BCL Report: Feb 18, 2011 (Maps & Portals)
Around the maps, we’re beginning to imagine two cities collapsing into one. As part of How to Forget the Border Completely, we’re doing and planning all sorts of things — border portals, border etiquette classes, new maps, new tourism guides, interviews, stories, and imaginary architecture. Michelle and our dear friend, Lee Rodney, spoke about HFBC [...]
Border Interviews: Kero
To get a jump start on laying the groundwork for our upcoming How to Forget the Border Completely project, we have decided to interview a small group of individuals who may be considered “experts” of the Windsor-Detroit border in some way. Kero, a musician/graphic designer/video artist, was our first candidate for a video interview. He [...]
![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")
![Armed with an algorithm from Sara, Michelle, Rosina, and I headed out on a walk on Monday night. We had decided at our last meeting to roam around some South Windsor neighbourhoods — seeing as we rarely get a chance to venture into that part of town — and we were surprised by how much [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_6686-150x150.jpg "Monday Night Drift: Volume 1, South Windsor")
![Another week and another day in 406 Pelissier, which as it continues is now part of Windsor’s Visual Fringe. It’s tough to find time to get down there, but I think we made the best of a few hours last Tuesday. We’re continuing work with the planters, which is (as they always seems to be) [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_29491-150x150.jpg "Refining and Reworking the Planters")
![The rain held off, so today was a good day to get out and do some field tests for our magnetic planters. We just stuck around the neighbourhood, but did a general test to see what surfaces were magnetic. Unfortunately, the street signs that I had anticipated being a perfect surface for these are not [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_2255-cc-150x150.jpg "Magnetic Planters: Field Test #1")
![Our first Friday back was great. Unfortunately, Rosina couldn’t make it, but everyone else was around the table for the first time in almost a month. We’ve learned some things about how we work together over the last two and a half years, and we’re set to make more things happen this year than ever [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_2176-150x150.jpg "First Friday of 2011: Back in Action!!!")
![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")
![FRIDAY, SEPT.14th, 2012 @ WAHC 7:30PM -10PM OPENING RECEPTION: BROKEN CITY LAB AS OF 2012 WE ARE ALIVE & WELL: FOUR YEARS IN WINDSOR & BEYOND WAHC’s year- long exploration of growing up in working class cities or families concludes with the first ever career survey of art and urban research collective Broken City Lab. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/BCLflyer-150x150.jpg "New Exhibition: AS OF 2012 WE ARE ALIVE & WELL: FOUR YEARS IN WINDSOR & BEYOND")
![I’ll write a full post when it isn’t nearly three in the morning, but I just wanted to toss out this thing that I started working on tonight. A couple of us are trying to come up with any number of actions that might serve the dual purpose of helping to stave off (or at [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/postoffice-colouring-150x150.png "Community coloring")
![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")
![HOMEWORK: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices is four-day residency, two-day conference, and collaboratively-written publication aimed at generating conversation around the following: alternative infrastructures, radical collaboration, social practice, art implicated in social change, neighbourhood-level activities, city-wide imaginations, site-specific curiosities, tactical resistance, new models for art education and research. Facilitated by Broken City Lab, HOMEWORK calls on artists, scholars, writers, thinkers, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/register1-150x150.jpg "Attending Homework is Free!")
![We just received a few boxes of our newest publication, INVENTED EMERGENCY (For Small Cities & Big Towns), published through White Water Gallery. They look so good, we can’t wait to give them out! INVENTED EMERGENCY is built on the research developed for Surviving North Bay, a residency and exhibition by Broken City Lab, hosted [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/wpid23368-IMG_3063-150x150.jpg "New Publication Out Now: Invented Emergency (For Small Cities & Big Towns)")
![Josh Babcock starts working on his Invention Solution Hub, Robin Fitzsimons trains hard for her big trip to Caesar’s Windsor, Kids’ crafts are on display in 424 Pelissier, The Department of Unusual Certainties are holding consumer surveys, and Thom Provost talks to the community about his ideas. Daragh has been hard at work in his [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_07621-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 18 & 19: Gambling, Crafts & Plans")
![Another great day in 406 Pelissier. We got lots of brainstorming done and continued our planning and work with plastic bag recycling projects. It’s been a fantastic three days, and being able to work in such a concentrated way in just one week has been really helpful in pushing forward on some new ideas. We [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IMG_2834-150x150.jpg "Being Productive Again: Day 3")
![Last night’s Noiseborder event was a success. A number of people came down to Studio A in Lambton tower and helped us collaboratively rewrite Windsor’s history using maps, time lines, and story boards. All content was digitally remixed and projected on the screen with old photos and videos of Windsor. Justin started off the night by explaining [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/michellegc1-150x150.jpg "Smorgasborder 02: Rewriting Windsor")
![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…")