I have recently become very interested in the practice of hydroponics, especially the sort that can be used to create an edible garden inside your own urban space. Since many urban spaces are low on room, light and nutrient rich anything, this method of vertical cultivation is perfect to empower an individuals food options.

I am also very intereseted in installing these custom units in peoples apartments and homes in the near future. I am in the process of building one in my Green Corridor class at the University of Windsor and will be fine tuning a design based on the work of two artist/architects named Britta Rilely and Rebecca Bray.

Two students for Prof. Willets BioArt course.

Here is another course that I would really enjoy taking and intend to in the future. The professor Jennifer Willet is an established and exhibiting International artist. Willet does, photography, performance, installation/sculpture, science and more. She has brought her expertise to the University of Windsor Campus in her new course BioArt.

BioArt: (contested term)

genetic art – transgenic art – biotech art – vivo arts – live art – life art – ecological art – land art – eco art – and by some definitions performance art and body art.

…is an emerging field of contemporary art production where the artistic media is life/living systems.

…is an emerging field of contemporary art production utilizing the tools of the biological sciences in the production of artworks.

…is an emerging field of contemporary art exploring the perimeters of life in the production of art.

“… we need to think about breaking out of the disciplinary ghettos in which as intellectuals we have been confined, to reopen the blocked social processes ceding objective representation (hence power) of the world to a small coterie of experts and their clients, to consider that the audience for literacy is not a closed circle of three thousand professional critics but the community of human beings living in society, and to regard social reality in a secular rather than a mystical mode, despite all the protestations about realism and objectivity.”

Edward Said

I taped the exhibition “BIObuffet: Where Art and Science Meet in the Everyday” which too place on my campus.
a multi purpose event:
- launching the first university-based biological art lab in Canada: INCUBATOR.
- an exhibit of student work completed in the Bioart: Contemporary Art and the Life Sciences class.
you can expect art / biology / food / entertainment / hands on biotechnological protocols / cash bar / and critical thinking about the hard sciences.

Within the course, some artists discussed:
Leonardo da Vinci
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
Jack Burman
Edward Steichen
Joseph Beuys
Orlan
Stelarc
Dr. Gunter von Hagens
George Gessert
Eduardo Kac
Joe Davis
Tissue Culture & Art Project – Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr
Adam Zaretsky
Julia Reodica
Phil Ross
Marta De Menzies
Paul Vanouse
Critical Art Ensemble

http://bioartwindsor.blogspot.com/

The Huron Church Road Pedestrian Overpass: Nature Bridge

Green Corridor:
Environmental Gateway to Canada

A cross-disciplinary course that investigates and proposes various strategies for the creation and realization of public environmentally-aware art projects. Course work contributes to the creation of a City of Windsor/University of Windsor Green Corridor. Projects are generated in conjunction with community-based research and involvement with special interest groups. Students will be involved in the research and development of concepts evolving from discussions and participation in series of lecture/seminars.

Areas of investigation during the course will include environmental study and impact, the social and political functions of public art in contemporary culture, the public creative process, the importance of public education in the development of community-based projects, marketing of public art and environmental awareness. (Prerequisites: at least Semester 5 and in good standing, or graduate student.)

Our class is lead by Rod Strickland & Noel Harding, two established Canadian contemporary artists with a focus on the environment.

Rod Stricklands "Corn Car"

Noel Hardings "The Elevated Wetlands"

Broken City Lab is a group that is definitely making things happen in Windsor (and occasionally Detroit). BCL’s site describes the project pictured above:

As part of FAM Fest 09, we did a projection performance on the roof of Metro Cleaners accessed from Empire Lounge in downtown Windsor.

For about an hour and a half, we presented our 100 Ways to Save the City and then asked for ideas from the folks on the ground, at Phog, and on the Twitterverse.

Below is the group mandate so that you can get a better idea of what they’re about.

BROKEN CITY LAB MANDATE

Broken City Lab is an artist-led interdisciplinary creative research group that tactically disrupts and engages the city, its communities, and its infrastructures to reimagine the potential for action in the collapsing post-industrial city of Windsor, Ontario.

The processes of Broken City Lab remain grounded in the lab’s observations and concerns about Windsor, as a city, as a community, and as a network of infrastructure, and aim to do two things: first, Broken City Lab works through interventionist tactics to adjust, critique, annotate, and re-imagine the city that we encounter; secondly, through these interventions, the lab seeks to educate, inspire, and facilitate a new way of viewing the potential for interacting with and in the city.

Broken City Lab’s creative activity is located at the intersection of social practice, performance, and activism. The lab attempts to generate a new dialogue surrounding public participation and community engagement in the creative process, with a focus on the city as both a research site and workspace. It is not about doing the work of the city’s officials, or social workers, or politicians; it is about finding new creative ways to address our concerns with the city, while recognizing that our concerns may be similar to those of other community members.

Thank you for visiting.