The viewer becomes the art in this clever set of installations curated by Harbourfront Centre’s Patrick Macaulay. Artists’ static floats line University from Queen’s Park to Queen West, and spectators head up and down the street to become the Parade.
John Dickson makes noise with music box
Installation evokes the clash of instruments heard as bands come and go
JOHN DICKSON: MUSIC BOX at University and Armoury (second flatbed north of Queen).
Adding to Nuit Blanche’s surreal carnival atmosphere – in particular the Parade section – John Dickson’s Music Box, a mechanical band that emerges from a box on a trundle cart, greets the crowd with a blast of gleeful noise.
It’s on a giant parade float and consists of a cluster of rock and band instruments, a delightfully absurd piece of sonic sculpture that recalls the playful assemblages of Jean Tinguely.
Talking to NOW from his home, Dickson explains the genesis of the project. “Pat Macaulay, the curator for that section of Nuit Blanche, came up with the idea of Parade: 10 flatbed trailers parked up University,” he recalls.
“I initially had no idea how to respond to the theme, but I live up at Christie and Bloor, where the Santa Claus Parade gathers every year. I wandered outside for inspiration and emerged where all the bands were getting ready to play. The cacophony was quite surreal. That’s when I decided I wanted to do this project.”
How to turn that musical mélange into sculpture was the next challenge.
“Eventually I settled on the idea of a cart that comes out of a box, referencing, of course, cuckoo clocks and other automatic devices,” he says. “Wacky was the flavour I was going for.”
Will the device be entirely automatic, like a cuckoo clock?
“At first I thought it would be, but I finally settled on a winch system I can control that will bring the sculpture in and out of the box, owing to the possibility of too many things going wrong. I also decided that I can play with the crowd a bit more if I manually control it: you can actually hear it when it’s inside the box, so it will create a lot of curiosity and anticipation before it finally trundles out.”
The sculpture includes an electric guitar and a bass (played by rods and dangling toys), three cymbals on a tall metal pole, a kick drum, a keyboard and a trombone played by a spray gun.
Our childlike anticipation of spectacle and the cartoonish wonder of self-playing mechanical instruments (not to mention the gleeful release of unbridled noise) guarantee that Music Box will be one of the night’s sure-fire crowd pleasers.
DAVID JAGER
(X)Static Clown Factory
Who Ruth Spitzer and Claire Ironside
Where University at Gerrard West
Why The Toronto-based artist/designers’ static float is a handmade entertainment-factory-cum-depot from which worker clowns at street-level work stations/contraptions churn out balloon products and dispense art prizes to the crowds. The performers, all professional clowns with unique personas and an average of 10 years’ experience, take roles like worker, janitor or floor supervisor. The project investigates clowning as an art form through a meta-narrative of Fordist mass production, repetition and logistics.
FRAN SCHECHTER
How To See In The Dark
Who Margaux Williamson
Where Queen’s Park Crescent East at St. Joseph
Why Can you remember the last time you experienced complete darkness? Can we, in our light-saturated society, even remember what that is? Contemporary cities are blazing islands of light and noise, which makes Margaux Williamson wonder where the darkness has gone. Building on her previous manifesto-based performances, Williamson guides Nuit Blanchers onto a parade float where she helps us to see the dark.
DAVID JAGER
Monster Child
Who Libby Hague
Where Queen’s Park Crescent East at College
Why Local artist Hague, best known for her printed paper installations, branches out into inflatables for this interactive carnivalesque work. Participants spin a wheel of fortune to select questions that are put to a 12-foot-tall child oracle who offers answers privately over headphones. These relatively benign proceedings are made menacing by the vengeful spirit of an even larger inflatable hanging spider exploring the night as the locus of imaginary fears.
FRAN SCHECHTER
