lights | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘lights’

The Ex!

Posted: August 30, 2016 in events
Tags: Canadian National Exhibition, CNE, duck, duckies, end of summer, entertainment, evening, fun, gambling, games, inflatable duck, kids, lights, midway, people, Pokemon, prizes, rides, The Ex

Hey you!
Been to the Ex yet?

An end of summer tradition since 1879… although a lot has changed since then!

below: The midway, 1937 (photo source: history section, CNE website)

below: Part of the midway this year. Rides, games and food! … oh, and people!

Games of skill

And games of chance (gambling, if you will)

Rides that turn you upside down,

make you scream,

swing you around,

drop you,

jostle you around,

and let you laugh with friends.

below: And, hey look, the pink and blue ride in the background, that’s a tilt-a-whirl ride. It’s a bit different from the 1937 version pictured above but the concept is still the same.

Food… deep fried almost anything you want!

The Ex… The CNE… call it what you will.
Have fun!

nuit rose

Posted: June 28, 2016 in events, people
Tags: birds, by chance, camera, dancers, evening, fabric, garden, glow sticks, lanterns, lights, night, parade, people, photos, pictures, posing, sparklers, stars, unicorn

Nuit Rose,
a festival of queer art and performance

On Saturday night events were held at a number of venues that were concentrated in two locations, along Queen St. West and in the Church-Wellesley village area. I hung out around two parks in the village, Norman Jewison Park which runs east of Yonge and Barbara Hall Park on Church street. In hindsight, I wish I had had more time, or had been more organized, to get to more of the events.

Red Pepper Spectacle Arts led a Light Parade that started at Norman Jewison park. A small contingent, most wearing or carrying a light-emitting object, walked through the park, along and then back down Church Street. From the – sparklers, glow sticks

to the more elaborate

below: and an eagle on stilts

below: Note to self: for night time parades take more photos at the start of the parade because once people start moving it’s more difficult to get them in focus!

below: Where else would you be able to sit on a unicorn and get your picture taken?

below: And after a unicorn pose, have your photo taken standing with a well-lit couple.

below: 360 degrees by Iain Downie, 360 stars, 60 in each of the six Pride colours in the garden.

below: Dance performance, ‘By Chance’ by Janessa Pudwell and Tanya Svazas Cronin.

We pass by hundreds of people on a daily basis who we may never see again. Sometimes we share a glance that lasts a bit longer. This piece is about the relationships that could be created if we acted on those glances. These are the fleeting chances, exchanged through our eyes that will never be fully realized. Instead these people may only appear once in our lives as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

#nuitrose | #nuitroseTO | #nuitrosetoronto

luminato mirrors

Posted: June 25, 2016 in events, people
Tags: 3D, anaglyphic, cameras, colours, hearn generating station, lights, luminato, mirror ball, mirrors, people, reflections, selfies, soderberg-mills

The 10th annual Luminato festival is being held inside the old Hearn Generating Station in the Portlands. There are many theatrical, musical and visual events and the location itself is worthy of many, many photos. Rather than try to cover everything in one blog post, I’ve chosen to focus on mirrors and reflections to begin with. First, there is the giant ‘disco ball’ that keeps light circulating around the massive interior of the Hearn and second, an installation by Jordan Soderberg Mills features three interesting and entertaining mirrors.

‘One Thousand Speculations’ is the name of the giant ball that is suspended from the ceiling. At 7.9m in diameter, it is the world’s largest mirror ball. It is the creation of Canadian artist Michel de Broin and was commissioned for the 2013 Luminato festival where it hung from a crane over David Pecaut Square. One thousand mirrors reflect the light from a spotlight on the floor and as the ball slowly turns, the lights move around the ceiling, walls, and floor of the Hearn.

below: As seen from the ground floor level.

below: Close up. The top level is quite close to the ball.

below: Someone, somewhere, has a picture of his friend ‘holding up’ the giant ball!

below: And the reverse angle, from the top looking down.
Lots of irregular shapes of light moving around the space.

The Luminato website describes the mirrors involved in the installation by Jordan Soderberg-Mills as “anaglyphic mirrors that play with physics, perception and colour”. Now you’re probably wondering what anaglyphic means. It’s a word that comes from the science of 3D pictures. There is no concise definition! It is a picture that consists of two slightly different perspectives of the same subject in contrasting colours that are superimposed on each other, producing a three-dimensional effect when viewed through two correspondingly coloured filters. Phew. In practice, it makes for a mirror that is fun to play with…. and people did play!

below: As seen from the upper level, three vertical mirrors and four circular mirrors.

it’s become a game

Posted: September 10, 2015 in landmarks
Tags: angles, boat, buildings, CN Tower, crane, downtown, King and Spadina, lights, night, people, Queen St. West, rigging, Sherbourne Common, sky, skyscrapers, street scene, Toronto, views

And the point of the game is this:

How many views of the CN Tower do you think there are?
I suspect the answer is something like “bazillions” but I am willing to try to see how many I can find.

below: From far away. Looking eastward across Lake Ontario from Humber Bay park.

Some of these views you have probably seen before… and perhaps many times before.
But, I hope that some of these views are new to you.

below: Zipline at Canada Square, part of EpicIsOn event

below: From the east, across Sherbourne Common, late afternoon

below: And from the west

below: Behind a busy intersection, King and Spadina

below: behind Queen St. West

below: The CN Tower peaks out from between the pencil supports at OCAD

This post is a continuation of another CN Tower post, Always in the way, from last year.

Villa Toronto

Posted: January 22, 2015 in events, galleries
Tags: art, art installations, art is subjective, contemporary, exhibit, Great Hall, inspired, Iris Haussler, Joseph Wagenbach, light, lights, Navid Nuur, neon, sculpture, shadows, Toronto, ugly, Union station, video

An art exhibit in the Great Hall at Union Station, January 16 to January 23

I’m going to out on a limb a bit here and say like most contemporary or modern art, this exhibit was combination of some shoddily thrown together nonsense and some well executed and interesting pieces.
One of the things that caught my attention was how people reacted and/or interacted with the different parts of the exhibit. Union Station is not an art destination. It’s a space that people walk through on their way to somewhere else.

In the above photo, the women are using a computer monitor to learn about The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach, an installation by Iris Haussler. In 2006 she turned a house on Robinson St. in Toronto into a ‘discovered’ home of a reclusive older man who had filled his house with over 100 sculptures that he had made. At that time there was some controversy when people learned that there was no real Joseph Wagenbach, that his story was fiction. There is a Joseph Wagenbach Foundation with its own website.

A colletion of small sculptures of life like figures in grey and black.

Some of the Joseph Wagenbach sculptures.

***

A corner of a dimly lit white walled room. In the

‘Marbled Meanings’ by Navid Nuur.
top right: ‘Broken Diamond’ made of neon, broken glass, argon neon blue light.
center: ‘Threshold’ made of green florist foam blocks

With the above collection, I found that the light and shadows were more interesting than the green column. I don’t know whether or not this was an intentional part of the exhibit.

Neon art piece on a wall. It is shaped like a V, it's turquoise blue in colour and it is a bit bigger than the size of a hand. It is mounted on a wall with the electrical wires visible. It is shadow.

close up of ‘Broken Diamond’

***

part of a piece of art that is a pillar like structure cover with bits of colourful paper. There is also a child's drawing in pencil on an 8 by 11 piece of paper. Also a sign in blue letters that says . In the background there are a couple of people walking past.

“I’m going to use the two hundred dollar artist fee from this project to pay my phone bill and with the money left over I’ll probably buy a pack of smokes and maybe order some Chinese food.”
Is this a statement about the value of art? Is this a f*ck you statement – if you, or society, don’t value art why should I (as the artist) care about my work?

A large translucent rectangular piece of fabric hangs from the ceiling. It sort of has a face on it, yellow eyes and a small slit mouth.

Floating overhead and watching us with yellow eyes.

This photo was taken looking into a mirror. A man in a long black winter coat and red scarf is taking a photo of some art on a wall.

reflections

Four people, two are standing together while one texts, and two others are walking past. Four large square paintings (or photos?) are behind them on a white wall.

I know that art is subjective but I fail to see the appeal in large monochromatic pictures in an ugly shade of green. They aren’t profound; they’re not making a statement; they elicit no emotion.

The projector is playing a loop of blank screen to a garbled soundtrack.

An art piece, a shiny silver coloured porta potty stands in the middle of the floor. A trash container (real) is behind it.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the juxtaposition of the arty porta-potty and the real trash container behind it. Someone tried to open the door of the potty but it was either locked or not real. Note to artist: Why?

December rolls around again

Posted: December 2, 2014 in locations
Tags: Christmas, Christmas tree, city hall, cold, dark sky, December, decorations, ice, lights, nathan phillips square, night, rink, skaters, Toronto, tree

Happy December!

Stay warm!

skating rink with brightly lit Chrsistmas tree behind it

It’s a chilly evening but skaters take to the ice at Nathan Phillips square. Christmas stars overhead and a brightly lit tree in the background for it’s December again.