Nuit Blanche - MichaelNus

If you live in a city that participates in Nuit Blanche I highly recommend you take it in. You don’t have to be an art expert to appreciate it and how you participate is completely up to you. Most people wander around town looking for interesting or cool art installations, while the the real Nuit Blanche gormandizers pick up a copy of the official program and plan their night out. Some people are just there because it’s one of those nights where so many people are out and about that police have a near impossible time catching people drinking in public.

There is no paper - MichaelNus

There is no paper

Just don’t go to Nuit Blanche and pretend to be an art critic as chances are that you don’t know jack about art or art history – my knowledge is OK but still sub-par, expecially when it comes to understanding the expression behind modern art pieces in which an artist welds, or sticks together a lot of an everyday object to create something new. When I lived in New York I would visit the MOMA from time to time and be completely dumbstruck, to which my industrial designer brother would reply, “now you’re getting it.”

Yeah, so anyway just take from the art what you will and let it speak to you (or not) as it will. If all else fails just look for the biggest and shiniest things – somewhere between each of those you may find something really awe inspiring.

Rock Balancers at Nuit Blanche - Michael NusMy night started out on Queen st where I ran into a stone balancer and a spiritual cleanser. The rock balancer was able to take any stone or cement, regardless of size and irregular shape and find the zen of the stones enough to balance them on top of one another in a column. People were flabbergasted. I didn’t try my hand at rock balancing, much to the joy of tender toes looking on, but I did sit down for a cleanse. It was a bizarre experience: the mature, yet still beautiful woman clad in a long matrix-like leather coat and leather driving gloves asked me to hold a fresh egg in my hand as she undertook the ritual. She explained that the egg’s porous characteristic tends to

Nuit Blanche Campfire in Toronto

Just havin a campfire in Dundas Square...

absorb whatever is around it – odors, essences, and in my case any old feelings that I didn’t want any more. The egg was straight out of the carton and was not meant for anyone else but me, she explained, and would not be used again afterwards. I sat holding this egg and she circled me, burned sweet grass and sage, shook them all around me and under me, next to my head, behind my back, at my crotch and in front my eyes as she chanted something of a prayer.

When it was all over she asked for the egg and was amazingly able to balance it upright despite it’s liquid core. She told me that I was now balanced like the egg. Strangely I felt pretty good afterwards. Update: check out the second video below for the footage!

Ruby Venus at Nuit Blanche - Michael Nus

Ruby Venus

After that experience my travelling companions and I made our way west to Trinity Bellwoods Park to see Melissa Smich’s Virgin America announcement, which was preceded by a strange dance art piece by the name of Ruby Venus, performed by a troupe called Company Blonde. Really hard to explain what I experienced there but try to imagine (with the help of the picture to the left) a small army of women in red hoop dresses and blonde wigs walking as if they are touching earth for the first time while exploring their surrounding with childlike curiosity. As I was snapping photos quietly my cell phone rang and that brought one of the girls scuttling over so she could stick her wide-eyed expression inches from my face. Damn you, Joel!

After the performance, Melissa held a happy dance contest with the winner receiving two free flights on Virgin America. I got a runner-up prize for my break dance moves – a little model airplane.

I spent the rest of the night running around town until about 6am before calling it. Here’s a list of some of the really memorable things I saw.

  1. Rock balancing and Spiritual cleansing
  2. Ruby Venus
  3. Jungle gym
  4. Bubble wrap sidewalk
  5. Street Fighter II controlled by drums and keyboard
  6. Stupid campfire in the middle of Dundas Square
  7. Motion sensor fan array with Olive oil and bacterial culture light bulbs (See imageat the top of this post)
  8. David Akermanis Djing at an art installation at Cumberland Terrace
  9. Ghost Piano – I had a lot of fun getting a tired audience to clap for pianist that didn’t actually exist =)
  10. Gregorian chants at the ROM
  11. PhotoJunkie running around town with a giant picture frame and snapping shots of random people and drunks on the street. Check it out on 140characters.ca – maybe you’re in there!

Sean got some good video of some of the night so here is the embed. Check out his site for the daily vlog!