Nuit Blanche 2015 - My Night

After shooting Xi and Jun's wedding at church I had a bit of time to kill before Nuit Blanche started. I walked over to the Eaton Centre and loitered at the Indigo until starting time.

The first project I saw (106) was right outside in Trinity Square. It was called Where am I from? There was a tent set up that you could write where you were from on with a marker. Since I was the second or third person there only two of us had written on the tent. Not much to see there at all.

After that I walked across the street to Nathan Philips Square. The first project I came across was: 114 - There Is No Away. The artist placed huge bales of actual garbage and recyclables along the east part of City Hall to illustrate how much waste we generate as a society. I'm glad I wasn't a volunteer there. It was pretty, pretty stinky.

As well, a mysterious artist who goes by the moniker, JR, had a number of projects set up at City Hall as well as other places around the city. His main project, 13 - Inside Out, was having posters made of people who could paste them in a huge circle in the middle of Nathan Philips Square.

Other projects I saw at City Hall were in the Council Chambers: 15 - Nuit Talks: Putting the extra-in-ordinary and; 20 - Park Here in the underground parking lot. In all I spent about two hours in the City Hall area.

Next I headed towards Bay Street. There were a number of projects set up going south until the lake front. At Queen and Bay there was a group of older gentlemen doing some sort of traditional European dancing on the street. I don't know who they were because they weren't a stationary project so I couldn't look them up on the event map.

I have to mention, this was the first year I didn't actually look up any of the projects on-line ahead of time. I guess I was a bit lazy. All I did was take a look at the map and plot a course around the city depending on the grouping of where the most projects were.

My route would start behind the Eaton Centre, head over to City Hall, go south on Bay to King then continue on to Union Station. From there I'd continue south to the Harbourfront before heading up Lower Simcoe to David Pecaut Square and TIFF Bell Lightbox and up to Queen and McCaul to OCAD and AGO.

The trip down Bay Street was below par I thought. There wasn't too much going on and what was there was below average. At Adelaide and York Streets I saw: 83 - The Face of Toronto (a video collage of exhibit attendees) and: 39 - Light Cave (a colourful inflated sculpture you could walk through/under).

Union Station was about the same. One project: 111 - Pattern Study was just stuff hanging from the ceiling near the entrance to the trains and the other: 117 - Domestic Motion had a line I deemed too long, so I skipped it.

Next was Queens Quay and the Harbourfront. Again it was extremely windy down there and the lines to go in to see things were 30-40 minutes long. I wasn't about to wait that long to see anything so I continued on.

The project: 68 - Tri-Monic - Shape, Sound, Sight at David Pecaut Square was a bit silly. Just some instruments set up and a microphone that you could play/sing into that made funny sounds.

I spent a bit more time at Bell TIFF Lightbox. They had a number of projects there. Some of them had long lines, others weren't too bad. I caught: 38 - Light Upon Light! (boring light sculpture hanging from the ceiling) and: 103 - Spacebro Justice Rocket which was a fun life sized video game.

I was in the home stretch now heading towards OCAD and the AGO. On my way up John Street I passed by the Much Music building on Queen. They had their own unofficial Nuit Blanche set up: On Tilt- 30 Air Dancers In A Parking Lot where they had a bunch of "air dancers" (like you see in used car parking lots) going with dance music/videos blasting in the background. It was actually pretty cool.

Even at 2:00 a.m. the line up to get into OCAD was too long for me. Pass. I headed over to the Art Gallery and waited two minutes to get in there. They had a couple of projects in there. As well they opened up part of the gallery for people to go through. I spent about 45 minutes there and by ten minutes to 3:00 was done for the night.

Au revoir, Nuit Blanche.

Nuit Blanche 2015 - Introduction to My Night

This was the 10th anniversary of Nuit Blanche here in Toronto. And it very well may be the last. I've gone every year since the beginning and, in recent years, it's gotten smaller and smaller.

As well, after the event, it was reported that Scotiabank is pulling their title sponsorship saying, "the event no longer lines up with its priorities."

I have to say I've enjoyed going over the years. In its heyday it was a really fun experience. It took over the whole city with hundreds of thousands of people coming out to enjoy the spectacle.

Stretches of Yonge Street, Queen Street, Spadina or others were closed off to traffic. Open spaces such as Liberty Village, the Distillery District, Fort York, Ryerson University and Yonge-Dundas Square were used.

This time I believe the only large space holdouts from previous years that were utilized were Nathan Philips Square, OCAD/AGO and Queen West. They added a number of projects in a new area along the Harbourfront though.

I have to say, thanks, to Mother Nature as well. In all the years I've gone it's been relatively dry. I think the first year had a bit of rain and I'm sure some others in between did too. But not enough to make me want to stay home and miss it.

This year when I checked the forecast a day ahead of the event there was a 30%-40% probability of precipitation up until 10:00 p.m. After that it went up to 70% for most of the overnight. Not good.

When I checked the day of it was reduced to 30%-40% chance of rain through the whole night. But when I actually walked around it was dry for the most part, thank goodness.

One thing that was really annoying was the wind though. It was incredibly windy. At certain times it was hard to stay on your feet. It really made it difficult to get decent shots at slower shutter speeds.

I finished this year a bit earlier than some in the past. For a few years in the middle I managed to stay out the whole night (around 12 hours). This time I packed it in around 3:00 a.m. Eight hours out was enough for me. I'm not as young as I used to be.

If this is the last year for Nuit Blanche I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. A big thanks goes out to Scotiabank for sponsoring it and the City of Toronto for allowing it to happen.

Nuit Blanche 2014

It's that time of year again. The first Saturday of October. Time for the ninth annual Nuit Blanche. The all-night art/performance festival held here in Toronto.

I've gone every year since it started. And, except for the first year, I've tried to stay out almost all night (if not all night). This year I didn't quite succeed. I packed it in 1-1/2 hours early at 5:30 a.m. By then I was pretty tired having walked 10-1/2 hours through the city.

As I've done over the past year or two, I parked down at my church. This means I started at the AGO (which is less than five minutes away).

Like last year they weren't really ready at 7:00 p.m. (around the official start time). So I headed to the next stop with the intention of returning at the end of my night.

The next stop was a film installation at the east end of the AGO. After that I headed next door to OCAD where they had an installation too.

Next was Nathan Philips Square by 8:37 p.m. There was a lot going on there. It's a big place and a lot of people were there. I even bumped into Changhwan who was volunteering there. He's an international student from Korea studying English here.

Of the nine installations around Nathan Philips Square I took photos of six of them from 8:30 to near 11:00.

The organizers changed things up quite a bit this year. Over the previous few years they closed down much of Yonge Street. As well there were things going on at Yonge-Dundas Square, the Eaton Centre and Ryerson University. This year they were empty. Perhaps participation was down.

Instead of shutting down Yonge, they closed off Queen Street West and part of Spadina Avenue to cars. That's where I headed after City Hall.

Queen Street was absolutely packed. There weren't that many installations along there - only six. Though it lead to many more north on Spadina or, the way I was heading, south towards Fort York. I spent a bit over an hour along Queen taking pics and a bit under an hour along Spadina on my way to Fort York.

It was my first time ever to Fort York. Like Liberty Village, it's a great place for installations. But here they didn't have to worry about keeping residents up overnight with the noise. I guess that's why they stopped having them there a few years back.

There was around a dozen installations at Fort York. The one called Between Doors had a line up to walk through the doors set up there. One of the nicer, more colourful ones was Melting Point which had bright lights "dancing" to music. I was in the area for about two hours to near 3:00.

The next 2-1/2 hours were spent walking back up to my car while checking out six installations in between. It was a long, tiring night. Of course it was fun. I enjoyed taking in all the creative projects and taking pictures of them.

'Til next year.

2013 Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

I went to Scotiabank Nuit Blanche again this year. It's an annual all-night contemporary arts and culture exhibition held normally on the first Saturday of October here in Toronto. It's the 8th time it's been held here. I believe I've attended every year since the start.

This year it was slightly different for me. Instead of going to a bunch of different installations throughout the evening, I was part of one of nine teams of photographers and videographers hired by the folks at the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art (CCCA) to take pictures (or videos) at five different installations. Mine were C11 - Smoke House, C19 - Display-Displace, C28 - The Soniferous Æther of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond, C29 - Pink Punch v.2, and C34 - Mariner 9.

I went down early because I wanted to talk to the artists to see what their displays were about and if they had any particular instructions or direction of what they wanted me to shoot. Only two of the five artists were actually there though. For the other three I either talked to a helper or one of the Nuit Blanche volunteers assigned to that particular installation.

After doing my rounds I headed over to Nathan Philips Square to kill a bit of time before the action heated up. Ai Weiwei had an installation, Forever Bicycles, there. It consisted of 3,144 interconnected bicycles forming a shiny, three-dimensional structure. I took a bunch of pictures there before returning to shoot my assignment.

The first one I shot was C11 - Smoke House. It was on Richmond Street, east of York. The artists had constructed a large-scale cedar smoking hut powered by three bicycles. Participants were invited to pedal throughout the night to keep the salmon smoking and ultimately served the smoked fish. It was the best installation to shoot because there was a lot of audience participation.

The next installation I shot was C19 - Display-Displace. My CCCA contacts gave me the wrong address for that one. They said it was 130 Richmond Street when it was actually 130 Adelaide Street. So, needless to say, I had some trouble finding it.

It was the worst installation to shoot. The artist had rejigged three pieces furniture in the lobby of an office building. The thing is, no one was allowed to go in to view it. They had to look through the building windows. So I couldn't get any audience interaction.

Even when I gained access to the building the security guard said I had to stand behind the perimeter barriers to shoot it. And if people had been allowed into the lobby I wouldn't be able to take pictures of them. That was pretty stupid. I don't know why they had this particular set up. The Nuit Blanche volunteer who was assigned to this particular installation thought it was ridiculous. She was quite upset at having to oversee it. Most passersby didn't even realize there was an installation here. And when they saw it weren't at all impressed.

Next was C29 - Pink Punch v.2. For this installation the artist had wrapped six trees along the courtyard at First Canadian Place on King Street West in bubble wrap with pink LED lights underneath. It was so-so. I got some okay shots, but the construction vehicles parked on the street behind the installation sort of ruined some of the pictures I thought.

C28 - The Soniferous Æther of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond was nearby in the lobby of First Canadian Place. It was a film installation shot at the CFS ALERT Signals Intelligence Station on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, the northernmost settlement on earth. It was the only real indoor installation I shot. There had been some warnings by the weather forecasters about the possibility of rain this evening, so I was hoping for more indoor shoots. But the weather actually turned out to be quite good. It only sprinkled a few times.

Finally I made my way to C34 - Mariner 9. It was a video installation where the artist set up a 12-metre-long panoramic view of a Martian landscape set hundreds of years in the future, littered with the rusting remains of various missions to the planet. It was neat to look at. I think it was the second best installation for me (out of the five) to shoot. There were benches for the audience to sit on to watch it. A number of people went up to the screen to take pictures of themselves standing in front of the "Martian" landscape.

After that I went back and shot the whole thing over again. They wanted us to get shots at different times with different people viewing the installations. It was the second time around the Smoke House that I bumped into Richard's brother, Kerry. He accompanied me the rest of the evening.

At 5:30 I ended up crashing on the couch at his mother's condo instead of going back home. It made more sense than taking the subway back up to my place and then having to turn around and come right back down to go to church a few hours later.