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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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augh! Is anyone else suffering simpleposie withdrawal? I hope Jennifer is back online soon.
The urban wilderness adventure never stops! Yesterday the intrepid Nanmac and I walked to the Toronto Zoo from Trinity Bellwoods Park. The route we took was 20 miles on concrete (ouch). It took us 10 hours. We mainly did it out of a shared interest in so-called "binge excercise" and self-directed adventure (ie: because it was there). We are also working on a video project that will be discussed further at some later date.
We left shortly after 5 am, and got to see the very end of Saturday night on Queen Street West, small straggling groups of bleary-eyed droogs, and two guys with a card table doing tarot readings in front of the Shoppers Drug Mart. Other points of interest, off the top of my head: sunrise over the Don Valley with waterfowl in the river below, coffee at 7:30 am in the "Stepford Beaches" which were full of blond women jogging. Also a jogging dad with stroller and labrador retriever who offered to take our picture. We declined. Big fence around the water treatment plant.
Kingston road was long. Pain set in for both of us around Midland, which was a major watershed as it meant we were at the edge of our Toronto map and had to turn it over to continue. Lots of trudging followed, punctuated by Freezies and Tim Hortons rest stops. By the time we turned off onto Old Kingston Road, the trudging was more like hobbling. But we went down into a really nice ravine with a park, marsh and river that cheered us up. There was also a very dead and smelly raccoon. Roads kill. Steep hills were a new factor, but being off the main road was a treat. Meadowvale was the final stretch. Crossing the 401 was post apocalyptic, as always, but the limping made it feel even more so. We had a lovely rest under some trees and took our shoes off. The final approach to the zoo included some confusion, as the road signs did not anticpate people arriving on foot. I think we might be the first people to ever walk to the zoo from downtown Toronto. I take Nanmac's point that this would be a dubious accolade.
Thankfully the zoo parking lot, our last hurdle, proved smaller and more shady than we'd feared and all of a sudden we had acheived our goal. Now we did want our picture taken, and a kindly fellow zoo patron obliged. That triumphant image is on Nanmac's camera right now. Maybe we'll post it someday, maybe we won't. We splurged on tickets for the train-like zoomobile to cart us around, but our zoo tasks nonetheless required more walking than we wanted. Once we were finished, however, we hauled ourselves onto a bus to Kennedy station and the TTC carried us right back home with no fuss.
I can't imagine conducting that expedition alone. Nanmac, I applaud you for your amibition, strength and resilient sense of humour. It was a great day with a great friend and I will always remember it!
screen shot from L.M. vs. Rocco
I am leading a tour of the InterAccess exhibition The Networked City (outdoor artworks by: murmur, Paulette Phillips, Marla Hlady, Germaine Koh, Amos Latteier and Luis Jacob) on Saturday afternoon that includes a group discussion about urban wilderness at the Pigeon Condo installation. Details are here. Two of the works involve cellphone interaction, so bring 'em if you got 'em. And don't wear white pants cause at some point you might want to sit on the ground.
The digifest and Harbourfront Centre Mods and Rockers show I curated is still on until July 9th. I hope you all get a chance to see it. I have posted some documentation from the show below. The exhibition is in a long and well-trafficked hallway, right across from the ice cream stand. These images show a lot of reflection which is much worse here in the documentation than it is in real life. The work is vibrant and eye-catching, even in the middle of the day. Scroll down for stills/details and all the artists' statements. While I was documenting, everyone passing by stopped to look, and kids especially seem to really dig it. Two little tykes were dancing and laughing to Tom and John's piece while I was there, and I've had reports that kids have also been spotted dancing along to Chandra and Andy's videos. One little girl, being hurried by her dad, dug in her heels at Myfanwy and Lorna's windows exclaiming "but these one's have a story!" And, of course the Sideways Circus windows are covered in fingerprints, which is sure sign of popularity.
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Chandra Bulucon and Andrew J. Paterson RODS AND MOCKERS, 2006 Mods and rockers Rods and mockers Odds and sods And leather weather Zoot suit, fruit loops Chrome and chains in our brains Look to the future The future is ancient The future is static There is no future So do it all now Do everything now Speed speed speed That's all I need Riding and leaping Driving and crashing Fights on the beach Sex out of reach Rave up and roll back And speak with a stutter! The artists wish to thank Lynn, Scoot, and Bella at EXILE, Rebecca Diederichs, Scott McLeod, Trinity Square Video, Sally McKay, and Kevin Couch |
 Myfanwy Ashmore HΩ, 2006 HΩ is a video landscape exploring a return to a place of early memories - a familial circuit - where the beginning and the end collide and the current is immeasurable but still flowing. |
 Lorna Mills Report to All, 2006 With Google-assisted omnipotence, triumphant narcissism and a rockin' rhythm, planet earth is scanned for divine modifications. |
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Sideways Circus photos by Rob Cruickshank Rob Cruickshank and Veronica Verkley Sideways Circus, 2006 STEP RIGHT UP! YOU WONT BELIEVE YOUR EYES! COME ONE COME ALL! SEE THE MOST AMAZING SHOW ON EARTH! IT'S THE SIDEWAYS CIRCUS!! MARVEL AT THE ALL-POWERFUL STRONGMAN! INCREDIBLE TRAINED SEALS! BEAUTIFUL DARING TRAPIEZE ARTISTS! JUNGLE CATS LEAPING THROUGH FIRE! HILARIOUS JUGGLING CLOWNS! AWESOME BALANCING ACTS! "Toys forced to do things they were never designed to do- stripped bare of their cuteness, right down to their modular parts, and MODDED to power the world's most ROCKIN' Sideways Circus ever- where up is right and left is down!" more photos... |
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Tom Moody and John Parker Rodmocker, 2006 Rather than have some kind of face-off, or rumble, we are merging sensibilities. The collective inner Mod is the high tech influence in the form of some sophisticated audio software and a newish laptop used to edit and burn the video, and the inner Rocker is the low tech source material: 8-Bit-style tunes on an old Mac (some originally composed in the '80s) and animated GIFs by Tom based on MSPaint versions of Web images of John's work. We're trying for some sort of parity between the audio and visual material. Pixels and square waves are both medium and subject. see them go... |
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Shimera by Tyler Clark Burke is better than Grizzly Man, in fact it is the best show about bear attacks I have ever seen. The protagonists are Standing Bear and Trepanation Man. Their tender narrative adventure is finely wrought, 3D, in a series of spinning glass blocks. Says the artist:
These miniature cubes have become the perfect avenue for my death obsession. I love the idea of fleeting energy locked into glass--blocks which capture phantasms forever. Their glass is my brain, with laser beams melting and displacing molecules to leave little scars as memories of heat.I have been puzzling about the cultural myth of bear attacks for most of my life. Am I the only person who finds it somehow comforting when I hear in the news that a human has been killed by a wild animal? And if it's only me then why do we consistenly put teddy bears in babies' cribs? Tyler Clark Burke is all over this myth with her own delicate death wish. The format may be souvenir kitsch but the story is transcendent. Shimera is deft and lovely, and it is on view at Katharine Mulherin Gallery (upstairs) until July 1st.