In Store: Norman (DIY Surveillance)
An intimate portrait of Norman exploring DIY Surveillance during our Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation.
In Store: Unto Caesar
The week almost escaped without getting a new instalment of In Store posted. So, if you haven’t already seen it on the In Store site, here’s the latest: Downtown Windsor is framed by two landmarks: the Ambassador Bridge in the West, and the casino in the east. They are sights to behold, especially at night. Last [...]
In Store: OVER THE BRIDGE
Another week, another instalment of In Store by Daragh Sankey. Having these weekly videos is so great and it’s amazing to look back on all of this. So, here’s the story this week: This week, we follow Thea Jones over the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit. Thea had recently done a research paper about Detroit. I’m pretty sure she was [...]
In Store: Laura of Bell Payphone Labs
The series continues… with an introduction from Daragh’s site: There is a whole narrative to Bell Payphone Labs. Laura got into the lab coat for every installation she did, playing the role of the phone scientist. She had a little lab area in the storefronts the whole time as well, with educational posters about her [...]
In Store: From Scratch
The next instalment of In Store, a documentary on our SRSI project! We follow Broken City Lab as they take possession of the storefronts, get them ready for the residencies, and discuss the location and the ideas behind the project.
How to Briefly Describe Amazing Things: A Recap of 30 Days of SRSI
We’ve been really lucky. For a couple of years now, we’ve been able to do the work that we’ve wanted to do, make the kinds of changes that we want to see, and create a set of projects that have kept us interested in staying in Windsor. The Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation wrapped up [...]
SRSI, Day 30: Em’s Little Book of Friendly Services
Over the weekend, Emily Colombo wrapped up Miss Em’s Friendly Services with an awesome zine-like handout. Lots of food was prepared and shared.
SRSI, Day 29: It’s The Last Friday
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.
![300′ of bright orange flagging tape, $5.97 + tax. It’s fairly thin, but should be really easy to work with. We might have to double it up to make it visible on the fence, that is, double the width of each letter. We should test at Lebel later this week, or maybe on Monday before [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1697-150x150.jpg "Flagging Tape")
![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")
![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")
![While we’re still moving along on our Save the City project in the background, we’re also continuing to look ahead to other projects and deadlines coming up. Tuesday mornings are always a really good productive time, and this week was no exception. While we wait for our ribbons and postcards to arrive for the upcoming Sites of [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_7135-150x150.jpg "Sometimes Planning Means Drawing")
![Another great day in 406 Pelissier. We got lots of brainstorming done and continued our planning and work with plastic bag recycling projects. It’s been a fantastic three days, and being able to work in such a concentrated way in just one week has been really helpful in pushing forward on some new ideas. We [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IMG_2834-150x150.jpg "Being Productive Again: Day 3")
![This week’s Office Hours were busy, hectic, and (I think) productive. There we some new faces around the table, which is always great, and lots to do in terms of planning and organizing. Breaking into groups made sense and we pushed forward on a bunch of things in parallel, but I’m looking forward to the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/3308590586_1efbff37ed_o-150x150.jpg "Group Work")
![The Magnetic Planters project continues. With Michelle and Danielle away this week, the rest of Broken City Lab had to relearn the process of making paper pulp. It was a good night, though we’re hoping to get this project finished in the next week or so. As Intersession begins, we’ll be shifting our Office Hours [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_5161-150x150.jpg "Planters Nearing Completion")
![We’ll be taking over 406 Pelissier from June 8th-28th and setting up a consultancy to research, investigate, and imagine alternative uses for the entire parking structure located at the corner of Park and Pelissier. Invented studies, statistics, and illustrations will be exhibited and will result in a formal report / action plan for future initiatives in [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/aconsultancy1-150x150.jpg "Broken City Lab: A Consultancy")
![Monday night at BCL HQ, going over plans for moving forward on our recently OAC funded project starting in January 2010, Broken City Lab: Save the City (details to follow), using good ol’ fashioned lists and future technologies—it was amazing, in every sense of the word. Not sure how many more times we’ll be meeting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_13821-150x150.jpg "Planning (in and) For the Future")
![We want to know about London, Ontario. We’re doing an exhibition at Forest City Gallery, opening in September, and we’re looking into the wide range of narratives that go into constructing a place — the architecture, the headlines, the people, the memories, the relationships, the rumours — and we’re hoping you can help us out. Whether you’re [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ATTC-London-150x150.jpg "A Set of Informal Questions about London, Ontario")
![In preparation for our upcoming contribution to the We Like Music Festival happening at The Magic Stick in Detroit, we are brainstorming a running list of reasons why we like Detroit. This blog post will be the spot where we can bounce ideas back and fourth through comments to use in our projection of text [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MajesticTheaterDetroit-150x150.jpg "Reasons Why We Love Detroit")
![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")
![Another week, some more steps forward in our attempts at a planter that can have a magnet embedded in it. While it wasn’t looking like we were making any real progress, this idea came up near the end of Office Hours—plastic cups with holes, paper pulp, and a small cup on the inside to make [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/img_3849-150x150.jpg "Progress on Making Paper Planters")
![Last night was the opening for a couple of shows connected to the Parking Garage on the corner of Pelissier and Park, including our project, Broken City Lab: A Consultancy. Danielle, Steven, Leesa, and I spent the better part of the afternoon (attempting to dodge the rain) in the space setting up. Along with this [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/img_2636-web-150x150.jpg "A Consultancy Installed")
![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")
![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’ve made some really great progress on this ongoing Arduino + LCD project over the last couple of weeks — some of the two larger hurdles are now out of the way, the results of which you can see in the video above. Since the video was shot, I’ve improved the PHP script some more [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/IMG_8202-150x150.jpg "Parsing RSS Feeds for the Arduino + LCD + PHP project")
![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)")
![It’s been a long time coming, but I’m getting a lot closer to completing a mobile app. I’ve abandoned objective-c and native app development in favour of what I actually know how to do — namely php, html, css, and a bit of javascript. Access to phone hardware to make this app do what it [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/iphoneapp-640-150x150.jpg "iPhone/mobile app dev diagraming")
![Courtesy of the always brilliant Steven … There’s now a new submission form that allows you to get a quick preview of what your Text In-Transit panel could look like, along with a fun little colour swatch. If you’ve already submitted, it’s worth submitting more just to try this out, and if you haven’t submitted yet—get [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/bcl_textintransit-submit-150x150.jpg "New Text In-Transit Submission Form!")