupid new camera and me not being used to it yet. :)