21,633 feet of salvaged nylon string was strung between the two parallel fences over a 24-hour period to spell out FREE in a fenced-off parking lot for the AGO.
We’ve written about Sean Martindale’s green sleeves in the past, and with this project, I really liked how the string stretched across the lot and connected the two sides. I just wish the entire lot had been done.
[via Torontoist & Wooster Collective]
For part 4 of Eric Boucher’s Micro-Residency, we trekked all the way out to Harrow to interview my good friend, and local musician, Derek Harrison. I met Derek way back in my first week of University and became friends very quickly. Since that first semester in Windsor, Derek has been leaving Windsor left and right, moving to Ottawa, London, Montreal and even studying abroad in Lithuania, yet something keeps pulling him back to his roots, to Windsor. I’ve always found Windsor’s handle on Derek interesting, so what better way to explore this then through a BCL interview!
Continue reading “Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 4/5”
This is a postcard of Windsor’s downtown from 1959. In the last 50 years, one might imagine that much has changed, though I never would have guesses this much.
Everything in red has been demolished.
It seems like a lot of change, though I’m not sure how much better off we are for it.
[via International Metropolis]
We spent last night watching a rough cut of some of Eric’s ongoing micro-residency project, did a lot of measuring, used Google Earth, did some math, drew some diagrams, and brainstormed a new project (because Cristina wants to sew, a lot).
With the semester basically over now, we’re hoping to wrap up a couple things before the new year before starting on some bigger new projects in the new year, which you will hear about soon!
Continue reading “Math, Markers, and Measurements + Eric’s micro-documentary”
In order to keep things moving with Eric Boucher’s Micro-Residency project, I invited Eric to interview my oldest (in terms of age) friend Terry Marentette yesterday afternoon. I met Terry two years ago in an Art History class at the School of Visual Arts and was immediately astonished by his immense knowledge of Windsor’s past. Eric’s interview sparked some great conversation about Windsor during the Depression, the Ambassador Bridge and its effects on Windsor, the history of Walkerville, the amount of people who leave Windsor after school, etc. Overall, Eric and I were both pleased with the amount of Windsor-related information Terry provided. I am excited to see the footage!
Continue reading “Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 3/5”
Over the weekend, I tested out different kinds of paint to use on this shower curtain-type material for an upcoming large banner project.
First, I tried some heavy acrylic paint and spread it evenly three times in different thicknesses. The line with the most paint peeled easier, however, the line with the lightest coat did not peel or chip.
As I waited for those to dry, I also tried cheaper, more liquid-based paint from the dollar store. At first it seemed promising, but as soon as it dried, the paint began chipping away.
The poor excuse for creativity on the left was done with cheap paint. Some of the paint is already chipping and it wasn’t even completely dry at that point. The letters on the right were done to confirm my first tests with the heavy acrylic. The paint seemed to hold better because the material had a bumpy texture to it.
I definitely think the acrylic paint could be a solid choice if it’s applied lightly. Paint would work well for this project because it can quickly cover a large area, especially for the expected size of the banner.
Over the last week or so, we’ve added a few new things to our little website here. It’s funny because there’s a lot of research that goes on in the background, in terms of things we come across and don’t blog about, ideas that we email to one another, and documenting our process and posting it alongside that of other people’s works, which at times just sort of goes into the background archive.
Speaking with Tom Lucier earlier this week made us realize the distance between our blog-based practice and what we do in real space. That is, how we continually try to use the tools available to us online to communicate and network and collect information, and then the at times lo-tech initiatives we work with on an ongoing basis. Certainly there are times when these cross, but it just got me thinking about how important it is (at least from our perspective) to continue to keep the conversation going (at least amongst ourselves) online and continue to share what we’re reading and looking at during all that time in the week that we don’t get to get together.
So, I thought I’d make a quick post on some of the things I’ve added to the site as of earlier this week. In the right-most column, just past the contact information, there are now thumbnails of our most-recent posts on our research, there’s a series of links to bookmarks from my delicious page, and then there’s the links to the starred items from my Google Reader … with those kinks worked out, we’re going to try to plug-in feeds from other BCL research fellows when available.
Sometimes it’s difficult to find the time to post more than a few times a week, but I know I’m continually trying to make myself notes and links to things that might relate to an idea I had, or a note about something I should revisit when I have more time. For me, seeing all of these things in one place is helpful and to have it alongside all of the other things we’re continuing to talk about just seemed to make sense.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjV5yBxbLc&feature=player_embedded
Inspired by the Hudson River, The River That Flows Both Ways is a project by Spencer Finch that documents a 700-minute (11 hours, 40 minutes) journey on the river in a single day.
On June 12, 2008, from a tugboat drifting on Manhattan’s west side and past the High Line, Finch photographed the river’s surface once every minute. The color of each pane of glass was based on a single pixel point in each photograph and arranged chronologically in the tunnel’s existing steel mullions. Time is translated into a grid, reading from left to right and top to bottom, capturing the varied reflective and translucent conditions of the water’s surface.
Much of Finch’s work relies on scientific, or at least methodological process, to re-present natural occurrences or phenomenon. I really enjoy the processes involved in his work and his continuing translation of information and data, or at times, the failure thereof.
Yesterday afternoon, Eric Boucher came to the School of Visual Arts to interview my friend and fellow Windsor-based artist, Lucy Howe, for his ongoing Micro-Residency with Broken City Lab. Each BCL fellow will be introducing Eric to a person whom he has never met. Eric then will be interviewing each person exclusively on the topic of Windsor.
Continue reading “Eric Boucher Micro-Residency Iteration 2/5”
Commanding is a group of artists/educators/students at NYU who hope to create a dialogue about the changing environments in which they live.
They post signs based on simple computer commands that relate directly to the gentrification, development and hopefully preservation of the neighborhoods that we interact with everyday.
A really basic idea, but quite effective to comment and critique, again another quiet project.
[via Make]