Toronto's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche announces 2011 program

This year's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche lineup includes 134 projects created by more than 500 local, national and international artists. For one sleepless night, the streets of the city once again come alive with public art. "Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is one of the most highly anticipated events in Toronto's cultural calendar," said Mayor Rob Ford. City-produced exhibition projects The City-produced component of the event will feature three curated exhibitions and a total of 46 projects. The centre piece of this year's event is "Flightpath Toronto" at City Hall, where the public is invited to participate in the possibilities and wonder of urban flight above the square. Inspired by birds of Nathan Phillips Square, Flightpath Toronto is a participatory spectacle inviting the public to rediscover the possibilities and wonder of urban flight. The square hosts an urban flightschool, an interactive visual airscape, and enables hundreds of people, enwinged, to re-imagine the city and the way we move through it. Flightpath Toronto's swarms of flying people demonstrate the pleasures of emissionless urban mobility and creates a shared memory of a possible future. Exhibition Zone A (Downtown North) Curator Candice Hopkins exhibition "Restaging the Encounter" attempts to capture the fleeting moment when the political becomes poetic. Highlights include: • "Erratic" by Germaine Koh re-enacts the geological processes that have shaped the region by rolling a section of boulder down Yonge Street. • Step back 100 years in time at the MaRS building for Richard Purdy's interactive "L'écho-l'eau" log run. • AES+F's work transforms a section of Queen's Park into "The Feast of Trimalchio" through a video installation comprised of 70,000 luxurious still images. • The interior of the Victoria Chapel at the University of Toronto is filled with the hum of Indigenous and non-Indigenous confessions in Postcommodity's "Radiophonic Territory (Nocturne)." Exhibition Zone B (Downtown Core) Shirley Madill curates "The Future of the Present" exhibition featuring works embracing new technologies to form non-pictorial art that reflect the philosophies of Marshall McLuhan. Highlights include: • "Ascension" by Isabelle Hayeur offer viewers a glimpse into infinity through site and sound. Ken Rinaldo's "Paparazzi Bots" gives passers-by their 15 minutes of fame inside the Toronto Eaton Centre. • "Intra Muros" by Rose Bond tells the story of an artist's struggle with the creative process through an animated installation. • Mischa Kuball's work "public preposition No. 3/swing stage" alters a city skyscraper by echoing the act of cleaning a window. • Christine Irving's interactive fire sculpture "Heart Machine", which premiered at Burning Man in 2010, makes its Canadian debut. Exhibition Zone C (Downtown South) Curated by Nicholas Brown, "You had to go looking for it" invites people to transform and occupy Toronto's financial district. Highlights include: • "The Tie-break" by Tibi Tibi Neuspiel and Geoffrey Pugen recreates the legendary fourth-set tie-breaker from the 1980 Wimbledon Finals between Björn Borg and John McEnroe. • In "Barricades", Jeremy Jansen and Niall McClelland take objects traditionally used to block off spaces from the public and give them new contexts that undermine their original purposes. • Jane Pollard and Iain Forsythe invite onlookers to experience an inexplicable encounter in "Soon", a sight and sound installation. • "City Mouse" by Julia Hepburn encourages viewers to reflect on the displacement, alienation and transformation of our environment. Community-produced, independent projects The community-produced portion of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011 will feature 88 projects created by cultural and educational institutions, neighbourhoods and individual artists. The projects extend the boundaries of the event city-wide and showcase the diversity of Toronto’s arts community. Fort York, Gardiner Museum, OCAD University, Artscape Wychwood Barns and many more organizations are hosting important projects in their unique venues. Entire neighbourhoods including Parkdale, Queen West and the Distillery District will feature multiple installations by local artists. Nuit Talks series The "Nuit Talks" series of free talks takes place September 26 and 27 and October 1. The discussions explore the role of new media and technology in artistic practice and how protest and politically engaged works play a role in contemporary art. The Toronto Arts Council's Will Huffman speaks on "What you didn't know you knew about contemporary art." This year's curators will provide a sneak peek of the projects and artists they chose for this event. A full list of events, speakers, locations and times is available online. Travel packages Book a two-night stay with any Scotiabank Nuit Blanche hotel packages and be the first to experience "Flightpath Toronto" during a special free preview and reception the evening of Friday, September 30. Full programming details are available here. Sign up for the e-newsletter on the site, and follow on Twitter or Facebook.