Tag: Arcade

Categories
Community

15 can’t miss things to do this November

James Fay/ THE CONCORDIAN @jamesfaydraws

In November you begin to know how long the winter will be, but never fear, here are some events to see.

  1. Montreal Career Fair  

Where: Holiday Inn, Centreville Downtown

When: Nov. 30 

What: A chance to meet with different industry leaders, explore future job options and ask questions. 

  1. Remembrance Day Parade 

Where: Place du Canada

When: Nov. 11 

What: An annual event put on by the Black Watch in remembrance of the soldiers who fought and died for their country. 

  1. Coup de Coeur Festival 

Where: various shows across Montreal

When: Nov. 3-13

What: A festival dedicated to French artists from the local and international stage.

  1. Montreal International Documentary Festival  

Where: varying cinemas across Montreal 

When: Nov. 17-27

What: One of North America’s top documentary film festivals showing works from Canadians and international filmmakers. 

  1. Bach Festival   

Where: La Maison symphonique de Montréal

When: Nov. 12 through Dec. 21 

What : A festival dedicated entirely to famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach, it consists of performances, educational pieces and open rehearsals.

  1. Researchers’ Night 

Where: Montreal Botanical Gardens 

When: Nov. 11 

What: It’s a night from the past, with scientists from different eras coming together to focus on different topics and explain their research and answer questions. 

  1. ​​ Taylor Swift Dance Party 

Where: The Ritz Bar 

When Nov. 5

What: A dance party going to 3 am playing solely Taylor swift music from start to finish. 

  1. A Railway’s Christmas 

Where: The Canadian Railway Museum 

When: Nov. 25 – Jan. 3

What: The Railway Museum has decorated many of its vehicles in Christmas holiday fashion and will offer many different activities. 

  1. Mundial Montreal  

Where: varying locations around Montreal 

When: Nov. 15-18 

What: An event that features diverse artists and sounds from around 50 regions of the globe.  

  1. Singh’s Arcade 

Where: 83 rue Ste-Anne, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue

When: any time you’d like

What: An old style arcade with a twist, this space doubles as an art gallery that exhibits different local Montreal artists each month and an arcade to kick some butt at Pac-Man. 

  1. Celebration of Light: Diwali Party

Where:  L’Orbite 406 Rue Notre-Dame Est Montréal

When: Nov. 4

What: The South Asian Youth Collective is organizing a party in celebration of Diwali, a day celebrated in many cultures to shine bright and be with loved ones before the cold winter months come in. 

  1. Paranormal Investigation – Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery

Where: Wilfrid Laurier Memorial

When: Nov. 5 

What: A ghost-hunting tour where you will learn about the past events of the area, and even learn about some strategies and tools that are used to communicate and track paranormal activities. 

  1. Pokémon Tournament 

Where: Three Kings Loot Inc. 

When: Every Tuesday

What: Dust out your old Pokémon cards and head on down to battle!

  1. “Get It In Writing!” Workshop

Where: L’Annexe: the Ometz Centre for Young Adults 

When: Nov. 29 

What: A workshop to teach self expression in the written form, no prior experience is needed! 

  1. The Breakfast Crawl

Where: McConnell Engineering Building

When: Nov. 19

What: Similar to a pub crawl, this event involves going to five different breakfast locations around Montreal where you will receive a beverage/meal at every stop. All proceeds go to charity.

Categories
Student Life

Looking for cute winter date ideas?

Graphic by Sasha Axenova

During the warmer months, there are so many cute date ideas: going to a driving range, walking by the river, having a picnic in a park, taking a bike ride in a quaint neighbourhood, etc. But what about the winter? While it may seem more difficult to come up with cute date ideas when it’s cold outside, Montreal actually has a lot to offer other than your basic dinner/drinks and/or a movie. With Valentine’s Day not far away and my love life being more void than a black hole, I took on the hard task of finding fun activities for your winter dates and compiled a list for you.

For the outdoor activity lovers

I hate winter so these don’t feel natural for me but I am aware that many people enjoy spending time outside, regardless of the weather. 

  1. Lace up those skates! Montreal has so many skating rinks (Canada, duh) that you can go to for a cute date. From large outdoor rinks like the one in the Old Port, Beaver Lake or Centre de la Nature in Laval, to your assortment of small neighbourhood rinks or indoor arenas like Atrium Le 1000, a sheet of ice isn’t too far away. Or, you know, you can just wait for freezing rain and skate on the street the next day.
  2. Take a hike. Really. It may not be the most ~intense~ hike of your life, but trekking up Mount Royal to get to the Belvedere in the snow might be enough physical activity for one date. You can do it for the hike or for the cute view at the top—stargazing and all that good stuff, you know? You can also go snowshoeing or cross country skiing around Mount Royal Park or, again, at Centre de la Nature if you’re up for taking a short trip north (it’s really not that far).
  3. Take it slow. If you like the outdoors but aren’t super into the more strenuous activities mentioned above, you can always take a stroll in the Old Port or downtown. Go cafe hopping, do some people watching, do an improvised architecture tour of the city—so many options!

For the indoor activity lovers

If being outside for longer than the time it takes to get from inside a building to inside a vehicle sounds dreadful, fear not. There are plenty of cute date activities for you too!

  1. Chat it up. If you want to spend a lot of time talking to the person you’re on a date with, you have quite a few options. These are kind of miscellaneous but somehow all related: escape rooms, axe throwing, batting cage, rage rooms, indoor roller rinks, karaoke, or attend a cooking class. 
  2. Let’s get competitive. If you and/or your date are more competitive in nature, there are plenty of options for date ideas in the city—it just so happens you can be in close proximity to your date while potentially kicking their butt. For a one-stop-shop, the Forum is a great place to play pool, try your luck at arcade games or go bowling. If not, there are plenty of mini-putt locations around the city. If you really want to stay away from any physical activity at all, Randolph’s—the board game place—is a great option to get a bit of friendly competition going.
  3. Get around. If you want to go on a date but also explore some cool spots in the city, you also have a few options. If you’re into this kind of stuff, going to record shops, bookstores or vintage/thrift stores to peruse their collections will likely be a fun time and you might even find a rare gem. You might also be able to create an impromptu photoshoot out of it—for the ‘gram!

For the artsy types

Whether you like looking at art or making it, these are for you.

  1. Do it yourself. Ceramic Cafe is a great place to spend time chatting and getting to know someone while also getting your art on. Whether you make something for the other person or even work on a larger piece together, it’s a great option for bringing out the creative side of you. Another option is to attend a wine and paint night.
  2. Be the observer. If you can appreciate art but aren’t really into making some of your own, there are so many museums you can attend. Pro tip: the first Sunday of every month, there’s a variety of museums that offer free admission. There’s also the Montreal Science Centre in the Old Port or the Biodome that you can visit.
  3. Catch a show. I don’t mean a television show; I mean go to theatrical performance, go to a jazz bar or even a comedy show. And, I guess, if all else fails, you can just make a fort in your living room with all the cushions and blankets available on the block and put on a new series.

 

Graphic by Sasha Axenova

Categories
Arts

4th SPACE is as flexible and adjustable as a bento box

A multidisciplinary addition to Concordia’s downtown campus

Concordia University’s 4th SPACE will be carrying out programs encompassing a variety of topics from avant-garde video games to open discussions about Indigenous cultures integrated in artificial intelligence during the upcoming months.

The explorative platform begins with a collaborative process between the school faculty and Concordia’s student associations, but it extends to more than a museum for school projects. After one month of its official launch in January, 4th SPACE revealed its interactive workshops to all passersby. The studio also features space for screenings and prototype installations presented by the university’s faculty members and students. Furthermore, its schedule offers roundtable events, an opportunity to spark conversation between guest panelists and the audience, that usually takes place in the center of the facility.

“Our collaborators, who will be researchers and students, take up residency in the SPACE, then they will transform the venue using specialized furniture,” said Knowledge Broker Prem Sooriyakumar. Designed to be as flexible and adjustable as a bento box, the venue can shift from a traditional science lab to a stage for visual art performances. “The way we’ve conceptualized the 4th SPACE is meant to be an agile space, meaning it can transform itself to the topic we are exploring for that set period,” Sooriyakumar continued.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Sir George Williams Affair and Black History Month, the integrative studio has just hosted a commemoration of the Affair, Protests and Pedagogy.

On Jan. 31, the second evening of Protests and Pedagogy, Dorothy Williams’s workshop aimed to educate participants a card game she created. Williams is a historian and author of the only book that studied the history of black Canadians from New France era to 20th century Montreal, The Road to Now: A History of Blacks in Montreal. Her game, The ABCs of Canadian Black History, is a familiar combination between the classic bingo and childhood trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh. Instead of anime monsters, these cards feature prominent black Canadian figures and organizations such as successful entrepreneur Wilson Ruffin Abbott and the Victoria Pioneer Rifles.

Following Protests and Pedagogy, the 4th SPACE will be hosting Landscapes of Hope on Feb. 19 and 20. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.

Curated by Concordia’s Art Education professor, Vivek Venkatesh, and Communication Studies professor, Owen Chapman, Landscape of Hope is a two-day program in which the first part will be a workshop held at the 4th SPACE on Feb. 19. The workshop gives Concordia undergraduates and CEGEP students a space where they can voice their thoughts on racism and cyberbullying. The program will proceed with a visual and musical art performance led by the undergraduates and graduates of the university’s Communications Studies, Art Education, Music Therapy and Education departments on Feb. 20 starting at 5 p.m.

Affiliated with Concordia’s SOcial Media EducatiON Every day (SOMEONE) project and international touring festival Grimposium, Landscape of Hope aims to teach workshop participants and viewers digital resilience in relation to online hate speech.

Since 2016, Professor Venkatesh and the SOMEONE research team have garnered worldwide attention by sharing elementary to post-secondary students’s narrative on cyber racism through music, theatre and other art mediums. Their project, Landscape of Hope, demonstrated success at their official premiere in Norway last year.

On March 4, 4th SPACE will be housing Arcade 11 in collaboration with Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre (TAG) and the Montreal Public Libraries Network. The arcade will feature experimental video games and “each game would have some kind of research component whether it was the technology involved, the experience or type of play,” said 4th SPACE coordinator, Douglas Moffat. Visitors will also have the opportunity to discuss these topics with the indie video game developers.

This event welcomes people of all ages; parents can mark this event in their to-do list of fun March break activities with their children. From retro arcade machines to a VR gaming experience, Arcade 11 is also the perfect opportunity for Concordia students to play and unwind after a study session for finals.

Taking place from March 18 to April 12, the studio’s planning team will carry out an exhibition centered around artificial intelligence. 4th SPACE will provide a platform for its visitors to reflect on the concept of Indigenous practices within AI. There will also be room for discussion about the hopes and fears of the innovative technology that is frighteningly powerful and limitless.

Since the studio’s opening, many Montreal residents and university students have come to see the new topic  4th SPACE was exploring. Successfully mirroring Concordia’s dynamic and inclusive climate, what was once a dark and forgotten corner at the downtown campus has regained a pulse.

Protest and Pedagogies was held at the space’s last event, a presentation surfacing the traumas and silences of 1969’s Sir George Williams Affair and the reparative work involved post-affair on Monday, Feb. 11. For more information, visit 4th SPACE’s schedule of activities & events.

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