One Week of Forced Creative Productivity http://mfadt.posterous.com make, make, make posterous.com Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:27:36 -0700 Designs near complete! http://mfadt.posterous.com/designs-near-complete http://mfadt.posterous.com/designs-near-complete Finally about ready to start programming everything, which is really exciting for me because I'm a bit ahead of my schedule, which was probably a bit too tight as it is. I went for a retro look like I've been planning all along. I also created a logo I think captures the baseball feel and lets me integrate the typeface into design elements (like team logos). Any feedback is welcome, these aren't 100% final but they're as close as I need to be to start coding everything. I think things will be tweaked but overall they will look something like this.

-Steve

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/405164/floppy1992.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3tpqtgiao0Fj vargatron vargatron
Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:24:00 -0700 Copyright and Trademark info http://mfadt.posterous.com/copyright-and-trademark-info http://mfadt.posterous.com/copyright-and-trademark-info

For those of you interested in copyright and trademark for your thesis projects, my mother is a lawyer and she shared with me the laws regarding this stuff. She is not a trademark lawyer, but has done trademark stuff in the past. Either way, this was helpful for me and may be for you!


Copyright protection is provided by the government to authors of "original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works."

Protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Copyright protection exists from the time the work is created in a fixed, tangible form of expression. The copyright immediately springs into existence and becomes the property of the author who created the work as soon as it is fixed in tangible form.  Only the author, or those deriving their rights through the author, can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of "works made for hire" the employer, not the writer, is considered the author. Copyright holders have exclusive rights to reproduce their works (i.e. photocopies, postings on websites, etc.) and distribute copies for sale. There is no requirement that a work be designated as copyrighted to actually be so. In other words, often times there is no way to know whether a work is copyrighted simply by looking at it. The best response is to simply assume that a work is copyrighted.

There is a common misconception that content found on the internet is considered to be in the public domain and therefore is not copyright protected. This is untrue. The concept of public domain, as it applies to copyright law, should not be confused with the fact that works may be publicly available, such as information found in books or periodical or on the internet. The public domain encompasses all works that are either no longer protected by copyright or never were (i.e. works produced by the federal government are not copyrightable).  Any content in non-digital form that is protected by copyright will be protected in its digital form.  For example, books in electronic format are protected by the same copyright that protects printed versions. Websites may be protected by copyright as single works, and the many different embedded works on websites may also be individually protected by copyright.

You should also be aware of the concept of 'fair use'. Fair use is primarily intended to allow the use of copyright protected works for things such as news reporting, research, and education.  Fair use considers: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit, educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work, etc.

You have created original works, and although you are automatically vested in your copyright work, it is always wise to include the copyright notice.  The required form of copyright notice should include the symbol (©) and the year to be precise. It should appear © 2009 Jessica Floeh.

With regard to trademarks.  A trademark does not have to be simply a word, name or logo.  Almost anything can be a trademark so long as it acts to identify its owner's goods or services, so you should also add the trademark symbol (™) after anything you may eventually wish to register with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  For instance, each time you use Hanky Pancreas™ it should have the mark.  When you decide you want to register the mark with the USPTO, you will need to demonstrate that you have been attaching the ™ to the mark for a while.  You do not need to have prior permission to use the ™ and in fact it is advisable to just start using it.  Once you complete the application process with USPTO, and the trademark becomes a 'registered' trademark, that is when you would use ®.   It might help to go to the USPTO website for information; this is a very short version of a complex area of law.  I also have a beast of a book entitled 'Guide to Registering Trademarks' that we can refer to once you have a better idea what you want to proceed with and register.  In the meantime, use the symbols liberally.


On the apple computer, if you press the option key then G, you get ©.
If you press the option key then 2, you get ™.
If you press the option key then R, you get ®.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/403808/Photo_20.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXme4nuyS5 Jessica Floeh flomingo Jessica Floeh
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:09:55 -0800 New Frecipes Logo + 2 Question Survey http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-frecipes-logo-2-question-survey http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-frecipes-logo-2-question-survey
Logocolours

I've reworked the Frecipes logo based on the feedback I received yesterday. Please help me choose a colour scheme by clicking the link below.
http://www.frecipes.net/colourPoll


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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/404214/n721680186_788970_8823.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssTvZPiFIlz Conway Liao conwayl Conway Liao
Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:09:56 -0800 Superhero Collection http://mfadt.posterous.com/superhero-collection http://mfadt.posterous.com/superhero-collection
Supumphero

Here is a new idea I’m thinking of…

Taking stills from comic books where characters are experiencing an identity crisis and combining it with insulin pump imagery.

Here’s a concept sketch:

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/403808/Photo_20.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXme4nuyS5 Jessica Floeh flomingo Jessica Floeh
Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:09:41 -0800 even though i said id stop http://mfadt.posterous.com/even-though-i-said-id-stop http://mfadt.posterous.com/even-though-i-said-id-stop i did another project: http://www.stfj.net/index2.php?project=art/2010/if%20Search%20is%20our%20memory

if Search is our memory
 
what does that mean when we are gone?

Searching the Internet has become the way we remember information.

Much of the time when we need to know something, instead of trying to recall it from our memory, we simply search for it online.

As search engines improve, they become more and more perfect at locating exactly what we want to remember. The basis of these search engines' usefulness is the large quantities of information we share with them about ourselves.

What is unique about this type of memory is that we are no longer storing it in our brains, where it is inaccessible and irretrievable after we are gone. Instead we are collectively storing it in a public space. Where you once had to write a book or erect a building to leave your mark on the world, all you need now is an email address.

Searching the Internet has become the way we remember each other.

As Google is holding fast as the most used and most accurate search engine, one could now say, 
"You're never really gone until no one Googles your name."

If machine memory is replacing and superseding conventional memory in this way, how does machine remembrance relate?

If the only thing that now stands in the way of the immortality of our ideas is whether or not we are Googled, how much does it matter who or what is doing the Googling?

What is the significance of being remembered by a machine?

What is the significance of being forgotten by one?

if Search is our memory is a robot that once a day remembers a name from it's list of names. It does this by Googling that name, browsing around in the results, and saving the information it found temporarily to it's own memory as a file. This file is then replaced with a new memory the following day. It never shares what it has found with anyone, only briefly retaining the information for it's own pondering.

if Search is our memory is currently remembering 9 people.

----------------------

I also started planning out my exhibit. I laid it out in sketchup and discovered that i am asking for 15-20' of wallspace, which is kind of intense
Installation

-zach

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Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:12:08 -0800 new pdf http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-pdf http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-pdf I just created this new pdf for testing, feel free to try out signing up, chatting with Josefina and looking at her profile page. A small note is that when it is "Calling Josefina" please just click your right arrow key for the next page. The idea is that once Josefina answers she would automatically appear.

Thanks for your help :-)

Hilary

converso11.pdf Download this file

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdKynkM32a2iS hilaryamelia hilaryamelia hilaryamelia
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:18:48 -0800 Duct Tape Prototypes http://mfadt.posterous.com/duct-tape-prototypes http://mfadt.posterous.com/duct-tape-prototypes I created 3 different prototypes for Beth's design solutions out of duct tape. This is a quick and easy way to figure out functionality and form, I think I will continue doing this until I feel comfortable with the design of the objects. I'm hoping to meet with Beth this week and also reach out to other women I met last week during the support group meeting for young diabetic women. All of the women there wear this pump, the Medtronic Minimed, and would be good user testing subjects.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/403808/Photo_20.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXme4nuyS5 Jessica Floeh flomingo Jessica Floeh
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:22:30 -0800 Brainstorming Additional Ideas http://mfadt.posterous.com/brainstorming-additional-ideas http://mfadt.posterous.com/brainstorming-additional-ideas

Quick secondary post: while I've been writing I have also been thinking about additional things I could make. Most are just starts of ideas, or issues that I think would be interesting to explore. As always the names are mostly internal and the first thing that popped into my head:

  • Search Roulette: We operate under the assumption that search engines have no agenda and are impartial in returning content to us, but this is not the case. We prioritize content based on Google's ranking system without understanding how it works or it's agenda. Google prioritizes advertised results at almost every available opportunity and uses abstract ranking algorithms which are actively exploited. How do we know that the 1st result on Google will really be more informative to us than the 100th? What are we missing by operating under Google's assumption of reality?Jia Zhang's (DT '09) thesis Googlist is a great precedent for the types of questions I've been asking myself with this. The initial direction I thought of focused on the idea of randomizing or shuffling Google's search results for a given query. Without having Google's ranking system to rely on, would we spend more time analyzing results ourselves and making our own judgements about what is useful for us? Unfortunately Google's Search API is written in AJAX. My only familiarity with AJAX is the cleaner, not the programming language, so it's taking me some time to figure things out.
  • Sleepy: I have a few prototypes that explore the availability of data but this one has it's own agenda born out of my own experiences. Having instant and any-time access to data is seen as positive, but what are the side effects of this availability? It's like dining at a 24/7 all-you-can-eat buffet: if no one tells us to take a break, will we stop on our own? I was thinking about this idea of down time, and how we only see it implemented on the web in an abstract form - when adminstrators pull sites temporarily for "site maintenance" purposes. I thought it would be interesting to create a website that goes to sleep and wakes up like people do. It was inspired by my amusement over Gmail's 8-bit theme, which alternates between a "day" and "night" version of it's backdrop depending on the time of day. Returning to my eating/gluttony metaphor, it would be a way to prevent "midnight snacking" and help make people aware of their usage patterns. I envisioned an animation of digital sheep hopping over a fence, with each sheep counting down to the time when the site would be "active" again.
  • Back to the Future: At the Transparent Text symposium I attended last semester, one of the speakers asked a great question in jest: "What was the great tweet of 2009?" I interpreted it as a commentary on how short our attention spans are and the virtual "shelf-life" of the content people are producing. It led me to consider an experiment based on several questions: how interesting or relevant is my Twitter feed from 6 months ago? If I followed this time-delayed feed on a daily basis over a week, let's say, would what I discussed then still be important to me now? I'm going to just go ahead and see if I can grab that data to see what my stream from 6 months ago looks like. It led me to consider a service that would subvert our emphasis on real-time: What would Twitter be like if we could write tweets now but they wouldn't appear on our feed until 6 months later? Would we still write about mundane events of our day, or would we take the time to write about more thoughtful and engaging content? I think this could be really interesting as a commentary on the effects of real-time communication on the content we are producing.

That's all for now, feedback would be appreciated, I know it's a lot to read but hopefully there's some interesting nuggets in there! Thanks.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/420314/headshot2_100x100.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXmemZ4nuh Kunal Patel kunaldpatel Kunal Patel
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:21:00 -0800 Concept Brief Writing & Additional Research http://mfadt.posterous.com/concept-brief-writing-and-additional-research http://mfadt.posterous.com/concept-brief-writing-and-additional-research

Since my presentation last Tuesday, I've been focus on improving my concept brief and refine my argument so that it is focused and articulate. Based on how I was responding to questions raised during my feedback, it became apparent to me that the statements I was making were still too broad or provided the wrong intention. In order to revise my concept brief, I tried to answer the questions laid out in the Concept Brief .pdf located on the thesis site in 1-2 sentences each. This is my first attempt at answering them, and once I had this down I moved on to brainstorming in Sharpie on a roll of trace, and then I'll re-visit this exercise again:

  1. What is the premise or known circumstances you are addressing?
    “Web 2.0" designs value the information content of the web over the individuals producing it. They encourage the production and aggregation of dehumanized metadata.Therefore, our assumptions and expectations about online interaction are based on a machine-centric view of technology whose cognitive effects we are only beginning to understand.

  2. What core question(s) you are trying to answer?
    How can we be made aware of how we take technology for granted?How can we shape technology to fit our needs, rather than the way technology currently shapes us?

  3. What is your argument/for or against something? What are you arguing for with the making of your thesis project?
    Cognition has not been a priority for designers of technology; even though our target audience is human we are creating technologies that cater more to machines.

  4. What is your thesis- or how and why do you think this project will provide an answer to your particular question?What: My thesis is a collection of critical design pieces that playfully undermine our logical expectations of website interactions.How: By subverting contemporary methodologies of web development, users will be made aware of their assumptions of online technology and its cognitive effects.

  5. Why and to whom does your thesis matter?
    Web designers: by questioning the machine-centric priorities of existing development paradigms, while offering models of interaction based on humor and irrationality.Web consumers: reveals how we take technology for granted by subverting our expectations of online interaction. Encourages the user to question their dependency and assumptions about technology.

  6. What are your criteria for success?
    Presenting a curated collection of critical design pieces that encourage discourse about the design and priorities of online technologies.Providing thoroughly commented open-source software modules for each piece for peers to modify and implement.

  7. Provide a list of ways that your thesis will be used and make an impact.
    The functional implementations of each piece will encourage discourse about the validity and priorities of contemporary web design methodologies.Open-source software modules of each piece will encourage experimentation and inspire fellow designers to rethink their focus on information over the individual.

  8. Provide a domain map of the fields you are studying
    Media Theory, Cognition, Web Design, Internet Art, Critical Design

  9. What are the mediums you are working in and why is this the design and technology approach the best way forward?
    Working in purely online mediums because my interest is in promoting the awareness of our assumptions about technology and reforming the priorities of designers of such technologies.

  10. What is the previous work or model(s) you are building on and advancing?
    Advancing the work of critical designers and Internet artists who produce work by subverting or manipulating aspects of online technology. Examples include:

    • Steve Lambert's Add-Art plugin for Firefox

    • Michael Mandiberg's Oil Standard plugin for Firefox

    • Hoss Gilford's It's a Clock application for the iPhone

    • Aram Bartholl's “Are you human?” art installation and business cards

    • Matt Sly & Jay Patrikios' FutureMe.org:e-mail your future self online service

I know these answers are still dense and abstract, but I'm working on refining them so I can clearly articulate my positions. Part of that process has been doing some additional research into media theory focused on the Internet. I've started reading 2 books: The Future of the Internet (and How to Stop It) by Jonathan Zittrain and You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier. The latter I've already found useful, as it is Lanier's manifesto against Web 2.0 designs. His focus is much more socialist and economical than mine, but I believe I will be able to draw upon his rhetoric for my own purposes.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/420314/headshot2_100x100.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXmemZ4nuh Kunal Patel kunaldpatel Kunal Patel
Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:30:44 -0800 New Vis Work http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-vis-work http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-vis-work I've been working all weekend on putting down a solid visualization of baseball games that gives an informative overview of exactly what happened in a game in the least amount of space available. I want to give a variety of ways to view a game in order to get the most out of it, but first and foremost I want to provide a simplified overview of all game events that shows the flow of the game and allows people to see exactly what happened.


I started by trying to classify events and think of how that I can rank them each in a way that will allow me to show them in a linear way that both unifies them per team as well as shows the magnitude of each event. In this idea I thought about the major possible events and ranked them according to the impact they have on the game, form the perspective of the batting team.

Tier 5: Homeruns,
Tier 4: Triples
Tier 3: Doubles
Tier 2: Singles
Tier 1: Walks/Stolen Bases
Tier 0: Outs


I had to revise this several times after experimenting with it, mostly due to issues wtih classifying walks/stolen bases and singles. At first I thought that I could get away with putting them in the same tier, since they all result in the player moving up one base. I then realized that there is a clear difference between the two. While walks and stolen bases both advance the runner towards scoring position on the diamond, singles put the ball in play, which can result in RBIs. Walks can sometimes result in an RBI if the bases are loaded but even this is restricted to one run, while a single can drive in up to three runs.

After coming up with this classification, I began to work on a circular visualization of events that classified them according to a number of criteria. While in concept this made sense to me, in reality it turned out to look somewhat interesting but really show a lot of nothing with a simple look. I also attempted to create an organic shape from this visualization just to see what it looked like, and while this too proved interesting I dont' think it was very successful in showing anything.

PastedGraphic-1.pdf Download this file

PastedGraphic-2.pdf Download this file

I then moved on to the next logical step, visualizing things linearly. I continued with my key of dashes and colors, and while linearly things made a bit more sense it was still not working very well IMO. I experimented with representing outs as negative events at this point as well but I don't think it read the way I intened.

PastedGraphic-3.pdf Download this file

PastedGraphic-4.pdf Download this file

At this point I also created a more organic flow diagram from these charts. I think this actually worked out really well and is a great overall representation of the flow of the game. While it doesn't really show exactly what I wanted from the first overall view of the game a user is presented with, I think it is a great sub-view and something that I'm going to continue to investigate

PastedGraphic-6.pdf Download this file

This is where I realized I was sorta getting caught up in doing the same thing over and over, so I decided to give it a rest and move on the next day.

Today I started working again and had some major breakthroughs. I spent a lot of time working on various visualizations, trying to bring down the amount of data ink used (as per reading Edward Tufte) and began to really simplify everything. I did a lot of different experimenting, and came up with a visualization I think finally works pretty well. I did some quick testing with a few casual baseball fans I know (obviously need to do more user testing but something is better than nothing and I just finished it!) and I was pleased that they could easily recreate the narrative of a game themselves after a very brief explanation which wasn't repeated.

PastedGraphic-8.pdf Download this file

I then worked on some alternate views for this data, all of which I think could compliment the simple overall view

PastedGraphic-9.pdf Download this file

PastedGraphic-10.pdf Download this file

PastedGraphic-11.pdf Download this file

All of this needs more work I know, but I put in a crapload of time this weekend and I think that I am definitely making progress. I also worked with a real data set vs just making things up, which was a bit of a pain in the ass at first but really helped me a lot in the long run. I hsould have been working like this before and I'm glad I am doing it now.
Thats it for now, I also did a good amount of work on the otehr sections of the application but I don't feel like they are ready to show yet so that will be another post.

If you read this please check everything out and let me know! I don't know how easy it will be to match things up in line with the way posterous posts images, so if they are in a gallery and not separated I'll also be posting this on my blog (http://www.vargatron.com/blogatron/) so feel free to check it out there

Thanks!

-Steve

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/405164/floppy1992.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3tpqtgiao0Fj vargatron vargatron
Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:07:59 -0800 Urban Reviewing Updates http://mfadt.posterous.com/urban-reviewing-updates http://mfadt.posterous.com/urban-reviewing-updates PEER REVIEWS
The feedback I received from peer reviews was very positive. The most important point everyone made was that there is a lot of concentration on suicide.
If the view-masters all had suicidal scenes, then the whole thing would become too predictable.
They all expressed that they would rather see more of the small scenes that make the city dark.
Scenes as such included from the feedback for example a person dead or injured on the floor and people passing by next to them without helping them.
Also other examples would be someone stealing a cab from a pregnant woman, or cursing someone behind their back by giving them the finger, and also a man molesting a woman. etc...
They also all liked the idea of the "where is waldo" type of thing and encouraged the scenes to be very subtle, and to have the user possible go through the reel more than once in case they missed something.
A person also mentioned the possible relation the 7 locations can have with the 7 deadly sins as a theme.

And so I think after this feedback I felt like I agreed with the idea that there was too much concentration being made on suicide, and it becomes more about that than about anomie.
So I'm going to take a step back and think of what I can do with the feedback they gave me.

SYMPOSIUM

Thinking of how to present the project at the symposium, I made a floor plan and a photoshop mock up.
I am also working on the poster look and feel (although i am still not sure how the poster fall into place) and the map for the locations of the view-masters.
I attached some sketches that I had made also about the content of the scenes, but I need to revisit that after the feedback I got from peer reviews.

PERMIT

Regarding the permit, I talked to Ms. Emily Colassaco, and it turns out the permit I need falls under ARTERVENTIONS
And here is the link:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/sidewalks/urbanart_prgm.shtml#arterventions
I would need to present documentation of exact locations with photoshop mockup and preferably a letter or signature from parsons.

-Grace

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/403816/Picture_1.png http://posterous.com/users/3ssXmdxvqEWR greyc greyc
Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:21:02 -0800 Friday Update: Feedback Pls!! http://mfadt.posterous.com/friday-update-feedback-pls-0 http://mfadt.posterous.com/friday-update-feedback-pls-0 I've been working in the past week and a half trying to engage with people who keep their tech around. And while the data I found supports that people just have gadgets lying around unused, its been hard for me to find people willing to engage with me. I've harassed everyone I know and posted on ten or so NYC forums/message boards/clist and most people either gave it away before downsizing to NYC apts, still feel like one day they're going to try and get the data/info off their tech so they keep it around or try and use it (a la Zach/Grace/Yoav), want me to pay them money for their old tech, the list goes on...

But what this has made me realize is: a) I'm not really a social scientist and b) why am I waiting around for other people when I am, in part, my audience. My thesis should be personal, like the Song Dong MOMA reference Ethan gave me. This last realization has been the most salient in the past week or so. This has led me to is to really understand what my thesis is:

Recall is a collection of works which explores the different levels of death in gadgetry and ways to cope with the loss in a manner that acknowledges the increasing human-like relationships we form with these gadgets. These works examine my process of memorializing my own collection of unused gadgets and exploring various ways to honor the relationship I had/have with each device.

Specifically, the pieces in Recall are (all titles are placeholders):

1) Death of an iPhone

Death of an iPhone is an exploration of the slow way that new technology melts from our consciousness once we leave what Ryan Block calls "the lust phase." In NYC, iPhone purchases have become so saturated that ATT cannot even keep up with the coverage. In the year and a half that I've owned mine, I've seen so many people with one that over time it's lost a bit of luster in my own eyes. Has this game-changing phone become so ubiquitous that it has melding in with its environment or is the interface and technology no longer novel enough to distinguish it? Death of an iPhone is a ceramic triptych that questions the presence of this gadget by using the metaphor of melting. Using a mold from my own iPhone, each piece in the triptych will show the phone in different states of presence.

2) Adopt this Mac

Adopt this Mac looks at what happens to older gadgets when we buy new one and questions whether or not we act in the gadgets best interests when the device has reached relative obsolescence. Since I purchased a newer computer in 2007, my old desktop has been used less and less to the point that it is no longer being used. Although the natural inclination is to sell such gadgets for money, why is it not to find a better home for it? When a baby outgrows its clothes, we pass them along to another family member; when we have to give up a pet, we find a loving family for it to go to. Adopt this Mac documents my process of finding a good home for my old computer regardless of price, instead putting emphasis on the people who will own this once cherished device.

3) Burial for My Cellphone

Burial for My Cellphone examines the ways in which we part with our cellphones when they have died on us. When we lose any loved one, we memorialize them in different manners: burying the family dog underneath his favorite oak tree or keeping ashes on the mantle. Since we have such constant physical contact with our cellphones, why don't we follow the same burial rituals we would when we mourn the loss of anyone else? After carrying my last cellphone for over three and a half years, it became an integral part in my life. Burial for My Cellphone documents the process of me making a ceramic sarcophagus for that phone and burying it in the city where I formed the relationship with it.

4) Numbers from a SIM Card

Numbers from a SIM Card explores the way that stored data on our gadgets acts as a time capsule for the period we used it and questions the permanence of that data once the technology is obsolete. There is a reason why the ancients wrote on scrolls and carved into tablets: to preserve the information for posterity and capture that moment in time. On a micro level, my old SIM card represents this same type of stored information of the people I was in touch with during the 5 year period I used that SIM card. Yet will a SIM card still be used into the future? Numbers from a SIM Card is a time capsule that is meant to be open in ten years. Its contents will contain the phone numbers written in physical form and stored on the SIM card.

-Jen

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/415072/profPic.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5eCfGZbL6rtf Jen Cotton jencotton Jen Cotton
Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:23:00 -0800 Branding, Surveys, CSA, Wireframe Comps, and a Talk http://mfadt.posterous.com/branding-surveys-csa-wireframe-comps-and-a-ta http://mfadt.posterous.com/branding-surveys-csa-wireframe-comps-and-a-ta

BRANDING: After fretting over a name for my thesis, I am pleased to say I came up with a name I am really pleased with. I was sitting @ Dogmatic eating a gourmet lamb sausage with mint yogurt sauce and then BAM, FRECIPES. To me, Frecipes reminds me of being "fresh" and also hints and recipes. It's pretty fun to say out loud. I've included some sketches and logo concepts below.

SURVEY: I sent out another survey to get a feel of what kind of person eats local. I put together a quick 10 question survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/25R7ZVR) using surveymonkey. I sent it out to all my Facebook contacts (thank you to all who took the survey) and posted it on the Brooklyn Food Coalition NING network I am a part of (http://brooklynfoodcoalition.ning.com/). I received 53 responses. Take a peek at the survey (link above) and here's a summary of the responses:

  1. 63% Female
  2. 50% Age 25-30
  3. 75% get their produce from Farmers' Green Market
  4. 60% say they buy local because it tastes better
  5. 62% start with the ingredients first and then they search for a recipe that matches with their ingredients
  6. 92% would shop more at the green market if they knew what to do with the ingredients
  7. 43% say the quality of the produce is the deciding factor when purchasing, not really the price. Some other comments people had:
    1. "I love a good story. Any specialized information about the produce is a bonus."
    2. "Sentiment for the vendor"

I would assume mostly college educated, or higher, women shop at the green market because they are the ones preparing the food most of the time. Money doesn't seem to be of concern when purchasing and quality of the produce is the most important. They are aware local foods taste better, since it's not being specially bred to survive being transported hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. People also love a good story and would love to know where their food comes from.

CSA: I am pleased to announce I've taken the initiative to sign up for a CSA. There is usually a waiting list to get into a CSA and to my luck, the Clinton Hill CSA in Brooklyn sent me an email informing me of openings. Here's their site: (http://www.clintonhillcsa.org/). I'm really going local.

WIREFRAME COMPS: I've begun to layout what I would like my site to look and function like. These are just really rough comps and are definitely a work in progress. See the PDF below.

TALKS: I work a lot with The New School PR department and do a ton of freelance photography for events, talks, conferences, and gallery openings all over the New School. It gets me out to these events that I normally wouldn't go out to and it's proven to be a great place to network. This past Thursday, 25 Feb 2010, I had the honour of meeting Deputy Secretary of the USDA Kathleen Merrigan, her boss? Barack Obama. She spoke at the New School about the USDA's new Local Food initiative "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYFKYF). I also met Thomas Forster, a professor at the New School and teaches Food Policy. He is also an active member of the Brooklyn Food Coalition (http://brooklynfoodconference.org/2009/06/thomas-forster-5-reasons-why-new-york-city-is-ground-zero-for-food-system-change/). There were a lot of city and state government officials, NGOs, at the talk. I met Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of CENYC (Council on the Environment of New York City), he is basically the head of all the Green Markets in NYC. Marcel's wife works at McCann Erickson and she is working with General Mills on a local recipe web destination. I will be consulting with all of them and tapping their knowledge of sustainable agriculture through my thesis process. The USDA has 500M in grants and loans for sustainable agriculture. The final written form for my thesis will be a grant for funding.

AND...
I've been meeting with Davy Hughes, manager of the Union Square Green Market. He's developing a game that revolves around food and we've been bouncing ideas off of each other on game play dynamics. He sent me an email the other day with the idea of starting a local food film festival. He's been really great! Here's an excerpt of his email:

-------------------
These films are short, quirky, off-beat movies that highlight market bounty and the color therein. The color therein of course being both the diversity of local, fresh product AND the diversity human characters and interactions. The confluence of these two market aspects is where film ideas should germinate.

Films should leave the viewer with a strong sense of Union Square Greenmarket: a place worth frequenting, a place where the unexpected can happen, a place where people interact and connect with each other in a friendly, relaxed environment and of course a place to buy healthful, delicious food.
-------------------

The film festival would probably air sometime near the end of summer, perhaps in Union Square.
 

splash01.pdf Download this file

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/404214/n721680186_788970_8823.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssTvZPiFIlz Conway Liao conwayl Conway Liao
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:14:08 -0800 new sketches for Converso http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-sketches-for-converso http://mfadt.posterous.com/new-sketches-for-converso I met (via gchat on account of the weather) with my thesis advisor Mike Edwards today to discuss my new development plan.  I'm still trying to nail down exactly the functionality I want so Mike suggested I create some more rough to lay it all out.  Here they are:  

sketches.pdf Download this file

 It sounds like the chat application might be easier to build if its a plugin inside of buddypress.  I was also thinking that a very low-tech solution might be a simple php application that gives you the skype names of people based on your preferences.  Then the user would just add those names to their current buddy list.  One downside to this though is that if you didn't want to give out your personal skype account you'd have to create a whole other account to use for Converso.  I'm hoping that this week I'll be able to narrow my options as well as get the paper prototyping done.    

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdKynkM32a2iS hilaryamelia hilaryamelia hilaryamelia
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:41:00 -0800 Day 7: Thesis Concept Revised http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-thesis-concept-revised http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-thesis-concept-revised

 "I think it's a good time, before designing for Beth, that you revise your thesis concept. You must expand it since it clearly is no longer about young women and creating social networks. There is a need you would be addressing, a problem you would be solving, so your thesis concept should cover all of those possibilities (as well as your earlier t-shirt ideas.)" - Cynthia 

Concept:

 Socio-psychological issues are common and manifest in different ways throughout a Type 1 Diabetic's life. While insulin pump therapy has proven to be more efficient than injection therapy, the integration of machine with human body often causes anxiety for these individuals. Hanky Pancreas is a fashionable clothing and accessory line that aims to lessen these burdens through inclusive, empowering, and symbolically motivating design.

Argument:

If Hanky Pancreas is successful, Type 1 Diabetics will feel more empowered and less anxious about their illness in social situations leading to overall better health.

Audience:

Type 1 Diabetics who wear insulin pumps (focus on women)


Other Updates:

I emailed Beth asking what she thought about some of the insulin pump product sites & waiting to hear back from her before moving forward.

I have also been reading a lot about a term called "cyborg anxiety"

Historically, the cyborg has stood for the radical anxiety of human consciousness about its own embodiment at the moment that embodiment appears almost fully contingent.  Cyborg anxiety has stood for a panic oscillation between the "human" element (associated with affections, eros, error, innovation, projects begun in the face of mortality) and the "machine" element (the desire for long life, health, physical impermeability, self-contained control processes, dependability).  ~ Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/403808/Photo_20.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3ssXme4nuyS5 Jessica Floeh flomingo Jessica Floeh
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:18:03 -0800 refined wireframes http://mfadt.posterous.com/refined-wireframes http://mfadt.posterous.com/refined-wireframes I just started to play with the interaction a little and see how one of the sketches I made yesterday would work as an application. There are just 3 stages right now.

My next task is to build on to my research and look for information on maintaining a level of proficiency with the language.

-Hilary

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/hdKynkM32a2iS hilaryamelia hilaryamelia hilaryamelia
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:42:00 -0800 Relationships with Cellphones http://mfadt.posterous.com/relationships-with-cellphones http://mfadt.posterous.com/relationships-with-cellphones I wish this were more developed than it is right now but I finally feel like I'm really getting into what I'm interested in. I perhaps should have spent this week creating forms more (as in totally should have!) but I think I've whittled away some generalities for a more specific inquiry:

How can we cultivate a relationship with our cellphones after getting a new one?
What can be designed to lengthen our relationships with our cellphones?

I'm not sure after typing it how it seems more specific but it does. After Cynthia gave me some feedback, I revisited Dunn & Raby's work. I feel a tighter connection with their Placebo Project but it was a good chance for me to go back and reread Hertzian Tales. I think it is useful for me to start thinking of my thesis as a psychosocial narrative, "the unique narrative potential of electronic products...and the idea that behavior is a narrative experience arising from the interaction between our desire to act through products and the social and behavioral limitations imposed on us through the conceptual models they impose" (Dunne 1999).
I think particularly that if I'm thinking about continuing a relationship, then I need to put some more thought into what the preexisting one is. I came across this guy Chris Hollander, who has a unique synthesis of probably the most common one: cell phone as

Img_0237

transition object (see http://tinyurl.com/y8v36tr) replacing a relationship. So what happens when you need to transition from your transition object? My thesis (hopefully). I sort of see them as replica devices that allow you to recycle the phone (am I back here already?) but still keep a sort of relationship with the device. Here are some sketches.

-Jen

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/415072/profPic.jpg http://posterous.com/users/5eCfGZbL6rtf Jen Cotton jencotton Jen Cotton
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:22:33 -0800 Day 7: !!! http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-285 http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-285
Pic_1842

I found magical tape! Almost skin like and feels like skin! And ten times easier than casts, molds, and all that Latex mess. 

Here's the little girl's body & costume. 

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Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:21:00 -0800 Another try at a 3D composition http://mfadt.posterous.com/another-try-at-a-3d-composition http://mfadt.posterous.com/another-try-at-a-3d-composition

I made 7 frames where someone is committing suicide by stabbing themselves in public.
Although I know it's very unlikely for anyone to stab themselves in public, I'm just doing something simple and quick to make, so that I have something  to take tomorrow to Duggal if they can help me make small slide film prints.
Here is the link:
http://a.parsons.edu/~saleg912/storage/thesis/gStabbing.mov.zip

-Grace

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Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:17:59 -0800 day 7, looking at the bar graph http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-looking-at-the-bar-graph http://mfadt.posterous.com/day-7-looking-at-the-bar-graph I think this is too literal, but playing with the ubiquitous bar graph in PowerPoint. The pages/slides before this one suggest that sometimes, PowerPoint is really great in the classroom - and sometimes, it's really terrible.

So what is the difference?

No connection between graph and content, so ... I think I just broke the rule I outlined in the last comment I posted. I like the interaction between the top layer and the bottom, though.

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/406792/hi_there.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3tpzvne9KBJ7 Christina Jenkins christina jenkins Christina Jenkins