Nuit Blanche is upon Toronto once again. The all-night urban art extravaganza, which spans most of downtown, has some extraordinary exhibits this year, but there is also no shortage of boring and pretentious bullshit. It’s going to be cold out there tonight, so make the most it!
Here are some dorky installations and exhibits that are well worth checking out:
Zone A
Casa Loma Stables,
328 Walmer Road
An idyllic wooded cottage is turned from a tranquil retreat into a nightmarish house of horrors through use of fog, lights and ambient noise. May scare the crap out of you.
Lower Bay Station,
Bay and Bloor
An interactive landscape takes over Lower Bay Station, reacting to the behaviour of people. Large lighted fibres are brightened and dim in reaction to the sounds and motion of passersby. Think the bright ethereal night time jungle from the film Avatar. Exhibits at Lower Bay Station are notoriously busy, so get there early tonight or early tomorrow morning.
Zone B
Chip Music Mega Show!
Nathan Phillips Square,
Queen and Bay St.
From 10:00 PM until 1:30 AM the heart of Toronto will experience the magical tones of chiptune music. Featuring DJ Eastern Blok, Arisuki, deadbeatblast, bossFYTE, DJ JONZILLA, jefftheworld, Battle Lava and Starpilot. 8 and 16 Bit madness!
Zone C
The Arcadian Renaissance: The Video Arcade Enlightened
The Atrium of TIFF Bell Lightbox,
350 King St. W. at John
The Hand Eye Society presents six old-school arcade machines —Torontrons— retrofitted to play games designed by the local indie development scene. Featuring some of the most amazing independent games to come out of Toronto in recent years, including Cephalopods Co-op Cottage Defence by Spooky Squid Games, Everyday Shooter by Jonathan Mak, Gesundheit! by Matt Hammill, N Arcade by Metanet Software, Osmos by Hemisphere Games, and Silent Skies by Spyeart.
And at midnight Messhof‘s mind-bogglingly awesome Nidhogg will take centre stage for a two-player tournament of epic proportions.
TIFF Bell Lightbox,
350 King St. W. at John
Midnight Madness programmer and Kung Fu Fridays curator Colin Geddes presents Grindbox!, an all night marathon of trailers for horror and exploitation films from around the world. Weird, hilarious and twisted stuff to be seen!
TIFF Bell Lightbox,
350 King St. W. at John
Two great Canadian filmmakers, Atom Egoyan and Guy Maddin, explore the relationship between the viewer, the screen and the film. Egoyan’s take on 8 1/2 is particularly cool.
National Film Board,
150 John Street
Enter the dance floor and create! Visitors who enter the exhibit will trigger new patterns, colours and images, generating an interactive art project fuelled by the collective rhythm with a backdrop of music from contemporary and classic National Film Board films.
There are so many other great exhibits out there, not all of them considered dorky. Be sure to check out the official Nuit Blanche site to see a full list of art exhibits and installations.
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