The Super Crawl that was...

MOT had a fantastic time during the 2012 Hamilton Super Crawl. We had so much fun that we chalked James St. North a unicorn in its honour.

For those unfamiliar with the event, the Hamilton Art Crawl happens every second Friday of the month. During this time art galleries and various speciality stores in the area are open to the public from 7pm until their heart's content.

The centre of Downtown Hamilton can be indicated by Jackson Square, which is a historical landmark for the city. It is essentially a building block housing a mall, the city's central public library, farmer's market, the Stelco Tower, the Sheraton Hamilton and more. The famous James St. N. stretches out from Jackson Square all the way straight to Hamilton's waterfront.

Art Crawl does run year round and it has been attracting local and international artists and visitors. The Super (Art) Crawl, on the other hand, is a once a year- late summer- all day art event that is curated and supported by local artists and community leaders. Not just galleries, this local event also showcases various live performances of music and dance as well as displays of commissioned public art installations.

It's not just that, what makes Art Crawl what it is - are the independent pieces appearing on the streets. These were the mysterious art pieces found (in this case) at a corner of a restaurant or on top of a mail box; they stand alone without a title, nor artists to identify them with.


You can find more information about the Art Crawl on its website and best believe MOT will enjoy more Art Crawl in the future.

Sz.

Pagkakataon

more to come soon ...

There are 310 small butterflies.

There are 550 large butterflies.

340 large butterflies are spray painted black.

130 small butterflies are spray painted black.

Kapisanan Kultura Festival 2012

Installation: Pagkakataon

At the Kapisanan KULTURA Festival
August 17th - 31st
The Kapisanan Philippine Centre
167 Augusta Ave, Toronto, ON M5T 2L4

---

 

At long last!  For the first time since leaving our old school club, we've set up a large scale art installation that is to be displayed in a gallery space.  We've been prepping this for months; working out conceptual details, feeling out the idea, fine tuning the technical details.  I wont spoil it, but tell you briefly that for the past three weeks we've been hand-tracing, hand-cutting, and mass spray-painting some 1000 individual pieces that will come together to form our final exhibition piece for the Kapisanan KULTURA Festival.

It's become common practice with us to create something from several smaller somethings.  But that's how our group has become so I guess it's not much of a surprise.  Pagkakataon means 'chance'.  Our meeting and coming together as a group can in a way be described as just that - as pagkakataon.  We're a mixed group of people in practically ever aspect that you could think of, including our disciplines at uni. That doesn't mean we can't all share an understanding of  themes and ideas.  

Kapisanan's theme for this year's KULTURA Festival was Pamahiin, meaning ritual.  

Did you know black butteflies mean death?

Did you know white butterflies mean wealth?

Do you think butterflies could mean anything at all? Do you want them to?

Super Crawl 2011

The 2010 and 2011 editions of the James St. N. Super Crawl were fantastic fun.  Lots of activity, tons of people, multitudes of art, and enough good eats and drinks to keep you going from noon to midnight.  Of course, when a group of artists, even small-time folks like us, are told that an entire street is closed off for an art event the natural thing to do is to abuse chalk and pavement.

First, how about I explain the starfish and crocodile/mermaid: We started with the person hanging off the yellow median.  Then added the predators (for the lols).  Aw no!  And then we decided it was unfair to the predators to be the bad guys.  So we made them beautiful!  I believe we tried to switch the 'Aw no!' to an 'Aw Yes!' but without the proper tools, ex. water, it was too much of a challenge.

The water lilies: Were planned.  There is never enough interactive art at these events.  Everyone wants you to look but  no one wants you touch.  So we grabbed some chalk with the intent of making something fun.  As we were halfway through it we wondered if kids, or anyone, would get the idea.  Three seconds later three little kids came bounding out of nowhere.  They used the lilies like hopscotch.  Aw Yes!

We're going to do all of this again; the Super Crawl; the chalk, the lilies.  Keep an eye out for MOT at NB and Super Crawl 2012.

V2: Issue 2

Our second pride issue.  Like PRIDE, an expression of difference and individuality, we left the front and back of this issue blank to let everyone draw their own cover.  We've had dreams of doing a colour issue for a long time but funding has prevented that from being followed through.  Instead, personalized and unique covers for each copy of the issue was its own kind of fun.

Thanks to everybody who drew a cover.
Thanks to everybody who took a copy.
Thanks to everybody who put it aside if they didn't like it so somebody else could pick it up.
And thanks to everyone who puts on the Toronto Pride.
Here's to celebrating our uniquenesses (yes, lets use it as a word).

View the full zine under The Zine heading.

V2: Issue 1: Pages

[chris]

Colour.  Right now our biggest ambition is to do a whole issue, even just a single issue, entirely in colour.  Just think, a whole 16 pages with the entire pallet of the "visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue, and others." (-Wikipedia).

[ava] [cat] [a] [chris]

V2: Issue 1

Hello, Volume 2,

Glad you made it!  Who would've thought we'd get to see you so soon.  Who would've thought we'd get to see you at all.  We're looking forward to spending lots of time with you.

Sincerely,
MOT

Find us today.  We're where we've been, at this same time, practically every month.  Crawling.  It's fitting that the cover to this issue is a tribute to our town, the place our collective has stemmed from.  None of us can say it's a particularly glorious town to be in but its got charms and perks.  Tonight we're going to walk its streets and leave our zine in nooks and crannies were the interested will come across it.  If you're one of those people you'll note that there is a GLARING TYPO on the front cover! :o 
We'll be printing another 50 issues soon that will hopefully be free of that.  But hey, you get to have a special edition!

View the full zine under The Zine heading.

TCAF 2012

Did you, perhaps, pick up a copy of our zine at this year's TCAF?

Why not leave us a comment/criticism/didactic poem?

*nudge nudge *hint hint *puppy eyes

*No honey boys were harmed in the making of this tomfoolery.*

You can purchase your own honey boys 

at St. Lawrence Market.

More on TCAF: in this post

Goodbye, Volume 1

If you're a comic artist you'll want to be at the Toronto Reference Library May 5-6 because it's TCAF 2012 this weekend.

We went for the first time last year and it was like entering wonderland, but for comics.  Hundreds of people huddled around rows of tables; hundreds of comics books, art books, zines, and prints; hundreds of varied and creative styles to soak in.  It helps too that the interior of the library is the kind of architectural work that makes you excited about space.  It's broad, open, and somewhat futuristic so you're not sure if you're inside a spaceship's hull or someones cranium, either of which I'd say is a pretty suitable place to put a bunch of cartoonists and creative peoples.  If you can't make it to TCAF I'd still recommend heading to the library another day just to experience that space, though I'd still say try to make it to the festival too because it promises to be a comic artist's utopia.

Of course, TCAF isn't just for cartoonists. The selection of vendors, guests, and attendees is varied and any artists will feel a spark of interest.  We'll be there with a few stacks of our zines to officially close off volume 1 of MOT and get ready for volume 2.  We're still a seedling, a bud, as far as our collective goes but with steps like this and events like TCAF we're hoping to slowly build ourselves to something bigger.  Hey, maybe one day we'll attend TCAF as vendors and maybe someday far, far after that we'll attend as who knows what.  *fingers crossed *cheeky smiles all around.

V1: Issue 3: Pages

[phyllis]

[joy] [cat]

[chris] [tina] [joy]

[szara] [natashaha] 

V1: Issue 3

At 3:00PM we met up to put this issue together.  By 4:00PM we had all our submissions in and our pages ready.  Between 4:00PM and 5:00PM there was mild panic, mistakes, re-editing, more mistakes, decisions, assessments, discussions, tutorials, and finally, there was a zine ready to be printed.  We rushed to the printers and made it there half-an-hour before their closing time and stayed twenty minutes after.  We tried three different staplers before finding one that cooperated.  We had to leave margins on some of the zine.

At 6:20PM we walked to a convenience store for sustenance with fifty neatly folded zines amongst us.  At 7:00PM we distributed them in clever nooks and stands around our art district.  At 8:15PM we saw someone carrying an issue at a gallery we hadn't gotten to yet.  After weeks of anticipating this issue, that moment alone was the most exciting part.

View the full zine under The Zine heading.

Read Destructo-Tron 3000's full article about Robot/Human relations.

V1: Issue 3: Pages

A Practical Guide For Robots Wishing To Befriend Humans

By Destructo-Tron 3000

---

The future, otherwise known as 1997, will be a golden age of man-machine friendships. This does not mean that we, the robotic races, will not face challenges as attempt to befriend the mere human flesh bags. I, Destructo-Tron 3000, have recently done research into this problem and have cultivated a number of practical strategies to help my fellow steel-hearted killing machines to become more cute and cuddly. As heart-warming films like The Matrix have shown, a future where humans voluntarily donate their organs to our battery factories in a gesture of peace and friendship need not be considered out of reach. Read on machines and find out how you can be more like the robot ninjas from Scooby Doo and less like the d-bag bot from Lost In Space…

---

Humans love to work, don’t be too helpful. Have you ever seen a two-year old cry while a Roomba 700 Series Vacuuming Robot cleans the floor? Have you ever wondered why some people work 80 hours or more in a given week, month or year? Wonder no more…I, Destructo-Tron 3000, have recently discovered that humans LOVE to work! And what better way to promote peace, love and understanding than to coral an entire neighbourhoods worth of humans and set them to work at a nearby zinc mine? Not only will they be grateful for your assertiveness as their clear superior, but they’ll probably also whistle out of joy while they work!

Nuit Blanche 2011

Butterflies.  On October 2011 we set off to Toronto for the annual Nuit Blanche event in much the same frenzy as we had the previous year, though this time we carried butterflies with us.  We spent two frantic days hand tracing and cutting hundreds of butterflies for a guerrilla project aimed at offering a unique experience by transforming urban space.

We're already psyched for next year.

V1: Issue 2: Pages

[sonia] [chris] [aleah]

Pages from our second zine which were originally in colour and had to be converted to black and white for printing.  Perhaps it's a coincidence but the colour purple seems to have been an unconscious motif.

V1: Issue 2

Toronto Pride.  We printed a hundred issues, but doubled the number of pages from our first zine to sixteen pages.  We handed them out to the crowd before the parade started.
Yes, it is free.
No, it is not an ad or promo.
Nope, no strings attached.
Well, because we like to.
Yeah, it's just pictures.
So ... will you take one?

View the full issue under The Zine heading.

Nuit Blanche 2010

Last October we set out to Toronto in the drizzling rain with one-thousand paper cranes in tow. The curtains of origami birds were our guerrilla contribution to Toronto's Nuit Blanche and recieved some attention in the November issue of Incite Magazine. Every bird was hand made and hand sewn into lines of its fellows. We carried the bunch to Toronto in several large IKEA bags and crossed our fingers that it wouldn't start pouring rain until we were done with our project.  'One-thousand paper cranes' is a legend that far predates our attempt, but our aim in carrying out the task wasn't the wish that is granted to those who succeed.  Standing in the midst of some twelve-thousand individual folds of paper is an experience; one that we wished to share.

V1: Issue 1: Pages

[aleah] [chris] [joy]

There must have been an unconscious colour harmony between those who contributed to the first issue.  Hopefully, someday soon we'll have the means to produce a full colour issue of MOT so that such unique instances can be captured in the pages.

V1: Issue 1

We funded a hundred humble zineletts with pocket money and spare change.  They were assembled with the help of friends and 'borrowed' staplers (which were returned safe, sound, and unnoticed of their absense to their original places afterwards).  The little stack, in their improvised stand, were placed next to the elevators on the ground floor.  They seemed sadly overshadowed by bigger, glossier publications.

The biggest excitement was seeing the little stack dissipate over the course of a week and having no issues littering the grounds.  The hope is that every issue was read, liked/disliked, kept/or properly disposed into recycling bins.

View the full issue under The Zine heading.

Hello!

We just like to draw, doodle, cut paper, do some crafts and talk about art...and you'll see that here.

Thank you to those who have contributed so far, and we extend a future thank you to those that will!

Here's to us.