Pg 113 Waking Up from the Nightmare of Participation
“…the specific openness or porosity of contemporary art for instance has functioned as a weird kind of hosting system: as a kind of asylum for various cultural forms and encounters apparently impossible elsewhere.”
– from Michael Hirsch’s Professional Amateurs, Outsiders, Intruders – On the Utopia of Transdisciplinary Work in the Cultural Field in “Waking up from the Nightmare of Participation”.
![Over the last week or so, we’ve added a few new things to our little website here. It’s funny because there’s a lot of research that goes on in the background, in terms of things we come across and don’t blog about, ideas that we email to one another, and documenting our process and posting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bcl-sidebar-dec09-150x150.jpg "How we use this site for research (in-part)")
![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")
![We met yesterday, but too much going on for any photos. I figure that our shared Dropbox folder says most of the important stuff anyways. We’re working towards completing our HFBC publication, which includes things like: posters of inventions on crossing an imagined border wall maps and 3D renderings of a cross-border portal system a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Screen-shot-2011-05-27-at-10.58.12-AM-150x150.png "Re: Collaborating on a big publication, Dropbox ftw")
![What you need: A good large base canvas. (One on the pavement, preferably). A sweet substance. (preferably with a control spout. I.e. honey, Chocolate syrup). A shitload of ants. (preferably the friendly kind.) we all have experienced this very familar phenomenon take place on the sidewalk, in the corner of a high school hallway, and [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Fire-Ants-love-eating-Harper-150x150.jpg "Bio Graff")
![Monday night at BCL HQ, going over plans for moving forward on our recently OAC funded project starting in January 2010, Broken City Lab: Save the City (details to follow), using good ol’ fashioned lists and future technologies—it was amazing, in every sense of the word. Not sure how many more times we’ll be meeting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_13821-150x150.jpg "Planning (in and) For the Future")
![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")
![Tuesday night’s Broken City Lab Office Hours were successful, but as usual, all too short. Spending the majority of the time in Lebel’s wood shop, we started working on our LED sign, but still have a long ways to go with it. We cut plexiglass, drilled holes, and started soldering—I think we’ll continue next Monday [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_2074-150x150.jpg "LED Sign Construction")
![I saw an ad for CCA‘s Actions: What You Can Do With the City exhibition in the current issue of Border Crossings and the title got the best of me. I quickly flipped through the rest of the magazine, then went about exploring the Tools for Actions website. On the site, you’ll find 99 actions, ranging from [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/picture-7-150x150.png "Tools for Actions")
![Monday saw the last new residents move in to the SRSI spaces; Lee Rodney’s Bookmobile Reading Room and Emily Colombo’s friendly services. To get footage for the SRSI documentary, Daragh followed Norman around, who was on his A game all day. Norman’s logs present a personal perspective on his security guard experiences. Lee Rodney arrived [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_1470-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 25: Bookmobile & Friendly Services")
![In preparation of the upcoming event, and in response to our sudden acquisition of 4 t-shirts, we spent Tuesday evening making stencils, shirts, testing Tetris 2, wheatpasting, and figuring out the logistics of a video game tournament. First thing on the list of to-do’s was to test my custom wheatpaste applicator. The results were mixed, though I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/engage-and-disrupt-the-city-the-front-of-our-t-shirts-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – Nov 4, 2008")
![Josh and I spent some of the day in the heat collecting some interesting flowers and plants to transplant for our magnetic planters project. Overall, it was fairly successful, as we did learn quite a lot about transplanting, but we’re still going to be looking for some more plants to finish up this stage of [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_46142-150x150.jpg "Learning to Transplant")
![We’re hosting an algorithmic adventure to get to know our new neighbourhood. This adventure will be a psychogeographic walk of sorts starting at Broken City Lab Headquarters, which will take participants around the campus, student ghettos, the sculpture garden, Indian Road, and all of the little things that make this area worth exploring. Everyone who shows [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/welcometotheneighbourhood-150x150.jpg "Welcome to the Neighbourhood")
![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 "The Letters are Done Phase 2!!!")
![On Friday night we played with some new things that Rosina brought over — retroreflective glass beads to be exact. We also made it through another three letters doing papier maché! And, we selected a colour for the letters, again thanks to Rosina doing some recon on paint chips. So, we now have two bags [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_3821-150x150.jpg "Retroreflective Glass Beads Have Arrived, Weeks of Work Ahead!")
![We met twice on Thursday, and those meetings were after Michelle and I headed over to SB Contemporary Art to finally check out “On Your Mark” (a great exhibition featuring work by many of our friends) and talk about how we could partner in some way on Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices. Back [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_9710-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: May 5, 2011 (Big Books & Small Letters)")
![Once again, we gathered at Lebel for another fun Friday full of brainstorming and map making. This particular Friday we met with Mel, a jewelry designer with his BFA from Yugoslavia, to discuss the best design for the CAFKA letters. We are currently deciding whether it would be best to stick with our original plan [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IMG_2379-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: March 11, 2011 (Maps & Letters)")
![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")
![We spent last night watching a rough cut of some of Eric’s ongoing micro-residency project, did a lot of measuring, used Google Earth, did some math, drew some diagrams, and brainstormed a new project (because Cristina wants to sew, a lot). With the semester basically over now, we’re hoping to wrap up a couple things [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_6230-150x150.jpg "Math, Markers, and Measurements + Eric’s micro-documentary")
Haha! This is so true!