New Exhibition: Unrest Everywhere (Tools for Playing with Halifax)
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 [...]
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 [...]
Urban Camouflage And The Potentials of Commissioned ‘Street Art’
Ceyetano Ferrer, City of Chicago (Iowa #2), 2006 Street artist Ceyetano Ferrer specializes in blending urban objects into their environments by painting layers over them in a way that makes them seem transparent. Ferrer uses photo stickers on public objects like street signs, boxes and billboards and camouflages them to create an illusion of the objects [...]
Making a Playful City
Dispatchwork by Jan Vormann What would it take to make a city more playful? Everyone has had an experience at one time or another of encountering something strange, out of the ordinary, a seemingly serendipitous moment in a space that in turn transforms your experience and understanding of that location. Urban interventions often aim to do [...]
The Leona Drive Project
Organized by The Public Access Collective in collaboration with L.O.T. : Experiments in Urban Research (Collective), The Leona Drive Project took six vacant bungalows set for demolition by HYATT HOMES, a developer in Willowdale, Ontario, and turned them into temporary sites for art interventions. The project is already over, it was up for just the last [...]
Bureau for Open Culture: DESCENT TO REVOLUTION
Descent to Revolution, and exhibition / residency created by the Bureau for Open Culture, features five international artist collectives and collaboratives that use urban spaces and social spheres as means of production and inspiration. During the course of the exhibition, participating artists visit Columbus in a series of residencies to make projects specific to the city. [...]
Magnetic Planters Finished!
Our magnetic planters have finally been finished and installed (temporarily) along the alley that runs behind our headquarters. Consider yourself cordially invited to take a planter or two and move them to some other space in the city in need of a micro-garden.
Green Sleeves
A few people emailed us about this project (thanks for that!!) and I’ve since seen it on a number of other blogs, so it’s about time I got around to posting it on here. Green Sleeves by AT.AW uses a simple pattern to create planters from the layers of old wheat pasted posters. The method [...]
Lucy Howe’s Wilt
As part of the Green Corridor‘s Open Corridor festival, Windsor’s Lucy Howe installed a series of wilted road signs, entitled Wilt. The signs themselves reiterate the bend, or wilt, in its respective sign pole and simultaneously comments on some of the many issues surrounding this stretch of road, and the kilometer or so to its [...]
Making the Signs for Naturalized Areas
We recently decided to demarcate some of many accidental meadows across Windsor with these Naturalized Area signs. In hopes that these signs might momentarily allow residents of Windsor to look at these naturalized spaces for what they are—that is, wonderful additions to our urban landscape—instead of the result of a politically-charged issue, we spent the [...]
![I’m excited to note that in addition to the current exhibition, Make It Work, on at SoVA Projects Gallery (nee LeBel Gallery) featuring work by Michelle, a new poster installation that I did, and a ton of other incredible local Windsor-Detroit artists, there’s a panel discussion featuring guests from across the country. If you’re remotely [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/PosterMIW-cut-150x150.jpg "Make It Work: Exhibition & Panel Discussion")
![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")
![My work on this ongoing LCD Arduino project has been continuing over the last couple of weeks, I just haven’t had the time to update appropriately. So, I switched over my plan of attack from Processing to PHP. I figured this made sense for a couple reasons: first, I’m already very well-acquainted with PHP, I’ve [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7140-150x150.jpg "More Arduino + LCD + PHP fun")
![Justin heads to Portland to present at the PSU MFA Art and Social Practice Conversation Series this week. The PASPWACS is a brand new series of presentations by people and organizations related to Art and Social Practice including artists, non-profits, writers, and architects. The presentations are free and open to the public and take place [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PSU-logo-150x150.jpg "BCL @ PSU MFA Art and Social Practice Conversation Series"){kind=logo}
![Sorry — it’s late, this documentation is rushed, but I just received a few copies of Public, issue 41, Gardens, edited by Erin Despard and Monika Kin Gagnon, which features our Removable Garden project on the cover, and as a nice spread inside! We wrote the text, which outlines some of process and ideas behind the research developing [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/public1-150x150.jpg "Public 41: Gardens")
![We’re in Calgary working with Truck Gallery’s CAMPER Urban Discovery project, doing a residency based on our “…and then the city…” (ATTC) research. Developed after a six-month community research project back in Windsor called, Save the City, ATTC was initially realized as two billboards in Windsor and an accompanying publication that looked at the cyclical [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/DSC26601-150x150.jpg "ATTC Calgary Day 1: Shortcuts for Urban Resistance & Algorithmic Walks")
![Last night we projected a message from Windsor to Detroit. It was a message we’ve been meaning to send for a while. We wanted Detroit to know that we know that, “We’re In This Together.” And we mean that, in every way. This message is part of a project that we started working on in [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/BCL-CBC-1-sm-520-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: We’re In This Together")
![The Magnetic Planters project continues. With Michelle and Danielle away this week, the rest of Broken City Lab had to relearn the process of making paper pulp. It was a good night, though we’re hoping to get this project finished in the next week or so. As Intersession begins, we’ll be shifting our Office Hours [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_5161-150x150.jpg "Planters Nearing Completion")
![While the adventure in working on this project began months ago, I’ve finally sorted through the mess of files I made and put it all together in a nice handy zip folder. Using Arduinos, XBees, LCDs, and PHP, this project was challenging from a technical stand-point, but I think the project is now at a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Untitled-1-150x150.jpg "Arduino, PHP, LCDs, XBees: Tactical Texting in Public Spaces")
![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")
![Part of our research for How to Forget the Border Completely is going to come from a lot of video. We’re not sure how many interviews we’ll do or exactly where we’ll be shooting, but we wanted to be prepared. I’ve had a Canon T2i for over a year now and it’s a very solid [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_8438-150x150.jpg "Tools in Forgetting the Border")
![Something I meant to do a while ago, but I’m doing it now… I’ve uploaded the list of 100 ways we suggested to save the city. The list ranges from the entirely possible to completely imagined, but each one might just make this city a better place, or at least make you feel a little [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/100ways-screenshot-150x150.jpg "100 Ways to Save the City in PDF")
![This week’s meeting started off kind of slow. A long week had us collectively feeling strapped for good ideas, but we had a specific task list in front of us. Looking at the calendar, an idea we had talked about not all that long ago, suddenly has a pressing deadline. We’re looking to put together [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/IMG_3555-150x150.jpg "Already thinking about next summer")
![Day 2 of SRSI went awesome! We are almost all settled into 406, 410 and 424 Pelissier. I started off the day by cleaning and organizing my desk in the entrance of 410. I’ll be stationed here throughout the residency so come and say hi! Over at The Breakroom in 406, Jolie had some fresh [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0714-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 2 : The People’s Museum, The Breakroom and More Painting")
![Danielle and I will head to Portland State University this weekend to participate in Open Engagement, the conference that asks questions like, “Does socially engaged art have a responsibility to create public good? Can there be transdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art making that would contribute to issues such as urban planning and sustainability?” We’ll be [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/openengagement-150x150.jpg "Open Engagement, Group Work: The Collective Impetus")
![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 [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18855-MG_1327-150x150.jpg "Exploring North Bay (prep for Surviving North Bay)")
![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!!!")
![It was just Rosina and I on Wednesday night, but we didn’t let that stop us from starting some new work! I remember when I first posted / talked about the Imaginary Platform, Rosina had seemed keen on figuring out a way to distribute it. So, that’s how we spent the evening, working through ideas [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/IMG_3495-150x150.jpg "Oversized Envelopes: Working on Distributing an Imaginary Platform")