Urban Mediations
Thursday, May 14 going to be an incredible day: Urban Mediations, a one-day symposium on urban media studies is taking place in Windsor. Co-organized by the University of Windsor’s own, Dr. Michael Darroch, the symposium will involve a collection of researchers, artists, designers, and activists talking about what it means to research the urban.
I’ll be speaking on Broken City Lab, and Danielle will be talking about architecture of urban refugees, among many other fine thinkers, doers, and writers.
![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)")
![As part of a Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Research and Creation grant I received, I will be documenting my work on the project through here, as I anticipate it will cross over into other projects we work on and came out of past projects we’ve completed. This project comes out of Broken City [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_1669-sm-150x150.jpg "Starting New Projects: Researching the Basics of Arduino + LCDs")
![We’re in North Bay on a residency as we prepare for an exhibition this fall at the White Water Gallery. After spending Monday getting acquainted with the downtown, we ventured further out. Of course, we had to stop at the North Bay arch. Getting a sense of these kinds of structural parts of the city [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18911-IMG_0446-150x150.jpg "Learning About the Emerging Emergencies of North Bay")
![I took a leisurely bike ride around the neighbourhood yesterday afternoon. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to explore, to spend time paying attention to things. I basically wanted an update on the neighbourhood that Danielle and I had lived in a couple years ago. The eastern edge of Sandwich is quieter than ever. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_2416-150x150.jpg "Getting Reacquainted with the Neighbourhood")
![Hiba started working with the laser cut acrylic, pulling apart the excess that we won’t need when we make the cast. We’ll be creating a rubber mould from the positive of the acrylic. The excess, the negative. Hiba carefully placing some letters pulled off their base. Careful work. Then, Kiki came by to give us [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18788-IMG_0114-150x150.jpg "Laser Cut Acrylic Extraction Process & Lunch Time French Lesson")
![I sat down with a couple of different people over the last few weeks to discuss the possibility to rethink how we collectively address youth retention in Windsor. It’s an incredibly pressing (and yet somehow invisible) emergency. As a faculty member and collaborator with many recent graduates, it’s a professional and personal challenge to see [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/IMG_5190-150x150.jpg "A Proposal for Making It Easier to Stay Here: On Economic Development, Tax Policy, and Youth Retention")
![Tuesday was all about research. We looked up some more details on ribbons and talked more about how we would move forward with the Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope event. We’re also getting ready for Sunday’s event, Listen to the City (remember, 8pm at Phog), and for Thursday night’s projection performance at Propeller in Toronto. We were [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_6776-150x150.jpg "Researching Ribbons, Preparing for this Week’s Events")
![In preparation of our upcoming Tetris Tournament / Wheat Paste Demo / Sticker Making Party, we had made a list of supplies and had set out to find the goods at (what we thought) was an obvious choice—Value Village. At the top of our list was a hot plate, Tetris for SNES, and supplies for making [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-glory-that-is-value-village-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – Nov 1, 2008")
![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")
![In preparation for our upcoming contribution to the We Like Music Festival happening at The Magic Stick in Detroit, we are brainstorming a running list of reasons why we like Detroit. This blog post will be the spot where we can bounce ideas back and fourth through comments to use in our projection of text [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MajesticTheaterDetroit-150x150.jpg "Reasons Why We Love Detroit")
![Thursday night, our last night in North Bay as part of our residency, we did a large-scale public projection as a kind of summary of our conversations, and as a bit of a starting point for where we see the exhibition going. Almost next door to the White Water Gallery is this huge blank wall — [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid19048-MG_1594-150x150.jpg "100 Emergencies for North Bay (Projections in Downtown)")
![Friday afternoon turned out to be more productive than I thought it would. We finished embedding all the magnets we have, which means we have 25 planters either done or drying and ended up with 3 installed on various surfaces to see if they survive the rain this weekend. If they turn out, I’ll order [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_9731-150x150.jpg "New Magnetic Planters Field Test")
![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 "Working at & on (forgetting) the Border, Next Week is Show & Tell")
![Danielle and I spent a number of hours last night going through photos of the Parking Garage and starting to imagine new treatments for the infrastructure, space, signage, walls, and streetscape. We’ll be heading down early this afternoon to start getting all of this visual research up on the walls, with the opening tonight at [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/img_2608-we-150x150.jpg "Planning for 406 Pelissier")
![While we’re still moving along on our Save the City project in the background, we’re also continuing to look ahead to other projects and deadlines coming up. Tuesday mornings are always a really good productive time, and this week was no exception. While we wait for our ribbons and postcards to arrive for the upcoming Sites of [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7135-150x150.jpg "Sometimes Planning Means Drawing")
![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")
![Earlier this week we received a couple of samples of various retroreflective materials for use on our letters for CAFKA. One material, the one on the roll, is a vinyl (3M Scotchlite Reflective White Vinyl), perhaps most famously used in the Bright Bike project, while the other is an industrial substrate (3M Engineer Grade White [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/IMG_9505-150x150.jpg "Retroreflective Materials Test")
![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)")
![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")
Nice! Is it a public event?
where and what time is this taking place?
It’s taking place at Artcite, starts at 9am…
I think it’s probably open if you wanted to attend!
ok cool, i’ll be there.
Hey Justin – is there a registration fee?
I think it’s free!
I’ll just tell them to bill BCL if there’s a fee ;)
Deal! :)