As most of us were busybodies for the duration of last week, it was great to keep the momentum going at Friday’s meeting.
We took no time at all in getting to the meat of our discussion- organizing the research for How to Forget the Border Completely. Continue reading “Continuing Productive Fridays: Organizing HFBC”
Part of our research for How to Forget the Border Completely is going to come from a lot of video. We’re not sure how many interviews we’ll do or exactly where we’ll be shooting, but we wanted to be prepared. I’ve had a Canon T2i for over a year now and it’s a very solid camera. I originally picked it up because of its video capabilities (specifically, the 24p option), but I hadn’t really made much time to shoot anything.
So, while HFBC seemed like the perfect opportunity to start, I also knew we needed to upgrade things a bit. I read about the Magic Lantern firmware hack a little while ago and finally got around to installing it — more in a bit on that — and with the advice from Karlyn‘s partner, John, I also picked up a Rode VideoMic and Zoom H1 for audio.
Yesterday, Lee Rodney (Research Director of the Border Bookmobile) and I headed on a short 4km journey.
We visited the fine folks at 555, a volunteer artist-run arts organization providing affordable studios and workspace, gallery space, exhibition programs, arts education programs, and an artist in residency program. We met at their temporary location, while they await the renovations of their new space down the road (the former 3rd police precinct). Those A and B markers in the map above — that’s how close their new building is to the School of Visual Arts.
We met with Monte, Erin, Elizabeth, and Carl, discussing possible collaborations in the not-so-distant future, as well as spending a good amount of time understanding why they do what they do. The scale and type of efforts are perhaps different than those of say, the Powerhouse Project, or the Imagination Station, but their decisions are based on some of the same ideals (and certainly with the same enthusiasm as our own), how do you build a climate of social, aesthetic and community-based investment here and now?
Their programming and artist residencies offer incredibly engaging opportunities for the community and visiting artists, and perhaps most compellingly, they focus on ensuring that “data” created in Detroit can also give back to Detroit.
We’ll be inviting them over soon, you’ll get to meet them and get inspired too, don’t worry.
Likely very helpful for some aspects of HFBC… wonder if there’s an equivalent to the Windsor Star for this kind of access.
Detroit Free Press, 1831-1922
The Detroit Free Press published its first edition before Michigan entered statehood and when wild animals outnumbered the people living in the city. Its editor assigned a writer to walk the waterfront and record the shipping news each day, creating the first news “beat.” The Free Press also was the first U.S. newspaper to print a regular Sunday edition and the first to publish court testimony.
via Daily News.
A note from Stephen Hargreaves after our conversation last night about the bus system in Detroit and possibilities for cross-border transportation… the image above is of a different Detroit map just to give some reference. On the map Stephen mentions, the routes go far beyond Detroit’s city limits.
Check out the “System Map”, where the stylized “s” appears is the Rosa Parks
Terminal. The Transit Windsor bus delivers you to that terminal and from
there… Detroit is your oyster.