Live at U of T

The St. George Campus of the University of Toronto was buzzing with activity at Nuit Blanche.
With so many exhibits within the campus itself, let alone the other 3 Zones of the festival, it was hard to pick and choose which exhibits to see. I really do think that no matter how early you start, you simply cannot see all of the installations. This I think is what makes Nuit Blanche so unique, and so fun in comparison to conventional festivals such as the Harbourfront Festival, (which one could see all of it in a 2-hour time frame!)

So we decided to cover as much of the campus within a small vicinity of: Hart House, University College, Victoria U, and up the Philosopher's Walk to Trinity College Field.

Below: String of Diamonds, Exhibit 12: Trinity College Field
Installation by Newmindspace (Kevin Bracken and Lori Kufner)


At Hart House, Alicia and I noticed how the traditional lampposts looked different for some reason. Alicia mentioned how they were considered one of the art installations. The conventional lamp bulbs were replaced with a flickering flame to create mood and ambiance around the historic buildings of University College. The artist did a great job creating this atmosphere, as it gave the feeling of being in an old European city, considering how historic the buildings are.

In the Circle, at the far end of the field by Convocation Hall was a performance art installation.
On an outdoor screen was an image that rotated every few seconds, but one of them consisted of the Crucifix in the center and on each corner of the Cross were swastikas. Both are considered strong symbols in our culture, and the screen displayed the two blended together as one. Controversial art? Perhaps so! All in all, the art was wierd, especially since in the middle of the field stood two people in space suits. Whether it was suppose to represent a lunar landing or extra-terrestrial experience.. it was something bizarre!

Below: Smoke fills the field and Space People emerge from the fog



Inside the rooms of Hart House were various Art exhibits that Alicia and I happened to check out. One that I found fascinating was a pitch-black room that had a kaleidoscope in the center of it. With my camera, I took a really cool picture inside the triangular-shaped mechanism and its result turned out totally psychedelic! Looking at it closely, the image has characteristics of a multiple alien heads clustered together. This was an interactive opportunity for viewers to look into the kaleidoscope, analyze what they saw and create their own interpretations.


Another fun and interactive exhibit in Hart House was this room with a giant blank screen and a platform for people to stand on. When the camera started beeping, it counted down until it finally took a picture and on the screen behind, you appeared, set within a fictional backdrop.

To conclude

I'm so glad to see that we all have a different perspective of Nuit Blanche. I wondered what other exhibitions I missed. The idea of a an all night art event is great....

Alex, I heard about the event that was happening at the The Gardiner Museum. I wish i went. It sounds like it was fun. I like the idea of strangers getting together to make music. it reminds me of the idea of Pow Wows with the Aboriginal culture and the idea that the drum is the beat or heart of the community. It was also interesting how you mentioned that these strangers were more like friends which is so true when there is a chance to make music and having fun at the same time. The black tape, live installment seemed very interesting too...I would've liked to see that. The picture turned out good.

Daimaine, I know that you were feeling a little sick that night and you didn't get the full experience. You also seemed to be at the events when it was most crowded. I'm glad that you got to see a little though. It also sounds like you get to see some interesting art pieces. The writing projection in a tent sounds particularly interesting, I would've liked to see that.

Nuit de Sound and Ceramica Bella

Nuit Blanche Spot # 22 : The Gardiner Museum, located at 111 Queen's Park put on an entertaining and completely interactive performance for the second year in a row. The Gardiner was the place to make some noise and take part in an all-night drum beating session held on the fourth floor. With the ready talent of entertainers from BOOM! Entertainment and with the help of public participation, together transformed th Gardiner Museum into a symphony of synchronized drum beats.

At this exhibit, whether you came solo or not didn't matter. This installation was above all a collaborative experience for everyone, young or old, to partake in. Crowding the large presentation hall, spectators watched as patrons gathered in a circle the size of the room. In sync with the beat of the composer, participants drummed together as one. The sound of drums lurked throughout each floor of the museum and spilled into the streets, which caught the attention of passer-bys, drawing them in to see where the melodious noise was coming from.

For one, it was amazing to participate in the drum beating session with total strangers. It created a sense of community, and I felt in some ways that those people were not so much strangers but my friends. Participating in this exhibit was a sensual experience, one that motivated your inner spirit to drum along with the beat and let yourself loose. Perhaps, it could be looked as a way to alleviate stress; music as therapy for the soul! Naturopathics might agree!

After enjoying my 20 minutes of drumming with the drum choir, our group returned downstairs to see the wide array of ceramics and glass displayed on the lower levels. Of my favourites included: Italian Renaissance ceramics and English Decorative Plates (seen below)



Ceramics of the Italian Renaissance Maiolica period, commonly featured religious symbols and other elements of Christianity. This was typically seen in the 15th and 16th centuries as a tin-glazed finishing style of renaissance ceramics. Plates, vases, and other household items were crafted in this beautiful fashion. It was remarkable to see the excellent condition of these European ancesserie pieces on display at the Gardiner Museum.

In addition to Ceramic art, another art installation consisted of tape! Guest artist Ben Oakley took regular black tape and transformed a wall inside the museum into a piece of art. His work featured high amounts of detail and quality. It was amusing to watch him work so meticulously on the installment. It was definitely worth capturing a still of this work in progress!

Hey OCAD!

Touring the Ontario College of Art and Design, (a.k.a. OCAD), at 5 in the morning was alright, however, only the 6th floor was open at that hour and the other exhibits at the college were closed. We did happen to get a free poster for their 6th floor exhibit called Testbed.

Some really fun aspects about the OCAD experience were that:

(a.) It was entirely done by students, possibly within my age group, which made it fascinating to see some of my own generation's talent on display.
(b.) It was very interactive
(c.) It reminded me of the display cases and talent that roamed the halls of Sheridan College during my days completing CCIT courses at that campus.

At OCAD, rooms were set up each with interactive exhibits. One included a giant touch-sensitive ball that resembled a joystick or mouse cursor and while moving the cursor ball, it would control the movement and function of a Virtual Reality character that appeared on screen. This sample was more than anything a great opportunity to discover how video games are made, in terms of the creativity and skill that is part and parcel to Game Design.

It was an opportunity learn something new, to interact with the cursor in a mock development stage of a video game, to allow the non-professional sensual stimulation and feel like a professional game developer.

Similar to the automatic vacuum cleaner, OCAD featured an automatic, odd-looking shape that circled a confined perimeter of space, staying within its boundaries at all times, and repeating a similar motion. As interesting as it was to witness OCAD's student installations at Nuit Blanche so late, it will be worthwhile to visit again next year, next time much earlier.

My Nuit Blanche: A Sick Perspective

Nuit Blanche 2007 was actually something I was looking forward to in the days preceding. Unfortunately when the day actually arrived I had the beginnings of a flu that completely dampened my experience. Looking at Both Jenn and Alicia’s posts made me realize that I may have missed out on a lot of what Nuit Blanche had to offer. Nonetheless, I still made my rounds to a few of the venues (half of the time without an actual map) before calling it a night.

I too started along Church and experienced the same things Alicia did, only separately. The Bride holding the lamb was one of the first aspects of Nuit Blanche I witnessed, which at first scared me into thinking that a lot of what I was going to see that night might actually be trivial shock art. Fortunately, as I made my way down the street I realized there was much more going on.
Going back to the women with the lamb, I actually do think it needed a context to at least narrow a sense of concept. Though I do agree with Alicia that it might take away from its overall effectiveness, I still believe the artist’s intent is just as important as public interpretation. Especially given that the venue was such an open form directly for the masses.

I also went from Church to the Conrad Development Group installation by Sara Garham and while I thought the piece was interesting, I was not impressed with the fact that its end purpose was to sell and bring attention the property. I mean even the positioning of the piece farer emphasized the architectural beauty. I was just hoping to experience the art and not a sale pitch.

Afterwards I viewed the String of Diamonds installation at Trinity College Field. As it is true that the piece was not as successful as it was intended, I still think it was a really nice attempt. Form what I understand they had issues with theft and damage but I suppose that is some of the risks of producing public art.

(photograph from www.newmindspace.com/)

I then made my way to Heart House to see Night School which was completely packed to the point that we could hardly move or see anything.[ Though one pro was that I finally got a map!] Although before going to Night School I stopped off at Diaspora Dialogues & The Word On The Street in Queens Park which may have actually been the most interactive venue I visited. From what I saw between the massive crowd, people were going up and writing something that was being projected onto the upper walls of the tent. Unfortunately I was too far back to actually read what was being written.

So, a short transit ride later I found my sick self at 401 Richmond where there were a number of interesting things going on, both inside and out of the building. It was nice because it had its usual open gallery feel and it allowed people to discover the space on their own. My favourite part would have to be the area used to screen old sepia/black and white movies from around the 1920 or so. I am a big fan of the time periods so I really enjoyed being invited to view some of these films in such an open and relaxed environment. It was nice because it wasn’t trying to hard to say anything or be “art” it was just a nice attempt at escapism.

In the end, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to fully experience Nuit Blanche the way I had imagined it, but I figure there is always next year.

Exploring Queen West

The area of Zone C spanned the downtown in all directions! Spreading as far north as College Street, west to Dufferin, then south a little past King Street and East until Spadina.

A great feature of Zone C, as well as other districts was that the TTC had Shuttle Bus services running on each of the major streets, allowing exhibitors to travel between exhibits and to each of the different Zones throughout the city. In my case, much of this area was covered by foot, simply because many exhibits and independent art galleries were clustered together on Queen West trailing into Liberty Village.

This particular Zone was one of my favourites, not because it was sponsored by Heineken - my favourite Dutch beer, but because it was a raw and fascinating experience of art at its finest!

This compilation of images (bottom right) was taken from 3 different locations on Queen West, where each experience represents an aspect of the true Art Crawl experience:

Left: Wall Mural at MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art)
Center: Coloured light mural at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH)
Right: Independent piece at Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts

At the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, a large wall mural attracted people to stop and take pictures of the sight. From afar, the wall appeared to resemble an "Alice in Wonderland" as the mural conveyed busyness and movement and so the silhouette elements could each tell a story from this piece.

The center image showed how light could transform a plain-looking building in the day to an art piece at night. From my own observation, the use of light was appropriate for C.A.M.H as it represents the diversity behind its walls and how no two colours or individuals are the same.

The third image is a conventional piece, unlike the latter which represent new and innovative methods of art. What I liked about this piece was that it was not a traditional oil painting similar to ones in European museums. However, this piece in my opinion, was a form of contemporary oil works like the ones I remember seeing in Montréal this summer.

As we journeyed Queen Street West at 5 am that morning, we came across the Beatrice Lillie Health Centre at 1115 Queen West. Plastered from top to bottom in a vibrant pink floral theme, the building's exterior resembled a super sized Barbie doll house.

Created by Janet Morton, this installation, titled Femmebomb, was a blinding eyesore of electric pink and flowers. No matter how much you tried, you couldn't help but notice it. Paradoxically, the interior was so dark, that in many ways, the first thing that came to mind was... where am I ? followed by an urging wish to get out A.S.A.P, even if it meant seeing the super bright pinkness again.

The ever posh and popular Drake Hotel was bursting in colour. The lower windows were illuminated with a series of horizontal fluorescent tube lights that psychedelically changed colour simultaneously with the rotating spectrum on the rest of the exterior. Inside, you could tell from looking at the long lineup that the place was packed and no one was getting in that night! Nonetheless, it was still a captivating sight to see such vibrant colour right before your eyes!

As you can see, Queen Street West was filled with so many artistic goodies, that at times it became hard to choose which one to see first, or whether to check out other parts of Zone C.
We did check out Spadina, but to our surprise, not much was happening where we were, (south of College,) other than a whole slew of Asian restaurants open late, feeding the crawlers of the night into the wee hours of the morning.

After waiting 10 minutes in line, Jeff and I went into the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art where we observed a film featuring chaotic wild animals destroying the inside of a home.
To me, I could only ask myself, "What kind of people would allow animals in their house to purposefully destroy the place?" It makes you wonder if there's a reality out there beyond the art piece itself, and if people like that actually do exist.

Not knowing whether to make sense of it or not, we proceeded to a sculpture in the Museum that was made with potato chips and dip. In some ways, it looked like a mountain of solidified dip with chips stacked atop as the trees. In other ways, the sculpture resembled a mohawk. Regardless, the sight of chips and dip erupted an uncontrollable urge to want to eat the exhibit, yet at the same time, it was an interesting piece of art.


Right: Chip and Dip Contemporary Art Sculpture

Funk Lessons

Hey guys. Here's the video I captured of Adrian Piper's film "Funk Lessons". Hopefully this works. It's kind of dark but if the volume works you'll be able to see how the audience begins to interact with the footage during Piper's lessons (which may or may not have been a result of alcohol!).

In Response to Jen's visit to Kensington.

Jen,
You stayed until 5am! You must have had a great time. And you've managed to capture some great pictures as well!
I love the concept of the telephone installation/performance art or whatever it was! I agree with you completely, audience interactivity within the artwork made Nuit Blanche all the more fun and purposeful, aside from exhibiting culture. And there's something so dangerously fragile about artwork requiring continued audience participation to even exist as a work of art in the first place, which is cool.

Kensington Market

Out of the 3 places I went to - Hart House / U of T, Kensington Market, and Queen West, I really enjoyed Kensington Market. The vibe there was slightly different and the exhibits were more participatory. I felt that the exhbitions there required more of the viewer's participation in order to get the most out of the art piece. I was with a friend who is a 'non-art' student and she enjoyed this area very much, perhaps this is why I enjoyed this area better too. To me this says alot because Nuit Blanche is a community art event, it really should reach out to everyone in the community who maybe aren't exposed to highly conceptual art work or art work that generally make people say " what the f* is that?". Kensington Market is tight community and it shows in the art work which often requires the viewer or participant to somehow communicate with other people.

In the picture below, my friend and I blew up balloons and put them in a store. We went in, popped some, laughed a little, said thanks, and went on to the next one. This was a really good intro to our next hour or so we spent at Kensington. We participated and became children again.



Another installation I need to tell you about was the "What I meant to tell you". A cozy room was set up outside in a tent and the idea was to pick up the phone and tell the person on phone something confessional or just chit chat. I had a close to 10 minute discussion with someone about the idea of this installation being art. She believed that it wasn't and I believed that it was. The concept of this telephone confessional / art-not art discussion, got even more interesting when I found out that the person I was talking to was in a tent across the street. Again, this installation was highly participational and the concept was appealing to me because it dealt with the idea of a telling someone a secret or confession. I am Catholic and this concept has been drilled into my head. I also found it intriguing how eager participants were to connect with other people. This kind of reminds me of the installation at Justina Barnicke Gallery and the idea of connecting and disconnecting. Conversations with people, whether we know them or not can elicit all types of emotions and can effect how and what we say to one another.




Sorry some of my pics are sideways... its a good time to remind you to stretch your neck, arms and shoulders when viewing or working at the computer for long lengths of time!

Some other things we participated in were writing a letter to a tree, watching a wall painter, writing on a car to support more bike lanes in the city, "the Portrait Party" - I liked this one alot.

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Justina Barnicke Gallery

Its good that we got to see different things! Alicia, you got some good pictures. The lady with the lamb is a great one!

I started off at Hart House and honestly, there were just way too many people there and eventhough I was so interested in what was happening, I wanted to leave. At Hart House's Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, I enjoyed the installation 'Hold that Thought'. If I am thinking of the right one, it was an installation of 4 rooms and in each room was a couch and basic furnishings with a television that had a collage of t.v. show clips. Each room was different. I asked my friend what she thought, she had no clue. I thought that it was interesting how viewers participated within the installation by sitting in the rooms and watching these recognizable t.v. clips transition from one to another. At times, people laughed at the same time, from different rooms. This to me, seemed to be a commentary on the social activity of watching television. We have somehow lost our connection with other people by the act of watching television but, still also try to connect with people through television. Fictional or our 'real' life relationships. If this installation / intervention can somehow relate to our course, I can say that it may have been an attempt to bring to the viewer's minds, 'our' act of watching television and the disconnect or connect we make during the act of watching television. Make sense? Hope so. Here are a few pics below.

My Nuit Blanche Experience!

Hey guys,

My experience at Nuit Blanche was pretty interesting. I was able to check out some different works within Zone A. Amongst the artists whose works I saw are Mircea Cantor, Sara Graham, Adrian Piper, and Sheridan’s own, and fabulous, Lisa Neighbor! A lot of the exhibitions were done collaboratively between artists, and some even included the general public.

We began at Church and Wellesley where performance art predominated, stretching across two city blocks. This group exhibition titled Nightless City was an interpretation of a red light district. This was probably my favorite part of the night.

The first thing we noticed as we walked into the area were two men dressed in uniforms who applied yellow tape, forming positive and negative signs on either side of the yellow road line. This aroused much discussion amongst me and my friends as we contemplated its meaning. We came to the conclusion that it must have been a statement about HIV and AIDS, shedding light upon its large scale and indirectly showing how this medical condition continues to be a relevant issue. The fact that the artists chose to apply these signs to the ground we walked on is a statement in itself, perhaps suggesting that we are insensitive or oblivious to the issue.

Red lights glowed everywhere. These towers displaying the title of the exhibition also blew foggy smoke and diffused a faint red glow across the area creating mood and ambiance.

“This Aint the Rosedale Library” was pretty interesting as well. In this piece, a gentleman seated at a computer was silhouetted in a shop window. The contents upon his computer screen were also projected on the window for audiences to read. Seats were set up in front of the window to seat viewers, indicating that it was a spectacle intended for viewing. It was interesting because although we couldn’t make out the man’s physical identity, we were able to read the ideas of his mind as he typed them out before us.

The most controversial and bold performance art piece done on Church Street was the bride holding a lamb. It took quite a few glimpses before finally realizing that this alien-like creature slung around this zombie-walking bride’s shoulders was indeed a real animal, dead and skinned, head still in tact. Because of the shock factor, this art piece dominates all memories that night. I do not believe in killing animals to make a statement, which is likely the reason why this piece infuriated me, but at the same time intrigued me. I wondered, what kind of statement was so important that it needed to take a life in order to be portrayed? My friends and I immediately understood that the sacrifice of the lamb within the context of the piece was a reference to the bible. It isn’t news that the Church/Wellesley region is known for its openness towards sexuality. The location alone in which this performance took place also fit the piece within a certain context; it implied that perhaps the bride was a wedded lesbian, refusing conformity to western religion, therefore sacrificing acceptance; or vice versa, that she was wedded in a heterosexual relationship denying her true sexuality as a lesbian woman. Because this work was so ambiguous, it excited me but also disgusted me. Some of my favorite works of art are those left open-ended. However, here, the idea that other audiences could have potentially totally bypassed the thought process, merely asking the rhetorical question “how is that art?”, made me feel uneasy. It made me feel as though others would interpret it as being art made for shock value alone. At the same time, if an explanation was somehow attached to this piece then the ambiguousness would all be gone, and I don’t think that would have made the piece better either.

We then ventured up to Charles Street where we saw Sarah Graham’s Canard Development Group and Mircea Cantor’s "Deeparture".

Graham’s conceptual installation was a very confusing piece. The mounted description stated that “CDG is an installation consisting of a mobile sales office in which the roof is suspended by large balloons”. This is a cool idea in theory, but if what I saw was the finished piece, it must to have been very symbolic! There WAS no hanging office. From what I saw, there were several orange balloons and string suspending a red tarp several feet above us. Though the shapes and colors didn’t coincide with the descriptive statement, they were interesting on their own nonetheless.

“Deeparture” was a projected film which took place in the Isabel Bader Theatre and was created by Mircea Cantor. The artist’s intent was to create an environment where the prey (deer) and the predator (wolf) could be put under surveillance. The work’s description suggests that the artist wanted her audience to be kept on their toes while the film shifted “between tension and ambivalence”. However, what I think most viewers were more interested in was the fact that both creatures appeared fairly tame and disinterested, and that the wolf didn’t choose to kill within the white-walled gallery setting. Here's a video:

We then headed over to Hart House and saw a lot of things that I could mention here. The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery held quite a few interesting visual art pieces, one of which is this light installation piece titled “I Really Should…”. Adrian Piper’s “Funk Lessons” was an interesting video where Piper taught specific funk dance moves. I took a video of the film to show how the audience's interaction but it's too big to upload!

The last things I want to talk about are Lisa Neighbor’s light installations. After being taught for several years by Lisa, I know that she is crazy about lights in artwork. Her Spiderweb light definitely added character to the entranceway and was a great way to light up the evening. The red street lamps she installed all around Hart House further emphasized a medieval appeal to the ancient architecture. I wish they would have photographed better though!

Now I have some speculations in light of the event in general. I think that Nuit Blanche is a fantastic way of getting the general public involved in art by pulling it out of a gallery setting. However, as an art student used to the traditional method of art-viewing, I found the extreme crowds and quick-paced quality of downtown Toronto to be quite distracting in the art-viewing process! Like Amish said in class, Nuit Blanche does require some advanced preparation. I don’t know about you guys, but I found my motivation dwindling and my feet getting sore after much aimless walking! I guess that if I want to last longer at Nuit Blanche I will definitely need to do more research and planning in advance so that I see more art at a shorter distance! A TTC day pass would also have been handy. Although this was Nuit Blanche’s second annual, it was my first time out. I now know better for next year!

Nuit Blanche..after

A friend and I started the night at Hart House, where I saw our Lisa Neighbour's (Print Instructor at Sheridan) light webs at one of the entrances to Hart House. It was interesting how these lights attracted more people to the entrance. I was also curious as to what was happening beyond the lights. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to wait in any line ups to see anything although, I was able to discretely sneak into the line up to Hart House. My internet really sucks rights now so, I will write something a bit later at UTM.