Smart Phones

Upon returning from this year's Consumer Electronics Show (an electronics expo so large there is a transportation service that runs through the various buildings), my friend said that Smart Phones are the future of technology.

My flip-phone died last month (RIP) and I have finally decided that I would like to get up to speed with the world and use a Smart Phone. I feel that the way things work in the world is adjusting more and more to Smart Phone lifestyle. For example, I went to a restaurant the other day where you cannot call for reservations (you must email). I have seen QR-Codes blown-up very large and central on posters, alluding to the idea that the real information is to be had via your Smart Phone. I went to a concert in which you were supposed to pre-download an app that allows users to interact in a specific way with a song that would be played later in the show.

I am enjoying my phone and all of the things that are now much easier to do. I am also wondering what kinds of things I am getting lazy about and taking for granted...

Things I can now do with ease using my new phone:
-Use websites made for Smart Phones
-Deposit checks via pic message
-Navigate
-Know which direction I am walking/facing at all times (I love a compass, but usually do not carry a physical one)
-Know/check the weather at all times
-Shazaam! I can hear a song in public and get the name/info
-Digital lists with reminders
-Look up addresses while I am on the way there (before, I would look them up at home and plan my route at the beginning of the day)
-Check product information
-Find online coupons
...

Don't Tell Me How to Look at Things: Pluses and Minuses of the Digital Interactive Displays at the AIC.

+Viewers can partake in further and in-depth research about an object
-Research is limited to what the museum would like to talk about
-Format provides answers, does not necessarily encourage question asking.
-Machines take away from experience of viewing the object (why don't I just research the museum items on my own?)
+Machines can provide other contexts for viewing the objects. For example, the music added to the photos of the monkeys with instruments ceramics. The displays could recontextualize the objects in a humorous setting, in a more casual setting, in a more formal setting.
+Machines provide historical context and backing for the objects.
-Machines don't always provide critical historical context.
+IPads make the Decorative Arts Gallery look contemporary!
-The actual content on the IPads seems archaic
+Format is easy to use and navigate
+Machines can highlight certain parts/details of the museum object
+Machines can draw connections between objects in a gallery
-Machines don't necessarily draw connections between gallery objects and the viewer's experience in the world

Kutiman

I really like YouTube Videos

and so does Kutiman!

Kutiman is a DJ of sorts who compiles and layers YouTube videos into one song. The internet is very amazing and Kutiman knows all about that.

Brainstorming for digital interactive museum project:

-Something that would allow gallery visitors the opportunity to place their own work, ideas, experiences, other medium inside the gallery- creating an opportunity for curating and encouraging viewers to draw connections from their own worlds or ideas.

-A place where viewers are encouraged to leave their responses to the gallery show, maybe in video, writing, or art form.

-A game that can be played such as a scavenger hunt in the gallery.

-I am very inspired by YouTube cover songs. Maybe viewers could create copies of the gallery works and have them stored on the ipad. For example, a photography exhibit could be reproduced in reenacted tableaus.

-?

AIC's website is boring

I once tried to make a website that mimicked the AIC's main website- squares and rectangles, minimal images, a neutral font that is not the hip-kind of neutral (not looking at you Neue Helvetica), and the kind of palette that you might find in a model home, a palette so inoffensive you can't stand next to it while wearing a bright shirt. I think the home page is neat. It has a large photograph of an exhibit in the background (a changing one, I am told that changing images on a front page is hip these days). The rest of the pages are heavily text driven and very minimal, it is slightly reminiscent of a template.

To the website maker's credit, I imagine it is difficult to create a simple seeming website that would serve, much as a white gallery wall does, as a neutral space to the individual stylings of an exhibition. Upon visiting other art museum websites, I found that most of them were also fairly neutral.

Furthermore, museum websites do so many different things! Even just to list the vastly different things they do, I must get organized and use a list format...
They:
-Act as a bulletin board, advertising current and upcoming exhibitions and events.
-Archive old exhibitions and events
-Provide an educational resource online (like image searches)
-Show how you can use the museum in person as an educational resource
-Document the museum's contents
-Encourage you to give them $, via donation, membership, or shopping
-Provide the resources you may need to visit the museum
-Normal business stuff such as employment, news, about, etc.

These are really different areas of concern/use. I no longer am looking down too harshly on the simplicity of the sight. What is really curious to me is the identity of the museum as portrayed by the website. While these colors are in some ways reminiscent of the color of the floor in the modern wing, the pale light and shadows on the grey of the floors of the other wings- there is minimal identity as portrayed by the site. What font is that? What does it say? Do museums have portrayable identities?

40 minute project for Jorge Lucero lecture

I got lost on the way to the MCA. I had been there before, but couldn't seem to find my way back. So, for 40 mins I created a trail of breadcrumbs from the lecture room to everywhere I went in the MCA in hopes that I could find my way back to the room. The breadcrumbs were destroyed, but I did find my way back. At which point I got fattened-up on sweets.

(Original Print) from Jorge Lucero

Personal Ad Jargon Discovered

According to Wikipedia, Personal Ads in Britain are referred to as an ad in a Lonely Hearts Column.
Upon collecting many personal ads from Craigslist today, I decided to familiarize myself with the jargon and abbreviation used in the ads. Below is a short listing of my findings (most are from Wikipedia -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_advertisement):

There are often three letters. For example, SWF, we all know from that movie- but what does DWM mean? The first letter usually describes the relationship status or sometimes sexuality of the person.

• D: Divorced
• G: Gay
• M: Married
• S: Single
• T: Transgender
• W: Woman, Widow or Widower

The middle letter is usually referring to race. Isn't it strange that this is the next most important thing after relationship status? It even comes before gender.

[edit]

• A: Asian
• B: Black
• H: Hispanic
• J: Jewish or Japanese
• L: Latino or Latina
• W: White

The last letter usually describes the gender of the writer.

[edit]

• C: Couple
• F: Female
• M: Male (or Man)
• T: Transgender
• W: Woman

Sometimes there are codes that describe the writer, such as BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) or WE (Well Endowed), but sometimes the codes are just abbreviations/acronyms- such as LTR (Long Term Relationship).

• ALA: all letters answered
• ALAWP: all letters answered with a photo (probably means the advertiser will only reply to letters that attach a photo)
• GSOH: good sense of humor
• ISO: in search of
• LTR: long-term relationship
• MBA: mutual business arrangement
• NSc: non-scene
• OHAC: own house and car
• PnP: party and play
• WE: well endowed
• WLTM: would like to meet
• nnYO: nn years old; for example, 23yo = 23 years old

The most common codes/acronyms I found were as follows (in this order):

1) LTR

2) BBW

3) _D_

4) ISO

Who R U? Presentation

The internet may be one of the most generous forms available for expressing and presenting identity. The internet is blind and users can create their own appearance. The internet cannot hear and so users can create their own voice. On the internet, users can construct their identity. Even identifiers such as community or history subside for a bit and new communities, new histories are constructed.

My original idea for the Who R U? project was to construct a single personality and to present the personality and Prezi using g-chat in an effort to reiterate how an online identity can be so easily constructed. In exploring this idea a little further I begin to feel that the internet allows for construction of exaggerated or false identities as much as it does for revealing what an individual may feel is a truer identity. Blogs and Youtube comments often offer really unfiltered thoughts that aren't said in real life. An amount of ambiguity or lack of responsibility allows for many different kinds of expression. Similarly an amount of publicity can be a free and democratic space in which musicians can post their songs without a record label, artists can display their work without the help of a gallery.

I chose to focus this project on Craigslist Wanted Ads for Dating. I think they present a place in which profiles are constructed and revealing. They are beautiful in that they not only seek to articulate a true-ish identity of the writer, but also seek to articulate a true-ish version of what the writer hopes to find out in the world.