Final Project (13-2)

www.endthebubble.com

For my final project I taught myself how to create a website, starting with purchasing a domain name, finding a hosting site, and building up the elements of the site using Wordpress.  I customized my Wordpress site using widgets and I did a lot of troubleshooting and looking at the coding in order to get the site to be what I wanted.  When I had trouble uploading a file I was able to look at the source code and determine what was causing the issue.

The goal was to create an online community where people could respectfully share differing opinions.  I decided the best way to do this would be to create a forum with an option to either create a user name and log in, or post anonymously.  I began the project by reaching out to people that I knew would have an opinion that was different from mine.  The sad thing was that that didn't amount to very many people.  I didn't realize how much I surrounded myself with people that agreed with me until I combed through my network looking for different ideas.  Out of my 900 or so Facebook friends, I chose to contact 20 or so people, and most of them I was pretty sure would still say the same things I would, just in more interesting ways.

I decided to reach outside of my network, which meant putting myself out into the world and talking to random people.  This was the performance element of my project.  I bought 100 small bubble tubes, wrote the website address on them, made myself a t-shirt and planted myself in front of the post-it wall in Union Square.  I stayed there until I had handed out all of my stickers and bubble tubes and I talked to people about the site.  For the most part it was a great experience, but there were a few awkward interactions.  I hope it leads to new people posting on the site, but if nothing else it was interesting to be out in the world talking to people, and I made a lot of strangers smile with the tubes of bubbles.  If nothing else comes out of it that was enough for me.

'Selfie' (13-1)

Showed my process: I often overlooked this part since I wanted to prioritize spending my time working with the material.  I felt like stopping to photograph or video tape each stage of the work got in the way of creating the actual work.  Since my personal learning objective was to use my time effectively to dive as deeply into new media as possible I felt good about the choice I made.  I was able to create a lot of more advanced projects and really push myself because I was fully focused on making and learning rather than documenting.
Explained my outcome: Once I had a project done I was happy to spend a lot of time explaining the project and how I had gone about completing it.  I think I was very thorough in this and it was nice to reflect and explain the process once I was done working.  In my explanations I endeavored to describe both the process and the thoughts and ideas that went into the work.
Linked to vocabulary: In the sense that each form of new media comes with it's own set of terms and vocabulary I believe I used that vocabulary effectively in my written explanations.
Found multiple possibilities:  I used my time to really explore each new technology discussed in class.  I made a point to try several new techniques and programs, especially when working with a product that I wasn't already familiar with.  I enjoyed pushing myself beyond the ideas discussed in class and figuring out what other possibilities existed.  For example, for the video project I worked on both video creation, and editing video clips that already existed.  For stop motion, I worked with both Vine and iStop Motion, and for 3D modeling I created products in both TinkerCad and Blender and printed using both the MakerBots at school and the fancy high resolution printers at my workplace.
I persevered through the work:  Whenever I was frustrated by a particular material or program I was able to search for helpful resources online that gave me potential solutions.  I tried to learn from every problem I encountered, using it as a teaching experience rather than a reason to give up.
Eliminated carelessness:  I put a ton of effort into my work for this class, often to the detriment of my other classes.  I did this because I was personally invested in learning as much as I could about new technologies and I wanted to take full advantage of everything I had access to in the media lab and makerspace.  I was definitely not careless in my work.

I believe that I met and exceeded my personal learning objectives for this class.  I pushed myself to new levels with the new media forms I was already familiar with, and I put in a ton of extra time in to learn programs that I was not familiar with.  I worked on my teaching skills by creating thorough lesson plans for class assignments, teaching a whole class lesson as the digital steward, and if any of my colleagues asked for help I took extra time to teach them programs to the best of my ability.  I pushed my knowledge forward in a lot of ways and made a point to prioritize so I could spend as much time as possible on the work that was most important to me.

As someone who is planning to work in a high need area that probably won't have much funding for art programs, I am still trying to figure out how I will incorporate new media into my classroom practices.  Working with Kickstarter, GoFundMe, DonorsChoose, or applying for grants will be necessary.  Grant writing would be a really helpful thing to incorporate into this class.  Unless all of us are planning on going off to teach in well funded private schools we probably won't have access to these technologies without receiving some sort of outside funding and support.  It isn't even fair to assume each student will have a phone with a camera, and assigning projects using phones could leave students uncomfortable.  I plan to start at least by using my own resources.  I have an iPad and an old computer that I have no problem bringing into my classroom in order to allow my students to gain some experience with new media.  Since this isn't much, the computers will only be available at first as part of an incentive program for students who have been extra focused and shown excellent behavior.  It would be interesting to also work with interested students after class as part of a new media club.  One cheaper option that also would be easier to incorporate into whole class lessons would be the creation of simple circuits to enhance artwork.  Free programs like Scratch, Blender, and Tinkercad are great, but not if you only have one classroom computer.

Readings (12-2)

1) An art classroom is a great place to explore the potential of computers.  Rather than just having the students work with computers in the standard way, get them involved in programming and creating physical objects that respond to coding to get them more involved in the computing process.  Building simple robots that respond to intuitive commands are great projects for older kids.

2) In the Renaissance, there was no division between 'making' and art.  Artists were scientists too and their creativity helped them invent fantastic things.  By bringing making back into the art world we have to potential to educate a new generation of scientists that are well-rounded, creative thinkers.

3) By engaging students in projects involving computers and other new technologies we are training them to be future innovators rather than future followers.  If students are engaged in making and technical fabrication in school they will enter the adult world with the ability to act on machines and create culture, rather than the other way around.

Circuits (12-1)

I decided to use the electronic components I had to made a wearable piece.  I went to the hardware store and picked up a few switches and a glove.  The idea was to create an electronic glove that responds to sign language.  I decided I would focus on the signs for peace, love and yes.  For each hand motion there would be a switch that would get activated and either lights would go on or a part would spin or vibrate.

Final Project (11-2)

I'm been thinking a lot about where we can go from here.  How do we, as a country, move forward?  I feel like the reason we're in this mess in the first place is a lack of communication between sides.  It's easy for us to sit in our educated bubble and share articles with each other and feel right, but we are not the majority in this country and no one outside of the bubble is hearing our thoughts.  I think one solution is to start communicating with people outside of the bubble.  Respectful conversations where we hear each other's opinions, hopes and fears, and hopefully exchange facts.  I want to create an online forum to facilitate these conversations.  I think I will make the creation and promotion of this forum my final project.  My words were 'Creative Code', 'Community' and 'Performance' so I think this idea will fit well.  To begin I bought the domain name endthebubble.com and I used the VersaCamm vinyl printer/cutter at my work to create stickers advertising the site.  I think the performance element will involve me standing somewhere public handing out the stickers to advertise the site.  If I can afford it I want to buy some cheap bubble wands to hand out with the stickers too.  Before I do any of that though I want to get the site up and running, and hopefully have some posts already up on the forum to get people started.  I'm thinking it will be a Wordpress site and I will learn about how to tweak the codes a bit to make the site more customized.

3D Modeling (11-1)

Yina and I worked together on this project.  After playing with Tinkercad for a bit and figuring out how it worked we decided to find a design on Thingiverse to print.  We wanted to make something small and functional.  We ended up finding this great dinosaur skull hook design.  I asked one of my coworkers to print the design for me on one of our fancy 3D printers.  The printer prints support material alongside the ABS plastic, so you can print more intricate designs as long as you're willing to chip away the support material afterwards.

Yina and I then met again to work on something new together, since the dinosaur design was just something we pulled from Thingiverse.  We also wanted to try printing something on the school's printers.  We decided we would make rings since they were also small and functional and would be easy to design in Tinkercad.  We played around with a bunch of different shapes and techniques and made some really funky rings, but unfortunately they were too funky for the Makerbot.  Even with supports and rafts added, the printer kept malfunctioning when we tried to print the rings.  We did get some interesting raft remnants though.  Yina and I then deleted the more complicated rings from our design.  We will go again tomorrow and try to print just the simpler rings.  Hopefully we can get it done before class!

Since teaching myself 3D modeling was a personal learning objective, I decided to spend a little extra time over Thanksgiving break teaching myself some more complicated techniques.  I downloaded Blender, a very powerful and free 3D modeling program, and I watched a few tutorials on Lynda.  I took what I learned in the tutorials and began experimenting to create my own forms from scratch.  I created the first figure by starting with a rectangle and subdividing and extruding faces.  The dancing lady in the background of the first figure was just a test of a different idea that I didn't end up following through on.  The second figure I created by starting with a sphere.  Once I had the basic shape of the face in place I refined it a bit with the sculpting tools.  I sent the first figure to Shapeways to get printed in ceramic, which was surprisingly cheaper than plastic.  The second figure I asked my coworker to print at work again.  I'm probably not going to get away with doing that any more, but it was worth it for these two small models, and I'm really happy with the way the head looks!  I haven't gotten the ceramic figure from Shapeways yet, but I'm excited to see how he turns out!

Feedback (10-2)

I really loved Zhenzhen's glitch project when I saw it in class, so I went first to her website to try it for myself.  At first I couldn't figure out how to make it work, but my roommate helped me set it up and we played around a little bit with the code.  We even logged into my roommate's github account and sent Zhenzhen our code changes we had played with.

 



I thought that Trisha's Scratch piece was a really brilliant way to teach kids new words and color theory.  I definitely want to keep this idea in mind once I start teaching.  I could have students who finish early work on Scratch games that teach them art concepts, and even eventually design their own!

Then I spent a really long time playing Katherine's game.  I really love the different reactions for each type of obstacle! 

I watched Sophia's stop motion animation videos and shared my thoughts on those.

I watched Eric and Trisha's Impact 25 project video again and commented on that on Eric's blog.

I commented on Yina and Yechen's Impact 25 project on Yina's blog.

Finally, I watched Regina's video project again and commented on that. 

Lasers and Vinyl Cutters(10-1)

I've been thinking a lot about the election recently and what the results will mean for our country.  I'm trying to find some meaningful ways of responding to all of this madness.  I created the first piece on the laser engraver by engraving and etching onto large pieces of cardstock.  I was thinking about the time Trump called Hillary a nasty woman during the debates.  Before November 8th, women took the phrase on as a joke.  We wore shirts saying 'nasty woman' to show our support of Hillary and to turn the insult into something that showed our strength.  After November 8th the insult stung again.  Now the shirt feels like a badge of self-loathing and it sums up my post-election feelings fairly well.  The majority of white women voted for Trump, so I'm having trouble feeling proud of my identity right now, not that I was ever particularly proud of my cultural heritage.

Scratch Thoughts (9-2)

I really enjoyed working with Scratch.  I think it is the perfect tool for introducing students to coding.  The building block format of the codes gets kids used to the idea of sending directions to a computer in chunks, the importance of clear language, and the importance of proper location and sequencing.  The fact that they can peek into other codes and use chunks of other people's codes for their own ideas allows students to make far more advanced projects, and to learn from other people's ideas.

I decided to challenge myself on this project.  I wanted to make an interactive animation using my scanograph of Trump's face.  I decided to do all of my own coding work from scratch, so I didn't use any example templates or bits of code.  I created my own sprites too, except for the balloons at the end.  One big challenge I encountered was figuring out how to get Trump's nose to grow convincingly.  I did all of my image editing within Scratch, which was it's own challenge.  I created a backdrop first with my original scanograph edited so the background color was more uniform and Trump's nose looked normal sized.  I then created a Sprite with the scanograph and edited the nose to look  slightly larger.  On each costume of the Sprite I created a slightly larger nose.  I had to edit the background each time to match up perfectly with the others.  The first thing I noticed when I went to play my animation was that my costumes weren't aligned, so Trump's face looked like it was flickering.  Because Scratch does not have ghosting, I had to spend a ton of time adjusting the center of each costume until they lined up perfectly.  I decided the ear, top of the head and chin would be my calibration marks and I erased sections of these on each costume and adjusted the centers until they lined up perfectly with the background image.

I was a little challenged by the format of the code as well.  You are limited by the building blocks that Scratch provides you with, and the options to build your own blocks didn't quite do what I wanted.  I had to end up figuring out a way around the issue.  Instead of having one Sprite react to the location of another, I had the Sprite send a message that started the other action.  I also played around with timing a little bit, synching up the timing of each Sprite so it looked like they were reacting to each other.  These sort of work arounds would be good for students to experience too.  If they get frustrated or stalled at any point the teacher can ask them, "What are you trying to achieve? Do you think there are other ways you could make this happen?"  If a student is really stumped, the question could be brought to the whole class.

Scratch is a great tool for students.  They can use it to bring their own artwork to life, or create something entirely new.  I would have my students start out with a specific objective in mind the first time they use Scratch, since the process of trying to figure out how to use the code to accomplish their objective would be a really valuable learning experience for them.

I enjoyed working with Scratch and I really like the project I created with it.  The best part about Scratch is the fact that the code is always open for further editing.  After I published my project I decided I wanted to add to it and adjust a few things.  I reworked my code several times after publishing and it updated everywhere instantly, even in the version I had already embedded in my blog.

The Results Are In...(9-1)

Reading Thoughts (8-4)

1) You don't need high tech materials to turn your classroom into a maker space.  Maker spaces are just about building and creation and the teacher being more of a partner in discovery then a boss.  Reusing old materials can turn into a discussion about the environment and sustainability.  Kids can make so many things out of simple cardboard.  As new technologies take over and make everything more convenient, kids become more interested in DIY projects and the process of making.  DIY projects also empower kids, they can feel like creators of their own universe, rather than watchers and consumers.

2) Maker spaces are important because they allow students to invent, explore and collaborate.  The self-directed learning is the most important part of maker spaces.  Students can choose from a variety of materials and tools to create a project that best accomplishes their objectives.  This model fits best with new developments in technology and the digital culture.  When students are allowed to direct their own learning it extends beyond just the classroom and can even reach out across the world through the internet.

Lesson Plan (8-3)

Lesson Plan for Scanography-Middle School

Objective: Students will understand how the scanners work, what scenography is, and be able to make an original work with the scanner.
Intro to New Materials: Demonstrate the scanner and how to turn it on.  Have students share their experiences with scanners. (Has anyone used one of these before?  What have you used it for? Has anyone every thought about making art with a scanner?) Show examples of artists who have worked with scanners in their art. (Roberta Bailey, Joseph Scheer, Maitha Demithan, Ronis Furquim) As you show each artist ask students how they think the artist made the images.  (Did they use any other tools or programs to make this piece?) Ask students what kind of art they would make with a scanner. (Would you show movement or have things still?  Would you use objects or your own body? What objects would you use?)
Guided Practice: Tell the students they will now get a chance to work in groups to make scanographs.  They will be creating 3 pieces in their groups.  One with objects, one with hands or faces, one showing movement (Write this up on the board).  They will have 10 minutes.  Remind them that working in a group is about compromising and they must be good community members.  They will get a chance to do their own work later.  Remind students about appropriate voice volume during group work.  Give an incentive, groups that work the best together will get first chance on the scanners for independent work.  Separate the students into groups of 4 or 5 per scanner.  Let students work together, monitor and answer any questions.  After 10 minutes call time.  Have each group share their work, talk a bit about it and have other students offer thoughts (2 things they liked, one thing they would change).  Back to seats.
Independent Practice: Explain to students that they will be making their own scanographs in the next class.  Their homework is to start planning what they want to do, and bring in any objects they need.  (Group ___ will be going first tomorrow since they worked best together today.  If you were in that group please also bring in a sketch of what you want your scan to look like.  Other groups, you will have time to work on this while the first group is scanning.  Make sure you come into next class with a clear idea and whatever objects you need.)

It's hard to be a one-eyed monster (and other movies)(8-1)

Reflections on Sound (7-2)

Music is an undeniably powerful medium.  Watch a horror movie sometime with the volume turned off to see exactly how much music can add tension and emotion to a scene.  Without a gripping score, horror movies can become almost comical.  In Picturing the World by John C. Gilmour, the author states, "Music has an unusual capacity for direct expression of feeling" (Gilmour, 1986, pg 25).  Visual artists such as Kandinsky strove to make their art more like music, more able to directly communicate emotion (Gilmour, 1986, pg 26).  I especially noticed how moving a work of art made with music could be when I first heard Janet Cardiff's piece "40 Piece Motet".  I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the choral work that I almost couldn't breathe.  I had heard it from several galleries away and slowly moved towards the noise with so much anticipation.  I didn't want to walk too quickly because I didn't want to have the experience of walking towards the haunting music end.  I would probably travel a good distance to hear that piece again.

Walking around New York City, I get easily stressed out by the overwhelming sounds.  I usually don't notice it until I get back to the quiet of my apartment and my shoulders suddenly drop from up above my ears.  In the classroom that I am observing, the teacher sometimes plays calming music before the start of each class.  I love the idea of using music and sound to create a calming, welcoming space for your students.  I also think students could get really engaged in projects that involve sounds, such as creating audio documentaries, like in the TED talk podcast we listened to, or remixing/mashing familiar songs in audacity.


Gilmour, J.C., Picturing the World. State University of New York Press.  NY. 1986.

Home as Refuge (7-1)

Impact 25 (6-3)

For our Impact 25 project Sophia Di Vitto and I asked people why they vote.  The political scene right now is ruled by emotions and we thought it would be nice to get people thinking again about the causes and issues they care about.  I've heard a lot of people saying that their votes don't matter, or they hate both candidates too much to vote, or they feel like the election is rigged.  I thought that if everyone stepped back a bit and thought more about what's important to them they would be inspired to get more politically active.

We asked people to write down their name, the issues they care about, their zip code, and to find an image that sums up their thoughts.  We then printed these images onto postcards using the laser engraver.  We will then write our interviewee's name and message on the back and send the postcards off to their local senators and representatives.

The hope is that not only will we impact the people we interview, but by creating beautiful images we will also impact the politicians receiving the cards and maybe some of these messages will actually get heard.

We created a Tumblr page to showcase our postcards and we will include the web address of the page on the bottom of each postcard we send, so the politicians know that the card they receive is part of a larger movement.  Sophia and I plan to continue on with this project beyond today.

Tumblr:
http://postcardsforpoliticians.tumblr.com/

Video Thoughts (6-2)

There are so many things we can learn from video production.  I like the idea of this unit following after a unit on digital photography.  Lighting and framing are really good concepts to teach thoroughly in digital photography.  Once the students grasp this, you can transition into video and add panning and zooming.  Getting the students to work on really artfully framed shots and get them thinking about composition and it's importance across all art forms.  Then there is post-production, where students can learn how to edit clips to convey their message in the most efficient way possible.  It would be interesting to challenge students to make a 5 minute long movie, and then in the next lesson ask them to edit it down to 1 minute without any loss of message or meaning.

Video is also a great way to convey a message.  Videos can be more personal and intimate for the viewer because it feels like a more direct view of the subject.  Once students understand the basic concepts to filming and editing a teacher could move on to discussing films as a tool for social change.  Students could watch documentaries and art films with a strong social justice message and then brainstorm about their own causes they are passionate about.  The teacher could then go on to have students produce their own protest/documentary films and post them on YouTube.  Students will learn that video production gives them a voice and allows them to convey powerful messages.

Video Project 2 (6-1)

I wasn't quite happy with my original video, so I decided to do a bit more exploring.  I wanted to do something with all the short videos I had filmed on my phone since first buying it in 2011.  I liked the fact that all of these videos, when put together, formed an interesting picture of the year.  Then I found Cesar Kuriyama's TED talk on his One Second Every Day film and app development.  I decided I would take this concept and run with it.  I took all of the video clips I had accumulated throughout the years, edited them to 1 second each, and made a series of short films, one for each year from 2011 onwards.  Eventually I want to go through my old family videos and make a short film for every year of my childhood.  There might be a few years missing, but it would be great to end up with a record of my life made up of whatever random moments someone chose to have a camera on.

Video Project (6-1)

Section 2 readings (5-3)

1) We are living in a culture defined by appropriation, reappropriation, memes, mashups, remixes, sequels, prequels and remakes.
2) New technology is making it faster and easy to participate in and contribute to visual culture.  This technology is creating a resurgence of interest in the arts.
3) Digital storytelling is a good way to get students to push their interactions with new technology one step further and to get them thinking about how to keep listeners/viewers engaged over longer periods of time.

Scanography (5-2)

Scanography is a quick process with instant gratification.  This is something I could see students having a lot of fun with, and it's a good next step after digital photography.  Students will already understand with digital photography that they can take images and manipulate them after the fact to create distortions or collages.  Scanography will get students thinking about how to make the collage or the distortion part of the original image.  I would like to have students begin by experimenting with the scanner so they understand what it is capable of creating.  My next lessons would have them creating a series of thoughtful collages that they would plan and sketch out first.  I would have a discussion about composition and materials, have them collect items to bring to class, then spend some time working with different arrangements before creating the final scan.  As a final project, I would like them to either create a scanographic collage image that embraces distortion in some way, or create a scanography inspired digital photograph.

Scanographs: The lies we tell ourselves (5-1)

Still trying to figure out how to express the issues currently on my mind in a way that's not heavy-handed or cheesy or pedantic.  Clearly I'm not quite there yet.  Feel free to comment, any feedback would be helpful.

Connections to Teaching Children (4-3)

1) Children today are growing up surrounded by technology and social media.  'Selfies' and posts to Instagram are a constant part of today's culture.  Kids are already engaging with digital photography and already understand it as a means of self-expression.  It would just be a matter of switching their minds into 'art mode' by looking at examples from other artists and getting them to play around with photo editing tools.

2) A big part of teaching art is to get children to think more about observing the world.  Most older children already have access to digital cameras through their phones.  Even cheap flip phones come with digital cameras these days.  Getting kids to start noticing and documenting moments on their daily walks and then discussing them in class is a great way to get children engaged in digital photography as an art form.

3) A good next step would be getting children working with fancier digital cameras.  There would be an introductory class on manual settings and lenses.  Then the children could be encouraged to take the same photos with the digital cameras that they had taken with their phones.  The discussion afterwards comparing both photographs would be a really interesting would and would push the students even more towards understanding the artistry that goes into making quality digital photographs.

Impact25 Progress (4-2)

Sophia Di Vitto and I are working together on our Impact25 project.  We wanted to combine new technology and old technology in our project.  We also thought a lot about what impact would mean for us and what kind of an impact we wanted to make.  We were thinking about all of the political unrest in our country now and we wanted to find a way to give everyone who wanted one a voice in our political system.  Especially at a time when it feels like the angry, fearful and divisive voices are getting all of the attention.  We decided to reach out to friends and family with this e-mail:

Dear _____,

I am working on a project where we have to impact people in a way that spreads a message about something we care about. My project partner and I came up with the idea of sending laser engraved post cards to your local senators and congress people about issues you care about. If you would like to participate in the project, please send us the following information:

1. A drawing you made, or image you would like on the front of the postcard

2. Fill in the blanks of this sentence "I am a voter, and I care about __________, _________, and ___________."

3. The address of your local senator or congressperson.

Find out your senators address at http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/senators_cfm.cfm

Find out your congressperson's address at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Thank you for your time and for getting involved with your political system!

Sincerely, 

Avery Forbes and Sophia Di Vitto

sophia.divitto@gmail.com

avery.forbes@gmail.com 

We would then type the messages up and print them out on printer friendly postcard paper.  The images we would burn onto the front using the laser engraver.  This creates a beautiful toned image that will hopefully make the politician stop and look and think for a moment.  Even if they don't read the text, the image will be powerful enough to get the message across.  The great thing about using new technology for this process is that the project becomes easily scaleable.  If we needed to, we could create hundreds of postcards with minimal effort to really get our messages of peace and equality through to the politicians.  And even if the postcard never gets seen, we at least got our friends thinking about what issues they care about the most, and hopefully they will be affected enough to get to the polls.

Explorations and Feedback (4-1, Part 2)

After talking to a few people, I decided to go with the second part of the second idea.  The wrapping of the twine and bands around my face linked nicely with the wrapped object and still communicated clearly my idea of discomfort and disconnection.  I applied a few filters to the image to give it a more desaturated, washed out effect that matched the original photo better.

Explorations from a single image (4-1, Part 1)

I was thinking about how most of the images I was drawn to in my walk around TC were about either wrapping or peeling.  Wrapped pipes and peeling paint.  I was interested in the fact that these two ideas opposed each other nicely.  Covering vs. exposing.  Comforting vs. opening wounds.  I wanted to explore these opposing concepts further in my two ideas.

One idea I had was to relate these two concepts to my feelings about TC.  I feel both comfortable and raw in this place.  I grew up going to elite institutions and immersing myself in learning environments.  A university where the smart and driven gather to try and turn themselves into the best teachers possible so they can make the world a better place for future generations should be where I feel most comfortable.  But something feels very wrong about being here at this particular point in history.  Being tucked away in an elite institution quietly racking up debt at a time when innocent people are being killed in the streets and a madman is terrifyingly close to the presidency feels wrong.  But I don't know what would be right.  I wanted to explore this idea of feeling swaddled, yet off and raw and uncomfortable.  My thought was to create a series of photographs of a figure in my fluffy pink bathroom wandering around campus barefoot.  I want the photos all to look awkward and for the figure to look exposed and unsure.

I also wanted to think about wrappings more.  Wrappings create mystery.  They cover an object, making it so we can only guess at what is inside.  I thought about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's giant wrapped objects.  I wanted to relate this idea to my own life.  What do I wrap myself in to cover what is going on inside?  I realized that I wrap myself in smiles.  I smile as I nervous response.  I smile when I'm angry.  There's even a video of me smiling and waving right before leaping off a bridge with a bungee cord strapped to my ankles.  This is how I was raised.  In Connecticut, you smile through everything.  Expressions of intense emotion can be hurtful to others and must be avoided at all costs.  It's a hard habit to kick.  My idea from this is to do a portrait of a forced smile.  Either a series of photos of a person smiling for an hour or two (maybe one photo taken every 10 minutes), or a photo of a person with their lips forced into a smile with string and rubber bands.

Digital Photography-In Class Project

Avery's eBook

Linking reading to objectives (3/2)

In Kylie Peppler's book, New Creativity Paradigms, Peppler states, "What's called for is a general framework for understanding, analyzing, and appreciating interest-driven art learning that usually occurs outside the classroom." pg 14.  Peppler goes on to create a rubric for just that purpose.  I think this rubric will be very helpful for me as I go on to teach.  One of my personal learning objectives this semester is to develop myself as a teacher, and especially as a teacher of new media.  I hope to use this rubric in the future to assess my students' work both inside and outside of the classroom.  I can use it to gauge which competency areas my students are proficient in and which need to be developed more in class.

The data in Chapter 2 shows us that all teens are exposed to new media for almost the majority of their day, but the content is created mostly by suburban teens in wealthy households.  To me, this illustrates the importance of teaching new media in urban underprivileged areas.  Teaching content creation tools in these areas could even out the playing field.  This is a good thing for me to keep in mind as a future teacher.

Privilege and Beauty (digital collage) (3/1)

With everything that's going on in the world recently, I've been thinking a lot about privilege.  As someone who has experienced a lot of privilege, I'm not sure how to speak out about all of the innocent men that are dying.  I'm not even sure it's my place to.  But I am trying to find ways to say something without being insensitive, ignorant, pedantic or heavy handed.  I think new media is a good medium in which to explore these topics.  

With Photoshop and Brushes you can work with actual images from the news to create a collage to express what you're trying to say.  I created this piece after seeing this article floating around.  When asked to name a celebrity that represented the ideal form, all survey respondents picked white people.  It happened again in this survey conducted by Samsung and these digital renderings of ideal male bodies over time.  To me, these surveys illustrate one of the many ways unconscious bias trickles into all of our decision making.  I took the ideal male form from the first article and used it as a basis for my central figure.  I wanted to take this 'beauty' and show how ugly he really could be.  I stood him on top of a pile of American bison skulls.  This image of skulls is from the mid-1870s when white men attempted to eradicate the Plains Indian Tribes by killing all of the bison, thus making their main source of food extinct.  Behind it all, Trump's face smirks down on the scene, representing the ultimate privileged white male.

On/Off Artistic Response (2/3)

A video response to the frustration of waiting for an iPhone to turn on.

A few images taken on my replacement digital camera.  They are pixelated and slightly blurry, but I like them for what they are.

On/Off Experiment (2/2)

This past week I have been making a point to completely turn off my phone and computer whenever I step away from them, rather then just putting them to sleep.  This simple change in my behavior has had a lot of surprising consequences.  While I could usually turn the computer on and walk away or read while it loaded, I found myself incredibly put out by the 45 seconds that my phone took to turn on.  I started to make choices about what I would turn the phone on for and what I would just do without.  A lot of silly questions that I normally would have googled went unanswered.  I could no longer quickly glance at the time and weather, and once this week I showed up late and rain soaked to an event.  I would turn the phone on to take photos of specific occasions, but little things noticed on walks were left undocumented.  I would have to turn my phone off while I was waiting for a text, then make a conscious decision to turn the phone on again later to see if I had gotten a response.  This trimming of moments lost to constant phone checks left me a lot more present in the current task.  I found I was a better reader, and I was more present in conversations with my friends.  The times I was most put out by the inconvenience of a phone that wasn't readily accessible were those brief moments I was left to myself in a public place.  For example, that dreaded moment when you are left alone in a bar because your friend has gone to use the restroom.  These moments weren't long enough to be worth turning the phone all the way on and off again, but without this social crutch I was left awkwardly and intently staring at posters while I waited.  Despite the discomfort, I found this experiment to be incredibly valuable.  I plan on continuing to set aside time in my day where my devices are completely off and I am more focused on the present.

All that being said, I do have to admit to a little bit of cheating. I carried a few objects with me to make up for the loss of the conveniences my phone provided.  After the first time I showed up late to something I started wearing a watch again, and I tended to bring a raincoat with me everywhere just in case.  For those horrible moments I was left alone in a public space I carried a book, because god forbid I be forced to make small talk with strangers.  I also carried a cheap little digital camera to capture those brief moments that caught my eye while traveling around the city. For all my unanswered questions, I carried a notepad so I could look them up the next time my phone was on.  With the extra weight of these items in my purse I was left wondering at all of the things an iPhone is to us.  I'm carrying all these extra things just because my phone is not immediately available.  Imagine how much more I'd have to carry if I had lost my phone entirely! We put so much into these fragile pocket-sized devices.  The amount I rely on my phone scares me a little bit.  As I move forward, I plan on turning my phone off more often, and for longer periods of time.  Just to reassure myself that I am capable of surviving without my digital safety blanket.

The things I carried.

Pearls of Wisdom from eetiquette.com (2/1)

Advice to live by in the digital age from eetiquette.com

Responses to the Reading (1/4)

Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff, Chapter 1

The expectation of immediacy the article discusses is a concept that I spend a lot of time thinking about.  When iPhones first came out I was turned off by the fact that my friends now stood around with their noses in their devices.  I held out for a while, and when I finally purchased my own iPhone I tried at first to be really conscious of my usage of it.  But now I am sorry to say that I am just as glued to my device as any other millennial.  The smart phone almost feels like the new cigarette: it's what you use when you're alone or waiting and you want to look like you're cool and aloof.  Plus, it's addictive and potentially causes cancer.  But we don't only check our phones out of boredom.  As the article asserts, we constantly check our phones because we feel like we have to.  Who hasn't had the experience of leaving their phone unattended for an hour or so only to return to 80 new messages from group text explosion?  But none of this anxiety is necessary.  We can choose to live without it.  As Rushkoff explains, it is only a matter of setting boundaries.  This summer I was away working at a camp in Maine for two months.  I had no cell phone service, and limited access to wifi.  And I survived.  When I returned, everything went back to how it had been.  I hadn't lost any friends, and my Instagram posts were met with the same scattered likes and responses they had gotten before.  Yet here I sit, writing this post with my phone right next to me, constantly checking to see if it buzzed without me noticing.

"Rather than accepting each tool’s needs as a necessary compromise in our passively technologized lifestyles, we can instead exploit those very same leanings to make ourselves more human." (Rushkoff, page 34)

I LOVE this quotation.  Technology is a tool.  We must be conscious of how we use it to further our own happiness and not allow ourselves to be enslaved by it.  Our phones and our computers are there to make our lives easier and better, not to create new stressors and pavlovian responses.  We all must work on prioritizing our own happiness and only allowing new technologies into our world that further our happiness.  For example, I can use my computer and phone to plan a weekend hiking trip with my friends or a bike ride in Central Park.  Then I can put the devices away and allow myself to be fully immersed in the experience.

Bitforms Gallery, a Space for New Media (1/3)

Bitforms is a Lower East Side gallery that exhibits artwork by emerging artists that are working in new technologies. The gallery specializes in the fields of digital, internet, software-based, and new media art.  It's current exhibition features work by Casey Reas, a software artist whose work is displayed on computer screens throughout the gallery.

Visit the gallery's website

Objectification and The Gaze: The Works of Jordan Wolfson (1/2)

Jordan Wolfson is an artist based in both New York City and Los Angeles.  His works include collages, performances, and digital animations.  He is best known for his most recent foray into animatronic art.  Wolfson's (Female figure) (2014) is a scantily clad animatronic female form programmed to gyrate and lock eyes with its audience.  The figure is smudged with dirt and grime and wears a partial witch mask.  Wolfson uses new technologies to make art that dances in the uncanny valley.  (Female figure) is designed to make the viewer uncomfortably aware of his or her own gaze and the damage done by the objectification of woman.  His latest work, Colored sculpture (2016), features a cartoon-like male marionette suspended from a framework of trusses by heavy chains.  The chains are connected to hoist trolleys that move along the trusses and lift and drop the marionette in a coordinated dance.  This sculpture also features animated eyes that gaze helplessly at the audience in expressions of pain and fear.  Again, the viewer is made to feel like her or she is witnessing a sort of torture and to feel empathy for the lifeless figure.  Jordan Wolfson is heavily influenced by the work of the artist Jeff Koons, but Wolfson's work pushes pop culture images into the digital age.  By adding the extra element of animation Wolfson creates pieces that seem to live in the world with us rather than existing solely as objects.  His use of technology leads us to question technology itself.  What are we creating and how do we move into this new frontier safely and ethically?

About Me (1/1)

I graduated from Bowdoin College in 2008 with a degree in Visual Arts and Art History.  After college I went right on to Teach for America.  I applied to be an art teacher, was trained to teach Kindergarten, and got placed as a 5th grade teacher on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  My two years teaching in South Dakota were some of the most challenging and rewarding years of my life.  I was the only 5th grade teacher in the school and I had my class of 27 students from 7:30am to 4:30pm, often without an aide or any specials.  Our principal required that we teach only reading and math, but I made a point to incorporate as much art and creativity into my lessons as I could.  I even snuck in the occasional science, history, or art lesson when my principal wasn't looking.  After Teach for America I took some time off to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, a 2,181 mile footpath that extends from Georgia to Maine.  I documented my journey through two blogs and a drawing each day.  For the past five years I have been working as a scenic painter and prop fabricator at The Specialists Ltd in New York City.  Our company is committed to staying on the cutting edge of fabrication and I have had the opportunity to work with laser-cutters, vinyl cutters, and UV printers on a regular basis.  In my spare time I have experimented with Arduino microcontrollers and 3D modeling programs but I still have a lot more to learn.  I am very excited to be furthering my education at Columbia Teachers College, and I plan on spending as much time in the Thingspace and Myers Media Art Studios as possible.