"Balloonscape"...deflated

"Balloonscape" is an installation that was done in the Eaton Centre and was conceived of by Anna Madelska. This piece is meant to be a "psychedelic landscape" that people are encouraged to add to and explore. I was in the Eaton Centre in the afternoon, before Nuit Blanche started and I saw a group of people setting up, and it seemed like it was going to be a lot of work, and it appears that it was. This was one of my least favourite pieces from Nuit Blanche. It was quite colourful, which was enjoyable, but the structure appeared as though it collapsed and turned into a big mess, and just looked more like a pile of balloons than anything else. I suppose the point of this artistic exercise was to work with notions of space, structure, and community. If there was an initial design to which viewers added on and altered, then a sort of community building was then technically created. However, it seemed more like a Chucky Cheese event than an architectural challenge. I'm not too sure that the Eaton Centre adds anything to this piece. Could there have been a more appropriate space for the installation? Balloons are a commercial thing that consumers buy and they are often used for parties, an event that people go shopping for, so in some respects I guess this space could be a good fit for the project. But what if it had been staged on the green area by King's College instead of the UFO project? Perhaps it would have developed into more of a student housing project. Process based works such as this one are interesting, but I feel that this piece was lacking. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have seen evidence of viewers' contributions, if the structure was not limited in size, but could have extended throughout the Eaton Centre like a giant maze.

UFO story continued

The people in the bio-hazard suits, the police, the fire-fighters and the military officials all conversing and guarding the site while trying to keep the public uninformed was a nice touch. There was also a jumbo screen set up to the side of the crash and on it was a woman who appeared to be an anchor delivering the breaking news. Even the old and historic campus building that was lit up in the background added a haunting feeling and provided a nice contrast between the old (humans, their land and their buildings) and the new (whatever crashed and whatever was in it). While I'm sure other people must have loved this installation, I personally believe that it would have been more successful if performed outside of Nuit Blanche. I admired all of the work that went into this project, but because it was part of the show, it seemed obviously fake and so it was difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. The artists were quite successful in creating a specific atmosphere and gathering people together. However, I did not overhear any worried conversations amongst viewers, which is a type of dialogue that would probably occur at the site of an accident and possible alien invasion. I think everyone was just there to watch the show. It would be interesting to see this staged again under different circumstances, perhaps on one sunny afternoon during the work-week. A very different response might occur.

UFO? This is not the "chosen one"...

The next piece I visited was "Event Horizon, by Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, staged on the green area at U of T's King's College Circle and Front Campus. This piece calls itself a "conceptual intervention" and attempts to create a UFO crash à la Will Smith Independence Day blockbuster style. I have to say, the artists went to great lengths to make this artwork seem believable, however I did not personally buy into it. This field was flooded with smoke, and a crash scene is created, complete with emergency vehicles, firefighters and even the military. The crash site has metal barriers around it to separate the crowd from danger, including that which unknown life-forms pose. The presence of the military implies secrecy, danger and extra-terrestrials. The army doesn't usually show up for normal crashes, but Hollywood has taught us that they are on-scene if aliens are involved.

"Emergency Room Recruitment Centre" Continued

This is a picture of my cousin and I dancing (while being video-taped which I found to be weird) in the room after triage. She wrote "Stop drive-thrus" on her bandage, as she believes that they should be banned for what they are doing to our air quality. We weren't dying to dance together, but this older woman (who I am guessing was an organizer) kept saying "dance, dance".... so we did. I completely understand that the point of this piece was to create a visual performance in response to current and unfolding global events, and I think it is an interesting idea, I just don't know how successful I thought it was. The triage thing was cute, and the people who wore bandages on their heads looked like they were hurt. The fact that the causes/crises were written on the head bandages could have meant that their crises were hurting them and causing people pain, while simultaneously acting as a label to identify the problem that caused each individual to visit the "emergency room". However, these bandages also looked a little like badges of honour; people supporting their cause by exposing to the eyes of others, whereas people in a health-care emergency room are more quiet (if the reason isn't visually obvious) about the reasons that brought them to the hospital. The artists chose not to have any chairs in this waiting room and decided on dancing instead, which I'm assuming was to promote mingling and discussion of each others' causes; crises that could unite us. I found the atmosphere to be light rather than serious, which is perhaps a positive point when dealing with depressing topics. I found myself confused in the second room; unsure of why someone was speaking into a mic, why we were being photographed and why we were asked to dance. Was the dance a celebration of understanding and uniting over global issues? The first part of the piece, in the first room, was a triage. The job of triage staff is to order patients based on the importance of their problems. It might have been interesting if the "nurses" had ordered us. This might have lead to many interesting debates as to why one problem should be considered more important than another, and might have even resulted in a re-ordering.

"Emergency Room Recruiting Centre"

After Hart House, my next stop on the University of Toronto campus was their Art Centre. Here, a piece titled "Emergency Room Recruitment Centre" was being staged. This work was curated by Seamus Kealy and directed by Thierry Geoffory. This piece was dubbed a "participatory installation" and visitors were encouraged to start their part at the door. Once in the room, people found themselves face to face with women at a desk, who I guess were intended to be "nurses". This part was staged as a sort of triage in which participants were told to write what they considered to be the most important global crisis in marker on what appeared to a white cloth bandage. They were then told to put it on their heads and follow the line into the next room. This next room seemed more confusing to me. It was an open space with rose petals on the floor, and a few drawings on the wall that were randomly spaced. People /"patients" were then asked to stand against a white wall to be photographed (I'm guessing artist documentation), and then were told to mingle with others and were strongly encouraged to slow-dance.

"Slow Dance with the Teacher" Continued...

Diane, I hope you didn't mind my taking your picture, it seemed appropriate :) While the performers/artists and the public did a lovely job at dancing and appearing like they were enjoying themselves, I found the images on the screen to be the most interesting part of the performance/installation. The thought of a student slow-dancing with a teacher calls into question the relationship between power and authority. I think it is pretty fair to say that personal relationships between students and teachers are frowned upon in society. We've all heard horror stories in the news of teachers abusing their position of power and taking advantage of students, usually sexually. So any sort of intimate or physical contact between instructor and pupil, even dancing, would seem somewhat taboo and sketchy. This notion of a relationship of power, of authority, of dominant and submissive certainly came to mind while looking at the images projected on the screen. The first thing that I thought when looking at them was that they appeared to have an S&M quality to them. Now I admit to not being an expert on bondage, however I do feel that I might know enough to make a valid connection. The images are in black in white, and erotic photography can often be in black and white. Black is also the colour that I first think of when I think of bondage, as in black leather outfits. There is always a dominant and a submissive in S&M. In a typical power relationship between teacher and student, the teacher would be the dominant and the student, then submissive. However, here it appears that the roles have been reversed and it is the student who is the dominant and the teacher who is the submissive. I write this because it seems as though the viewer is looking down at the teacher's face, giving him/her a sense of power. As can be seen in the first picture, it appears as though Ms. Wells looks up at us. The angle of the camera make her shoulders look quite narrow, as though she can't relax them, and so perhaps her hands are bound behind her back and she is on her knees. Another key point is that her name and discipline are covering her eyes like a blindfold. Blindfolds are often used in S&M and make her more vulnerable, as we have the power of vision while she is deprived of hers. Hopefully, I've made sense and have not come across as pervy. Anyways, I found these images to be the most provocative part of the performance/installation and I found them to be quite effective in raising questions about power and authority.

"Slow Dance with the Teacher"

This picture is from another piece in Hart House, Darren O’Donnell’s “Slow Dance with the Teacher”. This was a performance piece set in a historic looking hall/gathering room inside of Hart House. The lights were dimmed and at one end of the long rectangular room there was a fireplace with people (I assume participants) sitting around it and above, suspended from the ceiling was a projection screen that showed a slide show of black and white images, such as this one, that depicted individuals (who I assumed were teachers) with their names and disciplines superimposed over their eyes. In the center of the room, was a group of people slow-dancing behind a rope. Personally, I did not find this performance/installation piece to be as taboo and provocative as I thought it might be. When I read about the work online prior to attending, I had images of men and women dressed in suits, in a dark room selecting “students” from the crowd of spectators to dance with. However, when I walked in the room, people were slow-dancing with spotlights on them, and pairs of spectators crossed the rope (that divided participants and spectators) and started slow-dancing with friends. It seemed more like a fun gathering than a dangerous encouter.

I Could be a Houseplant!....sigh....

On the patio area just outside the walls of Hart House, across from the Mini Bar, was a television set up on a stand that displayed a black and white video by John Baldessari, titled “Teaching a Plant the Alphabet”, from 1972. This piece was hilarious! The whole video revolves around the notion of literally teaching a plant the alphabet through drilling and repetition. The entire film looks essentially like the photo I took. All the viewer sees is a houseplant on a table and a hand in the background holding a card that has the letter that is attempting to be learned written on it (which is of course in lowercase and uppercase). We assume that the hand belongs to the instructor, as it appears to male and we hear a male voice repeating each letter, trying to drill it into the plant's "head". This video really made me laugh because I had not previously considered the similarities between myself and a houseplant, however, while watching the screen, likenesses between our education became glaringly apparent! My initial reaction was not “this is ridiculous, a houseplant can’t learn”, but instead was “oh my God…I could be that houseplant…I am that houseplant”! I started thinking about all of the French verbs, the art history dates, and the thousands of bits of information I’ve memorized over my university years for tests, exams, and presentations, using no other technique than repeating them over and over again until they stayed in my memory. For what reason? Nine times out of ten, I forget the majority of the information I’ve crammed into my head after a few hours of writing the exam! So, this was a very effective video in my opinion. Through humour, the artist raised issues surrounding the method of instruction. Why are we taught through extreme repetition? Why must we spend our lives repeating things relentlessly? These things have already been said, lets move on... What are the positive and negative aspects of repetition? Does drilling facts and figures into our brains really result in a higher degree of knowledge-retention in the long-term? Why are we forced to regurgitate information for exams? What’s the point? Are there not more effective ways of learning? Why must we be a society based on tests? These are some of the questions that this artwork encouraged me to consider.

An Interesting Take on the Self-Portrait

Suzy Lake’s video installation in Hart House titled “The Natural Way to Draw” from 1975, depicts the artist using her own face to demonstrate how to paint a self-portrait according to the instructions from her text book written by Nicholaides. The video was projected onto a screen that was hung at the top of an old narrow stairwell. I found this piece to be intriguing on numerous levels. My background is more in painting than any other discipline, so this image of a women calmly and deliberately painting her own face peaked my interest. This painting of one's own face immediately calls upon notions of mask and make-up and beautifying and shielding oneself in order to be seen by others. The video is also a really intriguing take on self-portraiture! When I think of studying self-portrait paintings in art history, I seem to remember artists always translating an image of themselves onto canvas (or whatever ground was being used) by referencing their reflections in mirrors, or pictures of themselves while working. But, what could be a more appropriate surface to use for a self-portrait than yourself? I found the piece to be quite theatrical and it almost had a sense of ritual. Suzy painted her face according to a classical text book and she appeared to be very careful and respectful of the instructions she was reading. I definitely do see her as applying a mask and it seems like she is putting on stage makeup getting ready to appear in some classical Greek performance. As she continues the process of painting herself, she becomes increasingly stone-like and takes on a different identity. This could refer to how we wear many "masks" in life and also could play off of the degree of accuracy employed by artists representing themselves throughout the ages. Regardless, Suzy achieves a change of character by the end of the video. She commences by being very intimate with the viewing, exposing herself with hair back pulled back and no makeup. By the end, she has distanced herself from the viewer and appears stone-cold.

Well Done U of T!

The location I enjoyed the most was the University of Toronto campus, and more specifically, Hart House’s “Night School”, curated by Barbara Fischer, with Ann Macdonald, Tejpal Aiji, Day Milman and Maiko Tanaka. “Night School” featured performances, installations, and videos that addressed issues surrounding knowledge, instructional systems and the relationship between instructor and student. There were many interesting varied works, some of which caused me to question and consider things about education that I had previously just accepted and not paid much attention to.

Initial Impressions

I was quite excited to attend Nuit Blanche, but perhaps my expectations were too high. I imagined that I would have a really unique and fulfilling art experience, however that was not exactly what happened. Yes, I anticipated a busy atmosphere, but the sheer volume of people who showed up for the event was shocking. It can’t be denied that the public turnout was a reassuring and positive sign of the support for contemporary art in Toronto, but I kind of wish people had been a little less receptive. I know this is a selfish comment, but the fact is that there were just too many people in each zone! There were endless line-ups at almost every exhibit and when I finally got to see pieces, I didn't get enough time to really appreciate them due to all of the people passing in front and those pushing from behind. In the future, something really needs to be done about traffic flow! So for myself, who is not a huge fan of crowds to begin with, and who enjoys not being rushed and taking time with artworks, Nuit Blanche was rather frustrating. That being said, I did get to see some rather interesting things...

This is a photo of Mayor David Miller and myself! We kind of even match! I saw him walking down the street and so I approached him and explained our project and asked if I could get a picture of him supporting the arts...He said "sure", and so here we are! Before I went up to him, I overheard him say that he just visited the mini bar...note the red nose...