Friends of Ogden Park
w/ Dustin Wilson
circa 2014-2017, various sites
Friends of Ogden Park was a Toronto-based artist collective spearheaded by Dustin Wilson and I in 2014. Our collective purpose was to develop non-traditional research methodologies through gamified activities. Transdisciplinary in scope, Ogden Park existed without the context of a fixed place—a kind of disembodied mind that temporarily occupied various hosts. Whether park, gallery, or online platform, Ogden Park’s host-body functioned as an experimental computational device, transforming these sites into a virtual field for game-based research. Sites of research, presentation, and performance included YTB Gallery (Toronto), BiWay Arts Foundation c/o The Wrong Digital Arts Biennial, Forest City Gallery (London, On.), DNA Artspace (London, On.), Katzman Contemporary (Toronto), and The Gardiner Museum (Toronto) as well as several self-organized projects within Toronto’s High Park and Regent Park.
Ogden Park’s namesake was Frank Ogden, aka “Dr. Tomorrow” (1920 - 2012), a futurist who made predictions by collecting and collating massive amounts of information from every potential telecommunications network available to generate models for predicting future events. Ogden’s research lead him to formulate a sprawling set of forty laws that he claimed would govern social organization, economics and intelligence in the communication age. Ogden’s Laws were formulated at the intersection of new age mysticism, the dawn of the internet, and neoliberal corporate culture. Often contradictory and problematic in nature, nonetheless the laws give insight into the futurist’s deep understanding of the difficulties that face a world in physical, psychological, and technological transformation.
*the material on this page offers a partial archive for the former website, ogdenpark.ca
w/ Dustin Wilson
circa 2014-2017, various sites
OGDEN’S FIRST LAW: “THE LAW OF UNINTENDED RESULTS: ANY LAW, RULE, REGULATION OR SANCTION CONCEIVED WITH INDUSTRIAL AGE THINKING REVERSES ITSELF IN A COMMUNICATIONS AGE ENVIRONMENT”
Friends of Ogden Park was a Toronto-based artist collective spearheaded by Dustin Wilson and I in 2014. Our collective purpose was to develop non-traditional research methodologies through gamified activities. Transdisciplinary in scope, Ogden Park existed without the context of a fixed place—a kind of disembodied mind that temporarily occupied various hosts. Whether park, gallery, or online platform, Ogden Park’s host-body functioned as an experimental computational device, transforming these sites into a virtual field for game-based research. Sites of research, presentation, and performance included YTB Gallery (Toronto), BiWay Arts Foundation c/o The Wrong Digital Arts Biennial, Forest City Gallery (London, On.), DNA Artspace (London, On.), Katzman Contemporary (Toronto), and The Gardiner Museum (Toronto) as well as several self-organized projects within Toronto’s High Park and Regent Park.
Ogden Park’s namesake was Frank Ogden, aka “Dr. Tomorrow” (1920 - 2012), a futurist who made predictions by collecting and collating massive amounts of information from every potential telecommunications network available to generate models for predicting future events. Ogden’s research lead him to formulate a sprawling set of forty laws that he claimed would govern social organization, economics and intelligence in the communication age. Ogden’s Laws were formulated at the intersection of new age mysticism, the dawn of the internet, and neoliberal corporate culture. Often contradictory and problematic in nature, nonetheless the laws give insight into the futurist’s deep understanding of the difficulties that face a world in physical, psychological, and technological transformation.
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*the material on this page offers a partial archive for the former website, ogdenpark.ca
