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Blanche Slate: Nuit Blanche Live
For the duration of Nuit Blanche, Torontoist hosted Blanche Slate, a concurrent projection onto the south-facing wall of the Art Gallery of Ontario and a liveblog updated right here, below. For the whole entire night, we continually threw Nuit Blanche updates—photos and text, from both our contributors and our readers—to the wall, and into this article.
You can find our updates below, in ascending order:
“Fire and Sausage: Small Mercies is warming up in the Green P parking lot in Liberty Village. As part of Tom Dean’s ‘social sculpture’ Chef Jamie Kennedy himself is on site overseeing dozens of slightly wet George Brown students as they prepare molten hot chocolate in thick, iron cauldrons and whittle down sticks that will skewer sausages handmade by the man himself.”
“Royal Conservatory of Music lit up with neon shades of pastel purple, pink, and green. Live instrumental performance evoking horror-movie eeriness in the best possible way.”
“Zone A Warning! Roving band of men in white outfits and red hats, wielding rags, and dancing. They have bells on their feet, and are aggressively enthusiastic. Not sure why.”
“The people wearing huge brown paper bags and impeding our progress through the Liberty Market building were so sweet. No apology necessary.”
“Can’t believe how much work went into the Lost and Found Forest. Thousands of nails; one beautiful forest.”
“The GALTstudio hanging mobile next to Mildred’s Temple Kitchen is vicious in the wind.”
“There really is just so much a crane can do, at Dance of the Cranes. Contrary to my imagination, cranes cannot do the cancan.”
Overheard from a girl on the street in front of the Gardiner Musuem:
“Let’s go somewhere else. I’m looking for something deep and incomprehensible.”
“Reluctant boyfriends (and girlfriends) beware! Dancefloor at the Reference Library a definite danger zone. Dance lessons every hour. Stay away if spotaneous salsa-ing makes you nervous.”
“The kids are loving rearranging the boxes and canned food at Take Shelter.”
Rest easy citizens of Toronto, Shannon’s zombie disposal truck is patroling our streets.
Overheard at Yonge and Dundas: “She’s having a winter orgasm,” says an underwhelmed observer as the ice queen convulses atop her glacial retreat dress tent.
Overheard from an overdressed cougar re: the Jeff Koons bunny: “Imagine this thing was made entirely of chocolate. Ohhh yeah.”
“There are about 400 people in line to see the Jeffrey Farmer piece inside the church next to the eaton centre. According to a woman in line the wait is about 45 mins.”
“Each time the suspended word changes at Nathan Phillips Square, the entire crowd reads the new word out loud in unison! Everybody’s eyes are glowing and it seems like some kind of cult.”
“The crowds are starting to make people antsy. Various people: ‘there’s too many people out this year. It was much better last year.’ ‘this is nightmare.’ ‘This needs to be better planned.’ ‘fucking lines everywhere.””
“Vodka Pool seems like every Saturday night downtown—people throwing money at booze.”
“An amateur artist’s infra-LED sketch of a puppy dog is being projected on one side of the Ted Rogers School of Management. Passersby are confusing it for a snowman.”
“BICITYCLE is an unexpected wonder. Looking at first like a disappointing smattering of assembled junk, the moment random spectators mount the bicycles and start dragging around their payloads, enjoyment is irresistible. A desk with a lamp, a kiddie-pool filled with wildflowers, and an overbearing umbrella tree all chase after the riders.”
“We are covered in glitter at College and Spadina. We don’t know where it came from. Thanks, artists.”
“There are a bunch of people in ghost costumes singing about dead slang. But they look more like KKK members in a weird chant. This was not a well thought-out exhibit.”
“Renegade Parade moving west, taken over both eastbound lanes. Want pedestrian friendly streets? Make ’em as you go!”
“A street performer at Bay and Albert streets has just got out some chainsaws and gasoline. This is going to be awesome.”
“There’s one four letter word that we’re still waiting to see.”
“We’re Canadian … we like a good apology, but The Apology Project is a bit much. It’s thoroughly embarrassing, in fact. Who knew that a crowd of anonymous paper-bags telling you how sorry they are could make you want to run and hide, or preferably, cease to exist all-together.”
“Most extreme maneuver at the Toronto Coach Terminal Battle Royal: a blindfolded wrestler scaling the side of the cage reveals his man-thong accidentally on purpose.”
Overheard joke: “The bouncing brides are bouncing harder than the bed on the honeymoon.”
“Over five hours in and the bride is still bouncing ten feet in the air.”
“Weird to see a library full of line dancers. But then I did just get a Goth makeover and a coffee snowcone from a Ferris wheel.”
Overheard: “The things on OCAD make me nervous.”
Overheard outside of the AGO in front of a giant fog machine: “a lot of people are taking dynamite facebook profile pics tonight”
“Next year Bay Street will be a cornfield judging from all these abandoned roasted corncobs.”
A Bouncing Bride: “We’re not sick of bouncing at all. We’re pretty wired.”
“inSANITY, the installation at CAMH is truly amazing. There are six figurative sculptures, each representing a former patient of the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, each portraying an incredibly moving story through sculpture, video and sound. One mannequin is modeled after a patient who was incarcerated for 58 years, a time during which he even constructed a functioning aircraft!”
“The crowds are starting to thin out and the real weirdos are coming out to play. I just passed two girls with mustaches, a bunny riding a bike and a line of grown men clutching a rope like kindergartners afraid to be separated from the class. ”
“Across from the H&M at Queen and Spadina stands ‘the impeccability cohort’: renegade artists patiently stack jagged stones atop one-another to demonstrate impeccability through balance.”
Overheard, someone on their cell phone after sprint-streaking through the water at Nathan Phillips square: “I just did coke inside the mall, where are you?”
“Manifesto’s closing party on 52 McCaul not officially part of proceedings, but some of the best art around tonight. Three floors of hip hop-inspired art plus some serious turntable action.”
“If you bring your clothes down to Queen Street Laundry they could become part of a laundromat kaleidoscope.”
“TTC drivers are being really lenient about fares tonight. Many people report being able to ride for free.”
“Just saw a couple drunkenly fall down the stairs near the AGO together and a server remark, ‘it’s all downhill from here’ without batting an eyelash.”
“It’s impossible not to empathize with the artist, still toiling at the centre of his crumpling, semi-assembled dome of pylons. You know how that feels; when the deadline is past, your efforts are public, and your sanity lies in renegotiating your definition of success. Let’s just call Rescue Bubble a kinetic performance piece that tugs on the heart strings.”
“Walking with Dave Clarke of ‘Hey Dave’ fame during his break. His voice is hoarse and his hand is beginning to hurt from pleasing the masses.”
“About to watch Justin Rutledge gamble his indie rock fortune away at Monopoly With Real Money.”
“Ratio of people having fun to drunk sobbing teenage girls with things spilled on their dresses = 1:1 at this point in the night.”
“STOP THE PRESSES: TINY TOM DONUTS AVAILABLE BY THE FUN SLIDE AT BAY + ADELAIDE”
“The Bouncing Bride Cathy Jordan just interrupted her 12 hour cake jumping endurance test, presumably for a washroom break.”
“The artist behind the vodka pool seems amused by the kids interacting with the exhibit by skipping coins through it. Guy is going to have tens of dollars at the end of the night.”
“Hoping for a raise from Torontoist so I can drop three hundo $$ to get in on Monopoly with Real Money. Our money is currently on Che Kothari from Manifesto who just collected on Park Place. Overheard: ‘that’ll be $1100.’ Ouch.”
“Multicoloured strobe lights, clammy, agitated bodies, and chest-thumping euro trash beats—WEMF has been resurrected in the University Settlement Recreation Centre’s parking lot.”
“Colossal teddy bear fetuses, replete with umbilical cords, are sprawled along McCaul Street in front of OCAD. The horror!”
“The only decipherable things seen ‘painted’ on the wall of the Pwn the Wall Graffiti Lab in the past minute: an anarchy sign and the word ‘boner.’ Righteous.”
“Something tells us that ‘exhibit 322,’ a cardboard sign duct taped to a fuse box near the AGO, is not a for reals exhibit. It really moved us though.”
“The massive 4 Letter Word Machine looks to be on the blink (or done for the night), in that it’s displaying no 4 Letter Words and only 4 big squares with x’s through them. As the kids pushing the shopping cart down the City Hall Green P ramp just said, ‘epic fail’.”
And that’s all for the nuit, folks. Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone. Good night, good night, good night.