Rather than merely another indulgence of my fascination with 1980s Toronto, this clip represents the only video evidence that I've found of Michael Hayden's Arc en ciel, the once glorious light installation that lined the roof of Yorkdale Station. Truth be told, when I originally wrote about the artwork, I struggled to remember exactly what it looked like. A look at the few photos that I could find helped a little, but as an animated installation, they could only offer so much.

As such, I was pretty giddy when a friend of mine brought this video to my attention last night. Part of a series that Global Television used to run after their daily programming ended at 3:30 a.m., Night Walk features not only a fascinating little glimpse of Arc en ciel in action, but an oddly calming late night tour of the Toronto of 20+ years ago.

It's tough to explain, but the combination of the pulsing lights of Hayden's installation and the slow jazz that runs over the video almost instantly send me into something of a stoner trance. I've had it running on repeat for the last 40 minutes or so, and I'm quite content to leave it playing.

Anyway, I'm far from the first person to come across these videos (as I quickly learned), so here are some links to further reading for those who are interested.

• Historicist: Workin' On Our Night Moves/Ride/Walk (an informative post that outlines the origins of the video series)
• Night Moves (most interesting for the comment thread)
• Night Walk (Wikipedia)

And, not to forget, here are a few other clips from the series courtesy of Retrontario and canadianblaster09, respectively.