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In Calgary: Sidewalk, Storm, San(itation), Water Standard Operating Procedure Manuals

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We (Josh, Hiba, and Justin) are back in Calgary continuing work on the Watershed+ residency project. Our studio for the week is the Crew Shack, a converted trailer. There are remnants of past crews in the cabinet.

We’ve been working together and apart at a range of different speeds since the summer and this residency will offer a chance to think about what that means going forward. We’ve spent time tossing around ideas that seem to involve the people working in and around the Water Centre, supporting the infrastructure, rather than the infrastructure itself. In some ways, it feels like a departure, and yet maybe this is an honest response to being invited into an infrastructure, more or less for the first time. What is the standard operating procedure from the inside?

More soon.

 

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Upcoming 16mm Filmmaking Workshops with Mobile Frames Resident Daïchi Saïto

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Mobile Frames is pleased to announce our first series of FREE 16mm workshops, conducted by Montréal-based filmmaker in residence Daïchi Saïto, February 13th, 15th and 16th.

The workshops are completely FREE and open to Windsor / Detroit residents. Spaces are limited! Registration is required.

To register, contact: mobileframes@live.com
For more information visit: http://mobileframes.org/

“Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking”

Combining lecture and hands on practice, this workshop surveys the fundamentals of do-it-yourself filmmaking. Aspects of cinematography including light, camera, lens and film stocks, as well as the properties of film and processing chemicals, are covered. Participants will learn to shoot in 16mm with a Bolex Camera, make homemade film processing solutions out of raw chemical ingredients and hand process their own footage using various techniques. This workshop will prepare participants for further explorations of celluloid filmmaking and experimentation with film processing. All materials are provided. No previous experience with 16mm filmmaking is required.

http://mobileframes.org/workshops/

Feb. 13th, 2014 – Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking (Part 1), 1pm – 5pm

Feb. 15th, 2014 – Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking (Part 2), 9am – 6pm

Feb. 16th, 2014 – Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking (Part 3), 1pm – 5pm

Daïchi Saïto is a co-founder of Double Negative, an artist’s collective in Montreal dedicated to exhibition and production of experimental cinema. His films have screened at festivals, museums and cinematheques worldwide and are in the permanent collections of the Austrian Film Museum and the Slovenian Cinematheque, and are distributed by Light Cone (Paris), Arsenal (Berlin) and the CFMDC (Toronto). Saïto has taught cinema at NSCAD University in Halifax, Concordia University in Montreal and the Escuela Internacional De Cine in Cuba.

The series is presented by Media City Film Festival, together with Broken City Lab, Common Ground Art Gallery and Momentum Film & Video Collective and is made possible through the generous support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Media City Film Festival acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

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Tennis Court Yarn Installation by HoTTea

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There’s a long (actually, probably not very long) history of artists weaving things into fences. Minneapolis artist Eric Rieger (also known as HoTTea) works with miles of coloured yarn to create street art installations. He recently transformed this neglected tennis court into a giant  multi-coloured arc structure.

The project reminds me a bit of You are Amazing, an installation we put together on the fence of a pedestrian walkway over Windsor’s E.C. Row in 2009. Our project was more 2D in nature and was more text-based, but the act of using fence as a support structure is something we wanted to explore (and might again some day).

via: Colossal

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Mobile Frames Program Launch, Daïchi Saïto in Residence at Civic Space

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Mobile Frames: International Filmmakers in Residence Launches 2014 Schedule with Daïchi Saïto (Montréal)

Media City Film Festival in partnership with Broken City Lab, Common Ground Gallery and Momentum Film & Video Collective are excited to introduce the new Mobile Frames: Filmmaker in Residence program to the Windsor / Detroit region. Mobile Frames invites emerging and established artists from around the world to create new films in Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The visiting filmmakers will also lead free public film workshops and participate in lectures, screenings, exhibitions and other programs on both sides of the border.

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The first Mobile Frames resident, Montréal’s Daïchi Saïto, has arrived and will be working out of Civic Space until the end of February. Originally from Japan, Daïchi Saïto is a co-founder of Double Negative, an artist’s collective in Montréal dedicated to the exhibition and production of experimental cinema. Saïto’s films have screened at festivals and cinematheques worldwide and are collected and distributed by numerous prominent institutions for artist’s film in Europe and Canada. Saïto has taught cinema at NSCAD University in Halifax, Concordia University in Montréal and he Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV in Cuba.

Daïchi will also be leading Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking,  a free public workshop series on the fundamentals of do-it-yourself 16mm filmmaking at CIVIC Space (411 Pelissier Street, Windsor)

Intro to 16mm Filmmaking | Part 1 – Thursday, February 13th (1-5pm)

Intro to 16mm Filmmaking | Part 2 – Saturday, February 15th (9am-6pm)

Intro to 16mm Filmmaking | Part 3 – Sunday, February 16th (1-5pm)

All materials are supplied and no previous experience is required. To Register, email mobileframes@live.com

Mobile Frames is made possible with the generous support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Media City also acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information contact:

Andrea Slavik, Mobile Frames Project Co-ordinator
Oona Mosna, Media City Program Director

Top Image: Still from Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis (2009)

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Highlights from Shaping Our City: Brainstorming Session

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Last Friday,  a group of us gathered by the fireplace at Civic Space for some continuous conversation and had a great time discussing and sharing ideas, even creating new ones together! With Edgar’s suggestion, we dubbed the night ‘Tertulia’, a word used to describe any kind of social gathering of intelligent or artistic thought.

The group

Walter lead the discussions, modelling it much like the success of our City Counseling Session in 2011.  Our talk  began with a project Walter worked on in the summer time called WE Data Glow.  Though he created small prototypes and tested installations, the group aided in giving suggestions on how he could take it further, including install locations, new design, and possibly ‘sponsorships’ from local companies for materials. That discussion lead to each of us agreeing that we wanted to see more art pieces like this one around the city,  but not just limiting to visual arts. Jessica, a lover of music (especially opera) hopes for more musical events that cater to classical-lovers.

Another thing that came up were the city’s priorities. Where  do we want to see money going into? What would certain spaces look like if artists took it over and had their say? What places do we want to keep, what places to we want to work on, and what places can we do without? (looking back to Sites of Apology/Hope.)

The notes.

We want to see art happening in places we don’t expect! Or, places we once expected. Like the old band shell inside Jackson Park.  Wouldn’t it be great to see a big band play in that big, beautiful park, Jess? Or, free outdoor movie nights in an old abandoned lot.

At the end of the night, we decided everyone wanted to continue this discussion again. We’re hoping for a monthly meet-up, perhaps in different locations. The more people that come out to join, the more conversation and a chance to build connections and make some of our wishes happen! What’s important here is that we’re talking, whether it’s with three people or twenty people.

Any info on an upcoming Tertulia will be posted so you can come out.

Notes from our City Counselling Session in 2011.

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“Foam” by Kohei Nawa

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Some of the best installation work can make you believe, even for a split second, that you have entered another world, or a place totally alien or unfamiliar. Artists have made naturally occurring phenomena like clouds appear in a gallery setting using a handful of tactics, but this work by Kohei Nawa uses foam to achieve it’s cloud-like effervescence.

The installation reads like a greyscale landscape of primordial ooze, with mountain-like ridges and valleys suspended on a layer of black sand. It’s lit in such a way that some portions of the foam take on the appearance of clouds, while some remain ambiguous, melting blobs.

via: Colossal

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All Images: Foam, 2013. Mixed media. Photo by Nobutada Omote, courtesy of SANDWICH.

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Street Installations by SpY

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SpY is an urban artist who has been practicing forms of intervention, mostly traditional graffiti, since the mid-1980s. More recently, he has chosen to work within the confines of urban elements, often playing with their intentions and using them as a “palette of materials”.

I suggest checking out this book for a nice overview of urban intervention art like this. Much of it has a strong element of humour, wit, or playfulness. To me, the strength of this type of work lies in its ability to ambush your everyday life, disrupt your routine, or at the least, make you reconsider what the things around us are made of.

Image Above: Balloons (2008)

via: Colossal

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SpY – 0 Likes (2013)

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SpY – Live (2012)