Stories indexed with the term ‘Ann Arbor Art Fairs’

This is a story about feeling uncomfortable.

Nudity tends to do that – make people, especially Americans, feel uncomfortable – and public nudity even more so. Not for everybody, though. Not for Harvey Drouillard.

Harvey has achieved a certain notoriety for taking black-and-white photos of nude men and women in public settings – walking down the street, standing in front of movie theaters, mingling with crowds. He uses the photos to make postcards and greeting cards and calendars, and has published a book as well, titled “The Spirit of Lady Godiva.” The shots are taken in Seattle, Chicago and other cities, but mainly in Ann Arbor.

I’d heard of Harvey, of course, but when he called The Chronicle to see if we wanted to tag along while he did his thing at this year’s art fairs, my first thought, frankly, was “Ick.” But I learned long ago that some of the most memorable, transformative experiences are ones that start out in an uncomfortable place, so on Thursday evening I headed over to Harvey’s staging ground – Antelope Antiques on East Liberty. [Full Story]

Sergio Mendez was meandering through the art fairs crowd in downtown Ann Arbor. Walking down Washington toward Main Street, Mendez saw something worth picking up. It was the left arm – just the left arm – belonging to a guy he knows, Eric Garcia. So Mendez  grabbed it and put it in his backpack.

That left arm wasn’t some sculpture in the art fair. But no worries, it also wasn’t Garcia’s literal left arm. It was a virtual arm, part of a multi-player iPhone game that Mendez and Garcia are developing, along with their colleagues at Phonagle, Jeremy Canfield and Ben Malley.

Phonagle LLC is a tech start-up. This week they’re using the art fairs as the setting to test out the game they’re developing. The object of this game: Find and collect virtual objects set up around the city – this version included their own virtual body parts. [Full Story]