In Progress: A Set of Proposals for Living Affectively in an Open World
Today we’re working through a few poster designs for A Set of Proposals for Living Affectively in an Open World using gold vinyl on a previously hand-painted black background.
Call for Participation: Regret & Resolve
With the start of the new year, we wanted to take stock of the regrets we have about the city or our roles within it, and the resolutions we might make to change this place for the better. We want to ask two questions: What are the things that we know we should be doing, [...]
Civic Space Studio Digest for December 13: on t-shirts and white walls
A look at our little corner of Civic Space. This is where we’ve been spending the majority of our time lately. For the record, the high shelves (those really nice ones with the Letter Library letters on them) were installed by Kiki. The lower shelves were hacked together by me. They’re very shoddy, but they [...]
Fail to Meet Expectations: Vinyl on Paint Posters
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 [...]
No Rights/No Wrongs: Nuit Blanche 2012
On September 29th 2012, we were lucky enough to be invited to Toronto for Nuit Blanche! Our installation site was on the face of the Gladstone Hotel right on Queen Street West. It was an amazing night. It was the first time that we did a projection on a building so textured. This definitely allowed [...]
1-Day Project: “Find Something Worthwhile”
We had ordered these screen printing supplies in anticipation of using them for our upcoming Civic Maintenance project, but before we could embark on that large-scale production, we needed to test. We got process colours cmyk and the basics for screen printing – photo emulsion and photo emulsion remover and two screens. We haven’t screen [...]
100 Emergencies for North Bay (Projections in Downtown)
Thursday night, our last night in North Bay as part of our residency, we did a large-scale public projection as a kind of summary of our conversations, and as a bit of a starting point for where we see the exhibition going. Almost next door to the White Water Gallery is this huge blank wall — [...]
Installing the sign for CIVIC SPACE, take 1
Last night, Hiba, Sara, and Justin tackled some initial planning for the installation of the CIVIC SPACE / Letter Library sign. The Letter Library idea came out of trying to think through how we might make our own sign for the space, so it’s really great to finally see the letters going up. Hiba got on the [...]
Single-Use Camera Tests: Captioning the City
Kevin and Josh ventured out with a single-use camera to test what the temporary installations would look like, as we continue to prep for Thursday’s launch of the Letter Library here at CIVIC SPACE. Also, film is fun. The letters look great and the photos aren’t too bad either. They definitely have a colder tone [...]
Signal To Noise (think old school rotary text board randomly looking for dictionary words)
I saw this in the Globe and Mail this morning and thought it was worth reposting here given how deep we’re into thinking about text in public spaces at the moment … seems like it would be a really fun installation to see in person! The project is called S/N (Signal to Noise) and can [...]
![As part of Green Corridor’s Open Corridor festival, I’ll be working with 500 biodegradable balloons with “YOU ARE WORTH IT.” printed on them. The balloons will be filled with helium and some wildflower seeds, 200 of them will be launched anchored throughout the Green Corridor area and handed out to those in attendance next Thursday, June 18th. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/balloons-printed-150x150.jpg "You Are Worth It: Biodegradable Balloons")
![Danielle and I will be heading to Montreal to speak at this year’s Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Biannual Conference at McGill University. We’re presenting in the Cultural Production panel under the theme of Social Practice and Public Space. Our presentation entitled, “Social Practice: New Models for Collaborative Cultural Production,” will frame the city of Windsor [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/montreal-150x150.jpg "Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Conference, McGill University")
![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")
![Our first Friday back was great. Unfortunately, Rosina couldn’t make it, but everyone else was around the table for the first time in almost a month. We’ve learned some things about how we work together over the last two and a half years, and we’re set to make more things happen this year than ever [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_2176-150x150.jpg "First Friday of 2011: Back in Action!!!")
![Once again, we gathered at Lebel for another fun Friday full of brainstorming and map making. This particular Friday we met with Mel, a jewelry designer with his BFA from Yugoslavia, to discuss the best design for the CAFKA letters. We are currently deciding whether it would be best to stick with our original plan [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IMG_2379-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: March 11, 2011 (Maps & Letters)")
![Day 2 of our trek to New York was filled with excellent adventures, some more great lectures, and lots of discussion. It was amazing to get to see some of the artists we’ve talked about before right here on the blog, and it continued to inform what we were continuing to try to define as [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_02913-150x150.jpg "Conflux 2009 Day 2")
![As we wrap up production on our upcoming installation, Two Tales of a City, at Hamilton Artists Inc., our Friday night meeting was shifted to Lebel where we set out to coat the bunting with some scotch guard and just started laying everything out. Rosina braved the quick spray The rest of the crew helped [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_70601-150x150.jpg "Wrapping up Production for Hamilton: a quick look at some recent work")
![I’m excited to note that in addition to the current exhibition, Make It Work, on at SoVA Projects Gallery (nee LeBel Gallery) featuring work by Michelle, a new poster installation that I did, and a ton of other incredible local Windsor-Detroit artists, there’s a panel discussion featuring guests from across the country. If you’re remotely [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/PosterMIW-cut-150x150.jpg "Make It Work: Exhibition & Panel Discussion")
![On Thursday, Justin heads up the 401 for WHAT IS OUR URBAN IMAGINARY? Thursday | December 6 | 7 – 9pm at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Join the conversation as we consider how building design, urban spaces, and creative interventions in the city shape our collective experiences and imagination. Guest panelists include artist Justin Langlois, co-founder [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/KWAG-invite-Urban-Imaginary-150x150.jpg "Panel Discussion: What is our Urban Imaginary?")
![Over the past couple of months, we’ve been working on making blocks of ice with letters and text embedded in them to create temporary street art. I think this idea came out of working with wheat paste, realizing the enjoyment of working in public spaces, and wanting to continue to work throughout the winter. I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2448-150x150.jpg "How to: Text on Ice")
![Monday night we spent a couple hours working over some new ideas with some new friends. Mostly, these ideas have been in the “meaning to do that” category, mostly opening up new collaborations in which new projects will unfold. Two main project frameworks came out of our brainstorm session—a floating sculpture project with the Green [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_5402-150x150.jpg "New Project Mondays: Week 1")
![Earlier this week we received a couple of samples of various retroreflective materials for use on our letters for CAFKA. One material, the one on the roll, is a vinyl (3M Scotchlite Reflective White Vinyl), perhaps most famously used in the Bright Bike project, while the other is an industrial substrate (3M Engineer Grade White [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/IMG_9505-150x150.jpg "Retroreflective Materials Test")
![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)")
![We made a lot of progress tonight, not only getting a considerable way through the first coat of red paint, but also testing a variety of techniques for applying the retroreflective glass beads! We also got to spend some time talking through how we’ll be temporarily installing the letters in a variety of spaces. We [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG_4441-150x150.jpg "Red Paint & Testing Glass Beads")
![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")
![I got the needed resistors right before Christmas, though hadn’t had a chance to post this yet. As you can see, there’s a 270Ω resistor, a 9V battery, and a 10mm LED working… along with the resistors, I got a 9V power supply, so we can make signs and run them off the wall, rather [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_1496-150x150.jpg "LEDs, Resistors, 9V Power")
![After a full night’s rest and a wholesome breakfast at The Tallest Poppy, we headed back to Martha Street Studio to formulate a game plan for our second work session and workshop later that evening. Knowing that we had an inordinate amount of work to do before our opening, we decided to spend the bulk [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_5976-150x150.jpg "Martha Street Studio Residency Day 2: Another Day in Manisnowba")