A Successful Scotiabank Nuit Blanche!

“A Collective Nightmare” – Under the direction and creative of JoAnn Purcell, Seneca’s first independent project in Scotiabank Nuit Blanche (from sunset to sunrise on Oct 5-6) was an overwhelming success!  We recreated 40 frames from the short film by director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí, “Un Chien Andalou” (sequence 1:03-1:42), (1929) to create a collective visual nightmare.  Embedded in the art history canon, this iconic sequence introduces a dream/nightmare surrealist silent film.  A series of student volunteers used markers and painted the basic structure of the image by redrawing the frame as it was projected. The public viewers were then invited to participate by using colour markers to draw and write their own reactions to the sequence,  the film and nightmares in general. We now need to take the frames created and post them into a time line to recreate the revised film! (Stay tuned!)

Participation came from a wide variety of people and departments! In total there were 34 students from Illustration, Animation, Art Fundamentals, and Fashion,  5 faculty from illustration, animation and art fundamentals, 5 alumni from SCAA, internal support from IT and AV departments including all night technical support from Luis Marmelo.  The Seneca Student Federation graciously donated 50 t-shirts on short notice!

External partners were the City of Toronto, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the Gladstone Hotel, Acme Pictures, and Aboveground Art Supplies.