The Vertical Farm Project makes a good point…

Pyramind Farm by Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier

“We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth.”

I must admit, the idea of vertical farming reminds me of the sci-fi lore of the mid 20th century that imagined what the world might look like in the late 20th to early 21st century (see example above).

Vertical farming seems like a logical idea though, especially in Southern Ontario with its suburban and urban expansions.  I was just reading an introduction for the 1869 Ontario County Index (which lists Sylvester Mackey, my great-great grandfather) that mentions how great the land is in Ontario for farming.

“Ontario is justly regarded as one of the first Agricultural counties in the Province.  Of its area–estimated at 360,000 acres—there are upwards of 210,000 acres cleared and under cultivation, about 150,000 acres being under crop and the remainder are devoted to pasture.  The soil is rich and fertile, and very productive.” (pg. 2, 1869 Ontario Country Index)

Sky Farm for Toronto by Gordon Graff

I can assume the current amount of land in Ontario dedicated to agriculture falls short in comparison to the amount in 1869.  And so, with prime farm land being developed for non-agricultural uses, where else are we supposed to go if we want to create and maintain local farming and thus local food sources?

Sky Farm for Toronto by Gordon Graff

If vertical farming works, then even giant urban centres like the City of Toronto would be able to establish larger-scale local food sources.  The only way Toronto can grow is up, and perhaps this might be the reality for other areas in the GTA in the future.  I’m so interested to see what else develops from Sky Farm and for the concept of vertical farming altogether.

Other really cool links:

• The Vertical Farm Project and designs (all above images are from this website).

• Torontoist vertical farming article

• Gordon Graff’s Skyfarm for Toronto design – Inhabitant (Design that Will Save the World) website

Archives and the physiological

Today, Wikileaks released (or are about to release) 500,000 intercepted pager messages from 5 hours before the events of September 11th to 24 hours after .  Right away, on the site’s homepage for this index, I feel like I’m about to step into an archive and respond in the same matter physiologically.  My heart beats a bit faster before I open the page that contains the first messages sent after the first tower was hit.

On monday we did presentations about our thesis project summaries.  Fellow classmate  Kate Tarini’s work features archive spaces, but she also discussed the body’s physiological experience of an archive.  The wealth of information around you, the giant spaces…it’s almost sublime, and I know that I find myself having different kinds of reactions to these spaces and the information within.  I become a bit flustered, anxious, perhaps sometimes excited, imagining what’s possible in store for me.

And like an archive where different items will have more meaning than others, so is this pager messages index.  The long page of text filled with mundane messages from spouses, office workers, virus hosts is slowly replaced by responses to 9/11.

Media reports are noting that most of the messages are confusion about what was happening.  I saw one that reported it was a bomb detonation. Already the index is being analyzed for information it can give us about the reactions of people to the event.

I found this index to be a great example of the kind of physiological responses an archive can produce.

More info: thestar.com’s article – the story, and more links

The wild breaking the city’s border

 

urban vs. rural spaces”]Making a film that touches on food production, sustainability, the “green” trend, changing landscapes, suburban expansion, and the disappearance of the family farm, I’ve been looking around a lot at juxtapositions of urban vs. rural spaces.

An event in toronto that happened, detailed in a thestar.com article today, was a great example of this juxtaposition.  A wild deer (assumed wild) was found in downtown Toronto, before sedated and taken away.  An idea of a wild animal roaming the streets of Toronto is a strange image to have in my head, and the same must have been for the people that experienced it first-hand in the city’s core.

 

Authorities aren’t sure where the deer came from specifically but regardless it managed to permeate the city borders and for a few moments the urban and rural came together.  Now, there are zoos and petting farms within the city, but those animals are contained.  The wild deer is like a foreign object–it doesn’t belong in the city, and as soon as it got it, great effort was taken to remove it.

I think it speaks greatly to how easily urban spaces permeate the rural borders and take it over without much opposition (or if there is, ultimately housing and serving the growing population is the priority and wins out), while the reverse requires much more effort.  Well, one day perhaps the wild will take over again.

New Old Photos

 

Dad and Grandpa

I’ve been going through a really old green photo album of my family’s.  The photos within are pretty old too, and were taken with the old brownie kind of camera (which my family still has!).  Here are just three of some of the photos I’ve found so far.

 

Cows, assumedly on the Mackey Farm

Man stands in front of Mackey Barn

NOW magazine’s past featured in archives

L-R, Actors Ashley Botting, Marty Adams, Kelly Clipperton (Photo from FB)

Thanks to Facebook, I recently stumbled across NOW Magazine–The Movie, a 9-episode video series produced by by You and Media for NOW Magazine to celebrate their 25th anniversary!

The series features interviews from a medley of individuals, whether it be filmmakers to theatre artists, city councillors to Mayor Miller himself (serving Martinis in episode 2)!

 

I absolutely love the series, not only because it seems to feature NOW staff (people you don’t normally get to see except for their name in the paper) or because the performances are hilarious (are those actors or NOW staff too?!), but because it’s a part mock, part doc series, providing both entertainment but also interesting history on NOW magazine.

The series also incorporates video archive footage taken back in the day when  NOW was in its youth (1980’s), which I find fascinating.  I love seeing the  footage and thinking, “Wow, I’m so glad someone picked up a camera and  documented it”.  It’s so neat to see NOW back when it was a start-up 50-cent  paper, and to see a part of NOW magazine that is usually hidden–the people, the  office space, and the countless hours of hard work that the staff then and now      put into their paper.

But I can’t forget that NOW magazine has been archived in a different, more obvious sense–each week’s publication preservation by libraries and NOW is in itself an archive; not only of the paper but it is also a piece of its history, and a history of what was going on that week in Toronto.

To go through archives of NOW, I can’t begin to imagine what I’d find!  For now, I’ll be enjoying the archive footage featured in the series.

The next episode comes out November 19th!  Can’t wait!

The Facts

I found another interesting blog post on the Toronto Star Photo Blog, this time….actually, two posts, specifically from Richard Lautens, a staff photographer.

The first was a post on an H1N1 vaccine photo op at Toronto General Hospital, but noted that the vaccine contained, “in fact”, a placebo.  Lautens ended the post with “Shame on you TGH.”  The second post was to clear up that the vaccine given to the people in the photo op was not a placebo, but also not the H1N1 vaccine–but most importantly, that it was not a placebo.

“The fact remains that all too often there are official photo-ops and gatherings where certain events are fed to the media inappropriately and then the media is blamed for the lack of truth in journalism.  I think we all should try to do better–media included.”

The final two sentences struck me, and it was actually something I had been thinking about in the back of my mind for the past little while.  The expectation of the media, as a source of news and information, to be infallible; to be correct 100% of the time.  Although that is not the reality, of course.  Of course there is an expectation of being responsible for your error.  But what happens if you’ve been fed the wrong information, like Lautens pointed out.

It makes me think about when I’m interviewing subjects for a documentary.  It’s a good reminder that I can’t just take what they’re saying at face value and slap it in a sequence for public consumption.  I should be responsible, and fact check.

This goes the same for archives, particularly my family archives.  I need to double check things and ensure that I’m delivering the correct information to the viewers of my final thesis film.

For example, my parents believed that my cousins and I were the 7th generation of Mackeys.  After reading the Mackey Family History book, I realized we were only the 6th generation and corrected my parents.  They seemed slightly amused by this.

Tires, on the farm

Whenever I’m visiting the Mackey farm, especially with my camera, I seem to discover more things about it and thus begin taking photos.  I’d like to think it’s a less obsessive documentation of the farm, while it still exists…I find something interesting, and sort of do a photo series on it (like above and below).

However, I think there’s something working at the back of my mind that reminds me subtly that the farm will cease to exist at some point in the near future, and the time is now to start documenting it.  The archive is something of great discussion in terms of my thesis project.  The film I’m making, the photographs of the farm I’m taking, all will become an archive of this physical structure and the space around it.

It seems strange now to think that the space where these tires sit will soon be gone.  I can’t help but think how the value of the photograph of it will rise, for me personally, once the physical thing is gone.  I suppose I can’t miss it until it is gone, although I feel like I’m already in a phase of mourning.  No, not for the tires.  Just the farm.

Fall at the Mackey farm

The Mackey Farm house, October 2009

The Mackey Farm's barn and silo, October 2009

Farm and subdivision, Whitby, October 2009

Grandpa, at the farm, October 2009

A leaf about to fall, October 2009

It’s strange to think that I can say with certainty, this is one of the last Falls for the Mackey Farm in Whitby.  Better document it while I can.

Photo journalism, and manipulation

A very interesting blog post from thestar.com photographer Richard Lautens entitled “Ethics, Computers and Photojournalism”.

The blog itself, Toronto Star Photo Blog, seems simple enough.  While it features staff photographers’ work, that work is also accompanied by a written blog entry.  We are allowed a glimpse into the photographer’s world, an area unfamiliar perhaps when all we get sometimes is a caption.  While their work can be found throughout thestar.com, we don’t find out very much about the people who took those photographs or about their experiences capturing those moments, aside from a credit line or maybe a bio.

“We take a lot of pride in our work and spend many hours of learning new technique, working on stories and frankly just plain waiting for the right moment.” – Lautens

This is why I’m enjoying the Toronto Star Photo Blog, especially Lautens’ post on photojournalism and photo manipulation controversy.  He defends normal darkroom practice for improving the image quality of photographs, even when, of course, that translates to using digital methods today, like Photoshop.  While Photoshop lets you do some crazy things to photographs, many of the basic image manipulation features in the program are just translated from the dark room.  Just because it’s analog doesn’t exempt it from the same manipulation ethics, right?

Lautens’ post is a nice reminder that there are people behind those photographs, that care about the content they are producing.  I’ll think of this the next time I see a photo, especially one from him.

Whirlwind!

The last three weeks have been, well, a whirlwind of activity!   Things haven’t stopped, and although I’ve been filming and doing all kinds of work, one thing I haven’t kept up on is this blog.  I wanted to post some video and photos of my recent shoots, filming my dad combining and talking about the farm, but that will have to wait for later in this week.

In the meantime, I’m editing a different project currently and preparing for The Documentary Show!

The Documentary Show, airing Tuesdays at 10am on SpiritLIVE, has been loads of fun so far although the beginning has been mostly me testing my technical skills.  So far so good!  I’ve also begun to reflect on the radio show (a.k.a –  a live online show that becomes archived and turned into podcast) as it relates to the archive.

I’ve used the show as a platform for my musings on the documentation of my family for my thesis project.  The weekly shows, which get archived, become a journal for me to view later.  But these journals are different.  While the topics are decided beforehand, I allow myself to talk freely about my project while on the air, and it’s as if I’m talking to someone rather than merely filling up the empty studio up sound waves.  This journal instantly becomes a public one, easily accessible by me or anyone else.

While I talk honestly about some of the issues that plague the making of my documentary thesis, I probably automatically omit personal details for the sake of the viewers.  :D  Although those personal details might be interesting in themselves.  Isn’t that what we love about documentary?  When people reveal things about themselves, or allow us access to the most intimate details of their lives?

So then the show becomes a retrievable archive of my thesis reflections, of the other going-ons that were new and current as I went to air, which I will still find funny and interesting even if I retrieve them several years down the road.  How will the meaning of this archive change as the years pass?  What will it become, if not, simply, a time capsule of my 2009 self.  Will it become something more, and if so, what?  More research and thinking is to be done!