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pg 82, Did Someone Say Participate: An Atlas of Spatial Practice

Regeneration strategies […] are shaped by economists, planners, infrastructure engineers, phasing and finance experts. Before the public is consulted, and before any creative practitioners are engaged, these experts have decided where the problem lies and what the likely solution should be. […] The result is too often the bland and bureaucratic, the well-meaning but unimaginative, and the cycle of renewal and degradation that is a product of short-term and reactive rather than pro-active thinking.

-From the essay, “Inclusive and Holistic” by Lucy Musgrave and Clare Cumberlidge

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Nicole Dextras’ Ice Typography

Since we’re on the cusp of real winter here in Windsor, I thought I’d share this project by fellow Canadian artist Nicole Dextras. Besides admiring her gorgeous series of photographs, we might be able to learn from her method of construction. She seems to make molds into which water is poured and frozen. Imagine if we used the 3D ‘R’ prototype we made for CAFKA for this!

via: Designboom

Here is an image showing her process of creating such large ice letters.

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Pg 113 Waking Up from the Nightmare of Participation

“…the specific openness or porosity of contemporary art for instance has functioned as a weird kind of hosting system: as a kind of asylum for various cultural forms and encounters apparently impossible elsewhere.”

— from Michael Hirsch’s Professional Amateurs, Outsiders, Intruders – On the Utopia of Transdisciplinary Work in the Cultural Field in “Waking up from the Nightmare of Participation”.

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Martha Street Studio Residency Day 3: Install & Exhibition

A quick three days at Martha Street Studio finished up with the opening for our exhibition, All the Stories We’re Not Telling About Winnipeg. The show features a series of posters made by participants from our workshops and created in response to the stories they collectively wrote.

The exhibition runs until January 5, 2012!

We have to extend an incredibly huge thank you to everyone at Martha Street Studio for facilitating this residency and exhibition. We were floored by the support we received there and were lucky enough to host some exceptionally great Winnipegers at our workshops.

Needless to say, we had a great time — and below is how it all came together.

Continue reading “Martha Street Studio Residency Day 3: Install & Exhibition”

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Martha Street Studio Residency Day 1: Winnipeg / Winterpeg

Arriving in Winnipeg late Sunday night, we were met with our first taste of winter for the year. It seemed like the right introduction to Winnipeg. This residency and exhibition is all about exploring the narratives that are (and are not) circulated about the city of Winnipeg, and perhaps any story of Winnipeg should indeed begin with the winter.

Suzie from Martha Street Studio picked us up at the airport and gave us a quick driving tour before we settled in at MAWA‘s apartment. Monday morning, we headed in to Martha Street Studio and got started right away sorting through the materials and work spaces available to us.

Among many things, we also got (re)acquainted with silk screening, which is now officially one of our favourite things to do.

Continue reading “Martha Street Studio Residency Day 1: Winnipeg / Winterpeg”

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33 Questions Per Minute

In 2000,  Rafael Lozano- Hemmer messed around with some computer programs, lcd screens and a dictionary and created ’33 Questions Per Minute’, an installation featuring 21 lcd screens set up in various places and positions that generate unique and absurd questions thirty-three times per minute.  The text is sorted randomly together through a generator and appears on the screen just long enough for the viewer to read it, and a new one appears in time before anything can be pondered further. According to Hemmer’s website, the system would take up to 3,000 years for all randomized questions to be asked!

“This piece is loosely based on the long tradition of automatic poetry. It is full of anti-content. It attempts to underline our incapability to respond, faced with an electronic landscape made up of demands for attention. The piece provides useless and slightly frustrating machine irony. Tireless grammatical algorithms perform a romantic and futile attempt to pose questions that have never been asked.

The effect of the installation is destabilising due to its speed. The rhythm of questions excludes any rational answer. 33 questions a minute is the threshold of legibility : there is no time for reflection.”

 

As soon as I came across this, it reminded me of Justin’s work experimenting with arduinos a while back.

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Some things you should do this week (and next): Art, Lectures, & Funding Workshops

photo courtesy of Windsorite.ca

Thankfully, Owen over at Windsorite.ca grabbed a shot of this (above, our work, AS OF 2011.09.21, WE ARE ALIVE & WELL.), since we still need to schedule a plane ride to get some photos of our own — above, you can see a shot of our work as part of this year’s Windsor Biennial at the Art Gallery of Windsor.

Speaking of the Biennial, there’s an opening this Friday, and it promises to be a huge party with all of Windsor and Detroit’s finest. It starts at 7pm with a curator’s talk with food, drinks, and music running until 10pm.

If you’re looking for something to do ahead of the Biennial opening, you might consider checking out Interminus‘ first guest speaker as part of this year’s lecture series. Dr. Will Straw will be giving a talk on Culture and the Urban Night at Rino’s Kitchen starting at 4:30pm.

And, finally, next week, if you’re in Windsor (or just heading here to attend Homework), we can recommend you check out some FREE Grant Information Sessions on Thursday, October 20th from 6:30pm-9pm at the Art Gallery of Windsor hosted by the Ontario Arts Council‘s own (and our very favourite grant officers), Lisa Wöhrle, Associate Visual Art and Crafts Officer; Loree Lawrence, Community and Multidisciplinary Arts Officer; and Mark Haslam, Media Arts Officer. If you want to attend, RSVP to Martina Roncarelli, Program Assistant, mroncarelli@arts.on.ca, 416-969-7417 or toll-free in Ontario, 1-800-387‑0058, ext. 7417.

Hope to see you around!