Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night) Toronto

 Since 2006 Socitabank’s Nuit Blanche has taken Toronto by storm, transforming the entire city into a colossal showcasing from hundreds of contemporary artists around the world. The annual event, lasting from sunset to sunrise, has drawn in 1, 000, 000+ audience members in a single night and on Sept 29th, 2012 there was no exception made.


My personal experience with Nuit Blanche happened between Dundas and Queen Street West in the heart of the GTA where Toronto City Hall resides at Nathan Phillips Square. At an underground parking garage The End of the World exhibition took place, including works from a dozen of various artists.

One project in particular was created by a professor of mine, Mark-David Hosale, who taught me last year at York University. Wandering in a little more than half way through the parking garage exhibition, Quasar 2.0: Star Incubator (Q2:SI) was laid out on the floor in all of its abstract audible fragments and luminosity.

Q2:SI laid out on at Nuit Blanche

Aside: (See following blog post for more information on what a Quasar is...)

A screen interface depicting data streaming
from Antarctica.

Reading up on his work I found Mark-David best describes his piece as an interactive sound and light installation. It a spacial experience and a reflection of a non-linear narrative meant to connect the observer, "with the systems of the universe unfolding beyond out senses, collapsing scale and time into he immediacies of the experience of new beginnings". Here there is a focus on an ever-changing renewal of "life cycles" in and around the world.

A representation of the data input
streaming live .

This aspect of non-linear narrative is much in line with Mark-David's work. Converging simultaneous data from all over the world Quasar brings itself to life via: local electromagnetic fields, Muon Neutrino (a neutrino being a small weak elementary subatomic particle) data from the Antarctic IceCube Neutrino Observatory as well as weather data from automated weather stations from the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center.  The data was represented on a panel of three screens, visually representing the input data from around the Antarctic.

Given this data, Quasar would augment itself constantly in new ways and forms. Emitting light and sounds this domestic and foreign data would influence Quasar in different ways.

For further reading please visit www.mdhosale.com