Nuit Blanche 2013

I know this post is late, but I will post it anyway.

I attended the Nuit Blanche event in Toronto with friends on Saturday, October 5th. I arrived in the downtown area late at night, so by the time I arrived at several artwork locations, there were large crowds of people. It was hard to get up close to a few of the artworks, especially the bicycles statue by Ai Weiwei. My camera was going bonkers on me too (part of the reason is because I don't really know how to use it), so most of the pictures I took looked super blurry.

Here's a collection of what I could salvage from my folder of blurry images:

I was very pleased with how clean the streets looked during this year's event. I did not stay in downtown Toronto for very long though, nor did I walk around the whole Nuit Blanche map, so I cannot say for certain that this year was cleaner than the previous Nuit Blanche events.

One odd artwork was "Music Box." At first I thought it was a simple box next to a runway, but then the box opened and a set of instruments slowly rolled out of the box on the runway. When the instruments reached the end of the runway, it rolled back into the box.

I always look forward to the interactive artworks. One of my favorites this year was the origami tunnel. Nuit Blanche attendees would walk into a long illuminated tunnel and pick off a folded paper hat from one of two walls filled with hanging folded paper. I took a few shots of people wearing the paper hat, but the images came out terrible.

I expected this one to be a mini ferris wheel, but it was just a wheel with lights. It totally made me think about angles and stuff.

Here was one stage that drew people's attention. The crowd was so big, people could not move! There were a few clowns on the float walking under the balloon jellyfish. I think they were giving out balloons to people they deemed sacrifice-able, because I noticed people holding similar-looking balloons at other locations during the night.

Honestly, I had no idea what this artwork was about. Behind a small crack on the side of the artwork, there was a wax-like old man staring intensely at a television screen. Maybe it was a model home?

Yet another artwork I was confused about. A stage with a beautiful outdoor setting and actors wearing animal masks performing some sort of seemingly unorganized play.

Glowing ball!!

..

Nuit Blanche was an interesting experience as always. It was fun being able to spend time with friends, and it is nice to be able to freely walk around the streets with happy-looking people. I wonder what Nuit Blanche has in store for next year? (Spoilers please!)