I recently came across Broken City Lab, “an interdisciplinary creative research group that tactically disrupts and engages the city, its communities, and its infrastructures to reimagine the potential for action in a collapsing post-industrial city.”

That’s situationist-style art-school-speak for “having fun with friends” — thoughtful, provocative, shareable fun. This great little group is based in Windsor, Ontario (north of the border but south of Detroit), but they’re doing creative stuff that should happen in every community. Here’s an overview of some of their projects, taken straight from their website.

Cross-Border Communication (2009)

For three nights in November, we projected a series of messages from Windsor that were visible across the border in Detroit, as an interventionist performance series based on the desperate need to communicate between these two cities. (see more)

100 WAYS TO SAVE THE CITY (2009)

A projection performance that listed 100 Ways to Save the City—ranging from the obvious to the impossible. Situated on the roof of a local business and projecting onto the wall of an apartment building, we presented a list of our ideas for saving the city, followed by an open-submission of ideas from the street, our phones, and Twitter. (see more)

Algorithmic Subway Adventures (2009)

As part of Conflux City 2009, we led an algorithmic adventure on New York City’s subways to generate psychogeographical urban research on the experiences and interactions in everyday life on public transit. This project was made possible by the University of Windsor Arts Society. (see more)

TETRIS TOURNAMENT (2008)

There was a 40″ LCD television in the hallways of the School of Visual Arts at the University of Windsor, placed in the location to run advertisements in exchange for free photocopying, but the ads never ran—instead, we hijacked the screen to have a Tetris tournament and screen a series of videos until it was taken down months later. (see more)