DIGITAL FUTURES INITIATIVE at OCAD University | http://web1.ocad.ca/dfi/

Play with Me is an installation that explores the idea that the playful appropriation of technology is the key to a creatively fulfilling digital future. Two vehicles on Queen St. West are physically separated by city blocks, yet are fused together by a magic window. A visitor in one van peers into the other through the magic window, to get a face-to-face, life-size view of the visitor(s) in the other van. When visitors interact on either side of the window and synchronize their body movements the window playfully responds through a series of sounds, visualizations, and cues for more sophisticated synchronized formations.

Kate Hartman, Director Social Body Lab, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art, OCADU

Barbara Rauch, PhD, Director e_Motion Lab, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art, OCADU

Derek Reilly, PhD, Director PICO Lab, Associate Professor, Liberal Studies, OCADU

Suzanne Stein, Director SuperOrdinary Lab, Associate Professor, Faculty of Design, OCADU

Emma Westecott, Directory Game:Play  Lab, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Design, OCADU

Through My Lens themes might be over, but this is just the beginning. Send us your pictures and come see them at our Leitmotif | Scotiabank Nuit Blanche exhibit on October 1. We are collecting pictures until Sept. 23.

EXHIBIT CHANGE | www.exhibit-change.com

Through My Lens brings city building to the streets – everyone is invited to participate in capturing their perspective and stories about living in the city!  This is an interactive, community based project which seeks to engage and empower action to inspire and bring personal stories of the city to life. What is your favourite part of Toronto?  What do you seek to change?  If you were in charge of changing the city landscape, what would you do? Through My Lens is a 10 day, multi-city, interactive photo-voices project to bring out stories to lead to community action. Through My Lens only happens when people become involved. Through volunteer led neighbourhood walks, self-guided photography adventures and pure curiosity, we imagine that Through My Lens will ignite a new look at our spaces and to re-imagine what the city could be.  LEITMOTIF will be taking the Through My Lens images to the streets, literally! The exhibit is an interactive community based dialogue of images, stories and people connecting with the city; in a rental truck, on pedestrians, on buildings, on sidewalks, on anything we can get our hands on. We will be collecting stories all night to build a plan of action for city building and designing new ideas. Come visit us at our exhibit and make your mark on the city. The corner of Queen Street West and Noble Street will be animated throughout the night with images, scrawls, scribbles, gibberish and laughter. Together, we can make an impact on the city.

Exhibit Change is a platform for city building projects, founded in 2009 by Jennifer Chan. After completing her Bachelors in Architectural Science, working as an exhibit designer and finally finding her way in the nonprofit community, she started Exhibit Change as a way to bring all her passions to one place. Together with community partners, Exhibit Change is leading projects to create dialogue around city ecology. Exhibit Change lives in co-working spaces, local indie coffee shops and patios, we love adventure walks around the city and gatherings of community love. Exhibit Change would like to thank Zach Pearl, Toronto Urban Exchange, and Hello-Foto for their collaborative support of this project.

LYNNE HELLER | http://lynneheller.com

Everybody Deserves Love, Even You is an ongoing installation which uses the tropes of disco lighting and cast shadows to project poetry created from promising and sly found text from thousands of spam emails. Everybody Deserves Love, Even You, was the subject line of an email. Its despondent tone addresses contemporary cultural vulnerabilities, sadness, yearnings and desperation upon which marketers pray. The messages are concocted in endless variations: often funny, always bizarre, and occasionally poetic. Reminiscent of the seductive murmur of a foreign language, a sexualized computer voice whispers the text. The overly modulated and controlled cadence emphasizes the pervasiveness and monotony of spam, while at the same time, characterizing and transmogrifying the text. The work emphasizes the seemingly permanent ubiquity of spam as a shared experience and universal language – words that are largely ignored but still imbued with the power of omnipresence.

A Canadian post-disciplinary artist and educator, her interests encompass material culture, new media performative interaction, graphic novels and sculptural installation. International exhibitions include a solo exhibition and residency at the Australian National University, Canberra, AU; Low Lives 2, El Museo de Barrio, NYC, USA (among other locations), Hysteria: Past Yet Present, Rutgers University, Newark, USA; The Stray Show, (Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA); Neck of the Woods, England; IKEA, Ireland; Deviant Detours, Mexico; artist residency, Palazzo Rinaldi, Italy; IV International Textile Festival, Japan; and solo exhibitions at The University of Cuba, Havana, Cuba. She is the recipient of numerous awards from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council. Reviews and publications include Art Papers, USA; The Globe & Mail, Canada; Fiberarts, USA. Heller completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a doctoral candidate at University College Dublin.

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LEITMOTIF on Facebook [Leitmotif | Scotiabank Nuit Blanche] LEITMOTIF on twitter [Leitmotif2011]

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for their support of LEITMOTIF

LEITMOTIF is possible with good spirited collaborative support by Advantage Car & Truck Rentals – www.advantagecarrentals.com

LEITMOTIF is also appreciative of the support we are receiving from the following community sponsors:

Advantage Car & Truck Rentals, Barton Floor Coverings, Belle Optical, Brock Carpet, Capital Espresso, City of Toronto Public Library – Parkdale Branch, Common Sort, Free Radio Berkeley, Future Cinema Lab at York University, Gladstone Café, The Gladstone Hotel, Hope Neon, Ltd., Imagine8, Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts, Mangez, Mascot Café, Misfit Studio, São Paulo Biennial Foundation, OCADU, PARC, Parkdale Village BIA, Public Butter, Queen West Antique Centre, Queen West Subscape Inc, Rhino, Shop Girls, Studio Brilliante, Toronto Public Space Initiative, The Workroom and the spirited community of Parkdale Village.

ALEXANDRE DAVID | www.alexandredavid.ca

(Truckstop) For this work, the artist transforms a truck into a square or public place, made to walk into and sit in, simply by surrounding it with a plywood platform that extends inside the truck to create a sort of covered space at the centre of this makeshift town square.

Living in Montreal, the artist mainly works in the field of sculpture, with projects often related to architecture. His work has been shown in various museums and galleries in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions at Optica and Dare-Dare in Montreal, at Aceartinc in Winnipeg, Grunt  in Vancouver, YYZ  in Toronto and most recently at Espace Tilt in Lausanne.

PATRICIO DAVILA + DAN MCCAFFERTY | www.publicdesignunit.org

Public Design Unit 1: Parkdale’s Versions asks what version of Parkdale do we turn to when we think of the past or when we imagine the future? What is your version? What is her version? Which is the right version? Any local resident is a potential Hyperlocal Knowledge Experts and can help represent what Parkdale is really like or what it could or should be like. These workshops have been held in the neighbourhood and offer participants from the area as well as greater Toronto a chance to learn how new media tools can create models of a possible future Parkdale using their own words and images. The Digital Mapping and 3D Modeling Workshops will be held in July, August and September. Designs created in the workshops will then be displayed as part of the Public Design Unit’s Video Projection Studio during the 2011 Nuit Blanche event on October 1st.

Patricio Davila is a designer, artist, researcher and educator. He is currently an Assistant Professor at OCAD (Faculty of Design) and currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities. As a researcher, Patricio has been involved in various projects, including: Biomapping (investigating the representation of biometric data, movement and space through the creation of 2D visualizations and 3D objects); Information Design for Chemotherapy (field study with OCAD students and the University Health Network Healthcare Human Factors Group) As an artist he has created locative and new media installations including: E Tower (Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Installation with the CN Tower and Rogers Communication); System for Forgetting and Remembering (Leona Drive Project interactive video installation).

Daniel McCafferty is a musician and designer, with over 12 years of professional experience in design. Daniel founded, co-managed and acted as creative director for an independent record label before graduating from NSCAD-U. As a designer he has worked on varied projects from newspaper and publication design, to large-scale wayfinding programs and environmental signage, to the design of stamps for Canada Post. After several years of professional practice in Toronto, Daniel received his Master’s degree from North Carolina State University. He now teaches at OCAD University and keeps a small design studio practice focused on speculative design, writing and research.

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LEITMOTIF on Facebook [Leitmotif | Scotiabank Nuit Blanche] LEITMOTIF on twitter [Leitmotif2011]

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for their support of LEITMOTIF

LEITMOTIF is possible with good spirited collaborative support by Advantage Car & Truck Rentals – www.advantagecarrentals.com

LEITMOTIF is also appreciative of the support we are receiving from the following community sponsors:

Advantage Car & Truck Rentals, Barton Floor Coverings, Belle Optical, Brock Carpet, Capital Espresso, City of Toronto Public Library – Parkdale Branch, Common Sort, Free Radio Berkeley, Future Cinema Lab at York University, Gladstone Café, The Gladstone Hotel, Hope Neon, Ltd., Imagine8, Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts, Mangez, Mascot Café, Misfit Studio, São Paulo Biennial Foundation, OCADU, PARC, Parkdale Village BIA, Public Butter, Queen West Antique Centre, Queen West Subscape Inc, Rhino, Shop Girls, Studio Brilliante, Toronto Public Space Initiative, The Workroom and the spirited community of Parkdale Village.

AMANDA BROWDER | www.amandabrowder.com

Volunteer to be part of the collective sewing project at the Leitmotif section of Nuit Blanche. Visit The Workroom on Queen St. to donate fabric, sew, and chat with the artist. Be PART of Nuit Blanche and find your slice! click on this photo for more information!

Chromatic Hi-Five! : Additive and Subtractive involves the action of “community” as paralleled with the construction of a site specific large-scale fabric sculpture.  Cutting, sewing, tailoring, talking, and collaboration – these processes form what makes this project an additive and subtractive experience which aims to collaboratively build the sculpture with the parallel uniqueness of what is “collaborative.”  The artist aims to question the citizens of Toronto with the conceptual approach of gathering and collecting as community praxis. The works seek to physically challenge the uniqueness of the individual a represented in a color field of fabric donations sewn into a mono-chromatic conversation.

Born in Missoula, Montana, Amanda Browder currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA/MA from the UW at Madison.With a recent grant from The Brooklyn Arts Council and supported by the NBArt group, she completed Future Phenomena; a community driven, large scale fabric sculpture that hung off an apartment façade in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at the SWAB Art Fair, Barcelona; Gallery Poulsen; Copenhagen, Denmark; Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Lothringer 14, Munich, Germany; and White Columns, New York.  She is also a founder of the art-podcast www.badatsports.com and member of the Round Robin Collective.

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LEITMOTIF on Facebook [Leitmotif | Scotiabank Nuit Blanche] LEITMOTIF on twitter [Leitmotif2011]

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for their support of LEITMOTIF

LEITMOTIF is possible with good spirited collaborative support by Advantage Car & Truck Rentals – www.advantagecarrentals.com

LEITMOTIF is also appreciative of the support we are receiving from the following community sponsors:

Advantage Car & Truck Rentals, Barton Floor Coverings, Belle Optical, Brock Carpet, Capital Espresso, City of Toronto Public Library – Parkdale Branch, Common Sort, Free Radio Berkeley, Future Cinema Lab at York University, Gladstone Café, The Gladstone Hotel, Hope Neon, Ltd., Imagine8, Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts, Mangez, Mascot Café, Misfit Studio, São Paulo Biennial Foundation, OCADU, PARC, Parkdale Village BIA, Public Butter, Queen West Antique Centre, Queen West Subscape Inc, Rhino, Shop Girls, Studio Brilliante, Toronto Public Space Initiative, The Workroom and the spirited community of Parkdale Village.

Lofty Artists Remembered

From left: Charles Ketchabaw, Andy McKim and Lisa Marie DiLiberto. (photo fromAaron Lynett / National Post

Inspired by a neighbourhood made famous by the art movements and media moguls who shaped it over the last 30 years, The Tale of a Town – Queen West is a site-specific theatrical journey that celebrates the history of this legendary strip .  Based on countless interviews with local icons, artists and entrepreneurs, this trip through time takes off “outside the walls” of Theatre Passe Muraille.  The audience is led on a promenade-style theatrical tour of Queen West by a fictional condo developer, passing by the controversial Loblaws big box development (which coincidentally opens to the public on the same day as this production), and ending up inside the imaginary Champagne Flaming Feather Eco Boho Legend Lofts.  The story unfolds in these imagined lofts, which are actually located on the top floor of the new Duke’s Cycle building, recently constructed on the site of the massive fire which destroyed a handful of independent Queen West businesses only three years ago.

The Legend Lofts replicate iconic locales by turning them into model condo suites with names like The Rivoli Retreat Room, The Cameron Penthouse, The Handsome Ned Nook and Jane’s Place – a model of a vintage clothing store destroyed in the fire.  These condo designs become the playground for our protagonist Jane as she flashes back through her life on Queen West, beginning in the 80’s.  Memories of riding the Spadina Bus, bar-hopping with Handsome Ned, sexually explicit Performance Art shows busted by the morality police, and the overnight commercialization of the strip (following City TV’s arrival) are just a few of the blasts from the past within this inter-disciplinary extravaganza.  Accented by a track of original Queen West music, archival video and photo projections, audio documentaries and rounded out by a pair of live musicians, The Tale of a Town – Queen West twists and turns through over 6000 square feet of re-designed space.

Back by popular demand after a sell-out run last spring as part of the “beyond the walls” initiative, TPM is thrilled to open their 2011 season with this newly envisioned The Tale of a Town – Queen West as a co-production with FIXT POINT. Named the “Queen Mother” by NOW Magazine, this production is led by the artistic vision of Lisa Marie DiLiberto, TPM’s newest playwright-in-residence. The play is directed by Varrick Grimes, who has received international recognition for his work in promenade theatre and is currently a resident artist at The Stratford Theatre Festival, audio and video design is by Charles Ketchabaw, (CBC Radio, National Lampoon), and musical direction by Juno-Nominated Treasa Levasseur, lighting by Michelle Ramsay (seven Dora nominations), set and costumes by Lindsay Anne Black (Harold Award, three Dora nominations) and projection design by Trevor Schwellnus (two Dora awards).

The Tale of a Town is a series of plays created by FIXT POINT, which was developed in Parkdale in 2008 and has since been produced in downtown St. Catharines and in Toronto’s Corktown.  Upcoming The Tale of a Town will be touring across Canada animating neighbourhoods through site-specific documentary theatre.

Previews September 14 , opens September 15, runs to October 9

Begins at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, 16 Ryerson Ave (NE of Queen and Bathurst) http://passemuraille.on.ca/shows/fall2011/taleofatown/

Performances: Tuesday-Sunday 7:30pm

For Ticket Information: Arts Box Office 416.504.7529 or at The Arts Box Office located at 16 Ryerson Avenue is open Tuesday-Saturday from 12:00pm – 6:00pm and one hour before the show. Or 24 hours a day online: www.passemuraille.on.ca

For its fifth year participating in Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, The Parkdale Village BIA is proud to present LEITMOTIF: Experiments in Public Space, curated by Stuart Keeler. On the night of October 1, 2011, 15 enigmatic rental trucks will appear in Parkdale – each one transformed by a LEITMOTIF artist. (for more info, visit our ‘what’s on’ page!)

In addition, 5 site-specific projects grouped as “Associations” will be revealed during the 12 hour Nuit Blanche event. Each of these artist projects will be the result of integrated community collaboration. An artist project – LEITMOTIF is a platform for experimentation in urban public space.

Is your interest piqued?  Here are two of our LEITMOTIF artist profiles for you to explore; stay tuned to our website to find out more about the talented individuals involved in this project!

CECILIA BERKOVIC | ceciliaberkovic.com

WWJMD?

Made in response to Jeremy Deller’s What Would Neil Young Do? poster, this work shifts the viewer’s focus to another great Canadian icon, Joni Mitchell.

Berkovic is a Toronto-based visual artist who uses strategies of collecting and displaying to explore aspects of feminism, consumer culture, leisure and queer identity. Not bound to a single medium, her work includes poster projects, limited edition objects, photography and installation. She is currently pursuing her MFA from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College in New York.

LEE BLALOCK | www.leeblalock.com

Render: Loop 1 is a durational performance. The artist will perform an original composition as a looping sample, played via a music box outfitted with accompanying electronics. The residual puddle of music box strips from which the melody is played will provide sculptural documentation of the performance loop.

Blalock is an interdisciplinary artist and musician who uses her background in science and design to inform projects dealing with concepts of self-similarity and future history. She employs sound, electronics, digital art, choreography, and performance as her communicative media. Lee has performed at Le Flash, Atlanta; the inaugural Impact Performance Festival, Chicago; was on the sound and processing team for Jan Tichy’s Project Cabrini Green in Chicago; and she performs electro-acoustic music in venues throughout Chicago.  Lee recently received her MFA from The School at the Art Institute of Chicago.

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LEITMOTIF on Facebook [Leitmotif | Scotiabank Nuit Blanche] LEITMOTIF on twitter [Leitmotif2011]

Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council for their support of LEITMOTIF

LEITMOTIF is possible with good spirited collaborative support by Advantage Car & Truck Rentals – www.advantagecarrentals.com

LEITMOTIF is also appreciative of the support we are receiving from the following community sponsors:

Advantage Car & Truck Rentals, Barton Floor Coverings, Belle Optical, Brock Carpet, Capital Espresso, City of Toronto Public Library – Parkdale Branch, Common Sort, Free Radio Berkeley, Future Cinema Lab at York University, Gladstone Café, The Gladstone Hotel, Hope Neon, Ltd., Imagine8, Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts, Mangez, Mascot Café, Misfit Studio, São Paulo Biennial Foundation, OCADU, PARC, Parkdale Village BIA, Public Butter, Queen West Antique Centre, Queen West Subscape Inc, Rhino, Shop Girls, Studio Brilliante, Toronto Public Space Initiative, The Workroom and the spirited community of Parkdale Village.

Our webpage isn’t the only new site up and running in Parkdale Village BIA….

Keriwa Café (1690 Queen Street West).  With a seasonally local and organic twist on Aboriginal recipes and more contemporary dishes, Chef Aaron Joseph Bear Robe alongside Sous Chef Dennis Tay have introduced a unique new addition to Parkdale’s diverse restaurant roster. We had the opportunity to celebrate Keriwa’s opening on Wednesday, August 10^th and were very impressed with the rustic yet elegant feel of the restaurant. The time and care put into the design shows; the Birch Bark installation stood out for us, yet was in heavy competition with many other artistic pieces gracing the walls and within the loving design of Keriwa. As for the food, wow! After a long time debating over all the delicious options (Braised Bison Tail, Corn Soup (pictured) Tomato Watermelon Salad, and Bacon Wrapped Whitefish – just some of the other temptations), we dined on Rock Hen with Roasted Bread Salad, with Tomato and Artichoke. Peeking over at other diners, we weren’t the only ones impressed by every bite of what Aaron was cooking up in the kitchen. Congratulations to Keriwa Café and its amazing staff for a wonderful opening, and welcome to the neighbourhood!

Other new neighbours that have opened this summer:

The Boreal Gelato Company (1312 Queen St. W) has introduced homemade Italian style ice cream, sorbet and other frozen treats to Parkdale. Drop by and savour delicious, refreshing flavours like coconut cream, raspberry sorbet, and salted caramel. Flavours change seasonally, and Boreal is always open to hearing requests!

Sizzling Grill (1468 Queen St. W) serves up fantastic Mediterranean fare including Kafta Kebab, Falafel, and Shawarma. Their menu also includes more Western fare; try their delicious burgers!

Tim Hortons has opened shop at 1468 Queen St. West.

Winnie’s Sub & Mac (218 Close Avenue) offers Parkdale fresh, homemade subs, sandwiches, soups, green salads, juices and more!

Wind Mobile (1454 Queen St. W) has a wide range of mobile services for cell phone users.