Elementary school students and workshop participants will learn about incorporating electronics with nature to make an artwork that will become a part of the Twilight Tea Party installation at the MOP garden on June 26th.  ..  more    |    photos

less

Buzzy Light Bugs will begin with a workshop at a local elementary school in which students will learn to create visual artworks with an electronic component. The pieces will be then taken to MOP to be integrated in the garden creating an installation. On the evening of the event each viewer will be given a flashlight and asked to navigate the garden. When the flashlight's beam illuminates the artwork hidden within the garden it will activate the sound circuit enabling the viewer to experience both the audio and visual aspects of the pieces.

Participants will learn about incorporating electronics with nature to make an artwork that will become a part of the twilight tea party installation at the MOP garden on June 26th. By weaving electronics around rocks or plant materials or by modelling the circuit into insect sculptures, participants will create solar-powered audio creatures using light sensitive buzzers and make sound recordings. Be sure and come to the MOP garden on June 26th to see the installation of buzzy light bugs come to life.

Diana Burgoyne refers to herself as an electronic folk artist. Her performances and installations have been exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, New York, France, Holland, and Estonia. She was commissioned by Telus Science World to collaborate on a permanent piece which is exhibited as part of Contraption Corner. She has been the artist in residence at the Surrey Art Gallery's Tech Lab, participated in SCANZ in New Zealand and has just finished working on a work entitled "Audio Quilt" as artist in residence at the Roundhouse Community Centre. "Audio Quilt" is an interactive installation that reflects the sounds and voices of the Roundhouse community by utilizing one hundred audio chips, each recording 10 seconds of sound.

School Progams will take place at Simon Fraser Elementary in June.

Workshop (for registration information please visit the MOPARRC website).
at Britannia Library Gallery: 1661 Napier St.
Buzzy Light Bugs with Diana Burgoyne - Saturday, June 4th, 1-3:30pm

Inspired by the notion of wind-clocks, Illuminated Shroom is a solar powered fungus that monitors the wind during the daytime, and at night uses its findings to create a pattern of light, played-back on amber LEDs.  ..  more    |    photos

less

The Illuminated Shroom is a large tree fungus that, like it's cousin "Poison Mentor" has become savvy about science. It is inspired by the notion of wind-clocks and alternate scales of time. It perceives the wind as a variable force that blows during the daytime and goes quiet at night. Thus each day has a different length in wind time, and each night the shroom has an opportunity to stop and reflect on the day.

The shroom is a solar powered creature that monitors and records the wind during the daytime, and at night it uses its findings to create a pattern of light, played-back on amber LEDs.

Connected to the Tik or Time Inventor's Kabinet project at OKNO in Brussels, the shroom also sends it's wind data to the Internet in the form of TiKs.

Peter Courtemanche is a sound and installation artist from Vancouver. He creates radio, installations, network projects, performances, curatorial projects, and handmade CD editions. His art works often have a literary basis - inspired by narrative texts and the history of specific installation sites. His "outdoor" works include: "Divining for Lost Sound"(1996-99), "Preying Insect Robots" (2006), and Poison Mentor (2009).

Participants will build solar lanterns for use in Naomi Singer's "Light-headed Lanterns" - an installation for the June 26th Tea Party.  ..  more    |    photos

less

Ever wondered about making your own solar powered gear? In this workshop Peter will demystify the process of working with solar panels. Participants will build solar lanterns for use in Naomi Singer's "Light-headed Lanterns" - an installation for the June 26th Tea Party. Learn how to make a lantern that stores power during the daytime and then lights-up at night.

Workshop (for registration information please visit the MOPARRC website).
at Britannia Library Gallery: 1661 Napier St.
How to Make a Solar Lantern with Peter Courtemanche - Saturday, May 14th, 1-3:30pm

A gondola travels along a high wire between two tall trees overlooking the garden. It absorbs solar energy during the day and at night it emits light, and text (wirelessly), and skitters along its support wire.  ..  more    |    photos

less

A two-thirds scale Ottoman/Czarist styled gondola remembers journeys between oasis caravanserai. The gondola travels along a high wire between two tall trees overlooking the MOP garden. It absorbs solar energy during the day and at night it emits light, and text (wirelessly), and skitters along its support wire.

Intermittently, the gondola will transmit prose to ground-based wireless handsets (iPhones or other WiFi equiped devices). The text alludes to Marco Polo-like traveller(s) in mid journey between oases, and to the context of the original gondola among the opulent architecture near the resort city of Gagri on Georgia's Black Sea. The Park-to-Spa line once carried czars, dukes, and aristocrats.

David Floren holds an MFA from Concordia University where he studied sculpture and integrated media. Currently Floren's creative work focuses on event collection, discrete networks, and remote systems. Floren's work has been shown internationally at venues including Berlin's Sony Centre, Répliques in Algiers, Send and Receive in Winnipeg, À la nuit tombée in Grenobles, and at Icons in Washington state.

Robin Ripley will work with students from Simon Fraser Elementary to make "traces" in phosphorescent materials that reflect the transitory nature of life in the garden. The resulting traces, charged up by flashlights, will be shown at the Twilight Tea Party.  ..  more    |    photos

less

TRACES employs a specific site, the Means of Production garden to draw attention to the complex web of often unobserved activities found in nature. Transparent plastic sheeting provides a surface to trace and illuminate the multitude of activities within the garden. The patterns of activities will be delineated with phosphorescent materials recording the ongoing transitory records left behind by insects, birds, and animals. Slug trails, paw prints, woodpecker holes, insect chewed leaves, bird and insect flight paths are some examples of the elements of the patterns to be transcribed. Using a variety of resources, participants will investigate local flora and fauna and the patterns of their activity. Painting on individual transparent sheets with phosphorescent paint participants will create specific patterns to portray an aspect of the garden which intrigues them.

Robin Ripley is a Vancouver artist who often works with recycled and natural materials as they reflect her environmental concerns. Gathering sorting and reconfiguration are all processes she uses to draw attention to the often overlooked details of our world. She focuses on the re-examination of mundane objects as a way to explore sense, memory, and knowledge. Her working processes are often laborious, questioning current economic models of speed and "efficiency" while suggesting that transformation is still possible through small gestures if we make time to notice the details of the world. Her works have been widely shown throughout British Columbia.

School Progams will take place at Simon Fraser Elementary in June.

Workshop participatants will assist in making a solar illuminated lantern installation that will be featured at the Twilight Tea Party.  ..  more    |    photos

less

Workshop participatants will assist in making a solar illuminated lantern installation with Naomi Singer at Secret Headquarters (the studio of the Secret Lantern Society). Using tissue paper, petals, twigs and natural materials from the MOP garden, participants will create head-shaped lanterns using a styrofoam form as the mould. Once complete the new lanterns will be outfitted with solar technology to bring them to life. The lanterns will be featured as a community installation at the MOP Twilight Tea Party on June 26th and displayed at future MOP evening events and the Winter Solstice Lantern Festival.

Light-headed is a solar powered lantern project that plays on the concept of personal illumination. Ten head-shaped portrait lanterns will invoke the "eureka moment" we hope to inspire regarding the conversation between art and science. A head lit from within is inspired, it contains spirit, it holds an idea. And when we put our heads together, anything is possible.

Naomi Singer is the Artistic Director of the Secret Lantern Society and has been a practising artist since graduating with honours from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1989. She has created and participated in countless festivals and community projects as an artist, performer, director and designer and has taught workshops throughout BC and Alberta. She continues to produce and direct the annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival in multiple Vancouver neighbourhoods, collaborating with over 500 artists and performers, dozens of community associations and countless volunteers. Over 15,000 participants attend this annual event.

Workshop (for registration information please visit the MOPARRC website).
at Secret Lantern Society Studio: 328 Industrial Avenue
Light headed lantern making with Naomi Singer - 2 workshops: Sundays, June 5th or 12th, noon-3pm

In her installation and performance Lori Weidenhammer will embody a psychic medium appearing in an illuminated cocoon surrounded by the sounds of memory-ravaging moths.  ..  more    |    photos

less

In her installation and performance Lori Weidenhammer will embody a psychic medium appearing in an illuminated cocoon surrounded by the sounds of memory-ravaging moths.

Lori Weidenhammer is a Vancouver performance-based artist originally from Saskatchewan. For four years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker on a regular basis. Lori's Artist Run Bee Garden at the MOP (2009) has inspired other Vancouver gardeners to create their own bee gardens and hold bee-related community celebrations. Her collaborative media works with Peter Courtemanche have been shown in Canada and abroad. As a food security volunteer and activist Weidenhammer works with colleagues and students of all ages on identifying native plants, eating locally, gardening for pollinators, and guerilla gardening. She is passionate about art that that transforms the relationship between the artist and the viewer and creates community bonds.