January 10th, 2011
How do you document the passage of time, the experience of place? Millefiores Clarkes, a filmmaker from Prince Edward Island, found her answer in the fragments of memory that linger long after something has passed.
Last month, when she visited friends and family in Toronto, Clarkes documented her trip with an entry-level Canon DSLR. She pieced together her material in a way that is dreamlike, nightmarish even, with jump cuts, reverse action and a creepily disjointed soundtrack. It’s vaguely unsettling, like when you try to remember something that happened a year or two ago, catching only half the words, textures and smells you know were there.
It’s these puzzle pieces that I enjoy most about this video: the bits of conversation recalled from a walk down the street with a friend, the sound of a taxi dispatcher’s voice crackling on the radio, a fuzzy glimpse of fellow passengers on the subway. It reminds me of the way memories of past travels come back to me at unexpected moments, like when I catch a whiff of the Boston T’s distinctive musk, or the smell of Beijing heating coal, or the crunch of snow beneath feet.
February 18th, 2010
Photographed a couple years ago while en route to Calgary from Pearson International Airport in Toronto. I love how the pilot’s silhouette is so well defined and yet the idea of multiple existences in time and space is very much alive. If you’re viewing with a calibrated display you’ll enjoy subtleties like aqua pastel tones.
July 9th, 2007
Welcome to the airport. Photo by Ivan Makarov
Long lines, delays, security hassles. Going to the airport brings to mind a number of things, but art, especially interactive art with a political conscience, is generally not one of them. That’s where Terminal Zero One comes in: A new art project at Pearson International Airport, it hopes to transform one of Toronto’s busiest — yet, because of security concerns, most restrictive— public spaces into a place for open dialogue.
Located on the public departures level of Terminal 1, the exhibition brings together five digital installations that explore the experience of contemporary air travel. Passage oublié is arguably the most ambitious one. It’s a politically charged take on extraordinary rendition, the CIA’s controversial practice of covertly transferring suspected terrorists from Iraq and Afghanistan to secret prisons where it is alleged they are likely to be tortured. Airports around the world are believed to have been used as transfer points for these prisoners.
Passage oublié allows passersby to learn more about extraordinary renditions by interacting with a world map displayed on a large video touch screen. Its real goal, however, is to turn the airport, Toronto’s gateway to the world, into a space for public dialogue. Through the Internet or text message, anyone can send a message to Passage oublié that will be displayed on its virtual map and “flown” — using real-time flight data supplied by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority — to one of the international airports used for rendition flights.
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