In Motion: Nuit Blanche 2008 Video
Aside from the crowds, which made it a little slow to get from A to B, I was immensely pleased with Nuit Blanche '08. As promised, organizers put the focus on large exhibits where hundreds of people could partake in the spectacle at once. Highlighted in my video are the most visual bang-for-your-buck exhibits I saw... however I missed plenty, like the above Future Perfect, plus I didn't touch Zone B so please feel free to link to your videos in the comments below.
Some exhibits needed to be seen and others heard, making it a rewarding night for anyone who braved the cold to trek around the city.
I took the above photo at what I thought was Original Soundtrack, but now I'm not so sure. This audio was too low to record, but the cubes emitted screams, shouts and comments from the audience inside creating a very disturbing auditory barrage.
Even with all my previewing and planning, I still had the chance to discover weird unexpected art - including some fantastic music. I caught this DJ on McCaul before the street became nearly impassable, spinning great low key beats for the crowd. There were also a few wicked parties celebrating the all night art affair, such as the LABOOM rave at the ROM and the OPOPERON party across from the Drake... although they were shut down earlier than planned, it was not for want of party goers!
Overall, despite the need to shut down traffic for pedestrians, I thought this year's Nuit Blanche was a great success (as long as you avoided the club district, that is). In general, it was a phenomenal improvement over last year, and I only regret not having more time to see everything I missed. Next year, I hope they continue to create large crowd-involving exhibits - out of the galleries and into the streets!
Photos: Future Perfect by arcticlamb and all others and video by corecorina
Comments (14)
apetimberlake 
on October 5, 2008 12:42 PM
Nuit Blanche was cool.
But this year it seemed like much of the crowd was drunk or on heavy drugs.
I'm glad that I only saw one person tackled by police all night. OT: I also inadvertently discovered an abandoned building in Liberty Village... a creepy, serendipitous experience.
We had a *much* better time this year than last...the key was, we waited until 2:30 AM before we even left the house. By that point the crowds had died down a lot and we were actually able to enjoy the exhibits. Lots of good stuff in Liberty Village, especially the mascots at Lamport Stadium. Other highlights; the Diaspora Dialogues event on Jarvis, "Horroridor" at Union Station and the phases of the moon thing on Grosvenor.
Seconding starting late. I started at midnight, and found the crowds overwhelming, but I kept going until after 5am and had some really intimate art encounters. Didn't find the crowds particularly unruly even at their peak - seemed to me like everyone just wanted to have a good time and soak up some culture.
Highlights for me were the ROM dance party (were they playing Sigur Ros?), the creepy, inexplicable things going on at Hart House, and some of the, err, unsolicited exhibits on Queen West. Yoko Ono's peace trees in Liberty Village were really special as well.
They should've closed off Victoria St, Gould St, McCaul St, and Shuter St... so many people walking then having a stream of cars cutting through the crowds was really annoying (and dangerous). Small streets should've been blocked off, if they could do it for a stretch of Church, why not the little ones as well? Especially when there were more sites on the little streets than the big ones.
Wow! Liberty Village was by far the best. Also walking through at 4AM made it a lot easier to interact with the exhibits. SMASH was great and the Mascots could have kept me entertained for hours. Such a simple concept and the stadium was still packed at that time. I was disappointed that I could were one of the costumes but otherwise grrrrreat!
The exhibit you thought was "Original Soundtrack" was actually "Dandyberry." I sang into a few of the microphones, and then I went to the 24hr Metro right behind it and relaxed with a microwave soup at 5am. Sweet.
ganja was in the air, most definitely!!
Nuit Blanche 2008 in Toronto, was a hit. Nearly 800,000 people took to the streets. Regretfully, the installations were rather disappointing. Amanta Scott invited visitors into a very warm and private space for 15 Minutes of Fame, featuring Karla Homolka's prison bed!! Into the Blue was an enormous, blue, ?turd'-shaped balloon. More thoughts at:
http://winstoninwonderlandart.blogspot.com/2008/10/nuit-blanche-2008-in-toronto.html
"Nuit Blanche was cool.
But this year it seemed like much of the crowd was drunk or on heavy drugs."
This makes me lol, as i wandered around Nuit Blanche on 3 grams of psilocybin mushrooms with vivaldi playing constantly.
most amazing time of my life
@steve lol.. what other kind would they be... portabello?
I love that our city loosens up for one night and serously, I didn't see any sign of bad mojo until the clubs let out. After about 3-4am, I (literally) had to jump over puddles of vomit. If only our legalization issues were independent of global politics.
I guess that is the key waiting until 3:30 in the morning
and can't see me doing that lol guess I am out of luck there are just too many people in prime time but anything after 10 is just out of the question
@ Corina
they could have been amanita muscaria, but then i'd be in more of a poisoned / nightmare state, not good for enjoying art at all!
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