Broken City Lab in Conversation with Julian Montague at Videofag
Friday, February 1st, 7:30pm – 187 Augusta Avenue, Toronto, Ontario This Friday, Cristina Naccarato and Joshua Babcock of Broken City Lab will be heading to Toronto to participate in a discussion at Videofag with Julian Montague. The discussion will revolve around the repurposing of space in “North American Rustbelt Cities”. Julian will be discussing the [...]
CUTMR Panel: Evolution – Design Conversations in a Collaborative City
Justin heads to Toronto this weekend to participate in Evolution — Design Conversations in a Collaborative City on Sunday, January 27 at 1pm in the Gladstone Ballroom at the Gladstone Hotel. We were there earlier this year for Nuit Blanche, it’s going to be fun to return! Here’s the overview from the curators: In celebration of Come Up [...]
Call for Participation: Regret & Resolve
With the start of the new year, we wanted to take stock of the regrets we have about the city or our roles within it, and the resolutions we might make to change this place for the better. We want to ask two questions: What are the things that we know we should be doing, [...]
Exploring Philadelphia & Public Talk with Mural Arts & Philly Works
We’ll be visiting Philadelphia to explore the development of short- and long-term projects in collaboration with the Mural Arts Program and community organizations in the city. During our visit, Mural Arts and Philly Works will be hosting a public presentation of our work, and a stimulating conversation about how artists can engage people in conversations [...]
Exploring North Bay (prep for Surviving North Bay)
We’re in North Bay for a residency in preparation of an upcoming exhibition. White Water Gallery is our gracious host (and for the first half of the day, our introduction to North Bay). Much of the day is on foot, with cameras. We record what we can about the city’s history and get a read [...]
Single-Use Camera Tests: Captioning the City
Kevin and Josh ventured out with a single-use camera to test what the temporary installations would look like, as we continue to prep for Thursday’s launch of the Letter Library here at CIVIC SPACE. Also, film is fun. The letters look great and the photos aren’t too bad either. They definitely have a colder tone [...]
Grades for public infrastructure
Has this already been done somewhere? The idea of creating grade sheets for things in the city and then a space for comments or something? Might we take it on too? This photo is of a page in the book Waking Up from the Nightmare of Participation, I think it’s a template of an evaluation form [...]
Smiley Face Visualizations from Mood Data of a City
Project Stimmungsgasometer, by Richard Wilhelmer, Julius von Bismarck and Benjamin Maus, is a giant smiley face that changes based on the mood of Berlin citizens. When they are collectively “happy” the light is a smile, and when they are not, it is a sad face. Input comes from facial recognition software (contributed by the Fraunhofer Institut) that [...]
DX Salon Nights: In Conversation
Michelle and Justin head up to Toronto on December 8th at 6:30pm at 234 Bay Street for an interview with the Department of Unusual Certainties, as part of the ongoing DX Salon Night. Not familiar with the Design Exchange? The Design Exchange (DX) is Canada’s design centre and museum with a mission to promote the [...]
Martha Street Studio Residency Day 3: Install & Exhibition
A quick three days at Martha Street Studio finished up with the opening for our exhibition, All the Stories We’re Not Telling About Winnipeg. The show features a series of posters made by participants from our workshops and created in response to the stories they collectively wrote. The exhibition runs until January 5, 2012! We have [...]
![For the month of June, Broken City Lab will have access to 406 Pelissier (pictured above) in downtown Windsor, thanks to Julie Sando and Leesa Bringas who are teaching the Contemporary Visual Culture class during Intersession at the University of Windsor. We’re still just starting to plan what we might do in the space, but [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_0032-150x150.jpg "Temporary Downtown Space for BCL")
![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 "Community Garden Site")
![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)")
![“CreateHere works with one guiding principle in mind: we love our city for what it is, has been and could become.” The non-profit organization started in 2007 and does things like provide over $300,000 in artists grants to area creatives, connecting talented artists to homes in Chattanooga, and asking everyone in their city what they [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/web_oct5-createhere-150x150.jpg "Micro-Residency #1: CreateHere.org")
![It might seem a bit quiet around here as of late, but rest assured we’re keeping busy. We’re in the thick of paperwork — grant reports, project proposals, etc. However, we’re also quickly approaching the start of a new project that you’ll see unfold here likely over the next month or two. Danielle is working [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_2398-150x150.jpg "Keeping Busy")
![Yesterday, Eric Boucher met with my uncle, Lou Tortola, to interview him for his Micro Residency. Lou immigrated to Windsor from Italy in the seventies, when he was about ten or eleven, and is now a successful entrepreneur, established writer, and CEO of eliquidMEDIA. Over some espresso and biscotti, he talked with Eric about his first impressions [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/DSC05858-150x150.jpg "Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 5/5")
![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")
![Day 3 of our Extended Field Trip #001 in Peterborough at Artspace was filled with design, math, and construction. Having decided that the general sense of the city is that “everything is OK,” we moved forward on printing posters and building some text that will be on display for the opening Friday night. We had many adventures [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_3631-150x150.jpg "Extended Field Trip Day 3: Construction")
![Yesterday was just lovely! Andrea Carvalho did a parking garage performance as part of her study of Non-Places, Kero set up his interactive installation, and a lot of familiar local friends rolled through The People’s Museum to contribute to the giant map. Andrea has been trying to perform in this space for a few days [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0449-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 8: Rethinking Parking Garages")
![We had ordered these screen printing supplies in anticipation of using them for our upcoming Civic Maintenance project, but before we could embark on that large-scale production, we needed to test. We got process colours cmyk and the basics for screen printing – photo emulsion and photo emulsion remover and two screens. We haven’t screen [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wpid19672-IMG_1253-150x150.jpg "1-Day Project: “Find Something Worthwhile”")
![A note from Stephen Hargreaves after our conversation last night about the bus system in Detroit and possibilities for cross-border transportation… the image above is of a different Detroit map just to give some reference. On the map Stephen mentions, the routes go far beyond Detroit’s city limits. Check out the “System Map”, where the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Screen-shot-2011-01-03-at-1.35.48-PM-150x150.png "Detroit bus services…")
![Equipped with a vehicle, Michelle and I spent a few hours on Wednesday out and about in the city gathering materials to further the process on our upcoming project in Hamilton. Our first visit was to The House, a thought factory of sorts where Jodi has been fruitfully working on our collection of sewn squares [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screen-Shot-2012-01-28-at-11.58.23-AM-150x150.png "Errands! The Next Steps for Two Tales of a City")
![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)")
![After various discussions over the break regarding the next steps in preparing our giant banner for the upcoming project in Hamilton, I went ahead and did some experimenting with image transfers onto fabric. I took direction from a handy post here, which included simple directions and very few ingredients. With a simple picture printed [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_6470-150x150.jpg "Fabric Transfers and Letter Tracing: More Preparations for Two Tales of A City")
![Another Friday night open house gave the SRSI participants a great opportunity to show projections and engage in discussions about their experiences and feelings about working in Windsor. Denise St. Marie came down from Toronto to install her work Talk 2 Strangers. The piece is made from cut vinyl on easy to transport plastic sheeting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_06824-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 15: Evening Projections & Conversations")
![Broken City Lab is heading up to Hamilton on Friday, November 20th, 2009 to run a workshop/event on communicating through intervention in urban spaces. The workshop is being held at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre as part of their Labour Lounge series, this time in partnership with the Hamilton Youth Arts Network. This has [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/wahc-map-150x150.jpg "Labour Lounge @ WAHC in Hamilton")
![Last night was the second iteration of Cross-Border Communication where we sent a variety of messages from Windsor to Detroit. We started with “We’ve Missed You.” We’ll be doing the final iteration of this suite of Cross-Border Communication tonight (Wednesday) around the usual time (8pm). Some other folks stopped by on our side to see [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_4629-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: We’ve Missed You (and other things worth saying)")
![Whether making your own guerrilla celebration, working on a gallery installation, or even getting ready for some upcoming holiday festivities, we think our little automagic bunting app will make everything a little bit easier. We got tired of hand-setting each letter when we’ve made bunting in the past, so we cooked up this simple little web app that [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/makebunting-150x150.jpg "Micro-Project: Make Your Own Bunting (Web App)")
![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")