2012 Exhibition
23. Garfield Lofts Projection – “ToBe Detroit”
Nuit Blanche New York (NBNY) presents a curated collaborative response by artists, writers, architects, and urbanists to the multitude of visions of the new city. Through a unique online visual platform, participants in New York and Detroit visually interpreted a glossary of writing about Detroit as a collage of moving images, photographs and illustrations. These works have been facilitated by NBNY using an innovative new tool, ToBe– a web-based interface that allows users to collage media in a canvas where they can draw and modify a shared palette of shifting content. Juxtaposing outsiders and locals, the project takes inspiration from How to Recuperate an Urban Crisis, Andrew Herscher’s important new glossary of urban figurations on Detroit. “ToBe Detroit” illustrates the complication and conflict of perception and offers a platform for visual dialog as a means to explore community across geographic boundaries.
NY contributors include: Urtzi Grau, Cristina Goberna, Canyon Castator, Karen Wong, Cassim Shepard, Troy Conrad Theiren, Pedro Gadanho
Detroit contributors include: M Saffell Gardner, Dianetta Dye, Olayami Dabls, Brandon Walley, Glen Mannisto, Vince Carducci, Cedric Tai, Mo Will, Daniel Sperry
Artist Information
Nuit Blanche New York
Nuit Blanche New York (NBNY) develops innovative platforms for artists to re-imagine the built environment. Since its founding in 2010, NBNY has presented three large-scale public art festivals drawing over 50,000 visitors and showcasing 200 emerging and internationally renowned artists exploring new light-based artistic mediums. In 2011, the New Museum commissioned NBNY to produce Let Us Make Cake, the first site-specific projection on their iconic building on the Bowery. The organization facilitates collaborative interventions at the intersection of contemporary art and urban activation.