By Justin on March 11th, 2010, 1:35 pm 0 Comments

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.

The houses in question, clustered together in the space of a city block, are owned by Deutsche Bank and other international banks. During the Block Rebellion, demands will be made to immediately cease all no-fault post-foreclosure evictions and begin negotiations to sell back the vacant units at real value.

According to the artist, John Hulsey, “the projections serve as injunctions, insertions into contested areas of the city. Transforming private neighborhoods into public arenas for debate, the projections may create spaces in which dialogue can be breached.”

It’s an interesting project, makes me wonder about the possibilities for Grace Hospital – certainly, a different set of issues, but at the very least, this is an interesting example of highlighting contentious spaces.

[via Groundswell Collective]

Tagged: Boston context homes neighbourhood projection rebellion

By Justin on September 16th, 2009, 10:42 pm 13 Comments

Welcome to the Neighbourhood took five groups of brave explorers on an adventure around West Windsor on Monday in order to highlight the potential to pay particular attention to the many things that usually go unnoticed in such a transient area.

Given that the neighbourhood surrounding the University of Windsor is made up mostly of student rental homes and the routes that many folks take to get to and from campus, inevitably we rarely get the chance to see some of the things that make this neighbourhood what it is.

So, two hours, three hundred photos, and many great stories later, our algorithmic walk was a huge success!

A quick warning, after the jump there’s thumbnails for the three hundred photos!!!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: BCL collaboration group neighbourhood photography psychogeography research walk

By Justin on September 5th, 2009, 12:59 am 16 Comments

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 up will get into small groups and share a list of instructions that will take them around the neighbourhood. These instructions will involve moving in specific directions, taking on specific tasks, and generally paying specific attention to the area around you. At each step in the algorithm, you’ll be asked to take a single photograph. At the end of the algorithm, when you return to BCL HQ, we’ll download your photos and upload them to our site to create a set of very specific views of the neighbourhood and generate a body of research on West Windsor much greater than we could ever do on our own.

This event will launch our fall activities and be the first of many open-house type events / workshops / office hours for 2009 / 2010!!!

The details:

Monday, September 14, 2009

Start at 362 California Ave at 7pm

End at 362 California Ave around 9pm

Bring your camera and bring a friend!

Tagged: BCL HQ neighbourhood psychogeography research

By Justin on April 24th, 2009, 3:42 pm 3 Comments

An article on Flint, Michigan in the New York Times earlier this week discussed the proposal for the intensifying and speeding up of the city’s decline—and it might be genius. Don’t wait for houses to become abandoned before they get demolished, instead pull down entire neighbourhoods and move the population. Concentrate everyone remaining in the city to a few key areas, and build that density.

In short, planned shrinkage.

I don’t think Windsor is quite this bad; though this could very well be coming down the pipes sooner than we expect. The fallout of the current economic realities is slowly being realized across the city, but if you really want to imagine Windsor in 10 years if we don’t make some radical change, just go for a drive down Indian Road (or anywhere in the West end, really).

So, if you were offered a similar place to where you live now, but in a denser area, would you take it?

Tagged: cities Flint Michigan neighbourhood shrinking Windsor

By Michelle on January 28th, 2009, 9:27 pm 7 Comments

With the help of Panoramio, a site that allows users to upload images and plot them using Google Maps, I created a project where I mapped the routes that I walk on a weekly basis. I did this by photographing the tags I see on my walks, then plotting the images on the map. There are three main taggers in my neighbourhood; Beast, THC and Jerk. I tagged the appropriate photos on Panoramio with the names of these taggers. I plan on extending this project to include more images of tags in other neighbourhoods around Windsor and opening it up to others to contribute their images as well.

Check out the photos here.

More BCL+maps

Tagged: beast citynoise google earth google maps jerk mapping neighbourhood panoramio tags thc walking Windsor

By Justin on December 1st, 2008, 2:00 pm 3 Comments

I’m still trying to understand the relationship between Detroit UnReal Estate Agency and Power House (and maybe they’re the same thing and there’s no other relationship to understand), but at any rate, the Power House project is an incredible idea. In short, “The house is to act as cultural catalyst and opportunity for cultural exchanges through workshops and residencies. It will also provide lessons in wind, solar, and sustainable strategies by implementing these systems and introducing them to the community.”

Basically, there’s a neighbourhood in Detroit that has been informally adopted as a site for this cultural catalyst. Many homes in the area have been foreclosed or set on fire, or both. Empty lots are going for $500, while homes are going for $2000. So, the Power House group proposes to purchase these lots and homes and flip the area from a drain on the tax base, bank holdings, and the local economics to a community asset.

I think this could be an excellent group to connect with.

Tagged: community Detroit energy neighbourhood participation