Artcite

Currently sitting in the event I heard about on Monday night.
It’s Thursday now.
Urban Mediation.
What the hell does that mean?

It’s complicated.
If you saw some of the people/discussion titles, you may balk and think, “I don’t know any of that stuff. I don’t think I need to (should) be there.”
You’d be wrong.

This is what will happen before lunch –

Urban Mediations Symposium
University of Windsor — York University
14 May 2009 Windsor, Ontario
Location: ArtCite Inc., 109 University Avenue
Opening Remarks
Michael Darroch (Communication, Media and Film, UofW)
Janine Marchessault (CRC for Art, Digital Media & Globalisation, York)
Places & Mappings
Michael Darroch
Ian Robinson (PhD Candidate, Culture & Communications, York)
Mapping Locality Through Visual Media
Michele Tarailo (Education/Visual Arts, UofW)
She is the (Urban) Landscape
Veronika Mogyorody (Assistant Provost, Academic Architectural Advisor, UofW)
Reconceptualizing Place: The Struggle in Revisioning Downtown
Danielle Sabelli (MA Candidate, Communication Studies, UofW)
Where the Urban Refugee Hangs His Hat—An Examination of the Architecture of
the Displaced

Discussion
Projects & Curations
Rob Nelson
Justin Langlois (Visual Arts, UofW)
Broken City Lab
Rod Strickland (Visual Arts, UofW)
Green Corridor Project
Noel Harding (Independent Artist / Visual Arts, UofW)
Green Corridor: Extensions
Janine Marchessault (CRC for Art, Digital Media & Globalisation, York)
Leona Drive Project
Discussion
Edges & Borders
Janine Marchessault
Sandra Gabriele (Communication, Media and Film, UofW)
Borders, Trains, and God: Controlling the Pernicious Sunday Newspaper
Steven Logan (PhD Candidate, Communication & Culture, York)
Auto-Mobile in the Suburbs
Lee Rodney (Visual Arts, UofW)
Detroit-Windsor Bookmobile
Discussion
LUNCH

*sigh*

This set of discussions and presentations are based loosely on this:
Making cities better.
Understanding cities.
How and why we live in urban space.
And a HELL of a lot more.

The issue here is the same one I face when I realize the PILES of incredible online and offline content I consume (podcasts, blogs, magazines, art shows, radio shows, etc.)…
I ache to get more eyes, ears, minds and hearts involved in the larger scale of things happening.

A funny anecdote to end on, is this:
A girl who has been hanging around downtown, sulking mostly, said something outrageous to a group of Broken City Lab fans who were on a Scavenge Walk earlier this year.
She came out to the street and said, “Windsor sucks. There’s nothing to do here.”

I find myself in this gallery, doubling as a symposium space, struggling to find time to do laundry.
Readers of this post STILL won’t understand how much richness Widnsorites have access to…
I suppose that is the reason I do this blog, in many ways, and I hope this is yet another exhibition of amazing experiences you can engage yourself in while living in this fine city of ours.

If you read this in time, and you want to listen to some of these talks and meet some of these brilliant (urban) minds, come to Artcite (next door to the Capitol Theatre. The event ENDS at 5pm. Come get what you can get.
This is fascinating.

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Killer.
Inspiration much?
Holy cow.
The Talk 20 (Pecha Kucha) discussion and presentations at Artcite tonight were unreal.
Jodi Green is responsible for having held this, and I’m extremely grateful that she bothered to ask me to participate.

How awesome was it? Well, I knew it was going to be so stellar (I was so confident, in fact) so I brought my Flip video camera and videotaped it.
Here are ALL six of the 6-minute-and-forty-second presentations.

If you weren’t there, you can learn about what went on and who is behind some of the exciting things happening in the city. Also, if you weren’t there, you missed the opportunity to meet WAY MORE active people than I that were in the crowd. That is the magic benefit that’s valuable as heck when you ATTEND something like this.
Look for more of these talks, and for more great projects driving Windsor into new times.
SO FANTASTIC! The speeches say it all. Really.

Mita Williams – (Leddy Library, University of Windsor): “The City as Playground”

Click To Play

Rod Strickland – ((Professor, School of Visual Arts, University of Windsor)): “Open Corridor”

Click To Play

Tom Lucier – me – “No More Bemoaning: Growing Windsor’s Creative Class”

Click To Play

Pina and Adriano Ciotoli (co-owners, WindsorEats.com): “Eat Your City”

Click To Play

Andrew Foot (InternationalMetropolis.com): “Architectural Desecration”

Click To Play

Justin Langlois (MFA Candidate in Visual Arts, University of Windsor): “How to Fix the City: Social Practice in Windsor”

Click To Play

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No time to write today.
The info I want to share, in a less polished format, is on this video.
Let me know what you think, or if you plan on attending, OR if you plan on bringing someone.

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