SMASH! Droppin' Stuff, 2008The Custodians of Destruction - Toronto, Canada
Performance Art, Multimedia Installation
Open Call Project
Celebrate the transience of Stuff. Treasured possessions and household objects get a moment in the spotlight before meeting their demise. Stuff is dropped from above and smashed in this intense ritual of destruction, with dramatic soundscapes and live projection.
this was interesting, but dropping things isn't exactly what I would qualify as art... it happened each hour on the hour... hope they cleaned up their mess
I Promise It Will Always Be This Way, 2008Jon Sasaki - Toronto Canada
Performance Art, Sound Installation
For I Promise It Will Always Be This Way a few dozen costumed team mascots will take the field at Lamport Stadium and work to whip the crowd into a fervent frenzy. They will cheer and clown around, while stadium rock plays over the loudspeakers. As the evening progresses and fatigue sets in, the mascots require cigarettes, naps, snacks and bathroom breaks. The music slows down to mirror their lethargy. The dwindling of enthusiasm and the breaking of the illusion dash expectations as a celebration of futility and pathos.
I don't know there is just something funny about dancing mascots... but not very thought provoking... I think the explanation is a bit exaggerated..
Imagine Peace, 2001Yoko Ono - New York, USA
Installation, Visual Art
Yoko Ono has often remarked that all of her work is a form of wishing. For Wish Tree participants are invited to write a wish on a piece of paper an tie it to the branch of a tree, as a form of collective secular prayer. The Imagine Peace billboard continues the advertising strategy of the "War is Over!" campaign that she and Lennon waged in the late sixties and early seventies. The language is both softened and more direct, but the implication of our complicity remains - peace will continue to elude us if we are unable to even fathom its existence. Forty-thousand buttons adorned with the phrase will also be distributed to visitors over the course of the evening.
this was a fun one... sort of reminded me of Post Secret... and we got a couple of buttons
XIBALBA, 2008Ulysses Castellanos - Toronto, Canada
Faisal Anwar - Toronto, Canada
Interactive sculpture/installation
Open Call Project
XIBALBA is an interactive sculpture/installation consisting of two cubic structures that glow and pulsate in increasing increments depending on the viewer's proximity to each structure. XIBALBA aims to reactivate the netherworld of an open-air parking lot.
I just didn't get it...
EUPHEMISMS FOR THE INTIMATE ENEMY, 2008Ruark Lewis - Sydney, Australia
Multimedia Installation
Constructed of five hundred and fifty - 55 gallon drums, this architectural scale installation explores the limits of language and its capacity to adequately convey meaning in the cross-cultural context. Drawing on the post-colonial texts of the Indian theorist Ashis Nandy, Lewis isolates "abject words", puzzling statements, euphemisms and aphorisms whose meanings are unclear or uncertain. Transcribed as sound and form, the abject text is transformed, animated, and offers itself in an experimental relationship between (non)sense and poetry, creating a new space for cross-cultural engagement.
I liked this one... it was huge... a lot of work... very impressive..
UNTITLED, 2004-2005Shilpa Gupta - Mumbai, India
Interactive video installation
Seven figures are dressed in camouflage, a fashion which has become increasingly popular since the War on Terror campaign. Click on the figures and they move. They copy, they imitate. Click one, click two. Choose a leader. Become a leader, and the rest will follow. Exercise 1-2-3-4. One Bend. Two Bend. Three Bend. Stay Look Straight - Don't See - STAY. We allow the media to think for us and amputate individual reasoning. Mental and physical activity slip from the mechanical to the mindless; into fear, chaos and violence against an enemy that does not exist. Everybody Bend. Don't Talk. Don't See. Don't Hear.
yeah.... the explanation is a lot less confusing than the actual art...
Future (...---...) Perfect, 2008Brendan Fernandes - Toronto, Canada
Multimedia Installation
Pulsing with dramatic lighting score indicating S-O-S in morse code, Brendan Fernandes' towering installation of shipping containers addresses the trauma of migration, displacement and change. Fernandes' sculptural installation evokes Moshe Safdie's utopic Habitat housing scheme, produced for the 1967 Montreal Exposition, and designed to include all people regardless of class, race or gender. Fernandes' monumental structure, however, reflects on the failure of this ideology and the susceptibility of these social projects to capitalist forces. The work has a local relevance, reflecting on the policits of gentrification and the displacement inherent to the project of urban renewal.
ummmm.... once again... a bit confused...
Urban Voice Oscillator, 2008Mahan Javadi - Toronto, Canada
Bruno Billio - Toronto, Canada
Installation, Light Installation, Interactive Art
Open Call Project
The Urban Voice Oscillator is an exciting and interactive way to "touch" and play with light through vocal participation. Audiences will have their speech animated and enlarged visually through the use of a green industrial laser, string and interactive electronics.
it was broken... what a bummer...
SNIF, LICK, PINCH, NIBBLE, SWALLOW....., 2008Noni Kaur - Toronto, Canada
Installation, Visual Art
Open Call Project
Coconut fills the length and breadth of a Hanna Avenue walkway forming the landscape of a body, titillating and teasing the senses. The components are totally ephemeral and the work itself is biodegradable.
this smelled sooo good....
Stereoscope, 2008Project Blinkenlights - Berlin, Germany
Tim Pritlove - Berlin, Germany
Thomas Fiedler - Berlin, Germany
Performance Art, Multimedia Installation
Stereoscope is an interactive light installation built inside Toronto City Hall. This installation by the German group Project Blinkenlights transforms the towers of the landmark building into a huge display screen by arranging lamps behind each of the 960 windows of the building. From dusk till dawn, the facade will serve as an ever-changing and evolving kaleidoscope of graphic animations automatically generated and interactively orchestrated. The public can influence the Stereoscope through a variety of interfaces including smart phones, the web and physical controllers located at Nathan Phillips Square. Everyobdy is invited to get more information at www.blinkenlights.net.
I didn't play a video game... maybe next time
Into the Blue, 2008Fujiwara Takahiro - Tokyo, Japan
Sculpture
Fujiwara Takahiro's Into the Blue is a giant illuminated transparent cone-shaped balloon. Its shape is acheived through the stacking of series of inflatable donut-shaped soft acrylic tubes of a successively diminishing size. Floating in the middle of the Eaton Centre, Into the Blue will present two distinct faces. From a distance it will reflect and refract the surrounding light. Up close, one will be able to walk beneath the work and experience it as an environment. Looking up into the interior will present a dazzling light aray, refracted through the complex layers of soft acrylic material.
It's just a big balloon...
15 Seconds, 2002Daniel Olson - Montreal, Canada
Performance Art
Daniel Olson's work, 15 Seconds, is inspired by Andy Warhol's famous dictum, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." From a small guard tower equipped with a follow spot - a familiar scenario appearing in countless films - Olson will highlight certain people, transforming them into instant celebrities. In this performance everyone is offered the chance to have their moment of fame, as they make their grand entrances and exits. 15 Seconds plays with our often simultaneous and conflicting desires for attention, security and privacy. While some may enjoy the limelight, for others this attention may conincide with our greatest insecurity, vulnerability and isolation.
yeah.... he went on break when we arrived... we didn't even get our 15 seconds... lol
House of Leaves, 2008Katherine L. Lannin - Toronto, Canada
Installation
Open Call Project
Thousands of pages from books torn from their binding and fixed to the outer walls. Lannin transforms this walkway into an ethereal cave like structure. Passing through the work, the pedestrian traffic imbues the space with the sense that it is a living organism.
this wasn't my favorite... i love books... seeing so many destroyed annoyed me... hope she recycled her art...also the booklet showed this piece done in a hallway, and the pages were all around you including the ceiling... all illuminated by a mellow yellow light... I think she lost some of the impact by doing it in an outside ally instead of a hallway as advertised..
Without Persons, 2008Luis Jacob - Toronto, Canada
Multimedia Installation
Without Persons is a multi-media installation centered around two computer-generated male and female voices speaking about being-in-the-city and being-with-others. Accompanying the audio are two video screens which will abstractly and resonantly illustrate the spoken text. The artificial voices speak in an earnest manner about being with others in society - voices that seem to belong to the concerned, but disembodied surrogate-parents of an uncannily absent child. As audience members, it is within us that is produced the primal scene of conception and birth, the emergence of our budding consciousness, and our entry into a well-managed existence.
this exhibit was presented in Maple Leaf Gardens... that was the best part about it, the disjointed voices and the vibrating milk or white paint on the screen was just freaking me out...
Barnadas & HwangGiant Paint by Numbers
Melinda Barnadas, Tae Hwang
Participate in the world's largest Paint by Numbers painting of feet with artists Tae Hwang and Melinda Barnadas, partnering with the Bata Shoe Museum.
We showed up at around 3am,the project was already done... too bad I wanted to paint. But the museum was open and I got to see a whole fascinating history of footwear... I really enjoyed it. Jay, Magda, and Patrick were passed out on the chairs downstairs... it was way past their bed time.
We got home around 4:30am, we saw a lot but, there a was a lot more we missed... I had a huge headache, it was really busy and there was a lot of pot smoking going on... the smell of which gave me the headache. But it was also a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next year, hopefully I'll have a chance to see it a bit earlier.
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