Sept 28 - Gallery Space focuses on Nuit Blanche:

It's here! This weekend (Sept 30th) is Toronto's 1st Nuit Blanche event. blogTO's Arts bloggers will be scattered around town (and feel free to join us), but before we head out, we figured we'd get together to come up with a list of suggestions for you own arts-by-night journey:

The boy behind the Brew, Sameer, will in a few locations, his major stop being the Toronto Reference Library (that's our boy) for their line-up of events ranging from Graphic Novel Cabaret to an Open Mic Face-Off and finally the Midnight Movie Marathon which runs 'til dawn.

Jerrold will be there, but you won't find him in the streets. He'll be at alternate altitudes atop the CN Tower Sky Pod in an all-night CONTACT Photography event happening there. I'm reading online that the event it sold out though so you just have to wave from the ground.

Our newest Arts blogger, Carrie, is definitely leading the blogger team for Nuit Blanche. Sounds like she's going to sweep the whole event. I asked if she could send me her picks, and before I knew it, my inbox had enough suggestions to create a comprehensive Nuit Blanche guidebook.

In her own words:

A Few Highlights From OCAD's A Glow In The Dark:

There will be all night screenings of Michael Snow's films in the Auditorium. I have a feeling a viewing of Wavelength will be pretty intense and possibly set me right over the edge at the wee hours in the morn. Ian Carr-Harris' Narcissus will be installed in the OCAD Professional Gallery. Ocad Alumni works will be projected for the Manifold Project in the lobby. And for the sleep depraved, Geoffrey Pugen will transform the Great Hall into The Day Room.

Nuit Gladstone - The Gladstone jams the hotel packed with over 50 artists and performers for this all nighter.

Outdoors: Nina Levitt will project Comrade Valentina, the "First Woman in Space".

Inside The Gladstone Ballroom: The activities start with dinner and ends in brunch with a whole lotta DJ spinning and music in between.

Inside the Gladstone Melody Bar: Eat, Drink and Karaoke until dawn, and then kick back and screen some films presented by Pedro Mendes.

And don't forget to wander from room to room to visit all the great art exhibitions: LifeLines; Building Peoples Lives; Gladstone Remembered Exhibition of Archives and Memorabilia; Constructed Realities Snapshots And Stories; Candy Elk, Video Installation; and last but not least, Brilliant- Sculpture/Installation.

Night Light at the Drake Hotel - The SkyYard at the Drake Hotel--Enjoy a multimedia extravaganza featuring animations, improvised live music and video mixing, screenings, installations and performances by Mumbleboy, Greg Hermanovic, Peter Mettler, Adam Marshall, Tom Kuo, Marius Watz, Christian Skjodt + MORG, Sol Friedman + Oli Goldsmith, Resfest, and the Black Light Association of Canada.

Ten bucks gets you inside to the ultimate Drake house party where DJ's, musicians, performers and buskers galore fill up the Underground, the Corner Cafe, and the Lounge of the Drake. In the current Public Spaces exhibition, Dog Daze features work by Toronto and International artists. Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen St. W.

Photo: KP Gudnasson

Sphere (2003), a site specific installation by Icelandic artist, Finnbogi PĂŠtursson, traps and manipulates channelled sound, and projects light (both sine waves central to traditional Icelandic singing) with a simple glass bowl of water. My crude explanation oversimplifies the process but the result is sure yummy. Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, 401 Richmond St W, #124.

And be certain to hook up to You Are Here by Lewis Kaye, a mobile sound project with thirty binaural soundscapes designed to be downloaded to your personal MP3 player or listened to in situ with the headphones made available.

And what all-nighter wouldn't be complete without the 3 Stooges only artified by Paul Collins and projected in the MOCCA courtyard, in 24 hour 3 Stooges. 952 Queen St W.

SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Collective) presents G.o.t.c.h.a {Gathering Ordinary Telephotos and Capturing Hidden Attitudes}, a site-specific new media installation by Faisal Anwar, which asks us to participate in determining and defining who the "ethnic" is. In this real-time installation, all are invited to record our own perceptions of ethnicity by capturing the faces of "the other" during Nuit Blanche on cellphone cameras to be uploaded to up[at]gdip.com and installed at 401 Richmond, in the South Hallway.

This is where I was going to list my suggestions, but I think Carrie's got it mostly covered! A couple other hot spots certainly worth noting:

Spin Gallery hosts A History Show - History via personal and collective memories is explored through painting, photography, video or installation, by nine local artists.

Fee for Service: A Performance Art Work by Jess Dobkin takes place at the WARC Gallery (401 Richmond St W, #122).

Performed by Jess Dobkin and Chanelle Gallant, this is an installation about sex and technology, so you'll need to be 18+ to participate. Dobkin will be sharpening pencils using her magical Vagina Dentata. The work speaks to the myth of the Vagina Dentata and themes of motherhood and sex work. It is a performance of endurance, where Dobkin will be performing for audiences for 12 consecutive hours.