Nuit Blanche 2006 was quaint compared to the explosiveness of its 2007 incarnation. While the swell of drifters was often difficult to penetrate to even get to the art, there were some wonderful pieces that made the senseless wandering worth it, including Mircea Cantor’s Deeparture at the Isabel Bader Theatre, and Kristen Roos’s Ghost Station at the abandoned Lower Bay. While many of this year’s presentations seem promising, if it’s anything like last year I know there will be some disappointments. But who cares. The spirit of Nuit Blanche is pretty magical, and even if the immense crowds turn you off, you can’t deny that it’s spectacular to see so many people out all night for the sake of art (even if they’re actually there for the sake of drinking in Bellwoods at 4:30am.)

My recommendations are virtually blind — I have only the Nuit Blanche catalogue to guide me. But hopefully some of these will be as interesting in the flesh as they’ve been made to seem on paper. It’s safe to say that I’m into intervention, and I think these types of projects are most effective at an event like Nuit Blanche. Interrupting spaces and environments allows for a broader understanding of what constitutes art, and the interruptions act as signposts from which to ask pertinent questions about space, audience and participation’s place in art.

Nuit Blanche begins at 6:52pm on October 4th and ends at sunrise the next morning. More recommendations to come!

Project Blinkenlights, Arcade, 2002

The top spot on my list is occupied by Stereoscope, by Project Blinkenlights. The nice thing about this one is that the duration of the project extends beyond the evening of Nuit Blanche, so if you miss it on Saturday night you can still catch it between 7pm and 7am each evening until October 10th. *UPDATE* There is a special presentation on Saturday at 10pm, so even though the installation is available, be sure to catch the main event at 10pm.

STEREOSCOPE

Project Blinkenlights - Berlin, Germany
Tim Pritlove - Berlin, Germany
Thomas Fiedler - Berlin, Germany

Performance Art, Multimedia Installation

Stereoscope is an interactive light installation at Toronto City Hall. This installation by the German group Project Blinkenlights transforms the landmark towers into a huge display screen by arranging lamps behind each of the 960 windows of the building. From dusk till dawn, the façade will serve as an ever-changing and evolving kaleidoscope of graphic animations automatically generated and interactively orchestrated. The public can influence “Stereoscope” through a variety of interfaces including smartphones, the web and physical controllers located at Nathan Phillips Square. Everybody is invited to participate and get more information at www.blinkenlights.net

In 2001, Project Blinkenlights became famous in Berlin as the first large-scale interactive media that could be controlled by a simple mobile phone. The project that later became known as “Blinkenlights” spawned a follow-up installation of even greater dimensions and scope at the Blibiothèque Nationale de France in Paris, France. Project Blinkenlights develops all technology on its own. The computer software used to run this project is published under an open-source license.

Toronto City Hall is at 100 Queen Street West and this installation is wheelchair accessible.

BGL, Domain de l'angle, 2005, mixed media

Next on my list is Domaine de l’angle #2. There are lots of installations that bring nature into artificial spaces, but this piece, in an alley at Massey Hall, the BGL collective bring artifice into nature by adding a drop ceiling into an alley. I worry that I might be disappointed by this one simply because the image in the catalogue is of a 2005 iteration of the project, which has a drop ceiling added to a wooded area — not an alley. Hopefully the intervention is just as jarring!

DOMAINE DE L’ANGLE #2

BGL - Quebec City, Canada
Sébastien Giguère - Quebec City, Canada
Nicolas Laverdière - Quebec City, Canada
Jasmin Bilodeau - Quebec City, Canada

Installation

The Quebec City-based art collective BGL is known for installations that take over architecture and wryly comment on institutional space. BGL will construct a 40 metre long drop ceiling in the alley of St. Enoch’s Square beside Massey Hall, framing the dumpsters, recycling bins and other life of the alleyway in the cool fluorescent light of the modern office.

Massey Hall is located at 178 Victoria Street, and the installation is in the alley off of Shuter St. This installation is also wheelchair accessible.

Katherine L. Lannin, House of Leaves, 2008, Mixed Media

House of Leaves by Katherine L. Lannin seems the most magical. I think this space will be really surreal with people in it. I really love spaces that change with an audience in them… I can’t wait to see these walls breathing.

HOUSE OF LEAVES

Katherine L. Lannin - Toronto, Canada

Installation

The House of Leaves, (a title partly inspired by the fictional book under the same name written by author, Mark Z. Danielewski) is an installation made of thousands of pages from books torn from their binding and fixed to the outer walls of two buildings located at Ryerson University Campus (sandwiched between the Student Campus Centre and O’Keefe House).

Lannin transforms this walkway asking us to reinterpret how we think about public space. The pages completely consume the space transforming it into an ethereal cave like structure.

Passing through the installed work pedestrian traffic stirs and ruffles the pages; an effect that imbues the space with the sense that it is a living organism, a fiction itself, created by other fictions.

House of Leaves is at Ryerson University Student Centre at 55 Gould Streets (between the Student Campus Centre and O’Keefe House). Wheelchair accessible.

Have fun!

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