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Exploring North Bay (prep for Surviving North Bay)

We’re in North Bay for a residency in preparation of an upcoming exhibition. White Water Gallery is our gracious host (and for the first half of the day, our introduction to North Bay).

Much of the day is on foot, with cameras.

We record what we can about the city’s history and get a read of the direction the city moves towards — though this movement, or lack thereof, already feels central to the things we want to take up here.

We break at the edge of Lake Nipissing.

Throughout our roaming, we documented a lot of the signage around the (very tidy) downtown core — trying to get a read of how residents, business owners, and the municipality itself negotiates communication strategies — and certainly, what they’re trying to communicate.

And on that note, the night winds down with some very preliminary sketching around ideas of emergencies (or, again, lack thereof) in North Bay. Tomorrow, more exploring as we prepare for the evening’s psychogeographic walk, starting at 8pm. It’s feeling late, but it’s early in the project — much more tomorrow.

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Cardstock Handwriting Stencils from our Vinyl Cutter (test phase)

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 to convert writing on a chalkboard to a stencil produces a really challenging job for the cutter. The grain of the chalk was interesting to work into an outline / live trace in Illustrator. Also, Sara has nice handwriting.

Hiba’s handwriting worked a lot better on paper. We’ll almost certainly work from this as a starting point as we continue researching this.

But beyond handwriting, we’re also looking at a kind of automated process to turn photos into stencils — so the tests in cutting these kinds of very delicate edges have been worthwhile.

Above the cutting interface through Illustrator.

The adjusted image that we built the stencil file from — after live tracing in Illustrator.

You can see the cutter did a pretty insanely great job at retaining the detail.

But, the blade didn’t quite make it through the paper entirely. So, we’ll have to make some adjustments on the down-force (I think that’s what it’s called) and try again. We used a similar process to cut the templates for our Letter Library from cardstock, but it’s entirely possible that the complexity of these cuts makes it more difficult for the blade to cut all the way through and maintain that depth of cut.

More later today and likely throughout the week …

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Laser Cut Acrylic Extraction Process & Lunch Time French Lesson

Hiba started working with the laser cut acrylic, pulling apart the excess that we won’t need when we make the cast.

We’ll be creating a rubber mould from the positive of the acrylic.

The excess, the negative.

Hiba carefully placing some letters pulled off their base.

Careful work.

Then, Kiki came by to give us a French lesson, or maybe a lesson in Quebec politics.

This might be my most favourite way to learn French ever.

Kiki showed us some really interesting examples of the play on words that have shaped some of the discussions around the Red Square movement in Quebec.

Some of the vocabulary we learned today. We’re going to do this again later this week, and hopefully convince Kiki to offer a short course here at CIVIC SPACE by the end of it.

Currently, Josh and Hiba sit across from me, we’re going to go play now.

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Research Trip: Residency at White Water Gallery for A Northern Locality

photo: http://www.merlex.ca/

We’re heading up to White Water Gallery next week for a weeklong residency exploring a northern locality — this work will inform an exhibition coming up in the fall!

Over the course of a weeklong residency, we will engage in a series of exploratory public interventions, micro-gestures, and tactical DIY responses to North Bay.

Join us on Tuesday night at 8pm for a psycho-geographic walk around the downtown starting at White Water Gallery, an “afternoon intervention task force” on Wednesday at 7pm, and an outdoor participatory public projection event on Thursday night at 9pm.

Each event will call on public participation to engage with North Bay, its infrastructures and its communities. Throughout the residency, we’ll be collecting research on North Bay in support of an exhibition in the fall that will aim to not only examine the practice and production of a northern locality, but also present a range of resistive tactics that can help the community survive, or help one survive the community.

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Some Laser Cut Acrylic for New Project (unboxing)

Just unboxed our laser cut acrylic from Ponoko for a new project we’ll be working on over the summer. We started some really early brainstorming on this over six months ago, so it feels really great to finally be moving it forward. Above, the back of the piece of acrylic.

The front, with the protecting masking tape-like cover (which also holds it together).

Turn around time wasn’t too bad, probably a couple of weeks from order to arrival. Very impressed with the quality though, as I was a little worried about the details potentially getting lost in the smaller text, but as far as I can tell, all the details are there!

Maybe we’ll start on the next phase of this project next week?

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Check it: Captioning the City with the Letter Library

Some of our single use cameras have been developed and placed on our Letter Library grid wall. Above are some of our favourites so far!

There has been such a diverse array of captions coming in, and we’re so excited to develop the rest of the cameras to see what other captions were created, but we need your help.

Come by and contribute to the Letter Library archive and caption the city with your own words (and in turn, help us get these pictures printed!). We’re open every day this week from 11:00 am to 4:30 pm!

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Recap of the Letter Library Opening Event!

It’s been an incredible few weeks prepping for the launch of CIVIC SPACE and the Letter Library. Huge props to everyone who helped out, especially Kiki Athanassiadis & Lucy Howe! There’s a few hundred letters strewn about the space, waiting for you to takeout and caption the city. Stop by over the next few weeks — we’re Monday – Friday 11am – 4:30pm + Tuesday-Thursday 7-9:30pm. There’s more information on CIVIC SPACE on the new website too!

But before a total recap, it’s worth posting on some of the things that came together in preparing for the launch. Above, Josh’s extender-tool to reach high places with letters. Hacked together from a lot of spare wood and a paint roller.

The shelves of letters waiting to be hung.

Josh testing the rigidity of his extender tool.

And then, a street test.

Josh reaches.

It works.

Then, onto installing the more permanent sign on our building … atop the ladder.

Hiba at dusk.

Inside, prepping the file for the vinyl cut.

End of the night before the big day.

Hiba on a ladder

The next morning, Hiba and Rosina head back out to finish installing the sign.

Inside, weeding the vinyl.

Negative.

Across the street, Hiba talks to Claire Bronwell.

Inside, Rosina works on installing photos for the collage wall.

Getting reading to install the vinyl.

Meanwhile, Hiba, Kevin, and Kiki start mounting the letters on our walls.

Vinyl, installed.

Ro working on the photo wall.

Then, the launch kicks off with letters immediately heading out into the streets.

There was an incredible group of people floating in and out all week. We’re excited to get the photos back once the rolls are finished off.

From the outside, an installation…

Entering the space from our front door.

Proof of fun.

More letter selections.

Library card.

Piling letters before heading out.

Kiki making her selection.

Letter hunting.

Then, Hiba puts the returned letters back up.

Kevin converses.

The photo wall.

The letter wall, as people bring back their letters.

Last install of the evening.

Huge thanks to everyone who came out for our first event. As the rolls get finished, we’ll be installing them on the wall and posting them on the site. And, remember, the Letter Library is still open. If you’re in the neighbourhood stop by!

More soon, but first, a weekend to recover.