Tag: travel

Lake Lousie

Nadine

Its a beautiful shitty place. I am not gonna lie, I do take some weird pleasure in describing such a visually stunning spot as shitty. But the chateau, and the rich folk, and the lack of accessible activities, just combines to make this not a great place. In the summer, you can hike far away from the people, which is a bonus. But in winter it just feels weird, and sort of like The Shining hotel except with too many people, like waaaaay too many people.

It was here that someone charged me $19 for a plate of wings (that were bad and had no side), and also I noticed an $1100 bottle of wine on the menu. Not my scene.

Pretty though!

Arrival and Week One

Nadine

After a long day of flight delays I finally arrived at the Banff Centre to do a 5 week residency called Digital Promises.  The first week was mostly meet and greet, getting to know my cohort, and getting setup in my studio. Which I have to admit is pretty amazing. I’ve never had a space like this in my life, not even in grad school. It was weird deciding what kind of kit to bring with me. But I decided in the end to bring some specific IoT items I use a lot.

The project I’m working on here is building a depressed alexa, and I’ll talk more about that in future posts. But its basically a second iteration of one of my thesis prototypes called SAD Blender. Its nice coming to a residency with something I’ve already started, because it gives me some wiggle room to read, and document, and focus on where this might go, versus just always producing.

The other nice thing is that we share the floors with the BAIR artists who are here doing self directed work. Its a good cross section of people.


Panoramic of studio at Banff
The View

Anyways. Its pretty amazing. We didn’t really get into working mode until Friday, but that’s fine. Its good to get an info dump / people time off the bat now and then.