write-up of INIT
Check out Brian D. Johnson’s blog on Maclean magazine’s website for a brief but positive write-up about INIT: http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/20/live-cinema-epic-theatre/
. h e l e n y u n g .
co-creative conspiratorpulled a string at INIT?
If you were at INIT 2009 this Saturday and got a yellow strip of paper with my website printed on one side, thank you for coming here to look me up! That string that you tugged to let fall the surprise was part of an analog interactive installation I’ve tentatively titled String Theory. The paper strip also contained a fragment of a story (or the beginning of one) called Aquatic Nights… I sort of inserted them on a whim. Consider it my first attempt at self-publishing in print format 
What did you think? (Of the fragment? Of the installation? Of INIT?) Did you like the surprises? Please comment here or email me your thoughts! I would love to hear from you.
absurd tax
I was trying to pay my pilates teacher the other day and asked her how much the full amount with tax should be. She didn’t know but she pulled out a sheet of paper and started scribbling down some long multiplication. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at some number with some half a dozen decimal places. “That’s the tax,” she said. !!!?!! Apparently tax here is 12.857% !!! (So what I saw was that she had written down “180 x 1.12857.”)
Does anyone else find this absurd? !!!?!!
I’m flabbergasted. …All the more so because I just spent a good part of my weekend schlepping from one walk-in clinic to another. I waited almost 3 hours at one clinic (15 minutes the first time, when the nurse advised me to come back in 3 hours while she kept my name on the waitlist; 30 minutes the second time, after which the other nurse advised me to come back on Sunday first thing because otherwise I would be waiting at least another 2 hours that night; and 2 hours the third time even when I was practically one of the first people through the door)……… only to have the doctor look down my throat, up my nostrils and into my ears and then refer me to a specialist for the rest of my regular annual checkup. Had I known this would be the process I probably would’ve considered flying back to Toronto *just* to get the check-up done. Lord knows it would’ve taken less time to fly home and back than to try to see a doctor here.
“That’s just one part of the medical system here that you experienced,” said my roommate, “just, whatever you do, avoid going to the hospital if at all possible.”
This is a crazy place. I don’t know how anyone accomplishes anything with so much inefficiency afoot.
Toronto has a new grassroots rich media festival!
I’m creating an analog interactive installation for the inaugural INIT festival on June 13. It’s an experiment (for me). The festival will feature all kinds of art and performances - from circus and drumming acts to new intermedial works…
Check out the beautiful new flyer:
INIT flyer front
Tons of great artists and interesting works to be experienced… Visit the website and forward the Facebook page to your friends!
c’est tres pratique!
Walking home from work today I saw a few restaurants with tall tables and bar stools lined up outside on the sidewalk. I realized that the city sidewalk here (at least on Mont Royal) is very wide, more than twice the width of a typical sidewalk in Toronto. C’est tellement pratique! In the winter, the snow gets piled up on the sidewalk, reducing the extra-wide sidewalk to a normal width. In the summer, the restaurants create strip patios on half the sidewalk, again reducing the extra girth to a more typical wingspan. BRILLIANT. We should lobby the City of Toronto to put this into city planning and development policies. Yes!?!
