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 a series of works that could directly or indirectly suggest access points for re-encountering the city and your role within it. We created works that aimed to be highly distributable, playful, and allowed a bit of critical commentary on the ways in which a sense of place comes to be planned, articulated, and established.

Below is a huge pile of documentation of the process — but first — we’d like to extend a huge thanks to all staff and volunteers at Eye Level, especially Michael and Matt, and to Emily and Kaley for the place to crash!

Hiba, Josh, and Justin left for Halifax late last week, having shipped some bits and pieces of works ahead of time, including a huge number of these paper fortune-tellers, with psychogeographic instructions written on them.

We had five days to get everything together in preparation for the opening on Thursday, April 12.

Though we had a number of plans ahead of time, lots of that changed as we arrived and got a feel for the gallery, the city, and the aesthetic cues around us.

 

One of the works we had planned and moved forward with was the Halifax Machine. A fax machine with programmed numbers to send faxes straight to the Mayor’s office and other bureaucracies.

Just about every day, we were at the gallery until late into the night.

 

One of the new works we put together was a series of books with tear-out pages to make little posters.

 

 

We also had planned on using some bicycles for a projection-based work, but we had to change plans when we realized there were few publicly accessible power outlets (there’s a lot here in Windsor).

Mock-ups for bunting.

Some test faxes.

Prepping.

Our shopping list.

Josh, math master.

Some textures of Halifax.

Mural of Halifax’s history.

Parking structure exterior.

Cracks traced. There were some interesting similarities between Windsor and Halifax, though the grandeur of the architecture wasn’t one of them.

The walls of City Hall.

Incredible old building — what was this?

More layout.

Planning.

Sketching.

Notes.

 

Perforated books …

… thanks to our new multi-cutter from Staples.

Perforated edge in all of its glory.

Detail of the Halifax Machine Forms.

Temporary bunting.

Josh constructing the signs and dolly. We hand cut all these framing boards, which was fun.

Paper table.

Construction in process.

Josh and Hiba plan build process.

Basics of the signs.

Some early mockups to wrap the booklets.

A work on city planning.

The days bled into each other as we seemed to return back to Emily and Kaley’s later and later each night.

The first sign completely built.

The books — we went with all yellow.

Hiba paints the signs.

We really like painting things black.

The temporary bunting is up!

Detail of the booklets.

Mid-week.

Along with the temporary bunting from the ceiling, we want people to be able to make their own as well, so we setup a bunch of pins with individual letters so anyone could make a custom message.

 

We also did some projections!

Getting closer to being done.

The vinyl!

Finishing touches.

Hanging photos.

Bunting alphabet installed.

The string.

 

Roll of paper to allow people to make their own message, borrow a sign and our dolly and do their own temporary install.

We also provided paint and brushes.

Justin paints.

Josh and level.

Test messages.

Test faxes.

Josh paints, Hiba vinyls.

Title wall.

The bunting alphabet.

An unofficial story about Halifax.

 

Detail, paper fortune tellers / psychogeography tools.

Halifax Machine and photos.

Title card for the signs.

Midway through the gallery , as we wrap up installation.

This huge display case was conveniently already at the gallery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything wrapped up.

Then the opening…

Sign painting.

Writing a message for the Halifax Machine.

Forms from the Halifax Machine that were sent out!

Another sign mounted.

Improvised play with our bunting

One of the temporary sign relocation sites.

 

Huge thanks to everyone who came out to the opening!

We’re so happy with this show and we hope visitors play. Remember, it’s up until May 12!!!!

We’ve been traveling a lot lately, and it’s been amazing to work in a number of other cities, but we’re also going to have some really big news for some new projects back in Windsor really soon. Stay close.