Window Suites

[rdaner]

Has anyone seen this?

G&M

The Windows Suite

TIFF director Piers Handling made a special pit stop on his festival party round last night at the Pantages Suites Hotel, where acclaimed Canadian artist Michael Snow unveiled The Windows Suite.

The public art installation consists of 32 mini-movies projected on plasma screens against the hotel's outer façade. The sequences, which vary from one to 24 minutes in length, include static images of windows from around the city (some covered in ivy, others in stained glass) in short vignettes (a couple making love, for instance).

"People walking through the neighbourhood will see something different every time," Mr. Snow said.

 

[building babel]

Early last night there were musicians playing in four of the windows, set against a black background.

Later the night before, there were fish swimming in seven of the windows.

Tonight ... who knows?

This'd be a good concept for his Film Festival Centre installation.

 

[building babel]

I walked past on Friday night and caught the end of something - a guy doing exercise on one of the screens, and a woman staring out at me from another. There were orange curtains across several other screens, and when I glanced back at the woman she had gone, replaced by an orange curtain.

Then a new thing started up on several screens - a camera panning up from Roy Thomson Hall and across the downtown buildings ...

 

[alklay]

Is this a permanent installation?

And if so, can it be seen during the day (when the ground level of the building is at its most...well...unbeautiful)? I walked past the other day looking for the display and I saw nothing?

 

[building babel]

The plasma screens look like windows. Snow says the screens have a life of two years and the hotel owners have contracted to replace anything that stops working. So, "permanent" is a minimum of two years.

Some things are staged, some Snow shot himself and edited with help at the ROM. They air during the day but he's considering only running them at night.

 

[building babel]

Snow talks about the work in last Saturday's A&E section in the Star, and in today's Globe Review section.

 

[spmarshall]

Walked by today (as I often do). Nothing in the windows.

 

[building babel]

Have patience, Grasshopper.

 

[building babel]

There will be a continuous, all night screening of Snow films at OCAD as part of Nuit Blanche. And, of course, his Counting Sheep will be munching their way across the Planetarium the same night ...

 

[building babel]

Walked past last night - sunny summer day streetscapes with cheerful red rockets and cars passing by, on all seven screens, the same tape but out of synch.