A Tree Grows in Detroit
Ailanthus altissima, a name that may not be in any way familiar, though there is a very good chance that a person who lives in the urban centers of Windsor or Detroit sees this “ancient” tree on a daily basis. This tree is known as “Tree of Heaven” or to some “Tree from Hell.” The [...]
AMPHIBIOUS ARCHITECTURE
A project by xClinic Environmental Health Clinic at NYU and the Living Architecture Lab at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, AMPHIBIOUS ARCHITECTURE attempts to generate a new dialogue between the environment and us. The description, quoted from the site, since it’s more clear than my attempt at synthesizing the information would be: “Installed at [...]
GROUNDWORK
I saw this on Render’s blog, and considering our work towards an artist-led community garden, I had to repost it. Not much to look at lightly dusted in snow, but the idea is incredibly great. Running from April 2009 to the following winter, GROUNDWORK will function as a community garden and creative research site. The [...]
Living Wall
Made from reused / fused plastic bags, 600 plants, and used TV aerial towers for the support structure, this living wall made by Adam Harris and Parimal Gosai is currently on display at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel. The show, Come Up To My Room, is showcasing a bunch of fun and engaging design and some bad art. [via [...]
Trees Prevent Forest Fires
The idea is to use bioenergy from trees to power temperature and humidity sensors from which information will be used to alert US Forest Service of potential forest fires and conditions. I loveMIT. [via]
Botanicalls at Conflux 2008
Botanicalls is this incredible project I came across sometime last year. Essentially, it uses a microcontroller and sensor along with PHP and an open-source telephone system to allows plants to make phone calls and ask for water when they’re getting dried out. The project, as part ofConflux 2008, has become a walking tour in New York [...]
We Have Germination!
After taking a few seedbombs home with me yesterday, I’m happy to report that with some considerable watering, our second recipe seedbombs have started to germinate. Also, and maybe even more exciting, the test seedbombs in Michelle’s yard have also began to sprout! Michelle also suggested we should make some photocopy handouts with the recipe [...]
In Progress
In Progress by Kim Boske. From her statement, “I experience the “now” as a complex collection of all sorts of connected influences from the present and the past; a web of similarities and minute differences caused through the slight moving of time.” [via]
Closed (Eco) Systems
Saw these two installations, made me wonder about the potentials for filtering water hydroponically, in place of using something like a Brita filter. The first project is Local Riverby Mathieu Lehanneur. The installation consists of a refrigerated aquarium that include live fish and vegetables working together to clean the water and provide nutrients for one another. The [...]
Tree Drawing
Attaching pens to branches of trees, Tim Knowler produces tree drawings, or rather, sets up the situation in which a tree can produce drawings. I was pleasantly reminded of his work, having come across it sometime last summer, through an email and Inhabitant. From his artist statement, “The exploration of Chance and Process is core to my artistic [...]
![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")
![Although it’s been a while since I last worked on this project, things are continuing to move along. I finally assembled the Ladyada XBee adapters and successfully passed a message between the two XBees. So, I’m not the best solderer and the first adapter I worked on suffered from an overusing tip on my soldering [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_9485-150x150.jpg "XBees + Arduino")
![We’re gearing up for Homework. It’s going to be fun and you should really consider attending! There’s a few spots left. If you do decide to attend, you can look forward to receiving one of these fine sketchbooks. Designed by Liisa Salonen, the sketchbooks are recovered paper sample books, rewrapped. They still need to be stamped, maybe [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMG_4871-150x150.jpg "Homework Prep! Resampled Notebooks")
![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")
![Last night Danielle and I went to the downtown Transit Windsor terminal to install the first five test panels we had printed for Text In-Transit. The panels read: everything is possible, YOU MADE MY DAY, YOU ARE THE CITY, YOU CHANGED EVERYTHING, and changing the world starts by changing this city. We had to install [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_9143-150x150.jpg "First 5 Text In-Transit Panels Installed")
![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!")
![I’ve been thinking about Windsor – Detroit tourism lately for our How to Forget the Border Completely project and since LivingSocial did such a good job advertising to me on facebook, I signed up for weekly Detroit deals and coupons to be e-mailed to me. I’m on week 3 or 4 and so far I’ve [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/michelledetroitdeal-150x150.jpg "Detroit Deals")
![I wrote a plugin by hacking together some ideas based on the Notify on Comment plugin. Essentially, I was looking for a plugin whereby someone mentioned or tagged in a comment (using the familiar @username syntax from Twitter) would be notified. They wouldn’t have had to have made the post being commented on, nor would [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screen-Shot-2012-01-22-at-1.17.49-PM-150x150.png "WordPress Plugin (notifying users tagged in comments)")
![We are very pleased to announce the following artists in residence for our upcoming Homework: Infrastructures & Collaboration in Social Practices project. These artists were selected from over 120 applicants and represent an incredibly diverse range of practices, interests, and backgrounds: Andrea Carvalho Montreal, QC Brennan Broome and Chloé Womack Portland, OR Brett Randall Jones & Jack Forinash Oakland/San Francisco, CA [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ArtistsInResidence-150x150.jpg "Artists-in-Residence Announced for Homework!")
![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")
![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")
![As we wrap up production on our upcoming installation, Two Tales of a City, at Hamilton Artists Inc., our Friday night meeting was shifted to Lebel where we set out to coat the bunting with some scotch guard and just started laying everything out. Rosina braved the quick spray The rest of the crew helped [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_70601-150x150.jpg "Wrapping up Production for Hamilton: a quick look at some recent work")
![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")
![For our upcoming Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope event (a part of our ongoing Save the City project), we’ll be asking for your participation to help us come up with a list of those very things — the places around Windsor for which we need to apologize, and the places for which we [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7327-150x150.jpg "Our Ribbons Have Arrived")
![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")
![I got the needed resistors right before Christmas, though hadn’t had a chance to post this yet. As you can see, there’s a 270Ω resistor, a 9V battery, and a 10mm LED working… along with the resistors, I got a 9V power supply, so we can make signs and run them off the wall, rather [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1496-150x150.jpg "LEDs, Resistors, 9V Power")
![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")
![Text In-Transit is a Broken City Lab project where we’re partnering with Transit Windsor to install a number of text-based creative works amongst the ads in the headspace on buses. We’re looking for submissions of short statements, poems, and stories from anyone in the city that will help to change the conversation about Windsor!!! *** Please send your submission(s) [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/textintransit-callforsubmissions-bg-150x150.jpg "Text In-Transit: Call For Submissions")
![We spent part of Monday afternoon doing a site visit for an upcoming project we’ve been planning for a while. The EC Row Walkway crosses over the 6 lanes of EC Row and is a pretty incredible view. We took some measurements and did a quick visibility test. We were only up there for about [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_2037-150x150.jpg "EC Row Walkway Measurement")