Learning About the Emerging Emergencies of North Bay
We’re in North Bay on a residency as we prepare for an exhibition this fall at the White Water Gallery. After spending Monday getting acquainted with the downtown, we ventured further out. Of course, we had to stop at the North Bay arch. Getting a sense of these kinds of structural parts of the city [...]
New Exhibition: Unrest Everywhere (Tools for Playing with Halifax)
Just back from an incredible week installing at Eye Level Gallery for our show, Unrest Everywhere (tools for playing with Halifax), which runs until May 12, 2012. The show features a number of multiples and interactive works, all of which are yours for the taking and borrowing. The premise for the show was to create [...]
ATTC Calgary Day 1: Shortcuts for Urban Resistance & Algorithmic Walks
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 [...]
Urban Discovery in Calgary with Truck’s CAMPER
We’re in Calgary for 9 days as part of Truck Gallery’s CAMPER 2011 Urban Discovery Project. Here’s what’s going to be keeping us busy for the next week: July 21 (Thurs): CAMPER Day 1: Exploding Calgary (interviews & storytelling) (12pm-3pm) 222 8 Avenue SW July 22 (Fri): CAMPER Day 2: Spatial & Temporal Narratives of Calgary (public mapping) [...]
Serendipitor & the Sentient City Survival Kit
Mark Shepard in collaboration with V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media and as part of a joint artist residency withEyebeam Art+Technology Center developed Serendipitor — an alternative navigation app for the iPhone that helps you find something by looking for something else. The app combines directions generated by a routing service (in this case, the Google Maps [...]
Theoretical Geography: Bill Bunge and the Quantitative Revolution
Canadian Minorities by Zachary Johnson 2005 Zachary Forest Johnson is (according to his bio page) a cartographer specializing in online maps and information visualizations. He is in the second year of a M.S. program in Cartography and GIS at the U of Wisconsin. In a previous life, he studied Political Science (gaining a BA from [...]
Vancouver [de]Tour Guide 2010
In a rather large-scale collaborative mapping project, artist Althea Thauberger and some of her colleagues are attempting to assemble an alternative tour guide, or rather, a (de)tour guide for visitors to Vancouver while the 2010 Olympic games are underway. They set it up like this, “For us, it is vital to complicate the sanitized ‘best place on [...]
Welcome to the Neighbourhood Recap of Awesome Psychogeographic Exploration!!!
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 [...]
Conflux City – Algorithmic Subway Adventure in New York City
Back in July, Broken City Lab sent out a proposal to Conflux City 2009, which is a subset of the New York City festival for contemporary psychogeography, Conflux Festival. In August we found out that we were not only accepted into the festival, but we are also one of the featured projects of the program! [...]
![Another day at BCL HQ and some more progress on this ongoing magnetic planters project. Michelle and I finished putting in the remainder of our magnets into our plastic bag planters, but there are still some more planters left over. So, with more rare-earth magnets now on the way, we’ll finish up the rest when [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_4798-150x150.jpg "Magnets Installed!")
![We’ve been talking about picking up on some of the ideas we put together for the OPEN panel discussion from earlier in the month, and it seemed like posters were a natural fit. Given the text statements that we made to address the an idea of economies and creative practice that served as the backdrop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wpid20573-IMG_1771-150x150.jpg "Fail to Meet Expectations: Vinyl on Paint Posters")
![Though we’re still very much in the middle of thinking about, beginning to write about, and generally talk about all of the amazing things that we learned as part of Save the City, these billboards are the last part of the project to be launched. These two statements are among the many, many, many that [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/KnewItWasntAlone-520-150x150.jpg "…and then the city…")
![Our recipe from the other night produced a much stronger planter, though I think there’s still room to add a coat of wheat paste to the outside. The rare earth magnets do well if there’s two, but I think the best solution will be to adhere them to the outside of the planter, or embed [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_4208-150x150.jpg "Rare Earth Magnets + New Pulp Recipe")
![As most of us were busybodies for the duration of last week, it was great to keep the momentum going at Friday’s meeting. We took no time at all in getting to the meat of our discussion- organizing the research for How to Forget the Border Completely. Before marking up the giant brown paper on the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/frday-copy-150x150.jpg "Continuing Productive Fridays: Organizing HFBC")
![We’ll be visiting Philadelphia to explore the development of short- and long-term projects in collaboration with the Mural Arts Program and community organizations in the city. During our visit, Mural Arts and Philly Works will be hosting a public presentation of our work, and a stimulating conversation about how artists can engage people in conversations [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/philly-150x150.jpg "Exploring Philadelphia & Public Talk with Mural Arts & Philly Works")
![Monday night we met with some new friends from Detroit and had an amazingly good conversation about some of the very specific differences between our two cities. Maybe unsurprisingly, much of what we perceive about each other’s cities isn’t entirely correct, and it is exactly those strange assumptions about these two border cities that continue [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_5195-150x150.jpg "The International Hyper-local Exchange")
![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")
![It would be great if you could come. We’ll be at 350 City Hall Sq West, across the street from Charles Clark Square at 9:30pm. We’ll have a projector and a bunch of bristol board. We want to look at what public consultation could look like and how we might imagine the changes we want [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/bcl-citycounsel-150x150.jpg "9:30pm tonight, an open conversation on the walls of city hall, you’re invited")
![Starting on October 1st at 7pm, we’ll be running biweekly Design Nights focused on creative problem solving All Tomorrow’s Problems. Namely, we’re going to kick things off looking at the issues of youth retention in the city and gradually move on to other future-focused issues. BCL’s Research Director, Justin, and a rotating co-host will guide [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/ATP-web-150x150.jpg "All Tomorrow’s Problems: the Biweekly Design Night for Future-Focused People")
![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? [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/portals-150x150.jpg "A Summary of Things I’ve Been Thinking About")
![While the adventure in working on this project began months ago, I’ve finally sorted through the mess of files I made and put it all together in a nice handy zip folder. Using Arduinos, XBees, LCDs, and PHP, this project was challenging from a technical stand-point, but I think the project is now at a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Untitled-1-150x150.jpg "Arduino, PHP, LCDs, XBees: Tactical Texting in Public Spaces")
![Mondays always seem to be the best studio days. Maybe it’s because the weight of the week hasn’t set in, or that the last Thursday is just far enough away that we’re motivated to try to get more work done. Whatever it is, yesterday was a particularly good example of getting things done at CIVIC [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wpid20679-IMG_3069-150x150.jpg "Monday in the Studio: Rubber, Plaques, T-shirts")
![We’re heading up to White Water Gallery next week for a weeklong residency exploring a northern locality — this work will inform an exhibition coming up in the fall! Over the course of a weeklong residency, we will engage in a series of exploratory public interventions, micro-gestures, and tactical DIY responses to North Bay. Join [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/gateway-640-150x150.jpg "Research Trip: Residency at White Water Gallery for A Northern Locality")
![We had another great Friday night meeting, even though Josh was sick, and even though we underestimated two things. First, we struggled again thinking through this second residency/conference idea, and the letters took way longer than anticipated to papier mâché. At any rate, with the autumn weather firmly setting in, it’s looking like we’ll be [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_3581-150x150.jpg "Getting Closer Every Week: Big Letters and New Titles")
![Last night was the second iteration of Cross-Border Communication where we sent a variety of messages from Windsor to Detroit. We started with “We’ve Missed You.” We’ll be doing the final iteration of this suite of Cross-Border Communication tonight (Wednesday) around the usual time (8pm). Some other folks stopped by on our side to see [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_4629-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: We’ve Missed You (and other things worth saying)")
![Last night we projected a message from Windsor to Detroit. It was a message we’ve been meaning to send for a while. We wanted Detroit to know that we know that, “We’re In This Together.” And we mean that, in every way. This message is part of a project that we started working on in [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/BCL-CBC-1-sm-520-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: We’re In This Together")