Walk-by Theatre: Bike Safety, the Psychology of Selling, and Leadership in the 1940s
Last night we hosted our first Walk-by Theatre screening. Featuring films pulled from the Prelinger archives, Danielle and I curated a program that touched on the aesthetics, values, and practices of 1940s/50s/60s American culture. The built-in benches on Pelissier along with some chairs from our collection were perfect seating for the hour-long program. A number [...]
Here Comes the Neighborhood
I dream daily about a colourful, messy, city as this one.
For the amount of dead space that lies between places, there should be something to pull people in and make them walk by and engage in something, even if it’s only momentarily.
A Summary of Things I’ve Been Thinking About
Today, a very brief summary of some things that I’ve been thinking about and noted over the last few weeks… Above, a portal. Perhaps a cross-border portal. An under-used, long forgotten relic of a portal prototype. Cordoned off, waiting for a new route. Partington and Wyandotte on our side, where’s the related neighbourhood in Detroit? [...]
Power House Walking Tour: Understanding the Incremental
On Saturday, Eric, Danielle, and her sister, Jessica, and I headed over to the Power House neighbourhood walk in Detroit. I’d been hoping to finally see this project in person, as it’s been a little over two years since I first wrote about it here. I’d missed their residency at the DIA (saw the installation, [...]
Neighbourhood Deterioration and Suburbanism
As I think about where I live, in a subdivision off of dominion road near the Holy Name of Mary Highschool, I immediately think of the current hollowing and cutting into the forest and brush that’s going on to make room for more houses, and more roads. The illumination of this by me is quite [...]
Janine Marchessault & the Leona Drive Project
Photo by wyliepoon. A couple months ago I attended a talk hosted by Janine Marchessault on the Leona Drive project, which is a collaboration between The Public Access Collective and L.O.T. : Experiments in Urban Research (Collective). Justin mentioned the Leona Drive Project back in 2009, but for a refresher: The Leona Drive project commissioned artist [...]
The Lot in Detroit: A Traveling Public Art Exhibition & Model for Temporary Use Spaces
Back in 2009, Kathy Leisen, an artist living in Corktown, Detroit, started using a vacant lot next to her house as a public art venue. She called it The Lot. And there are big letters to demarcate the space. The Lot is now less a particular vacant lot than an idea for using many vacant [...]
SRSI : Non-Places Promo
Daragh Sankey has been working hard to release this promo video documenting Andrea Carvalho‘s three tactics to engage in non-places in the city of Windsor. Daragh is filming, logging and editing as much as he can during his residency, and will complete the post-production of the documentary later on this year. This project is generously [...]
72 Hours: A Block Rebellion
72 Hours is an audiovisual intervention comprised of a series of video projections evoking the personal histories of neighborhood residents, which will be seen through the building’s windows, and one unit will be opened to the public for a walk-through sound installation that evokes lives of former owners. You can see some of the projections above, as installed in a gallery. [...]
![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")
![One of the best things ever is receiving a bunch of laser cut material in the mail. That means, today wound down with one of these best things. We’ve ordered through Ponoko in the past and we’re continually surprised with how an Illustrator drawing can turn into a physical object so easily. Yes, above that is [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wpid20753-IMG_1844-150x150.jpg "Acrylic and Aluminum Laser Cuts & Drift V2 ready for review, plus notes on AJAX problems + solutions")
![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")
![It’s taken a number of weeks, but we finished wiring the LED sign at tonight’s Office Hours! It was a pretty incredible moment to plug in the sign, turn off the lights, and realize that we made this come together. I’m really, really, really happy with how it turned out!!! There are still a few [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2667-150x150.jpg "The LED Sign is Finished!!!")
![Below is the transcription of the interview Rosina and I had this fall with Ariane from the Centre Français in Hamilton. While going through what was discussed around the topics of francophonie in Hamilton, I came across a good amount of ideas and phrases that could be interestingly interpreted when paired in context to the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/IMG_5336-150x150.jpg "Two Tales of a City: Interview with Ariane from le Centre Français")
![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. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/042-150x150.jpg "Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 3/5")
![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")
![Day 3 of our New York excursion and finally the day we’ve been waiting patiently for…the day of our Algorithmic Subway Adventure for ConfluxCity! In case you need a recap, The Algorithmic Subway Adventure was our attempt to psychogeographically explore, and engage with passengers of the New York City subway system. We woke up fairly [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_0428-150x150.jpg "Conflux Day 3 – Algorithmic Subway Adventure Recap")
![Yesterday morning on Pelissier was very loud and hectic. When I arrived there was about 3 feet of sidewalk space in front of 406. It was another eventful day as we were joined by The Swap Shop . I did some catching up with Jefferson, Julie and Andrea as well. Big machines looked like dinosaurs [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_08461-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 5: Clothes, Trucks, Lightbulbs and Flowers.")
![I picked up five test panels on Friday from the printers and got a test shot of them installed on the buses. These first five panels were made up internally at BCL (we still haven’t had the chance to start going through all the submissions yet). I’ll be going back to the downtown terminal this [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_3773-150x150.jpg "Text In-Transit Test Panel")
![A little while ago, we were trying to think through how to wrap up Save the City with a pair of billboards. We spent an evening really working through some ideas and came up with two statements that we felt articulated the end of a certain way of thinking about Windsor. Something about those statements [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_2247-150x150.jpg "…and then the city, a book")
![The details: Sunday, February 28, 2010 (1pm) at 362 California Ave, Windsor As part of the Broken City Lab: Save the City project, and to better understand the city and its rich and failed history, Broken City Lab researchers will host an open community event on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 1pm to map and invent two [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BCL-STC-FEB-1024-150x150.jpg "Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope")
![In preparation of the upcoming event, and in response to our sudden acquisition of 4 t-shirts, we spent Tuesday evening making stencils, shirts, testing Tetris 2, wheatpasting, and figuring out the logistics of a video game tournament. First thing on the list of to-do’s was to test my custom wheatpaste applicator. The results were mixed, though I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/engage-and-disrupt-the-city-the-front-of-our-t-shirts-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – Nov 4, 2008")
![The last Friday we had before the upcoming Dance Party and Seedbomb Demo… We now have flyers, seedbomb containers, seedbomb germination (in the wild), and tea container labels. Michelle begins the process of spraying 50-something flyers after expertly cutting out the detailed info of the party. Many, many flyers (I like the silver ones the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/Broken-City-Lab-Friday-August-29-2008-stenciling-origami-seedbombs-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – August 29, 2008")
![Yesterday morning Rosina and I went to the Art Gallery of Windsor for the install of BCL’s piece that is going in the Border Cultures: Part One (Homes, Land) along with some other great artists. The show is opening next week on January 25th. We spent the majority of the remainder of day planning for the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/wpid21140-IMG_2187-150x150.jpg "Regret/Resolve: Exhibition Planning")