Julianna Yau’s blog

Yesterday, I returned to Toronto to experience Stereoscope one more time before they took it down.

Walking through the Ryerson campus, it was sad to see that the pond was all but deserted, devoid of people, ducks and public art:

What was odd, though, was my friends and I noticed a permanent fixture on The Chang School building, which leaves very little to the imagination:

At City Hall, we spent over an hour watching the animations and playing arcade games. There wasn’t much of a crowd when we got there, but people started to gather in our general vicinity as we became more excited by the game play. A few people came up to us and asked us what was happening, and we explained the project and gave them the phone numbers for the games.

One of the would-be gamers had an iPhone, and after playing a miserable game of Whack-A-Mole because of the 1-second delay between his punching the numbers and the request being processed, repeatedly decalred that Apple’s product sucks.

I was elated when I was able to get 11 out of 12 in Space Invaders, and even got a cheer from the onlookers!

Photos of Teresa’s Breakout game:

Teresa’s Breakout game:

Adriana’s Space Invaders game:

Teresa’s Space Invaders game:

Teresa’s Whack-A-Mole game:

Yesterday, there was an informal celebration of the arts at the Kitchener Market. We only had a week to rally the troops, and the turnout was decent.

The arts crowd gathered over the span of a half hour, after which we raised signs which read “ordinary Canadian who cares about the arts” (and other variations) and proceeded to wander through the market. I think a conga line would have been more fun, but not very easy with the signs!

Arun Pal was there to provide us with music, and speeches were later given by some members of the arts community:

Ma.gnolia bookmarks for October 9th, 2008 through October 12th, 2008:

• CBC.ca – Canada Votes – Artistic truths – An artist paints his perspective on the Prime Minister's comments about artists in Canadian society.
• Artless slap at culture hurt Harper –
• We’re starving, artists howl at Harper –
• timestranscript.com – Artists make a case for culture –
• The Other Side of the Arts Funding Issue
 – The Other Side of the Arts Funding Issue, Canada Council for the Arts, cultural welfare, artists co-ops,
• National Post Editorial Board: What counts as ‘culture’ ? – Full Comment –
• Culture matters, even to ‘ordinary’ Canadians –
• globeandmail.com: Margaret Atwood on the federal election –
• Anyone But Harper – Arts Gala! – My favourite part is about 46 seconds into it
• Anyone But Harper – Artists are ordinary people too – "I'm an artist!"
• Those arty elites are firing back – Toronto Star –
• CTV Toronto- Artists call on politicians to support culture – CTV News, Shows and Sports — Canadian Television –