AGO Is Opening Tomorrow!

The construction on the new AGO building is finally completed and it will be open to the public starting tomorrow! My grandaunt happened to land on a few tickets to the preview last Sunday. After wondering in the galleries for the entire day, I have to say the new building is really amazing. While the ROM’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal is shocking and dynamic, the AGO’s new building is clam and comfortable. The extensive use of naturally coloured wood gives the gallery a warm glow and an organic feeling that the visitors can relate to. Galleria Italia wasn’t entirely completed when I was there but everyone was just looking at the bright hallway in awe.

I only have five more words to say “You should go see it!”

Marie-Antoinette’s Dress at the ROM

Marie-Antoinette’s Dress at the ROM.

The ROM is currently having a series of mini exhibits. Each month, they are showing one special item out of their vault for a few short weeks. For this month, they are showing one of Marie-Antoinette’s court dresses. The dress dates back to the 1780s and it was designed t be worn with the support of wide panniers under the garment. I am quite impressed that the detail silk floral embroidery on it is all done by hand. Even nowadays, with all the technological advancement, we can hardly find anything quite like it. The only thing that strikes me as being odd is that the dress seems to fit a rather small woman and I am definitely not tall.

Closeup of Marie-Antoinette’s Dress at the ROM.

Last night, the ROM was also showing the Hollywood version of the Marie-Antoinette movie to accompany the exhibit. For a half-priced Friday night admission, it is actually quite a good deal. However, the movie doesn’t quite live up to my expectation. The movie tries to show Marie-Antoinette as someone that is different than what she is being remembered. It portrays her as a lonely woman who might not understand the suffering of her people but she is more down to earth than our history books have portrayed her. Probably, this movie is a pretty good tour supplementary to Versailles as well since most of was shot in the real Versailles. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t have much of a story. It seems to be a rather elaborated music video. As the person who introduced the movie has said, it’s all about dresses, cakes, and shoes, then more dresses, cakes, and shoes. And I agree. That’s probably the main things that are interesting in the movie.

Curtains in Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom in Versailles.

Want to see the dress? You better hurry since the dress will only be on display till October 26. If you miss that, you might need to fly to France to see something similar.

Nuit Blanche 2006

Nuit Blanche has been a successful contemporary art event in Paris and it has finally come to Toronto! The literal English translation of Nuit Blanche is “White Night”, a term used to describe a natural phenomenon that occurs at high latitudes where the dusk meets the dawn. My friend, Linda and I set out to discover Toronto’s public spaces in this special sleepless night, geared with only an umbrella and an open mind.

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Sweets Expo 2006

My sister and I went to the Sweets Expo on Sunday and it was a bit of a disappointment.  According to the website, the Sweets Expo is a celebration of Canada’s rich confectionary history that is hosted by candy manufacturers and retailers from around the globe.  However, there were just not a lot of booths that were really selling sweets.  There were quite a few booths that were promoting credit cards.  They offered me a student discount eventhough I am technically no longer a student. Regardless, I have bought some Russian chocolates and some honey from France.

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Convergence: TV, Broadband & Flash

Robert Reinhardt from Schematic presented how cable channels are leveraging Flash technology with Windows XP Media Center Edition to further extend their brands into the living room.  He emphasized that in the near future, people will be using their computer to surf the net since majority of North Americans’ favorite entertainment is still watching television.  He suggested that regular people would not be using a computer to watch television since it is too cumbersome.  You will need to use several external peripherals just to get to the channels that you watch.  Therefore, it would make the most sense to make televisions in such a way that people can watch shows as well as to surf the net.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I agree with his logic.  Maybe it is because I am the minority of people who watch television on their computer.  I must say tv turner for computers is the best thing since sliced bread.  The thing is if I can only buy a computer or a television, I will definitely have to pick the latter since even if a television can surf the net, I still need all those other applications that allow me to read email, create documents, chat with friends, do crazy things with Flash, etc.  A television just won’t do.

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New Works by Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis is one of the most prominent artists in the Flash community.  He is famous for creating graphic designs with the use of ActionScript.  I was at his presentation two years ago at the FITC and was totally amazed by the complex designs that can be generated by a combining simple graphics and ActionScript.  While most people view design and programming as two separate entities, he views them as an inseparable couple.  One cannot live without the other.  This concept is especially true in web development.  A website without good design would not attract any visitors; while a website without good functionalities and interesting content cannot keep any visitors.

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Flash and the Adobe Engagement Platform

In this keynote, representatives from Adobe shared their vision for the future direction of Flash and the pivotal role it plays in the Adobe Engagement Platform.

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Playing With Yourself (For Fun and Profit)

Grant Skinner talked about how experimentations can help to advance yourself and your career options.  There are three reasons why he does experiments:  enjoyment, education, and exposure.  He believed that experimentation helps to develop passion in what you are doing.  “Love what you do, even when you don’t.”  Moreover, focued experimentation is one of the best (and cheapest) methods for learning new techniques.  It is also a great way to get noticed so that you can get more interesting clients.  He further emphasized that experiments do not have to pretty.  They are exercises that push yourself out of your comfort zone and force yourself to apply best practices.

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Creating a Visual Language with A.S.

Brandon J Hall from Automata Studios talked about the new ActionScript 3.  He began the presentation by going through a little bit about the history of Flash.  Flash begins as a simple application that allows desginers and developers to create funky animation.  As time goes by, ActionScript is added to Flash and it allows people to experiment with different kinds of effects.  The time has come where Flash matures.  ActionScript has became a more complex scripting language that allows developers to create Rich Internet Applications (RIA).  ActionScript 2.0 has added the concepts of classes to the language.  The new version of the language, ActionScript 3, is going to further clean up the language such that the code will run faster.  There will be an impovement in the XML engine, and it is going to be java based, so that the code will run anywhere.  There will also be improvements on classes, and it will make developing portable good code a lot easier.

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Magic, Deception & The Data Experience

Dan LaCivita from firstborn multimedia talked about strategies that we can use to extend the reach of our data.  In real life, we are overloaded with information.  How do we grab people’s attention if the information is so dry and unattractive?  Dan suggested since graphics is a universal language, if we can transform the data into a visually meaningful experience, then the data will have more global power.

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