Art, people combine to light up downtown | Local | Entertainment ...

No doubt about it ? night time is the right time.

True of many things, night is also the perfect time for this weekend?s Nuit Blanche. The free celebration of contemporary art and fun takes over more than a dozen locations in downtown London Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

Scores of artists are bringing their A game to the night. They know what to expect.

?All night ? I?d say, a little bit (of) chaos,? London multi-genre artist James Kirkpatrick said this week.

?All night long ? free form,? said Peter Lebel, his fellow artist and ally at the Vanity House site at 124 Dundas St. ?That?s a good way to define Nuit Blanche ? expanding limits.?

This week, Kirkpatrick, 35, Lebel, 32, and Western fine arts grad student Jennifer Martin, 29, were preparing material for the Sweet Magic London microfest and the McIntosh Gallery-backed Vanity House site.

Along with other artists on the Vanity House team, they?ll have experimental music, slam poetry, expanded cinema and more to shine in the darkness.

Kirkpatrick was working on an inflatable blue sculpture before heading off to Toronto?s NXNE for exposure of his hip-hop art as Thesis.

Sweet Magic London microfest organizers Lebel and Martin were choosing which size of screen would work best. Ten foot? Twenty foot? The screen-to-be was still in raw, scroll form with a 10-foot dimension looking likely.

Martin will also have a work projected all Nuit long at the Playground site (207 King St.). ?The one that I have at 207 is titled Looking Back,? she said. ?The archival footage? she?s taken has images of three individuals looking back at the viewer.

This year?s Nuit Blanche has many attractions. Among them are the roving Barefoot Creative dance troupe, DJ Mediafrenzy, the White Stripes-inspired Cordcalling, the never-fails London Fringe hit No Show, a local indie film fest and more.

Perhaps no attraction says Nuit better than the dark fires of a happy hell on Dundas known as Audioforge, a blend of industrial blacksmithing from Jeff Werkmeister, 45, and the sounds of music in the street courtesy of London musician and award-winning playwright Jeremy Hobbs and audio ace Adam Dafoe.

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?It?s just a great opportunity to bring art downtown and people downtown at night,? says Werkmeister. Anvil work, welding and cutting metal by the blacksmiths and the Hobbs sounds in the night appear to transfix late-night Londoners to judge by past Nuit years at its Dundas-Talbot area home.

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?They stop in their tracks and stare, no matter what condition they?re in,? Werkmeister says.

Now, that?s a tribute to the power of contemporary art. Audioforge?s sound and fury and fire is just one way for Nuit Blanche to transfix you.

Photography. Couches. Illuminations. Crayons. Questions. Light. Dark. Night. White.

Free form ? and free. Can?t beat combination that on a Saturday night in downtown London.

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James Reaney is a London Free Press arts & entertainment columnist and reporter.

james.reaney@sunmedia.ca

Twitter.com/JamesatLFPress

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IF YOU GO

What: Nuit Blanche London 2013, the fourth edition of free contemporary art event run by London Fringe.

When: Saturday, 7 p.m. to Sunday, 1 a.m.

Where: Downtown London, with venues including Museum London, 207 King St., the APK, the Arts Project and sites on and along a closed-to-traffic Dundas St.

Details: Free. Visit nuitblanchelondon.ca or visit information table at Dundas and Richmond streets for maps and details or call 519-434-0606.

Credo: For one night, London will come alive with contemporary arts activities, installations, interactive art, film, sculpture, street theatre and music. The diversity of the art is unlimited.

Background: Nuit Blanche overnight festivals have long been popular in other North American centres and Europe as a way of bringing art into unconventional settings. Many operate on a sunset-to-sunrise basis.

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NUIT SLICES

A selected guide to Nuit Blanche attractions.

Museum London ? live performances by The Art of Streaming (Geoff Johnson, MJ Idzerda, Dennis Siren), Sina Khosravi and Derek Martin in the Centre Gallery; (second floor) participatory art by Jeremy Jeresky from the New School of Colour accompanied by DJs Mediafrenzy and SeXy Harasser. Exhibitions will be open for tours, cash bar.

Caring Between the Lines, 123 Carling St. ? chance to crayon in colour details on large black and white photos of downtown London.

Take A Seat, My Friend (Dundas St. between Richmond and Clarence) ? participants exchange answers to 10 of life?s big questions with stranger also seated in ?ball pit.?

Red Couch Diaries, 387 Clarence St. ? Nuit fans sit on red loveseat for photo session. Images shared via instagram and Twitter.com and tagged with #RedCouchDiaries hashtag

james.reaney@sunmedia.ca

Twitter.com/JamesatLFPress

Source: http://www.lfpress.com/2013/06/14/art-people-combine-to-light-up-downtown

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