Work.Place
Work.Place is an awesome project by Portland photographer Carlie Armstrong which aims to document the spaces in which creativity is housed. I suggest browsing through a few of the photo sets; they are gorgeous. If this doesn’t make you want your own complete workspace, I don’t know what will! via: The Best Part
Nicole Dextras’ Ice Typography
Since we’re on the cusp of real winter here in Windsor, I thought I’d share this project by fellow Canadian artist Nicole Dextras. Besides admiring her gorgeous series of photographs, we might be able to learn from her method of construction. She seems to make molds into which water is poured and frozen. Imagine if [...]
Homework: Call for Volunteers
Are you an avid photographer / videographer looking for some real work experience? Get involved and help out with the upcoming Homework conference and get free promo on our blog! Broken City Lab is looking for volunteers to document the conference through video and photo. Please e-mail Michelle@brokencitylab.org by Monday, October 17th and be sure to [...]
Welcome to Pyongyang
Charlie Crane was faced with the task of photographing one of the most secretive and perhaps the most censored countries in the world. It took a year of trying to obtain permission to bring his camera to North Korea, and even as he got there, he was faced with incredibly tight restrictions. As digging deeper [...]
David Maisel’s American Mine
David Maisel‘s photographic series American Mine is getting on a bit now–he started it in 2007–but it’s one of those projects that become more relevant with age. To me his work highlights the paradox of admiring beauty in the organized destruction of something valuable. To be honest, all of David’s work is stunning; I suggest [...]
Matthew Brandt’s Lakes and Reservoirs
I have recently come across a very gorgeous set of photographs from Los Angeles, California’s Matthew Brandt. Matthew took snapshots of various lakes and reservoirs in California and soaked them in water from each corresponding location. The results are pretty random and, in my opinion, all beautiful. What he ends up with are sort of [...]
Immaterials: Light painting WiFi
Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo. This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. A four-metre long measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting. This builds on a technique that [...]
Gagnon & Schott’s 12:31
Since the film-trailer-like synopsis of Croix Gagnon and Frank Schott’s project 12:31 is so epic, I think I’ll start by including it verbatim. “In 1993, a convicted murderer was executed. His body was given to science, segmented, and photographed for medical research. In 2011, we used photography to put it back together.” After the page [...]
Understanding the Narrative We’re Told: Views on Detroit and Rustbelt Cities
Timing is everything. There’s been so many conversations had, links passed, and emails exchanged in the last few weeks are we embark on our How to Forget the Border Completely project that I’m still sorting through it all. What’s missing, in all of this, is more time to make a visit to our neighbours to [...]
Paris Street View
We’ve posted about the emerging Google Street View found photography sub-genre before. Michael Wolf is another artist using found GSV images to capture the absurd, banal, and occasionally poetic existence of modern street life. When compared with candid photography, Google Street View images present an infinitely larger database of frozen moments which were never intended [...]
![Laura Paolini of Bell Payphone Labs arrived yesterday with a mission to bust open her payphones. We found all the tools and help we needed out on the street. Otherwise, business as usual down on Pelissier, with one week left to go! The Department of Unusual Certainties have been re-arranging their workspace. These boys are [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_8367-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 21: Busting Open Payphones")
![Monday night marked the last Broken City Lab meeting of the year!!! We’ll be taking a brief break over the holidays and then gearing up for a series of events starting at the end of January. For anyone who has been wondering how to get involved or if we’d ever hold open office hours again, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_72891-150x150.jpg "Last Meeting for 2009!")
![With almost a full crew we spent this Friday night testing finishes, planning ways to cross the border unnoticed, and building supports for the letter ‘R’, all while being filmed by a documentary crew from the Department of Communications, Media & Film. Above, some notes from Danielle’s sprawling research on inventions for tactically crossing a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IMG_91951-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: March 25, 2011 (Imaginary Portals & Ongoing Construction)")
![I hope you’ll forgive us for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been on a film shoot all day, everyday for the last few weeks, while other BCL folks have been traveling, moving, working, and studying, and so meeting even once a week has been a challenge. Thankfully, school is literally a couple days away [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_4915-150x150.jpg "Field Tests & Exampling: Moving the Planters")
![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")
![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")
![We spent a couple hours on Monday exploring some specific sites around the city to start planning some upcoming projects. Getting out and documenting and talking about these places really helped to solidify how important it is for some creative intervention/interaction with the city and how excited we are to do it. The clear view [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Welcome-to-Windsor-sign-on-Dougall-just-off-the-401-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – Sept 29, 2008")
![Friday was the last open house for SRSI. Norman Eberstein read some of his log entries written during his job, Emily made some amazing snacks for us, Kero busted out his Lemur, and Laura did another payphone intervention. Norman was feeling not quite himself on Friday morning when he came in. He got his nose [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_0873-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 29: It’s The Last Friday")
![By some estimates (including the CBC), there were 100 people on the walk we took on Tuesday night, in the rain, throughout downtown Windsor. The attendance alone was inspiring, but what really made the experience so incredible for me was the energy that everyone brought. When we stopped and took a moment to briefly talk [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/IMG_4989-150x150.jpg "How Walking Around Your City Can Lead to Something Great")
![We’re in week 3 of this LED sign project, and we now know how to finish it up. We had previously soldered all the anodes on the LEDs, but we were a bit confused about the connections of the cathodes and resistors. As we had been working off of a MAKE video, which breezed over [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/dsc_1920-150x150.jpg "We Learned Electricity!")
![Another day spent at 406 Pelissier. Working with these plastic bags is really time consuming, but it will be worth it. The projects we have in mind are taking longer than we may have initially aniticipated, but that’s been the case with everything we’ve ever done. The banner is growing steadily, but we’re hoping for [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_2868-150x150.jpg "Working on a Process: Plastic Bag Banners and Such")
![Though we’ve received a few of the postcards back because of a faulty address, for the most part, the 150 postcards sent out for Things Worth Saving, as part of our ongoing Save the City project, have likely now arrived to their destinations. I must admit that when I first laid eyes on the stacks [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_4651-150x150.jpg "Things Worth Saving Recap")
![Installed across the road from the University of Windsor‘s Naturalized Area, our sign highlights one of the many wonderful accidental meadows, created by the ongoing city workers strike. These naturalized areas allow for a moment in which one might be able to mistakenly believe that Windsor is a progressive city, a place where this type [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_3079-sm-150x150.jpg "Naturalized Area: Accidental Meadow")
![The panels for Text In-Transit have been sent off to the printers. We should be able to install these on Transit Windsor buses in the next couple of weeks!!! We settled on 90 unique panels + 10 title card panels. Again, we can’t thank everyone enough for the support and participation—I’m hugely excited to see [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/textintransit-folder-150x150.jpg "Text In-Transit Panels off to the Printers")
![We are already nearing the end of our priming process for our letters after only beginning last week! While we got to painting the rest of the letters on Friday, I prepared a few things earlier in the week for our next step, painting the letters in a fabulous bright red. After deciding on a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/leadRosinaPic-150x150.jpg "Finishing Phase Three and Experimenting with Colour")
![Danielle painted this today with some bronze spray paint. It’s that horse head from our living room. I was thinking that if we picked up on that plaque / time capsule project we’ve been talking about with a rubber mould and some plaster, we might be able to move it forward? Let’s talk more about [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_6603-150x150.jpg "Bronze (this will all make sense next week)")
![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")
![Yesterday, Lee Rodney (Research Director of the Border Bookmobile) and I headed on a short 4km journey. We visited the fine folks at 555, a volunteer artist-run arts organization providing affordable studios and workspace, gallery space, exhibition programs, arts education programs, and an artist in residency program. We met at their temporary location, while they [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/WindsorDetorit-BCL-555-150x150.jpg "New Friends Across the Border: Visiting 555")
![Broken City Lab Office Hours last night were hugely productive due, in no small part, to the many amazing people around the table last night. We completed a test with the flagging tape at Lebel (as you can see above) for the EC Row project and continued working on the LED sign. There’s lots of [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_2316-150x150.jpg "Fence Text + LED Soldering")