Nothing like being thorough: how we make decisions, slowly
Last night Hiba, Danielle and I met to do some more prep work on the letters for the Letter Library launch on June 21st. We painted another test letter E a different shade of grey and started to populate a wall with some more of the tests. It was excellent to see more than a [...]
![Danielle and I spent the better part of the afternoon a couple days ago going through wheatpaste recipes, ultimately going with the simplest. We had wanted to avoid having to use a hot plate to make it, and after 4 different recipes requiring varying amounts of heat, we were successful. Flour. Flour + cold water. [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-setup-150x150.jpg "Wheatpaste Research")
![We spent yesterday evening out around town with our projector and new power inverter, testing sight-lines and potential backup locations for the Cross-Border Communication project. We’re getting close to knowing exactly how and when we’ll get to do this project, and you can see our research and field tests after the jump. We’ve been anxious [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/IMG_3801-150x150.jpg "Projection & Battery Tests Around Downtown")
![Danielle and I went over to Detroit yesterday to meet with Aaron Timlin (from the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit) at the LadyBug Gallery to discuss some potential collaborative projects over the summer. After getting a quick tour of the gallery and some of the other studios and workspaces in the building (which we unfortunately didn’t get [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2819-150x150.jpg "Visiting Detroit")
![We’ll be picking up on this again today as we continue to experiment with cutting stencils of our handwriting on cardstock from our vinyl cutter, the Graphtec ce5000-60. These are very early tests, but will hopefully lay the groundwork for some processes and projects later on in the summer or fall. No big surprise, trying [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18816-IMG_0170-150x150.jpg "Cardstock Handwriting Stencils from our Vinyl Cutter (test phase)")
![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")
![On Monday, Norman Eberstein patrolled the alley, The Department of Unusual Certainties decorated their office and did some brainstorming, Thea Jones and Stephen Surlin moved in. Simon’s return to Windsor brought a lot of activity to the back of 410, where Chris had been sitting at his desk for a few days prior. The workspace [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0783-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 11: Norman’s Crush and Getting Organized")
![It was a beautiful day in Windsor yesterday. Something like 30 degrees fahrenheit cooler than it was just a couple days ago when we were installing at Forest City Gallery. We started and finished our project for this year’s Windsor Biennial. We’ll have a lot more photos soon. The show opens on September 21, 2011, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_0784-150x150.jpg "How We Spent Labour Day Afternoon")
![Last night out a window in the county, the new projector at night. Today, finishing our list of 100 ways to save the city. It’s going to run as a presentation in Keynote, the easiest failsafe solution. Though, we might try to open it up on Twitter somehow later tonight. And, speaking of tonight, the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_5327-150x150.jpg "Prepping for FAM Fest Projection")
![Around the maps, we’re beginning to imagine two cities collapsing into one. As part of How to Forget the Border Completely, we’re doing and planning all sorts of things — border portals, border etiquette classes, new maps, new tourism guides, interviews, stories, and imaginary architecture. Michelle and our dear friend, Lee Rodney, spoke about HFBC [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IMG_8729-150x150.jpg "BCL Report: Feb 18, 2011 (Maps & Portals)")
![In what feels like the first time in months, we got together and worked on making something (that is, as opposed to planning something). We’re getting started on what is going to be an epic project, time-wise. We’re making a bunch of large 3D cardboard letters. Collaborative Apartment Studio is very fun. Danielle and I [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_07931-150x150.jpg "A New Project Begins: Cardboard, a projector, and lots of editing")
![Last night Laura went out to install some PL1999 payphones, Kyle Bishop of Andand Collective arrives, and Josh does some more inventions. Kyle came down from Waterloo to start developing his Amalgamation of Windsor and Waterloo into the city of W. He will be hitting the streets campaigning with a team of recruiters later on [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/P1040651-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 23: Payphone Interventions")
![Tuesday night’s Broken City Lab Office Hours were successful, but as usual, all too short. Spending the majority of the time in Lebel’s wood shop, we started working on our LED sign, but still have a long ways to go with it. We cut plexiglass, drilled holes, and started soldering—I think we’ll continue next Monday [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/img_2074-150x150.jpg "LED Sign Construction")
![We’ve updated our imaginary campaign post to reflect some recent (positive) changes: Our projects try to work around the realities that we encounter in Windsor on a daily basis. We address these realities creatively, and so the ways in which we address them don’t always translate to solutions. We usually try to suggest the change [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_2877-3-150x150.jpg "An Imaginary Platform: 2010 Municipal Elections in Windsor")
![The details: Friday, May 21 at 7pm, Art Gallery of Windsor. For the past five months, we’ve been working on a series of events aimed at unfolding the stories, experiences, images, geography, buildings, folkloric histories, people, and places that make Windsor the city that it is. Perhaps you’ve come out to one of our community events [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/BCL-STC-MAY-5x7-french-outlines-520-150x150.jpg "How to Save a City")
![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!")
![Monday night was another huge brainstorming session with some new and old friends. We spent most of the evening trying to figure out the potentials in doing something like a floating sculpture in the Detroit River. We’ve discussed this before, and it seems that the space between what we’d really like to do and reality [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_5441-150x150.jpg "Earlier This Week In the Basement of BCL HQ")
![We had a lot of changes happen this weekend down on Pelissier Street. Eric Cheung’s Interior sod was uninstalled Saturday, Leesa Bringas’ Indian Road Postcard project launched, and Merry Ellen Scully Mosna’s pie-making was a big hit on Sunday. < Eric’s sod was picked up Saturday afternoon. He placed an ad on Kijiji for free [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DSC_0967-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 9 & 10: Berries and Pies!")
![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")