Moveable Type: Cross-Country Adventures in Printing
This mobile letterpress service-in-a-truck looks similar to the camper we occupied this summer at Truck Gallery in Calgary. The truck pictured is part of a touring project called Moveable Type. It is as it sounds: a truck with printing equipment installed where camping amenities used to reside. “It was originally a fleet truck for American [...]
Pay to Rest
Pay to Rest by Vinchen is a simple-enough intervention, adding a suggestive coin-operated mechanism to a city bench. It may be a one-liner, but it caught my eye a couple days ago, the photo sat on my desktop, and now this morning upon reading Amherstburg’s idea to introduce pay-per-use fees to soccer fields, baseball diamonds, [...]
![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")
![Tuesday felt like the first day back from the holidays should. We were tired, well Josh and I were tired, we were motivated and anxious to get to work, and we got a lot done. It was a very great way to start the new year! We spent the better part of the morning and [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_62542-150x150.jpg "Phone Calls and Budgets – Tuesday Morning Productivity Extravaganza")
![A note from Stephen Hargreaves after our conversation last night about the bus system in Detroit and possibilities for cross-border transportation… the image above is of a different Detroit map just to give some reference. On the map Stephen mentions, the routes go far beyond Detroit’s city limits. Check out the “System Map”, where the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Screen-shot-2011-01-03-at-1.35.48-PM-150x150.png "Detroit bus services…")
![For the month of June, Broken City Lab will have access to 406 Pelissier (pictured above) in downtown Windsor, thanks to Julie Sando and Leesa Bringas who are teaching the Contemporary Visual Culture class during Intersession at the University of Windsor. We’re still just starting to plan what we might do in the space, but [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_0032-150x150.jpg "Temporary Downtown Space for BCL")
![Tonight was the final night of this suite of Cross-Border Communication. We sent another set of messages to Detroit, and hopefully there were some receivers across the river, as I got to talk about the project on WDET’s Detroit Today earlier in the afternoon. Given the winterish weather that’s setting in, we’re almost certainly done [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_4080-150x150.jpg "Cross-Border Communication: Want to Be Friends? (and other things we needed to say)")
![Save the Date: June 21st, 2012 at 7pm CIVIC SPACE (411 Pelissier St, downtown Windsor) On June 21st at 7pm, we’ll be kicking things CIVIC SPACE with the Letter Library (A Collection of Alphabetic Interventions). This open community project invites anyone and everyone to come borrow from our letterset to caption the city around them. With Windsor at [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/LetterLibraryProject-150x150.jpg "Project Launch June 21st: The Letter Library (A Collection of Alphabetic Interventions)")
![Leesa Bringas’ Postcards to Indian Road project is coming along nicely; some postcards with messages have been returned to her in the mail. Jodi is wrapping up her Sweater Factory with a few completed sweater vests and more to come. BCL Research Fellows Josh and Rosina have been helping the Department of Unusual Certainties with [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0761-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 14: Field Research, Sweater Vests and Postcards")
![Wednesday was a big day in the SRSI spaces. Lea Bucknell held her Garden Party in 424 unveiling the portraits and stories that she made of Windsor residents, ProClick Factory arrives from Toronto, Thom Provost and Josh Babcock work on some hand-drawn diagrams. Robin Fitzsimons has been training hard every day in the window spaces [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IMG_0906-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 20: Garden Party!!!")
![From what I understand, Google Maps updates once a year or so (I’d guess even less than that). So, I think now would be a good time to start on a project like this, as according to these maps, Caesar’s Windsor is still under construction. That parking garage on the corner of Park and Pelissier [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/parkinggarage-web-textroof-150x150.jpg "Annotating Windsor")
![We’ve spent the last couple of weeks settling into our new headquarters, working on applications and ideas for the fall and winter. We’ve also cleared our consultancy out of the downtown space, seeing as Visual Fringe is over and it was high on the to-do list. Having a dedicated space has been incredible so far, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_4539-150x150.jpg "The Last Couple Weeks at BCL HQ")
![It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts — a kind of summary of some of the things I’ve been working on. It seemed about time. I like posting as a sort of summary for myself, but maybe it’s interesting for my dearest BCL colleagues to see what I’ve been up to [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_6450-150x150.jpg "Research Update (some things I’ve been working on the last couple of days)")
![Official Day 1 of SRSI kicked off, lots of new folks starting their projects, vinyl is up, rooms are painted (and almost done), floors are clean, the storefronts are open!!! Come see us. The day started off with a bit more painting and cleaning up of 410 Pelissier. As no one was moving in this [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_9860-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Official Day 1: Welcome Julie, Eric, Daragh, Andrea, Julie and Jefferson")
![Wednesday afternoon shifts into further work on testing the efficacy of the styrofoam letters being black. We’re trying to decide in anticipation of our Letter Library (A Collection of Alphabetic Interventions). Sara and Hiba painted. HELLO. Also, Kiki came by to help us paint the movable wall! And, Josh made these for a workshop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_9276-150x150.jpg "Designing & Prototyping tools for intervention: Letter Library + Gif Party")
![Whether making your own guerrilla celebration, working on a gallery installation, or even getting ready for some upcoming holiday festivities, we think our little automagic bunting app will make everything a little bit easier. We got tired of hand-setting each letter when we’ve made bunting in the past, so we cooked up this simple little web app that [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/makebunting-150x150.jpg "Micro-Project: Make Your Own Bunting (Web App)")
![We got up early and headed down to the EC Row pedestrian overpass between the Dominion and Huron Church exits to install YOU ARE AMAZING! It’s hard to describe what it felt like to do this—taking on this project gave us all a genuine excitement about participating in changing a part of Windsor and the way [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_1471-150x150.jpg "Installing YOU ARE AMAZING")
![The weekend brought all of the artists together to collaborate on each other’s projects. The Imagination Lab engaged lots of young creative minds, and Thom Provost began work on his installation. Imagination Lab had open workshops for kids today. The amazing array of supplies and ingredients made for a fun and yummy smelling time in [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_07201-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 16 & 17 : Collaboration")
![Alive & Well, our 350 ft long message painted on the city-owned parking lot for the 2011 AGW Biennial and recently captured by Google Maps, is in the process of being torn up to make way for an Aquatic Centre. We’ll be actively looking for a new parking lot, field, or rooftop to do another [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_7252-bw-150x150.jpg "Deinstallation of Alive & Well")
![Another day went by quickly here on the 400 block of Pelissier. I met another member of the Department of Unusual Certainties through Skype, The Breakroom celebrated its last day, Leesa painted some chalkboard paint on a few walls for her project, we found a blooming cactus in Andrea’s space and made some potato stamps [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_06461-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 7: A Blooming Cactus & Making Potato Stamps")
![Thinking about a good collaborative weekend project, the idea of starting a reading list came up. I have a fair collection of books and blogs in my reader that touch on a number of things that seem pertinent to Broken City Lab, but I wondered what’s out there that I’m missing. I’ll make a quick [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_9092c-150x150.jpg "Reading List")