Flightpath Toronto, 2011

Usman Haque - London, UK
Natalie Jeremijenko - New York, USA

Installation

Inspired by the birds of Nathan Phillips Square, Flightpath Toronto is a participatory spectacle inviting the public to rediscover the possibilities and wonder of urban flight. For Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011, the square hosts an urban flightschool, an interactive visual airscape, and fly-lines that enable hundreds of people, enwinged, to re-imagine the city and the way we move through it.

By exploring the square through the eyes of its primary inhabitants, urban birds, can we reinvent our relationship to the city we build together? By reclaiming airspace as public space, can we consider other forms of transit, rediscover the 'sport' in 'transport', and excite imaginative possibilities for our urban infrastructure? Are we game to experience, through flight, a city that is fluid and three-dimensional?

Flightpath Toronto's swarms of flying people experiment with an urban-scale participatory proposition: one that demonstrates the pleasures of emissionless urban mobility and creates a shared memory of a possible future.

Flightpath Toronto is a collaboration between Usman Haque, architect/artist and Natalie Jeremijenko, engineer/artist, uniting his expertise in participatory urban spectacle with her expertise in bird flight and urban natural systems.

Limited capacity.

Usman Haque, director of Haque Design + Research and founder of Pachube.com, designs and engineers responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and participatory urban spectacles.

Natalie Jeremijenko was named one of the most influential women in technology in 2011. Her work explores the opportunity for social and environmental change presented by new technologies and has been included in two Whitney Biennials, a recent exhibition at the Tate Modern, and a retrospective at the Neuberger Museum.

Suitable for all ages