Scotiabank's Nuit Blanche

Set phasers to snark!

My friend Janice and I went to see Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche on Saturday night. We started at around 9pm and lasted until just after midnight. Wow, it was JAMMED! I can’t believe there were so many people. It was jostling-room only at most of the exhibits – and I don’t even want to talk about what it was like when we ended up at Yonge-Dundas Square. Insanity!

I’m admittedly not really into things like performance art and since this event is entirely made up of interactive exhibits, I’m certainly not a qualified critic. When viewing these installations, part of me insists that after a reflective evening with a pitcher of margaritas I could come up with something just as good. Hmm… project for next year! So, as I said to Jan just before we entered the fray, “Be prepared to hear this sentence out of me over and over this evening: Contemplative pause…I don’t get it.”

Here’s what stuck out in my memory:
• Stationary bicycles attached to lights (just like the Science Centre when we were kids)

• People blindfolded and suspended in sacks from the ceiling – a sensory deprivation exercise. I wanted to try it, but Jan said she wasn’t about to spend 15 minutes staring at me hanging around in a sack.

• A pool of vodka – a giant free-form pond that was apparently filled with vodka. Was it really vodka? I don’t know. What did it mean? I don’t know. There were so many people milling around, I couldn’t find the explanation placard.

• Some sort of experiment involving scent and porta-potties – again, the line up was insane. Jan is sensitive to a lot of perfumes, so we decided not to stand in line for an hour just to watch her go into anaphalactic shock.

• The Giant NO – the best exhibit of the evening! It was two giant letters on a flatbed truck: “NO”. Jan and I stood around for half an hour asking each other questions to which the answer would be NO and then gesticulating…I guess you had to be there. A trio of people stood in front of it and formed “YES” with their bodies. I don’t know why that was so funny, but it had us in stitches.

• People playing Monopoly for money at the stock exchange – okay, so I get this one. I wish I could have played, but all the players were local celebrities. The only one I recognized was the comedian, Trevor Boris. Trevor accidentally knocked me down during a ball hockey game once and I was less than gracious about it at the time. Awww…I hope he ended up winning!

• Giant letters over city hall – this was pretty funny too. Huge, super-bright letters made up of lights to form random 4-letter words, hanging over City Hall. There must have been a thousand people standing and staring in Nathan Phillips Square at them. Every time the word changed, everyone would repeat it. It was surreal. There was VAST, EYES, MEAV… wait, what? MEAV? That’s not a word! Or is it? I think MEAV should be the new Fetch. As we called it a night, we spent the remaining time together walking home coming up with other 4-letter words… POOP, LAME, DUMB…

Oh, we’re so mean! See what I mean about the snark?

Still, we had a lot of fun. I was very impressed with what a great event it turned out to be. I look forward to next year, where you can look forward to seeing my exhibit: Window-Washers Cleaning a Skyrise Dressed Entirely in Twinkling LED Lights: A Commentary on the Advancement of Modern Architecture.