Location: Roaming Project
Description: Cybèle and Cozak, bird sellers rescued from the black circus, will wander around Laval Street on stilts accompanied by their pet ostrich. These bright and highly colourful street entertainers are quite the number!
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: Trophy is an interactive game that leads participants around Nuit Blanche. Part-scavenger hunt, part episodic performance, it’s loosely inspired by the boardgame ‘Life’. In this version, we explore six personal hype moments, or life turning points with at least initial anticipation, including career and love. Each of these elements is in a different location. Each stop in the game consists of a short performance by an artist who has significant personal experience with the topic, and a board game-inspired challenge. The performances are personal explorations of each theme. The challenges are fun but real, and allow us to think about how we have been impacted by these elements. The more stops you visit, the greater the reward! There are multiple entry points: participants can interact with the installation or participate in one or all of the performances.
Trophy challenges us to examine the elements that make up a life. What does it take to survive these experiences? And what is left when you have made it through it all?
Bio: Trophy is a celebration of the human spirit. It started through an AOE Arts Council residency at the Ottawa Mission where we explored the life turning points of 4 men. They had had extremely challenging lives and yet persevered on quests for creative, happy and successful lives. We were blown away by the stories we found and were inspired to open the piece up. We wanted to find a way for performers and audience members alike to share their stories of perseverance and to explore in playful ways the human drive to survive.
Trophy is part of STO Union’s live art series. The pieces circle around the nature of intimacy and our basic human need for face-to-face contact. They are personal and generally participatory: the role of performer and participant is blended so the audience has control over the performance on whatever level they feel most comfortable. We have created similar process-oriented pieces for festivals including Ontario Scene, SummerWorks, In the Soil & Magnetic North.
]]>Location: ByWard zone
Description: Words and Pictures is an interactive event. It is in part storytelling, photography, performance, installation. Individuals are invited to make a notation, to step onto a stage, to be photographed.
Bio: Things change. Time passes. Things change again.
At one time, in what seems a long time ago, I spend days running into nights, becoming weeks, becoming years in my studio.
Things change.
For many reasons, reasons that I remember, reasons that I’ve forgot, good, bad, confused, the fury of making artwork exhausted me at. I stopped making public artwork. I stopped making any new work for a time. After a time I began to make personal notations, reflections, mediations; to collect an almost secret diary. I began to slowly to make private artwork in.
And things changed again.
The work that had taken too much time, all the time, disappeared. I began to look at the notations that I had made during my silence; I began to look back at the work that I had made, that I had never exhibited, that I had put away in silence.
I found myself in the older work. Reflections of who I was in making it, suggestions of the directions in which I might move in continuing to make new work.
Location: Arts Court
Description: A random series of movement based installations performed live at ODD. The notion of excessive activity in confined spaces brings dance artists from Ottawa, Montreal, and Kingston together to create a space energized by physical absurdity.
Ottawa Dance Directive is a not-for-profit professional contemporary dance space located on the second floor of Arts Court. ODD houses Compagnie ODD, Series Dance 10, workshops and classes, and inclusive resource sharing. Dance artists from around the world are performing at ODD and making Ottawa a new destination for innovative independent dance making.
The ODD BOX venue is an intimate and energized performance space.
This project is supported by the Downtown Rideau BIA and the City of Ottawa.
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: This project will be a series of spontaneous drawings/writings done on the windows. The drawings/writings will change every hour.
“Hip to the Hype” is an exploration of how our culture is addicted to ‘hype': everything from celebrity ‘hype’ to political ‘hype’ to retail ‘hype’ and so on. The drawings/writings will be spontaneous reactions from the subconscious from our surroundings to make us consider how and in what way are we influenced to the ‘hype’ that is all around us. The drawings/writings will change every hour to consider how our experiences changes with ‘hype’.
Bio: Free/art is a conceptual character that I created to allow me to create art without pre-conceived planning or notions and explore process, spontaneity, and stream of consciouness thinking. I began adding words as an additional dimension to the work and started experimenting with surfaces. He continued to develop and apply this technique by drawing/writing on pavements, windows, newsprint (the crumpling, tearing, and taping the paper he developed during Nuit Blanche at the Emergency Room exhibition sponsored by the Blackwood Gallery), and worked on notepad paper for the cover and insert of The Art Gallery of Mississauga’s 25th Anniversary publication.
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: A selection of original stories that tell it as it was – or as our collective memory imagines it should have been?
Selected original stories from the past (imaginary or real? Who knows?) that tell it like it was or should have been. Tales of humour, wisdom, legend and lore.
Claude (le Pére) Garneau is an experienced story-teller and author who will charm you with the wit and humour in his original tales, while revealing tidbits of history, fact and wisdom.
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: SPLAT! is three-thousand paint-filled balloons of all colours ready for launch via slingshot by YOU at a giant blank canvass. Come unleash the artist within and watch the project unfold!
What do you get when you have three thousand paint-filled balloons, three slingshots, and giant blank canvass? Welcome to SPLAT! In this installation each person becomes an artist, adding one ballooned-filled splat at a time, slowly building a masterpiece over the course of the entire evening.
Splat! is the epitome of hype. Each participant will necessarily come to the project with heightened anticipation, and expectation. Will the result of their contribution leave them fulfilled? Or will the experience itself be sufficient? How will the final product look? And how will each person’s contribution add to that outcome? The project is a space for experimentation and is the realization of social innovation. It is a space to develop original experiences and for each person to test their own creative endeavours. There will be no control over the outcome, which will slowly unfold as the night progresses. It is an art form of citizenship, with each participant contributing to the final piece.
Splat! has two philosophical underpinnings. The first is the belief that each one of us has a creative spirit. What if imagination and art are not, as many of us think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? Splat! is geared toward helping each participant discover their own creative impulse that, once liberated, might offer new possibilities for achievement.
The second explores the tension between talent and the creative act, between mastering art as a craft and unleashing unbridled creative passion. On the one hand, the participant will be invited to add to the canvass with a certain degree of intentionality, by directing the paint at a particular point or at a particular angle. On the other hand, the participant will be faced with the chaos and randomness of the endeavour, lacking control over the result of their intentions and perhaps left only to feel the emotional force underlying the creative act.
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: ‘Steal This Art’ is a pop-up, interactive art installation with a moral conundrum. Will you steal something? What are you ready to take? How far are you willing to go to get it? Will you get caught?
HYPE is viral. It moves from person to person, from site to site, growing as it goes. The goal of ‘Steal This Art’ is to create a centre of virality. Throughout the night, volunteer photographers and videographers will be on hand to try and catch people taking art from the installation. This record will be posted online afterward, creating another platform for the hype and virality of the Nuit Blanche experience to grow.
Bio: The Winged Beast, developed by Stirling Prentice, is a decade-old project that continues to experiment with many different forms – illustration, screen printing, painting, photography, sculpture, web design, and multimedia installations.
Stirling founded the Winged Beast as an outlet for his DIY, hacked-canvas worldview. But, it evolved into an exploration of art and politics, culture and economics, of that general complexity of the world around us. There aren’t a lot of answers. Stirling’s works look for ways through it all by keeping simple explanations at arm’s length and constantly reaching for new connections between ideas and imagery. All embodied by a mishmash aesthetic that is equal parts joy and irony.
Stirling and the Winged Beast stand at many cross-streets, idling on the corners of the physical and the digital, the ephemeral and the abiding, memory and imagination. The result is a body of work that is both recognizable and timeless (or at least timely).
Location: ByWard zone
Description: Fifteen foot long SUBURBUS (and trailer), full of 40 different ideal semi-detached model homes, will commute you in and out of burbsland of your dreams with the help of hyper real-estate agent Rene.
Bio: I’m an ideaguy/inventor, quirky mockartist, scribbler, rascal, cyber luddite and grande amateur.
I like to work on large-scale projects that reach beyond the white cube and involve non-traditional partners, patrons and audiences. My art is about things: found things, created things, transformed things. I have created thousands of works of all sizes and shapes, in different media (painting, photography, sculpture and video installations). The excess of my artistic production reflects our society’s obsession with productivity for the sake of productivity and with the accumulation of goods.
Location: ByWard zone
Description: The Wunderblume is an evening spectacle of light and kinetic movement encouraging audience participation to playfully activate the giant flower sculpture as it sits atop its perch above the crowd.
We see HYPE as the rolling in and crashing of waves. These waves come in varied size and cadence, but are cyclical in nature, implying a need for an artwork to ebb and flow with this cycle. Each wave has energy and it is our intention to not just create waves, but also ride each wave. The Wunderblume builds the “HYPE wave” through curiosity, spectacle, and audience participation as the kinetic sculpture glows brightly and rises above the heads of spectators. The “wave” begins with curiosity when The Wunderblume is viewed from afar; the sculpture initiates a choreographed routine when nobody is near, opening and closing its petals in preset patterns. This set routine is replaced by an interactive element when viewers approach the sculpture. The “HYPE wave” gains energy by introducing a learning curve as viewers become participants; the “HYPE wave” crests as people learn how The Wunderblume works and engage with it alone or in groups in playful, exploratory, and collaborative ways.
Bio: The Gluey Group is a Saskatchewan-based artist group founded by Ned Bartlett and John Campbell. A multidisciplinary approach to art-making is essential to the work of the group; it is the art, ideas, and GUIGluey project that creates the “glue” that brings the group together. By bringing together different artists and makers from different disciplinary backgrounds, the group is able to collaborate and create work that is more than the sum of its parts.
Project supported by:
The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and the University of Regina.
]]>
In the bustle of the night two observers are stirring. Dressed in gray wool, they are people of the land – shepherds perhaps? They observe the display before them simply and with affection.
The spectators amplify the effect of hype by the contrast there is between it and them. The more our spectators are silent, sober, and dull, the more the agitation surrounding them is striking. This agitation is defined by what it really is – temporary and unreal, an illusion. Despite that, it remains human and full of fun and magic. The characters embody gentleness, and are attentive to the little things. With their simplicity and their love they simply accept what is. Hype is permitted because it is possible as well.
Platforme pectorale is a group of socially engaged artists working in the field of interdisciplinary performance, merging sketched installations to conscious movement. This group is particularly interested in the cycles of nature and of the human body, in travel and the sea, as well as in urban and rural environments. The juxtaposition of elegant and quaint aesthetics and highly contemporary elements makes the tone of our performance fluctuate between that of a folk celebration and the sensitivity of meditation. Each performance is tailored to reflect the location in which it is presented. We favor spontaneity and simplicity, while being very attentive to detail and to the overall result of our performance.
]]>
Location: Gatineau
Description: This project consists of a video projected onto a translucent backing affixed to a building’s window. The video will be visible from both inside and outside, whereas the soundtrack will only be audible outdoors.
The project’s title, La dolce vita, clearly refers to Fellini’s film of the same name. The main character of the film, Marcello, is struggling with his identity and is insecure about how to respond to the opportunities he is presented with. This insecurity is portrayed in a series of seemingly mundane scenes, including the famous scene that takes place at the Trevi Fountain. Marcello’s ordinary evening ends up not being so sweet after all. The fountain becomes a metaphor for the turmoil that dwells within us behind what is an apparently smooth surface. What was before a place of enchantment and meditation now becomes a delirium when seen from the inside. The very action of floating a camera a few millimeters from the surface is enough to change appearances and bring up all the turmoil. That is when the familiar becomes strange.
I explore the strangeness that we see every day in public places. Humans waver back and forth between withdrawal and reconciliation, transience and permanence, constraint and freedom, concern and safety. Everyday life is an organized chaos. The world’s energy is hidden in this chaos that is sheltered by daily life. Its shy appearance stimulates emotions and questions. The means we use to record life – photography, videos and sound recordings – help us represent the realities that we witness on a regular basis. I present my photographs as installations. My videos are made using either a regular camera or other unconventional cameras. They are centered, and imitate the musical rhythms and repetition of poetic rhymes. The inconclusive aspect that founds Far Eastern art has fascinated me for a long time. In this style of art, opposites coexist, and there is no need to choose between one and the other. I find this inconclusiveness in everyday life.
]]>
Location: ByWard Market zone
Description: It’s a performance and a party, with friendly competition running long into the night. It is an adventure waiting to be lived, in which the public can play, judge, or encourage from the sidelines.
Everyone is invited to a sophisticated dinner party, featuring the excitement of genial competition in lieu of food. The artist-hosts and their guests gather graciously around a long table to anticipate the arrival of the next course. A waiter presents a tray. On the tray is a stack of cards. The cards are shuffled and one is drawn at random and read out loud. Each card represents a new activity. Everyone at the table participates in the activity. Judges award points each round for style, enthusiasm, and beauty, based entirely on their own subjective criteria. Who will emerge victorious?
The Ottawa Stilt Union is a theatre company that delights in both the spectacular and the intimate, creating site-specific works, exploring new forms of audience interaction, pushing the limits of the possible.
]]>
**Cancelled**Location: Zone Gatineau
Description: “Peep Show” is an interactive performance presented in one of Gallery Axe Ne07’s windows. The Nuit Blanche’s public will unwittingly be invited to observe a performer dancing to music chosen by the audience.
By asking the public to DJ, challenging the performer to dance all night, and integrating the elements of a classic peep show, the project is a natural echo to the wild nightlife and club scene while subtly invoking the working conditions of sex workers – a darker aspect of this so-called night scene.
Through improvisation and focusing on one’s reaction to the choice of another, the performer is nervous, both in control and helpless. The spectators are curious and act as voyeurs. As if it were a roll of the dice, how will their choices affect the performer?
By choosing to dance in an enclosed space where the other is invisible, the artist seeks to present the subconscious through movement. She wishes to reach a free psychological space, uninhibited and devoid of judgment. On an intimate dancefloor, the performer negotiates with the audience, takes advantage of it, and perhaps even forgets that ahe is being watched by the other. Just as it is in a crowded bar where you can be anonymous, embarrassed or entranced.
Bio: Stephanie St-Jean Aubre is a multidisciplinary artist from Gatineau. For several years, she studied theatre, specializing in performance. She has now begun a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University. During this program, she was introduced to screen printing, a field that is now the center of her contemporary commercial practice. Her creations are often intimate and anecdotal in nature. By her drawings, installations, and performances, she poetically illustrates, and humorously questions various mechanisms such as: validation, self-perception, self-acceptance, the romanticizing of everyday life, and the reaction we have to the perceptions of others. For the past year, we have been able to see her work at studio SixtySix (Ottawa), at Axenéo 7 (Gatineau), and at l’Atelier de l’île (Val-David).
]]>Location: ByWard zone
Description: In my poetry, I provoke interactivity. This artistic approach eliminates passive reception on the part of the viewer. I propose to display a book of video poems from an ATM unit.
Everyone anticipates and appreciates receiving money and the freedom that comes with its possession. My ATM machine proposal shifts these expectations from the visual usage and counters this anticipated pleasure with one of an aesthetic purpose. This is no ordinary banking machine. It has the power to transform the feelings and to change the thinking of the viewer.
Bio: Today, as always probably, there is a notion that the idea of poetry
is something “special” or “different’ from our everyday life.
My work is an answer to that problem of communication.
The use of ordinary street furniture makes the encounter a very
natural occurrence: the public almost stumbles upon something
that usually doesn’t happen to them; they are confronted with
a visual poem, suddenly, from “out of the night”.
This is a strategy that allows me to share my work with other
people who surround me everyday. It is a form of “gift” that
might surprise them and bring a smile to their otherwise ordinary
day.
Description: This work explores popular culture, national identity & spectacle. By expressing hockey hype through art am I reducing it to a mere “object of speculation” or does it become democratic, less elitist?
“The NBOG-Tontine award is a new initiative this year to support female artists in the region and we are excited to present Lori Victor as our first recipient. Lori Victor is consistently pushing herself to tell critical stories through her practice that question our cultural history, identity and our sense of respect within the environment. This is the fourth year she has produced engaging and important work for the Nuit Blanche program and it is an honour to work with Victor. “. Dr. Megan Smith, Creative Director, Nuit Blanche Ottawa + Gatineau.
Please join us in congratulating Lori Victor by stopping by to meet her and to see her project on the night of September 19th!
]]>
Location: Outer Place
Description: Blink Gallery will become “Header House” the historical site. Blending fact and fiction, the gallery will house, ‘archival photographs’, ‘artifacts’ and panels relaying accounts of past prime ministers, suffragettes on the run and derelict artists.
Blink Gallery is a non-profit collective supporting professional contemporary artists from the Ottawa region. Located across from the National Gallery, it occupies “Header House,” which was originally a containment space for the explosives used in the cannons on Parliament Hill.
The gallery now houses the energies of a group of artists who prefer to use the site as a laboratory for creative approaches and interventions into multiple art “spaces” both inside and outside of the gallery. BLINK is a small space for generating big ideas. The National Capital Commission generously helps to accommodate our community driven aspirations.
]]>Location: Arts Court
Description: Arts Court studio is hosting an art exhibit, have a drink and take in an art exhibit featuring the work of acclaimed animator Michele Cournoyer, showcasing her stark animation to address themes of addiction, sexuality and abuse.
OIAF is the largest animation event of its kind in North America, attracting over 30,000 in total attendance and 1,800 industry passholders. Celebrating its 39th year of classic, innovative, provocative, funny, modern, and thoughtful animated films, this annual event runs this year from held September 16th-20th, merging artists, film-lovers, and the industry from across the globe.
++
The OIAF is presenting a special Oculus Rift virtual reality demonstration on Saturday, September 19 starting at 10:00 am and we will keep it going until 4:00 am for Nuit Blanche. It’ll be held at Arts Court in the Courtroom.
]]>
Location: ByWard zone
Description: McMillan will be partnering with Andrew O’ Malley, renowned digital artist who is no stranger to Nuit Blanche.
The canvas: our historic 541 Sussex Drive building.
The paintbrush: smartphones/tablets.
The result: An interactive light show for all of the ByWard Market to enjoy.
Dynamically projected through the office windows of McMillan (corner of George and Sussex), Andrew O’Malley’s interactive lighting installation called “Hype Machine” will illuminate that landscape during NBOG 2015 with a pulsating array of ever-changing coloured lights.
A simple online interface will allow members of the public to change the colour of the lighting in real time. And, as a play on the NBOG 2015 “HYPE” theme, the intensity of the animations will be determined via Tweets sent to McMillan. An increasing number/frequency of Tweets will boost the intensity and when Tweets exceed a certain threshold, a special animation will be launched.
]]>
Description: For Nuit Blanche Ottawa+Gatineau, Living Colour will be participating by transforming the space into an interactive black-lit community art canvas, as well as showcasing UV body paint on live models and the public.
Living Colour is a custom Tattoo Shop and Art Gallery on Dalhousie St in downtown Ottawa. For Nuit Blanche Ottawa+Gatineau, it will be participating by transforming the space into an interactive black-lit community art canvas, as well as showcasing UV body paint on live models and the public.
]]>