Check it: Captioning the City with the Letter Library

Some of our single use cameras have been developed and placed on our Letter Library grid wall. Above are some of our favourites so far!

There has been such a diverse array of captions coming in, and we’re so excited to develop the rest of the cameras to see what other captions were created, but we need your help.

Come by and contribute to the Letter Library archive and caption the city with your own words (and in turn, help us get these pictures printed!). We’re open every day this week from 11:00 am to 4:30 pm!

Single-Use Camera Tests: Captioning the City

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (1)

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.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (2)

The letters look great and the photos aren’t too bad either. They definitely have a colder tone to them, but it works!

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (3)

This shot was excellent — love how visible this is from a distance.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (4)

Recycling containers = excite.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (5)

Strange undulations in the wall = excite.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (6)

Blank walls = excite.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (7)

The conversation these texts have with other tags, signs, etc. are really interesting.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (8)

The prints. 4×6. We’ll need others.

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Hiba starts to arrange these test photos as we figure out how we’ll design the exhibition space.

	Documentation with single-use cameras: Putting letters up in city spaces (9)

Also, on the to-do list — pick up our postcards today!

Reflections on Circulations

Last Wednesday I hosted an algorithmic walk around downtown Windsor with some University of Windsor Communications Studies and History grad students. The class, led by Drs. Mike Darroch and Rob Nelson, spent about an hour exploring the city, as per the algorithm, in an area between Park and Pelissier and McDougall and Tuscarora. Groups of three spread out throughout the area and stepped through the algorithm in a different order.

The algorithm connected with some readings the class had done on ideas of circulation. It was based on a series of simple suggestions to look for things that disrupt, capitalize, or imagine forms of circulation in the city. At each step in the algorithm, groups had to take a photograph. Below are some images from the walk.

Find an in-between space.

Find an example of urban improvisation.

Find a transaction.

Find a space to occupy.

Find something symbolic.

Dr. Darroch and some of this students on the walk.

Find  an in-between space.

Find something symbolic.

Find an example of urban improvisation.

Find a transaction.

Find a safe place.

Find the heart of the city.

I think this little 8-page booklet format could work well for our upcoming walks. I know we had talked about theming these walks. Any ideas for the first one on the 13th?

 

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 artists, writers, community activators, curators, thinkers, and doers from big and small places across North America (and, incredibly, at least one person from overseas). From the first day of the residency to the last day of the conference, the schedule was beyond jam-packed, but the things we discussed, together, made the two-day conference an incredibly rewarding experience for us. We are exceptionally happy with how Homework turned out and we can’t thank you enough for attending and supporting it.

There’s still more ahead though — the publication will be assembled over the coming months, and if you’re still looking to contribute, you should get in touch. There’s also been some questions about another edition of Homework, and we’re considering it. We’d love to see these kinds of conversations given a bit more time and space to unfold.

As happy as we are with how things went, we know there’s definitely room for improvement. If you have any feedback for us on your experience of the conference, it’d be great to hear from you. Please consider filling out this response form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEpMczJtVTVtZEhoNWgyeUp4SWZyNVE6MQ

We’re also working on cataloguing all the video documentation and we’ll be working to make these video archives available as soon as we can, stay tuned. And, if you have any documentation of the residency or conference, please pass it along.

And finally, we’d like to extend our most sincerest thanks to everyone who participated and attended Homework, including our conference panelists and our incredible keynotes! Thank you!

Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the University of Windsor’s School of Visual Arts, and our community partner the Art Gallery of Windsor.

Livestream is go for Homework!

Hiba and I took a trip down to the Art Gallery of Windsor (our gracious host and community partner for our upcoming conference) to check out the possibilities for using Livestream to make the conference available to the folks who can’t make it down to Windsor.

We had Kevin on another connection to check and it looks like we’re set for livestreaming the conference portion of Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices next Friday and Saturday — you can check the schedule here: http://www.brokencitylab.org/homework/homework-conference-schedule-presenters/.

And, on those days, you can find us livestreaming here: http://www.livestream.com/brokencitylab

Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the University of Windsor’s School of Visual Arts, and our community partner the Art Gallery of Windsor.

Welcome to Pyongyang

Charlie Crane was faced with the task of photographing one of the most secretive and perhaps the most censored countries in the world. It took a year of trying to obtain permission to bring his camera to North Korea, and even as he got there, he was faced with incredibly tight restrictions. As digging deeper would be nearly impossible, Crane chose to go another route, and photographed exactly what he was permitted to see. As a result, this work is of the strongest I’ve seen.

The following images are from tourist sites around the city of Pyongyang, North Korea.

Continue reading “Welcome to Pyongyang”

Let’s Colour Project

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPpMWaSPt-s

It’s called the Let’s Colour Project.

Ok, it’s an advertisement for a paint company, and  it strikes me as being a pretty bad idea (in a long-term perspective, I kind of cringe when I see brick buildings painted here in Windsor). Inevitably, a bit history is being completely lost by painting over these walls.

However, the video is stunning and if for a moment we can forget the parts of it that make this a possibly poor long-term choice,  it does get my imagination going thinking about how we could repaint blocks of concrete in this city.

Danielle pointed this out to me.

Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 3/5

Terry Marentette

In order to keep things moving with Eric Boucher’s Micro-Residency project, I invited Eric to interview my oldest (in terms of age) friend Terry Marentette yesterday afternoon. I met Terry two years ago in an Art History class at the School of Visual Arts and was immediately astonished by his immense knowledge of Windsor’s past. Eric’s interview sparked some great conversation about Windsor during the Depression, the Ambassador Bridge and its effects on Windsor, the history of Walkerville, the amount of people who leave Windsor after school, etc. Overall, Eric and I were both pleased with the amount of Windsor-related information Terry provided. I am excited to see the footage!

Continue reading “Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 3/5”

Exhibition Opening at AGW

Broken City Lab at the Art Gallery of Windsor

There’s an opening for two shows in which I’m participating on Friday, April 17, 2009, 7pm at the Art Gallery of Windsor.

On the first floor is the University of Windsor MFA Graduate Exhibition, Without, featuring documentation from various Broken City Lab projects alongside work by Steven Leyden Cochrane, and Henrjeta Mece, and on the second floor is the 2009 Windsor Biennial, with a large-scale graph outlining ideas and activities for re-imagining cross-border relations alongside too many other great area artists to name. As part of the Biennial, Broken City Lab will be working in Windsor and Detroit towards the realization of some of these activities throughout May and June (more details to follow).

The shows run from April 10 – June 5 and April 17 – July 5 respectively.