erik burke "memory of names"

Graphic Designer of the NYC Subway Signs Dies at Age 82

2010-01-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

Bob Noorda, the hand behind the graphic design of the entire New York City subway system, died on Jan. 11, 2010 in Milan at the age of 82. In 1966, the Metropolitan Transit Authority commissioned his firm, Unimark International, to modernize and unify the look of the subway system’s signs.

“I remember when Bob came to New York and spent every day underground in the subway to record the traffic flow in order to determine the points of decision where the signs should be placed,” Mr. Vignelli said in an interview.

The existing signs they encountered were cluttered with various typefaces of different sizes.

“Their system was a mess,” Mr. Noorda was quoted as saying. “Sometimes pieces of paper taped to the wall were the only indication for the station.”

More here

Iz the Wiz Dies

2009-06-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Graffiti writing pioneer IZ THE WIZ (Michael Martin) reportedly died last night from heart failure. Iz was one of the most legendary writers of his time and president of The Master Blasters crew. For his dedication to getting up on multiple subway lines from the 70's through the 80's he has been described as the “longest reigning all-city king in NYC history”. You may recognize Iz as one of the main characters profiled in the graffiti cult classic, Style Wars (clip here), most notably with his witty and memorable hooting "this IZ it, this IZ it!!!"

Iz will be remembered as a truly influential figure in the graffiti movement.

My Piece is Still Running // Documentation

2009-06-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

‘My Piece is Still Running’ is a graffiti colloquialism to describe seeing one’s piece pass on a train, an in running, or still being in operation. Even today many graffiti writers will use the phrase to signify that their work still exists. Since I am one to get caught up in words they tend to inform my work. I recall hearing the phrase and entertaining the literal translation of the saying. From here the concept of running the graffiti through the station as a layer on the train began a spark for me. The literal translation offered many solutions to that of alignment, transparency, Debordianism, and reenactment.

The performance "My Piece is Still Running" took place on two separate occasions on two separate train platforms (once at w. 4th in Manhattan and once at Nostrand Ave. in Bed Stuy). I recreated two pieces from real pieces by Dondi and Crash but only performed the Crash piece for some reason. Each piece was painted across the back of 5 shirts to be run by 5 people on the platform. Check the video and don't sweat the technique.

Subway Art @ Revolution Books

2009-05-13T12:51:00.001-07:00

25th Anniversary of Subway Art release party tonight at Revolution Books 7pm.

Writers Bench plaque on NY Subway Official Site

2009-05-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Writers' Bench plaque has managed to slip into the official history books. While looking through the New York Subway site (nycsubway.org) I came across the most recent plaque. It's crazy to see how much it has aged already.

Kings of the City Graffiti Film Festival

2009-05-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Kings of the City Graffiti Festival taking place all this month at the Mayles Institute in Harlem. Films start at 7pm every Wednesday Night.

Installation

2009-05-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Images from the Parsons MFA Design + Technology Symposium. Good Arkansas friends Emmy Butler and buZ blurr pose with Taylor Reid and myself on the 'Writers Bench' replica. I also showed an assemblage of video documentation of the process and projects. And lastly my posse partied their asses off while sticking within a common color theme.

My Piece Is Still Running, (Brooklyn edition)

2009-04-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

Still Runing Nostrand Test 1 from Miss Tint .
thanks to Cathy, Cameron, Nate, Nick, and Taetae for running so fine.

Kazaaam!!!

2009-04-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

The governmental view of graffiti is surgical. A slight nip here, a tuck there, and presto change-o, the place is back to law and order. Instead of trying to understand why graffiti happens in the first place it is painted out of view leading to no questions, no answers, and no deeper understanding of what drives people to make graffiti.

I'm about half way through my paper and finally seeing the link to a sense of place. Some people find it through ownership, others through escapism, and graffiti writers find it through making a city comprehensible, connected, and most of all legible.

Thesis Exhibition 2009

2009-04-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

It's just about here. The Thesis exhibition begins Friday, May 1st (a week from tomorrow) and goes through the weekend. The exhibition is being held on the second floor of 65 5th ave. at 13th St. Symposium with talks, tutorials, and other stressful crap throughout the weekend. Can we just have bags under our eyes and pretend like it is over already.

Sigh.

Atleast the postcard has pink in it and look at that. My project is right over there in the bottom right corner. And, yes and, for some bizarre reason they put a pic of me taking apart a computer. It's true, I despise computers. Lap-topless for life!

Bench Reconstruction

2009-04-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed from the infrequency of posts, I have been out of it. Out of the city out of my grasp of reality. I thought maybe it would give me a little pep in my step if I got back on the whole Thesis thing so the least I could do I figure is back track and show you what was happening a week and half a go. Oh, you are sooo far behind the times my friend.

Here are pics of the construction and assembly of the mock 'writers bench'. I'm no tree-hugger but also not afraid to admit that this bench is created entirely out of pressed cardboard found on the street. At some point I think Yale measured it out at about 10 cubic feet. Not bad considering it all came from one recycling pile in front of an hasidic shop on Lee in Brooklyn. It did however fill up the whole backseat and trunk. All in all, it was a resourceful process where the most expensive material was without a doubt the glue.

After applying a generous amount of glue on each piece of cardboard we stacked them and put under Bowie endorsed pressure. We let these sit over night, sometimes 2 nights before going to town on it with the table saw. The smallest pieces were cut using a jigsaw and additional cardboard was added as a top layer on the end pieces to conceal the notch-work of the screwless support system.

Writers Bench Video

2009-04-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Writing Outline Strategy

2009-03-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

In the Network

2009-03-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

Writers Bench blogged at these sites. Check it out...
Animal New York
as|d labs
Tomo
whatyouwrite
wooster collective
Evil Monito Magazine
Otherground Hip Hop
Tagcrumbs
The Original Crooks
Kounter Kulture
Senses Lost
Montana Cans
Molotow
i Love Graffiti (german site)
england prooper
Guerilla fm

Future Exhibition Possibility

2009-03-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

I just was checking out the amazing book by my flickr homies James and Karla Murray when I came across their show at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Reading further I discovered the BHS 'Public Perspective' exhibition program and noticed how convenient the application date of May 15th was for me and my MFA completion (still pending, grrrr). Their site describes the program as...
'Applicants are invited to propose original, visually compelling exhibits that explore themes that connect the past to the present and make the vibrant history of
Brooklyn tangible, relevant, and meaningful for today's diverse communities. Exhibit concepts should involve a historical, social, cultural, intellectual or political focus.'

(pic by Jim & Karla Murray)

100 posters to get up

2009-03-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

Posters up in a few stations now. Silk screened 2-color posters.

Precedon't

2009-03-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

Stumbled into an ad-hoc art space on 10th ave to see this beauty. Looks like it was made with a few brushes of a chainsaw. This is ill! I think our approach will be more solid and exact to the writers bench shape and scale.

New Structure

2009-03-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

New concept sketch by Yale Wolf

Notes MLU

2009-03-17T22:15:00.001-07:00

images of "Respect"(1993, France) and "Snow Workers Ballet" (2003, Japan) by Mierle Laderman Ukeles.
Go look at Mel Chin's installation at the Broadway + Lafayette station.
When you're out there working on the streets you're not a painter, you're a sculptor. The shirt action is alive, has the spirit in it. You can't improvise it. You have a beginning and an end. You have to direct it, control it to a certain extent. The runners are directly related with the movement of the trains. They're sharing the feeling of being that machine. It is a ballet. Need to rehearse it. Probably 3x. Once off-site, another time at midnight in an abandoned station, and lastly in a busy station. Don't know which will be the best until after doing it.
It's fine to do a private showing at the person's house along the JMZ. Can invite people to experience the piece. Document the experience. You have to do hybrid things as long as you can get a sense of it while being realistic. The structure can't get too distracting. It is a feeling between the user and the train. It correlates to the direct experience and closeness between the huge subways and the riders. It is intimacy with machinery.

-notes from meeting with Mierle Laderman Ukeles, March 17, 2009

2009-03-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

Went to the MoMA and here are some of the works I
found inspiring as I get deeper into the materials for the 'End to End' structure.

Silk Screening Time

2009-03-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

Finished this SubTalk-styled poster today with Yale Wolf. Pulled 100 2-colored posters to get up and out on the streets advertising the Writers Bench at 149th St. + Grand Concourse. It's not a perfect poster but it looks pretty damn good boy!!! More to come.

Spring Break Rocks (The Design Sessions)

2009-03-14T20:15:00.001-07:00

Some new and old sketches and plans for what an "exhibition" might look like.

Still Running Test #1

2009-03-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

So we went to the W. 4th St. Station and tested the preliminary running to the humming steel B D F & V line. Andrea Lira came and shot video, Claudio, Carrie Mae, and Nick were runners. It wasn't long before we realized that we were completely incapable of numerous things. First off, we clearly are not athletes. We struggled to keep up to pace with a train pulling out of the station let alone keep up with it at full speed. Secondly, we realized that we were horrible at staying relative close to one another. We would start as a pack and within 3 seconds be 30 feet apart. It was, well lets just say amusing.

So the solutions, the solutions, I need some solutions pronto. Ok already. First off we need to stay better paced. That means either going to a quieter station with less traffic and slower trains or sticking together as a graffiti-running unit. I don't know if any of you have ever tried running with someone as if you were spooning but let me just tell you, it is nearly impossible. So one option is to stagger the runners, almost in lanes like real runners. From across the platform you wouldn't know that they weren't in a tight line and the spacing would allow for closer and more synced legibility of the shirt/pieces. Another idea that Claudio had was to have two runners that had a cape that stretched between them. The cape would be attached to the shirts vertically and when the two would separate it would open like an accordian allowing for the piece to be seen. The only difficulty with that is that running on the platform already has an air of danger to it and running while attached to another person with a huge wind capturing sheet of fabric may be a bit too overboard. Well, more to come.

Forget Cool Runnings, It's Still Running

2009-02-26T11:47:00.001-08:00

Extrapolating from the common vernacular of graffiti writers is the phrase 'running' referring to the life of their work. For example, if a writer paints a train and the train is traveling around throughout the city, they may say, "my piece is running".

Departing from this phrase I started conceptualizing ways to bring pieces back from the dead and let them run so to speak. What I came up with was a literal play of the phrase 'my piece is still running' that incorporates sections (or pieces) of pieces on several shirts that can be unified when the wearers stand beside one another. Through a synchronized running of the shirt-wearers alongside trains pulling into the station, I can create a moment of playful nostalgia. The action only lasts momentarily but reflects the ephemeral nature of subway graffiti.

Writing

2009-02-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

Taking a nod from the initial writing of my thesis in Paris I began the second round. Now it is becoming crucial to understand the scale of writing my entire thesis by hand and what material I want to write both with and on. I began this morning writing out a new introductory paragraph (very fluffy reading as Jia would say) on a large scroll of 60" wide paper that I dumpstered at the studio. I used Krinks new K-66 metal-tipped markers which are nice because you can control the drips and you get a much finer line than using any sort of handmade or store bought mop. The one draw back was the extremely absorbent paper which tended to blob up more, not allowing for a smooth handstyle or nice fluid drips. I like the fact that it neatly rolls up and has a feel of antiquity due to the scroll referencing but I think some sort of metal may be the aesthetic I'm going for.

Flag Concept

2009-02-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

Holy shit, check this dude Napier out (thanks tipster Lynn*). He has a rad flag project on the Guggenheim site.
Meanwhile I had been elaborating on the flag concept and created an example flag panorama using all the countries beginning with A and B. I'm almost done rendering a finalized video showing the panorama in context. Coming soon.

*Hait

Perspective Shifting Test

2009-02-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

This is a basic video showing the use of a panning projector and uses the internal potentiometer to skew the render plane as well as move it in z-space.

End to End Projection Early Test from Miss Tint on Vimeo.

And don't miss this new gem.

Fun Or Dumb? Graffiti (1976) from Skip Elsheimer on Vimeo.

Flagpedia

2009-02-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

This is my attempt to throw caution to the wind. I've realized that since I am working on a compilation of processes for thesis that my myopic focus on graffiti can and should be widened. After meeting with MLU last week she asked me to consider alternatives to projecting archival graffiti images onto passing trains. One of which became a concept to project a string of the world's flags onto the trains. The consecutive flags would speak to the diverse population in NYC being connected, quite literally through the subway infrastructure. As trains race into the station the projection would ellude to graffiti as the image will be a blur of color and an abstraction of form. As the train slows to a halt at the platform, so to will the projection of the flags, allowing the end-to-end colors to separate into recognizable flags.

Coming from Nevada I have an affinity for gambling, or at least vicarious gambling and phenomena pertaining to chance. This piece would allow for one flag to come to a stop and be "highlighted" for each train. This play would randomize the "highlighted" flag for each time the train stops and hopefully speak to the random countries individuals are from that are waiting for their train.

I especially am interested in the mechanic of chance for a piece such as the flag projections because it allows for an interaction between the viewer and the piece based on odds. As we all know, the individuals waiting for a train are a complex range of individuals from all over the world. Aside from their nationhood these commuters are also a captive audience. The flag projection works on a level to capitalize on this audience and eliminate nationhood hierarchy through the metaphor of interconnectedness while borrowing from the aesthetics of subway graffiti.

The flag tests at the top inspired another test. Below you will find a two-sided image with half the message on the one side and theother half on the opposite. The idea was that with fast enough rotation both sides would dissolve into one another and make a whole. I remember seeing toys like this when I was a kid and thought maybe the subway tunnels could generate enough wind to turn some sort of signage that could reveal a truth. However without the wind the sign would only be a half truth. As you will see from the test below. The first test failed miserably!

Vandal Squad Book + Discussion @ Powerhouse Arena

2009-02-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

The recent release Vandal Squad: Inside the New York City Transit Police Department, 1984–2004 has caused consternation throughout the global graffiti community with charges that author Joseph Rivera is profiting off the very criminals he spent his career incarcerating.

In response, the powerHouse Arena will host a conversation between former members of the Vandal Squad and the graffiti writers, the first such event of its kind. With the intent of providing an open forum for public discussion regarding the methods that the Vandal Squad employs and their impact on the lives of the writers themselves. Panelists include Vandal Squad author Joseph Rivera, former Commanding Officer Lieutenant Steven Mona, original Vandal Squad Lieutenant Ken Chiulli, graffiti legend COPE2, graffiti activist Ket, and street artist ELLIS G. The event will be moderated by cultural consigliere Sacha Jenkins SHR.

Founded in 1980, the Vandal Squad’s mission was to protect the subway system from hardcore criminal acts of destruction like kicking out windows and throwing seats out of train cars. It was only with the Clean Car Program of 1984 that graffiti became the primary focus of this specialized Unit. On a mission to catch those who gained fame under tag names, the Vandal Squad had to identify and locate these individuals cloaked in anonymity (and often so transient they were referred as “ghosts”) using every means available, including the NYPD computer database, Search Warrants, subpoenas, and even vandals themselves. These strategies, and their impact on the lives of the vandals, as well as concerns about the publication of the book, will be the focus of the conversation on Thursday, March 19, from 7–9pm at the powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn.

from whatyouwrite

Graffiti Interactions

2009-02-10T19:20:00.000-08:00

Found an old zine called Tight put out by IGT press for at least over a decade. This was one of the interviews by Tight creator David Schmidlapp with Phase2 and Joe Austin. I'm trying to get my hands on the complete set now.

Adidas did a project called end to end involving 6 graffiti writers: silouette, rime, scien, smart, skore, can2, atom (somehow that came to 7,hmmm). Check out their flash site and be reminded why flash sites are so annoying.

Also check out writers bench a site giving credence to the narrative of the writers bench. It seems a bit dated since the last update was in 2007 with the site being marked as 2005. hmmm. Regardless it gives a nice little history of the bench up at w. 188th along with the bench at 149th + grand concourse. I'm going to try and make it up to the 188th for another location scout. Below are the images from my last trip up to the Bronx.

Form Concepts

2009-02-09T17:31:00.001-08:00

Tag: La Guerre Souterraine

2009-02-09T10:37:00.001-08:00

i love watching this video called 'Stations of the Elevated'. Voyeurism to the fullest and great cinematography.

too live crew the french graff version. long video but worth it. found on MOASPRESS.

Update

2009-02-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

Went back and started reading the basics. I started with the academic, poetic, existencial work "The Faith of Graffiti" by Norman Mailer (first called 'Watching My Name Go By', which Mailer hated) and followed it up with the writer Bible, "The Art of Getting Over" by Espo. (Read it here.) It was good to come back to these manuscripts after having a little hingdisight with the project. I guess hindsight is to strong of a word to use, after all I've only begun dabbling with the first crude prototypes. Regardless I extracted a few quotes and let them nourish some fresh ideas.

"Was it that one could never understand graffiti until there was clue to the opposite passion to look upon monotony and call it health?" (N, Mailer)

On top of that I established my location and will start going back for more ethnographic studies and performances at "the" writers bench. Today was my first time there and just before catching the 2 out of the 149th Grand Concourse stop I saw a swarm of writers passing around a black book. After a minute of indecisiveness I approached the 8 or so kids and asked them if they new anything about the bench. They said "no"-which was understandable since the oldest might have been born in 83-and proceeded to ask if I write. I nodded and caught a quick tag in their black book. I ran off to catch my train and heard there last question, "...yo, you push a crew?"

After going to this site I thought of an installation and performace. I quickly scratched it down in my notebook and began divulging into what would be a proper quote for the plaque. I thought instantly of this...

"When the trains went out the bench stopped being the gathering place it was. And the loss is more than memories. Kings are at a loss for a place to hold court, toys have no place to rub shoulders with royalty and writers in general have no place to be part of a family." (S, Powers)

*Below is a great video debate between Marshall McCluhan and Norman Mailer.

"The artist lives in the present. There is in IBM a phrase...information overload produces pattern recognition... When you give people too much information they instantly resort to pattern recognition. In other words, to structuring the experience and I think this is part of the artist world. The artist when he encounters the present, uh the contemporary artist is always seeking new pattern recognition which is his task for heavens sake. The absolute indispensability of the artist is that he alone, in the encounter with the present can give the pattern recognition. He alone has the century awareness necessary to tell us what our world is made of. He is more important than a scientist." (McCluhan)

"Man resents his new environment...but that doesn't mean that each new environment is not innocent." (Mailer)

"Violence is the quest for identity. This is not to say that identity is bought at it's true price." (McCluhan)

And lastly

"There are 3 sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth."(Bob Dylan)
"There are 2 sides to every boxcar." (colossus of roads)

Bill Brand and the Abandoned Myrtle Ave. Station

2009-01-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

The closed Myrtle Ave platform was home for many years to an artwork called Masstransiscope by Bill Brand, installed in 1980. It was an animated cartoon composed of 228 hand-painted images. According to Bill,

The piece works like a giant zoetrope. It is installed on an unused (now sealed) subway station. It consists of a 300 foot long box with half inch slits placed about 15 inches apart. The box is illuminated from the inside and the images are painted on retro-reflective panels mounted on the inside back wall of the box.

The piece was done as an art project sponsored by Creative Time, a NYC non-profit organization dedicated to art in public places. Masstransiscope was supported by grants from NEA, NYSCA as well as in-kind support from companies that donated materials. It's never had any commercial life, although I've been approached many times by people wanting to make it a commercial venture but no one has ever followed through.

The piece still exists but the last time I checked, the lights were not turned on. It has also been covered by grafitti over the years and though it is protected by a grafitti proof layer, there is no one to keep it cleaned off. I've heard rumors that it was recently cleaned, but I couldn't tell when I checked because the lights were off.(1999)

more at the projects site Masstransiscope

Writer's Bench, prototype one

2008-12-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Writer's Bench, test one from Miss Tint on Vimeo.

Early Form

2008-12-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the crude form built on the embedded potentiometer. Perspective rotation and recession in z-space is up and running. Now use of computer vision yet for train tracking but began the code for it today and will have to add an independent camera with a fish eye to get a large FOV.

Notes: Need to build a base for it. The perspective looks off from ground level. When I held it at eye-level it felt the most natural. Also need to open up the USB slot a little for a better fit.

Started thinking about John Fekner's comment about a sound component. Would be great to add the hooting and hollering or "this is it" sound bit from Style Wars.

Scaling looked good when about 8' back from the track (middle to rear of platform.) ~~Find way to switch at the half degree for pushing back in z-space.~~ done.

Other Viewers

2008-12-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Had a visit to the top of the Rock last weekend with my dad. Got to see the viewers first hand and play with them. Found out they're made by Tower Optical out of Norwalk, CT. Wrote them to get a catalog and find out about if i can get my hands on a stand with out the binocular part. Maybe some sort of endoresement could come out of it. We'll see.

Perspective

2008-12-04T07:20:00.000-08:00

A mathematical theory of perspective drawing could only be developed when the Renaissance freed painters to depict nature in a way closer to what they observed. Florentine architect Filipo Brunelleschi (1337-1446) studied Greek geometry and developed a theory of perspective that he undertook in paintings to apply his geometry. Leone Battista Alberti (1404-72) wrote the first treatise called Della pittura(1435) which explained most of the rules. A complete mathematical treatment De prospectiva pingendi (1478) was given by the Italian fresco painter Piero della Francesca (1410-1492). Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)incorporated geometry in his painting and wrote a now lost text on perspective Tratto della pittura. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) also wrote a text on the practice of geometry Underweysung der Messung mid dem Zyrkel und Rychtscheyd (1525) which was important in passing on to the Germans the Italian knowledge of perspective drawing. In it, Dürer invented several drawing machines to teach perspective. Alberti was first to ask if two drawing screens are interposed between the viewer and the object, and the object is projected onto both resulting in two different pictures of the same scene, what properties do the two pictures have in common. This question prompted the development of a new subject, projective geometry whose exponent was Girard Desargues (1591-1661). Desargues studied perspective geometry from a synthetic point of view, meaning he built up the geometry from axioms about points, lines and planes.

Loretta feedback

2008-11-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

Yo check it. The alternative project is way for fun. Iron-on transfer an entire piece to scale on several t-shirts. Co-ordinate about 30 people to run in synch and order when a train passes to align the graff. This one has Improv Everywhere written all over it.

Your narratives get at authentic illustrative detail from the inside out – not just telling about something. That’s not easy to do. Stories are after all pictures in words. Seriously, Erik: write stories!

References

2008-11-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

Jon Naar, "The Birth of Graffiti" presentation
Austin, Joe , "Taking the Train", (2001)
Bello, Manuel, “Blek Le Rat Interview”, Fecal Face Dot Com, April 02, 2008, accessed on December 4, 2008. http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1056&Itemid=92
Castleman, Craig , "Getting Up; Subway Graffiti in New York", Cambridge: Mit Press, 1986.
Chalfant, Henry and Cooper, Martha, "Subway Art", London: Thames and Hudson, 1984.
Cole, Herbert, "Heraldry", (1922)
Herdg, Waltar, "Archigraphia", NY: Hastings House, 1978.
Heller, Steven, "The Pixacao Epidemic", 2008.
Hoffman, Joseph,”The Old Masters of Tel Aviv”, Forward; The Jewish Daily, Feb 18, 2005. http://www.forward.com/articles/2958/
Edit deAk (with Ramellzee), "Train as Book: Culture is the most fertilized substance," Artforum, May 1983.
Diserens, Corinne , ed., Gordon Matta-Clark, 2003.
Fekner, John , "Beauty’s Only Screen Deep", 1983.
Fricke, Jim and Charlie Ahearn, eds., "Yes Yes Y’all", 2002.
Groninger Museum, Netherlands, "Coming from the Subway. New York Graffiti Art", 1992.
Hager, Steven , "Hip Hop", 1984.
Lefebvre, Henri ,"Writings on Cities", 1996.
Mailer, Norman , "The Faith of Graffiti", New York: Praegar/Alskog Publishers, 1974.
MASS MoCA, "The Interventionists", 2004.
McFee, Josh , "Stencil Pirates", 2004.
Miller, Ivor , "Aerosol Kingdom", 2002.
Moore, Alan with James Cornwell, Julie Ault, ed., "Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985", 2002.
Powers, Stephen , "The Art of Getting Over", 1999.
Rose, Aaron and Christian Strike, eds., "Beautiful Losers", 2004.
Schmidlapp and Phase 2, eds, "Style Writing from the Underground", 1997.
Schwartzman, Allan , "Street Art", 1985.
Varnedoe, Kirk , “HIGH LOW”, Museum of Modern Art,
Walker, Rob , “The Buzz Guru,” Inc magazine, August 2003, accessed online.
Upski Wimsatt, William , "Bomb the Suburbs", 1994.

Sites of Interest / Research

2008-11-26T08:44:00.000-08:00

That 70's Show has a great list of contributing artist put on my Powerhouse Books down in Dumbo. John Fekner, who's Industralia & Wheels Over Indian Trails project is found above, also curated a nice exhibition back in 1995 for the Hillwood Art Museum and can be found at Street Art Museum. Below is an excerpt from his Curator forward.

" Since the emergence of environmental, conceptual and graffiti art in the seventies, creating public art without an official permit or community board approval has intrigued a bevy of artists living and working in New York City. The most strategic locations to site their work were architecture-based; abandoned industries, the subway system and other underground infrastructures. While most city dwellers were asleep or going about their business, artists were diligently pursuing their nocturnal muse under cover of night in handball courts, factories, storefronts and subway yards in search of the ideal location. Trains were the preferred and perfect target: ‘moving walls’ that could be seen by the public at large the very next day within all five boroughs. Major projects could be easily completed on moonless nights and over long holiday weekends when city agencies operated at minimal staffing.
This exhibition presents a selection of artists who have examined and integrated the walls of New York City as an essential element within their creative investigations. The grid of the city constitutes a living canvas, a nexus for exploration, reflection and contemplation. Although the artists are not philosophically related, they share a fervent desire to reach a wider and diverse audience."

Later on in the catalog he goes on to explain,

" the changing characteristics of our ‘surround wall environments’ of brick and mortar to newer semi-translucent boundaries. Whether they are constructed of brick, stone, projection screen or transparent scrim, walls may be perceived as a border or barrier, viewed as either inclusive or exclusive, depending on what side of the wall you are on."

New Direction

2008-11-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

After peer reviews I got a lot of feed back to reconsider using digital technologies. People were concerned with the quick solutions of a projector or an LCD screen. Instead, they wanted my to put some of my old work into this new project. They wanted me to be creative with tools that did not rely on so many electronic components.

I've been feeling the same way about it but tend to keep running into a wall. I know where I started with zoetropes and other visual illusions is where I want to hove I just don't know exactly how. It was directly after peer reviews that I had a new concept. This idea blew me apart for how basic it was. Since then, I have had many iterations of it all in various forms and I'm excited about a compilation of projects that all deal with the same topic. This way I won't through away all the work I've done so far and can show various scenarios on the same topic.

Sketches and Notes

2008-11-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

Here are the raw notes for some of the ideas I'm currently working on. A lot is tracking and trying to figure out math for the back end stuff. There are also a lot of funny imaginary Max patches showing how much I have already forgotten. But I've got max 5 now and got my bearing back, for the most part, and have got a working version reading the potentiometer values.

One problem is that sometimes the Pot only wants to send values up to 580 instead of 1023. So I've built a back up expression object for running a working version when this happens. The device becomes much more reactive in this scenario due to the smaller selection of numbers.

I also went on a subway tour yesterday riding all sorts of trains starting in Brooklyn going to Manhattan, then through Harlem, up into the Bronx, back down to Manhattan and then over to Queens and finally back to Bed Stuy in Brooklyn. A long day of transit. Above all I was scouting out locations for the device/happening*. So far the above ground sections seem the most promising. I especially like the 7 line in Queens and the 4 at and above 149th st. Need to do more research about specific writers on specific lines.

This note page over here to the left was the sketch for the case to hold my laptop and do tests. I already constructed the box and have been trying to secure the potentiometer inside. Lots of problems here but gettting closer. The idea is that the case will give me a great interface for doing on-site tweaking to the code while getting accurate data. This should be completely up and running by mid week.

I'm thinking of changing the device out with a happening which I will detail in the next post.

Display survey

2008-11-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

All your suggestions are in and it looks like 9 is the winner followed by 2, and 4. Thanks to everyone for helping out.

Possible Devices

2008-11-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Rough demo of the LED in action as a signifier to the user of action. These are triggered by certain db levels emitted from the train.

Memorial Def. >>

2008-11-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

A Memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event.

Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures,statues or fountains (and even entire parks).
---------------------------------------------
End To End is a memorial to the emergence and erasal of graffiti on NYC subway cars during the 70's and 80's. The locomotion of passing subway cars triggers archival graffiti documentation which are aligned over the train, creating a brief memory that is as ephemeral as the original graffiti was.

Perspective Manipulation with Potentiometer

2008-11-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Got max patch reading potentiometer through Arduino. Been crunching some math but had an aha moment with the equation that makes everything really easy. Next steps getting the audio db levels read and running into port 2 for jit.op fading in and out.

Rough User Scenario

2008-11-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Van Hoogstraaten

2008-11-06T11:09:00.001-08:00

My love of the dutch extends with today's find of the Hoogstraaten perspective box (left) c. 1660. Two individual views from individual peepholes provided this 3-dimensional view of a contemporary Dutch home. Five walls of the interior 'box' are painted with interior scenes of perspective while the front wall is left open for light.

Samuel Van Hoogstraaten was a student of Rembrandt and studied the writings of Da Vinci. He traveled all over Europe exhibiting his trompe l'oeil-based peepshow boxes. Hoogstraaten also successfully attempted a three-dimensional exhibit in London at the great church at Haarlem.
SAMUEL VAN HOOGSTRAATEN (1627 - 1678)

Henri Cartier-Bresson

2008-11-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

Don't forget what Henri Cartier-Bresson said about Images à la sauvette...

"We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth that can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

Impetus Brief

2008-11-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

I tried writing this on the streets of Paris but only got the first 3 pages written here at le115 residency. The exercise got me thinking that I would like to write my thesis paper on the streets and turn in documentation. I think this would help me flush out concepts more intuitively and keep with the context of my overall thesis.

Transparency

2008-10-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Got 2 LCD screens from Ebay, $1 and $15. Started disecting 'em today to strip them down as bare as they could go. The Samsung 17" had some stripped screws so just worked on the Sharp 14" today. Got it down to the essentials. It seems like I can unpeel the tinted filter but wanted to keep it on til I got it holding an image.

My Research is Sooo Underground

2008-10-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true. I do keep it underground. But not as much as the awesome gangster meets wrestler in the congo named fellar, Bob Diamond. Apparently Diamond discovered a long-lost tunnel running under Atlantic Avenue between Boerum Place and Hicks Street when he was 19. Visiting the forgotten history books he learned the tunnel was built in 1844 as part of the Long Island Railroad’s main branch from Brooklyn to Long Island. Walt Whitman had described the tunnel as “dark as the grave, cold, damp and silent.” As Bob Diamond flash forwarded a few decades he went on to creat the official Tour assisted by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and Brooklyn Union Gas. More here. Or call 718 941 3160 to talk to a wonderful older woman who can sign you up for the tour. Next one is yet to be announced but will be on a Sunday in mid November @ 1:30pm. Cost is $15.

Another "first" was built secretly by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869. His Beach Pneumatic Transit only extended 312 feet but was constructed right under the nose of "Boss" Tweed at Tammany Hall where the subway travelled between Warren Street and Murray St. on Broadway. It was built by a secret group working 58 long nights through the basement of the Devlin Shop and unveiled with ornate chandeliers, fish filled fountains, and possibly chocolate dipped strawberries (speculation).
The station now is long gone, replace by the BMT City Hall station. Many conspiracy theories describe surviving portions of the tunnel as well as whole subway cars. Even Ghostbusters II makes a reference to the pneumatic railroad.

The best account of the complete story is on the Columbia Univ. site here.

Red Bird Retirement

2008-10-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

I just read this article on the Gothamist about how they have been dumping outdated subway cars off the coast of Virginia to create artificail reefs. The Virginia Government page goes into the specifics describing how in 2003, 150 subway cars from the New York City MTA made their way to Virginia and then the bottom of the sea.
"For over 27 years, Mike Meier, director of VMRC’s Artificial Reef Program, has been locating appropriate materials for use as artificial reefs and suitable locations on which to sink them. Virginia’s Artificial Reef Program receives much of its funding from the Virginia Saltwater Recreational Fishing Development Fund and is one of the most popular programs funded by these license monies."
These trains termed Red Birds, make their way over from the MTA’s 207th Street Overhaul Shop on the banks of the Harlem River by barge before being sunk for good. Reading about this I couldn't even begin to fathom how they would get to this point. Why wouldn't they just sell them for scrap?
"After investigating numerous alternatives such as re-sale and scrapping, he came up with the idea of “reefing” the cars. He learned that coastal reef programs are always looking for structure that is durable, stable, will provide a surface for fouling organisms and interior habitat for fish such as tautog and black sea bass. Further research with environmental authorities indicated that the cars could be prepared so as to make them environmentally friendly. His idea made good sense. It was tough going at first, but the State of Delaware was the first to jump on board, followed by Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia."

Mid Term Feedback

2008-10-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Sven // Need to consider the implications of graffiti and its relationship to NYC at that period of time. It was not a period of NYC. It was a scary, horrible time and I have to ask if that is something that I should be focused on. Although it appeals to a certain demographic it has a negative connotation to an even larger demographic of people who would not like to remember that time period.

Thoughts // Considering the time period and the dire stait of NYC I think that it is befitting to try and memorialize that time period. If anything isn't that what memorials are about. Illustrating the consequences of horrendous acts and how they were overcome. I'm not trying to make the comparison between my project and projects that memorialized world shattering events but I am trying to insinuate that the function of a memorial is to bring into question the capabilities of humanity, both good and bad.

Sven // Precedent check out Glendon Jones' zoetropoe

Me // I ran into Glendon right after the presentation and he showed me the above link. It was nice to talk to him about new approaches for the zoetrope and rererethink if I want to go this route.

Chris // I should think about documenting my process and turn my piece into a narrative of the directions I end up travelling. Look into the Denver Int'l Airport train piece by Bradburn to see how not to design.

Me // I just got lost reading conspiracy theories about the Denver Int'l Airport. I was amazed to google map the location and see that the aerial image of the airport actually does make a swastika!

Chris // It is not a thesis to justify my graffiti compulsion and attempt to glorify it. However, I should refocus on my thesis to maybe something like the reappropriation of space. Because I shouldn't downplay my personal instincts to creat works for me. Why should I make a memorial to something I wasn't a part of when I could operate on a more personal creative level.

Marko // Think out my user scenario further and illustrate exactly what I envision before I move forward with any sort of new prototype.

situation + user/ intended audience
how users would interact with project:
designer’s proposal
a narrative/ storyline
precondition/ motivation
instructions

NARRATIVE USER SCENARIOS

associations/ references
questions you hope the user comes up with
how do you want the audience to feel
outcome - what do you hope the audience walks away with

Sketch

2008-10-20T13:05:00.001-07:00

LCD Strip

2008-10-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a hi-tech bar in Vegas huh? Well not quite. That is what I'll be doing this week. Just purchased these two LCD Screens on ebay for $15 and $1. Should be here on Wednesday and then it will be disassemble time as I try to strip them down to just the screen to make a transparent monitor. Then it's figuring out how to backlight enough to see the image without obstructing the view through the screen.

Jim Le Fevre

2008-10-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

All I can say is wow! Claudio fwded me a clip of phonograph zoetropes by Jim Le Fevre. What I like is how simple they are but effective. They are also pretty cool in the fact that they reappropriate turntables to create quick and contained cyclical loops. Sounds familiar to something else that reappropriated turntables for loops. Oh yeah, hip hop! It would be cool to expand on the duration of the loop by introducing mobius structure to it.

As Jim Le Fevre says, "Joseph Plateau, a Belgium Chap or physicist"explains how in 1826, Pateau researched the Persistence of Vision and came up with the initial zoetrope which he called the Phenakistiscope. Read more about the History of Animation here.

Le Fevre builds on the persistence of vision by using a turntable which revolves at 45rpm and is filmed by a camera at 25fps and composed of 33 images (frames). Le Fevre recommeneds Masterpieces of Animation released in 1826 by Steven Herbert.

Stereo Optics

2008-10-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

Nick is yet again my guinnea pig for another silly experiment. I bought two door peepholes and liked the effect of using both at the same time. So I figured out the angles and drilled out a 2 x 4 and inserted the eyepieces. The effect works well and creates a heightened awareness of our 3-d world. It's really funny because all the testers make some sort of statement like, "woah it looks real", or "everything is 3-d now", when isn't everything already pretty damn 3-d?

After I made the above and posted it on flickr I got a cool lead from Cassidy Curtis, a camera aficianado from SF. Check the comment and link to his telestereoscopic, or Eye Stilts as he also calls it. And also check out his amazing site Graffiti Archeology.

At this point I'm working on splitting the vision into two realms, similar to Cassidy's Eye Stilts, but instead of using a second mirror to refocus the users vision into a unified direction I want to test compositing opposing directions that share similar dimensions. So basically it breaks down to this. You look through the stereoscope. Your left eye hits a 45 degree mirror and goes to the left. Your right eye hits a 45 degree mirror the other direction and goes right. On the left I will have a zoetrope spinning a white form that looks like an animated train line. On the right will be a zoetrope of the same dimension spinning imagery of graffiti. The question then is will the users eye merge these two images together and place the content of the right on the form of the left. If this is possible I will continue researching composite stereoscopics.

Zoetrope Test

2008-10-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

So I started out with some cheap ceiling insulation ($2), a lazy susan, and some thumb tacks. I thought that out of this I could surely assemble a contraption to test different zoetropic effects. Wrong! I quicklly learned how crappy the bearing were on the lazy susan and wished that I had just bought some spinner rims instead.*

So that's when I reverted to my tried and true power drill. Over the years, and yes there have been close to 30 of them now, I've come to realize that when you don't have that thing-of-a-jig that you needed from Home Depot, a power drill usually will do the trick. Or duck tape. Or if all else fails, a good excuse. Without those three items where would the human race be?
*My next test will undoubtedly involve spinner rims, Jay Z, and Bed Stuy.

Test of Vision

2008-10-17T11:36:00.001-07:00

This is a test I did on my room mate to see if he could see images shown for short periods of time. After the test I found some good research by the military [the military has all the best research(i wonder why?{duh})] showing how they showed images of planes at 1/220th of a second and pilots not only saw the image, but could identify the plane. That's beyond just recognizing. And even beyond respecognizing! But identifying something that flashes before you at 1/220th of a second. Holy crapanoid!

So my humble test flashed images at the fastest rate final cut would allow, which was 1/29th of a second (pretty measly in comparison). Regardless it got me thinking and researching more about how we perceive the world and how we perceive the world through the television/computer medium. From here it just gets way nerdy dealing with NTSC, PAL, interlacing vs. progressive, the retina, and rods, cones, Hertz, motion blurr, after images, and more. I would tell you more but I got to work on my ppt now.

Subway Projections coming to NYC

2008-10-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Following the news that garbage trucks would soon be creative canvas for advertisers, and with ads already in and now around subway cars...it was only a matter of time before the interior subway tunnels themselves became a money-maker as well. Read more here at the Gothamist.

And more at the NY Times.
and subwayblogger
and don't forget second ave sagas

Digital Direction

2008-10-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

Just put a bid on this LCD screen so that I can strip it down and try and create a transparent screen for viewing archival train video. Here's an instructables page for how to do it.

At this point I've got to not only strip down the screen and hope not to short, break, scratch, or damage anything, but i've also got to dive back into Max and start coding the tracking. Building it site-specific would be the way to go because then I can just take into account a fixed speed and angle for the video to travel along. This would then be manipulated by the users panning of the kiosk device as they follow the passing train. The other route is to just plunk a camera into the kiosk and do some blob detection and implement some key command/trigger system that adheres the video to a blob. This would work best at night since the interior lights of the train give off great shapes and direction to track.
The other component is the absolute rotary encoder at the base of the monitor that would give max info for skewing the image to match the panning of the kiosk device. I'm looking into something that will give me 180 degrees of pan. Woah.

So everything above is way digital. It's a beast. But it's why I'm in a Design and Technology program. However, in the program I've found that Technology is a vague concept that has way more connotations to computers then it does to innovative tools. After all, technology means something different depending what period of time you ask someone. At one time for example, technology meant the wheel, another the hammer, or fire arms, or the automobile, and on and on. There is no definitive technology. Yet there are technologies from an urgency to innovate or reiterate.

So that being said, I'm not throwing the hat in on non-digital techniques. I'm just doing a comparative study. After all I'm fully in love with hand-crafted techniques and real space. For example, take a look at this 3-d turntable zoetrope Claudio forwarded me. I think really I'm interested in how the digital can be stripped down and rebuilt with some dirty, messy, real life imperfections that remind us that we are human. Just like a graffiti'd subway train that adds a little life to an otherwized sanitized cultural experience.

Subway Documenters

2008-10-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

Need to touch base with new contributers and set up a larger template that can be additive and collective. Would be nice if the memorial could give the user a choice of what year they would like to view and what region.

Experiment/Research 2: Look and Feel

2008-10-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

Current Thesis Concept

Memorials for Endangered Languages: Zoetrope of 1980's Subway Graffiti

Design Question

Challenge to make a permanent object that creates ephemeral moments continuously.
How to reintroduce subway graffiti from the late 70's and 80's back to the subway cars of today?
What is the lowest amount of frames I can use to make a fluid animation?
How can I create a self-sustainable strobe light?
Can animations and non animations work when viewed in tandem?
Will the animated subway graffiti look believable when aligned over the top of real passing subway cars in the background?
How will this change the perception of the viewers?
Should this be based more on an installation as opposed to in the field?
Will this live later as a field study documentation? Can it be installed permanantly?
Why it is important to make a project dealing with endangered and extinct languages?
What other languages are endangered?
What other languages have gone extinct already?

Background Research

The earliest Zoetrope was not called a zoetrope. It was created in China around 180 AD by Ting Huan. Propelled by convection, Huan's device hung above a lamp and the rising air turned vanes at the top from which were hung translucent paper. Pictures on the panels would appear to move if the device was spun at the right speed. A similar concept was later called Daedatelum by inventor George Horner in 1834. This concept was then remixed again by French inventor Pierre Desvignes in 1860 and renamed Zoetrope. (Greek for "zoo, animal or life" and "trope" for things that turn.

Zoetropes work through the illusion of movement by spinning. This happens because of two things: Persistence of Vision and Phi. Persistence of vision was first noted by Peter Mark Roget in 1820. It refers to the length of time the retina can retain an image. If an image flashes fast enough it will appear to be constant because the retina retains the image long enough to overlap the areas where there is no flashing. Due to this persistence we perceive continuous light when in fact there may be periods of no image at all.

The slots that viewers looks through on zoetropes simulates flashes of light. This creates a strobe effect referred to as stroboscopics. In order for a zoetrope to work the image must be interrupted by moments of darkness in order to create a strobe effect. This allows the retina to perceive still images as animated. If one were not to look through the zoetrope slots a spinning zoetrope would create a blur.

Phi is a naturally reoccuring phenomenon where our brains try to make meaning from what we perceive to such a degree that when we see images close together our brains quickly create a relationship between them. This is most evident in films where editors take advantage of the Phi phenomenon to maximize the continuity of the film and minimize our distractions from the "realness" of the film.

A great example is the animated mural paintings by Blu. His viral video "Muto" consists of thousands of images painted on walls in Argentina and then photographed. However, when they are arranged in an edited video sequentially they read very fluid even though the animation of the paintings are 10 or less fps and it consists of hand held photographs.

Other 19th century techniques are flipbooks, thaumatropes, praxinoscopes, electrotachyscope, and mutoscopes. All these were steps in the developement of film and t.v. And altough modern media technology seems different then these primitive forms they all share the fundamental principle that there must be interruptions. Zoetropes have slots the create stroboscopic effects, movie projectors have a shutter that flash the projector bulblight through the advancing film, video has black between frames comprised of a zig-zagging image from top to bottom twice for each frame. For film projectors the run rate is usually 24 fps, video is 30 fps, old silent films are 16-18 fps.

Prototype Idea

I took the classes feedback from my last presentation to make the memorial more permanent. I have moved away from projecting onto passing subway cars and have been sketching different kiosk-like ways to display the content. It will be done in an analog way but using transparencies and a zoetrope-type device to create an animated feel. The route I'm thinking of going is more along the lines of Ottomar Anschutz's Electrotachyscope(1890's). I like this versions the most because it is designed more for individual viewing but is large in physicality. The device will take on the look and feel of a kiosk and be installed at a vantage point to the trains to make the zoetrope's transparencies line up with the passing subway. Since trains run on two opposing tracks I think the use of a hand crank will be best so that the user can manipulate the device for varying directions and speeds.

Experiment

Using a bicycle wheel and imagery I constructed a crude zoetrope. First I researched other animation techniques to discover what is the slowest frame rate used that still produces a fluid feel. It seems that 10-15 fps is ideal with most digital video now playing at 30 fps, movies theaters at 24 fps, and old cinema at 15-18 fps. Since I will be attaching my frames to the wheel I needed to determine how many frames could fit on a 27" wheel. Also, this calculation would help me determine what size frames to use. A 27" diameter provided an 84.78" circumference of which allowed for 85 frames cut to 1" width. If the bicycle wheel rotates at 15 fps that provides 5.6 seconds of video before it loops. This seemed adequate enough to display subway graffiti on a passing 6 train subway car. It also seems like a great size to align up passing subway cars. If it were larger the installation would have to be installed very close to a subway but the smaller size gives more flexibility for possible installation locations in the periphery outside of the subway station.

I began first by attaching 85 numbered white pieces of paper to their corresponding locations on the bicycle wheel. I then filmed various iterations of the motion and animation. At such a small size I ran into problems rotating the wheel slow enough. Since the viewing area is so small the passing imagery seems faster comparatively than if the window was lager. However, with a larger window the imagery needs to be larger and then there will be more frames and a shorter animation.

Next I attached images of the subway graffiti printed on transparencies. I arranged then in 1" x 1" sequential squares that repeated partial sections of the preceding image to give it the sense of movement. I then tested out viewing these images at different speeds and it seemed nearly impossible to clearly see any from of animation. If this scale did work it would need to be a very slow speed.

The speed of the wheel is different however then frame rate. As the wheel spins it may show 1 or 100 frames per second. The problem is that the eye can only perceive so many of those frames before it becomes one blurring mess. This is where stroboscopics come into play. This is also where my crude strobe light (flashing bike light) would not suffice. Again, with the miniature size of the images and the velocity of the wheel I need a strong strobe light that can put out upwards of 50 flashes per second. This would give me a better clue as to the possibility of animation on transparency. From here I could move into testing whether or not non-animated backgrounds will interrupt the animated foreground. Meaning, will the animated subway graffiti look believable when aligned over the top of real passing subway cars in the background?

Observation and Analysis

I like the feel of the zoetrope but need to introduce light to get a stroboscopic effect. Without the flickering there is now way for the retina to make sense of the blurring imagery. Next iteration involves a light and small angled pieces of glass behind the transparencies. Each piece of glass is a bit smaller however so that there is a narrow gap between the glass that creates a flickering of the light being reflected. I think that this would create a stroboscopic effect while maintaing a consistent light source similar to "Dreams of Pastures by Mitchell F. Chan and Brad Hindson where they obstruct their light source temporarily to allow for offset projections of 6 different images of a running horse.

One of the many obstacles i'm dealing with is how to make the zoetrope create an animation that also allows the user to see through it and use the natural background of the city as the background of the animation.

When the mechanics are worked out the final product will be installed in the public space. I would like to follow the clandestine and guerilla techniques of graffiti artists and install the piece illegally. Leon Reid, who previously worked under the name of Darius Jones is a NY-based artist that has done numerous illegal installation pieces. At a recent discussion with him on contemporary art at the New Museum he described his aesthetic of dressing up as a construction worker in an orange vest and hardhat as a way to "subscribe while deviate". In a way his description applies to both the graffiti subculture that he has emerged from as well as the officials that seek to detain him. It is along the lines that Leon Reid has created that I wish to subscribe, or was that deviate.

I have also been thinking if i can do the same thing but digitally and wondering if there are any techniques for showing
digital imagery on a transparent screen? Marko spoke to me about trimming down a monitor and then introducing some LED lights to make an image visible while allowing the screen to be transparent. Worth a try for the next experiment.

New Iteration Idea Cloud
Zoetropic, nickelodeon, Leon Reid, kiosk, memorial, plaque, roll up door, permanent, alignment, vantage point, personal, tourism, window, bronx, crank, duchampian, bicycle wheel, cogs, fortune teller, transparency, Muybridge, Dondi, Mitchell F. Chan, Rotation, strobe, flicker, obstruct, Michael Naimark, connectins of film to trains, lumiere, cranks, tracks, horse width, sprocket holes, etc.

Influences / Precedents

Sasha Archibald, "Ways of Seeing" (Cabinet issue 30, 2008.)
Eve Movement study of a popular Soviet social reform painting by Ivan Repin (1884) illustrating a soldier returning home from exile in Siberia. Following the studies of Soviet Scientist Alfred L. Yarbus that saccades are essential to vision. His logic to the distribution of eye attention, speculate that the eye instinctively gravitates toward details that promise to "explain" an image.

Shimon Attie, "The Writing on the Wall", Heidelberg: Edition Braus, 1994.
Projections in Berlin's Jewish Quarter, Heidelberg, Germany.

Toy Collective, "Zoetrope", Brooklyn, NY, 2007.

Midori Harimi, "Negativescape", Honeyspace Gallery, NY, Oct. 2008.

Blu, "Muto", Buenos Aires, Argentina, March, 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4

Leon Reid, "Adventures of Darius and Downey", Wooster Collective, NY, 2008.

Mitchell F. Chan with Brad Hindson, "Dream of Pastures", Ontario Arts Council, Canada, 2008.

Michael Naimark, "See Banff", Banff, Canada, 2005.

Ideas

2008-10-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

Possibitilites
Instead of physical images I could go digital and display on a small monitor embedded in the kiosk viewfinder. I could use the crank and wheel to send a speed into a program that would control the motion of the visual. Also could allow the user to search the database for images they want to see and then create an algorithm to turn them into animations.

Problem
A video monitor doesn't allow for transparency so that the viewer can see the trains passing by in the background.

Going back to analog I also need to work on a stoboscopic technique. I found a cheap and dirty instructbles mashup of disposable cams into stobes, but it sounds like it won't strobe enough.

Video Prototypes

2008-10-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

Rolodex

2008-10-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a large rolodex nowadays. The only place was up on 31st and was selling it for $60! So I just made a quick video to get the idea of the movement and start trouble shooting ways to keep the images from blocking one another.

Mechanics of a Rolodex from miss tint on Vimeo.

Interview w/ Midori Harimi

2008-10-06T13:25:00.001-07:00

After stumbling upon Midori Harimi's show "Negativescape" at Honeyspace, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. So I just emailed her to ask more about it. Her work involves creating white sculptures to-scale and then pasting zerox copies on top. What seemed important for me was the fact that her latest piece uses projection instead of zerox copies to adhere the image to the sculpture. The projection creates a hovering and haunting effect when perfectly aligned with the sculpture.

Experiment 1 Brief

2008-10-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

Current Thesis Concept

Ways to compress history and the present through interventions in the public space.

Experiment Research Objective

The purpose of the Keds experiment is to test an alignment of past and present in a politicized way.

Design Questions
Current Macro Design Questions

What are new and unorthodoxed forms of public space?
How are they different than physical spaces?
What is nostalgia?
How do you gain a larger audience?
Is the internet a more quantitative public space to test work in?

Current Micro Design Questions

How do you maintain the longevity of a viral marketing campaign?
Does the end product benefit or give agency to the victims of Keds?
Does saudade better describe the feeling I am trying to establish than the word nostalgia?

Experiment

Use Keds website to design shoes depicting the worker conditions at the factory. First I searched the internet for information and images of the Keds factory. I then downloaded these images and uploaded them to the Keds Design site where I constructed a pair of Keds shoes. These shoes went on the Keds market place for view and sale.

The company did not like my product and removed it. I reuploaded it to the site and tt was removed numerous times from the market place. I then began an emailed dialogue with the Content Management team at Keds hoping to open up the story and document the process for later dissemination. They never answered my questions in ways to build upon the story.

Precedent Research
Jonah Peretti "sweat shop". MIT Student, Jonah Peretti attempted to get Nike to embroider the word sweatshop on the back of his customized Nikes only to be refused. The whole thing erupted through a viral email campaign based on Nike and Peretti's correspondance that made the int'l media rounds.
Shimon Attie "The writing on the wall: Projections in Berlin's Jewish Quarter". Attie projects images of Jews from the Holocaust era back onto places where the original photograph was made so that there is a compression of time and space.

Implementation

Use tools that are made for the common person. Basic understanding of google image searches. Saving and uploading images found on the web. Navigation of user-generated interfaces. Personal design aesthetics.

Critical Analysis

I walked away from this experiment thinking a lot more about viral media. Looking at Peretti's "sweatshop" project I began to understand meme-making further as a crucial stage in publicity. Although it is perhaps not possible to predict what will become the next big thing in the blogosphere or CNN, it is crucial to understand the power of your audience and what ways to tap into the capability for viral spreading of your project. One example is what Peretti coins the "Bored-at-Work Network"; an audience comprised mainly of secretarial and other office workers who are bored at work andbehind the bulk of e-mail forwarding, link sharing, and commenting that contribute heavily to the distribution of Internet memes.

At the same time it is important to consider what it is that is being spread. Does it have content? What cause does it serve? Why would someone want to share it to begin with? Other thoughts I would have overlooked prior to my experiment is the fact that people generally forward obscure things. for example the chalk artist that always is making those wacky perspecitve drawings. Although you can count on larger viral media such as Palin evading specifics when talking to Katie Couric. So why? I think this is best summed up by Peretti who stated, "the problem, though is that contagious media is usuallyy silly, the opposite of your cause."

When Keds removed my shoe from the market I took it with a grain of salt. Mostly because I was trying to build a dialogue with their public relations department on why they removed it. This dialogue ran parallel to Peretti's dialogue with Nike but I felt that where his was directly insinuating that Nike used sweatshops I was letting Keds directly state that they do through the refusal notices. By putting the ball in their court I hoped to generate a memorable dialogue, then document it in a entertaining way, to lastly spread it virally.

Next Phase

From here I'm starting my project of reintroducing subway graffiti from the late 70's and 80's back to the subway cars. It will be done in an analog way but using transparencies and a zoetrope-type device to create an animated feel. The device will most likely take on the look and feel of a kiosk and be installed at a vantage point to the trains to make the zoetrope's transparencies line up with the passing subway. Since trains run on two opposing tracks I think the use of a hand crank will be best so that the user can manipulate the device for varying directions and speeds. What I like from the Keds experiment is that once the shoes are placed in the on-line Keds studio they are free for other users to adapt. This is why I think the device will be nice as analog for now.

Rust prints

2008-09-30T16:47:00.001-07:00

Found this while waking to Little Cup with Lynn today. Might be interesting to look into ideas of rust transfers for the kiosk/memorial. Random and tangential, but seemed important for some reason.

I ain't trippin' // I'm Zoetrope'n

2008-09-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

The earliest was created in China around 180 AD by Ting Huan. Propelled by convection, Huan's device hung above a lamp and the rising air turned vanes at the top from which were hung translucent paper. Pictures on the panels would appear to move if the device was spun at the right speed.

Later called Daedatelum by inventor George Horner in 1834. Remixed by Frenchie Pierre Desvignes in 1860 and renamed Zoetrope.

Greek for> "zoo" animal or life and "trope" things that turn.

Zoetropes work through the illusion of movement by spinning. This happens because of two things:

Persistence of Vision

Phi

Persistence of vision was first noted by Peter Mark Roget in 1820. It refers to the length of time the retina can retain an image. If an image flashes fast enough it will appear to be constant because the retina retains the image long enough to overlap the areas where there is no flashing. Due to this persistence, we perceive continuous light when in fact there may be periods of no image at all.

A slots the viewer looks through on a zoetropoe simulates similar flashes of light. This creates a strobe effect referred to as stroboscopics. In order for a zoetrope to work the image must be interrupted by moments of darkness in order to create a strobe effect. This allows the retina to perceive still images as animated. If one were not to look through the zoetrope slots a spinning zoetrope would create a blur.

Phi is a naturally reoccuring phenomenon. Our brains try to make meaning from what we perceive to such a degree that when we see images close together our brains quickly create a relationship between them. This is most evident in films where editors take advantage of the Phi phenomenon to maximize the continuity of the film and minimize our distractions from the "realness" of the film.

Other 19th century techniques are flipbooks, thaumatropes, praxinoscopes, and mutoscopes. All these were steps in the developement of film and t.v. And altough modern media technology seems different then these primitive forms they all share the fundamental principle that there must be interruptions. Zoetropes have slots the create stroboscopic effects, movie projectors have a shutter that flash the projector bulblight through the advancing film, video has black between frames comprised of a zig-zagging image from top to bottom twice for each frame. For film projectors the run rate is usually 24 fps, video is 30 fps, old silent films are 16-18 fps.

The route I'm thinking of going is more along the lines of Ottomar Anschutz's Electrotachyscope(1890's). I like this versions the most because it is designed more for individual viewing but is large in physicality.

New direction

2008-09-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

zoetrope (wiki that) is a XIXth century device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.

Brooklyn-based Toy Collective, who's site is down unfortunately, have constructed numerous zoetropes on repurposed bicycle wheels.

Notes from Presentation
viral aspect of advertising
how will this change the perception of the viewers, their perception of the micro and macro?
through using existing structures what can I accomplish differently?
should this be based more on an installation as opposed to in the field?
will this live later as a field study documentation? can it be installed permanantly?
focus on the eradication of culture. how is eradication and nostalgia/saudade linked and exercised in this installation?
what other senses are observed?
look into active noise cancellation // change the sonic environment // inverted acoustics
can the absense of graffiti correspond to the absense of noise? what would the reaction be to an absense of noise and how would that change the context.
bg history and connectins of film to trains, lumiere, cranks, tracks, horse width, sprocket holes, etc.
lighthouse display and revolution relationship to zoetrope, acconci, in and out frame...
LCD thinned down with backlight.
forgooten-ny.com for history, abandoned stations, and ghost trains.
why not permanent? should be lasting? conflicting ideas of memorial if it will be fleeting or only live on through documentation. challenge to make a permanent object that creates ephemeral moments continuously.

New Iteration Idea Cloud
Zoetropic, nickelodeon, Leon Reidesque, kiosk, memorial, plaque, roll up door, permanent, alignment, vantage point, personal, tourism, window, bronx, crank, duchampian, bicycle wheel, cogs, fortune teller, transparency, Muybridge, Dondi

Spot Checks

2008-09-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Test // Project looping video of nyc subway trains of the 80's onto passing subway trains of now.

Problem // The projector did not have enough throw and power to light up the train from where I was. I was on a roof top probably 100ft from the passing car. The environment was dark and should have picked u the projection.

Solution // Higher powered projector and closer proximity. Found outlets all along the Williamsburg bridge that maybe I could test out. Don't want to do anything to jeapordize safety but using the outlets would put me much closer to the trains and in effect require less projector strength.

Also Marko recommended the Lumenlab site which goes into details about projector construction but I should also look at alternative methods.

Again, continue to think about the how but also the what. Is graffiti really what I want to generate as content. Are there other images I could use and how would they change the meaning.
*X Ray
*Drill Bit
*Clouds
*Wings
*Txt msgs
*rainbow
*power symbols

Swoon Memorial/Time Capsule

2008-09-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

148 11th ave. (btw 20th & 21st St.)map
About a month ago the Swoon and Tennessee Jane collaborative exhibit, Portrait of Silvia Elena, opened at Honey Space. The installation is a memorial to Silvia Elena, a 17-year old girl who was murdered in Juarez, Mexico, in 1995 -- one of the many brutally killed there since the early 90s.

Housed underground, one must descend through a hole in the floor to get to the exhibit. There's a ladder to aid the descent, but at the opening last week one had to climb down rubble. Once underground in the long-sealed, candlelit sub-basement, visitors encounter a shrine dedicated to Silvia's memory while they hear the sound of dirt being cleared from Silvia's grave, the desert winds, and Silvia's mother speaking about her daughter.

The eerie setting "provides a window into the tragic and ongoing issue of femicide. Defined as a pattern of murder targeting women, to which authorities have often systematically turned a blind eye."

Since the shows completion, Honey Space has cemented over the whole and preserved the installation as a time capsule of sorts.

Read more about Honey Space's unique setup at Razor Apple.

You must be kedding me!

2008-09-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

It's a sad day here in Brooklyn. I just received word back from Keds that they are denying the production of my shoe! Argh! How could they? It was so cute and cuddly. Well I also did some research and found that this is not the first time a similar thing has happened.

MIT Student, Jonah Peretti attempted to get Nike to embroider the word sweatshop on the back of his customized Nikes only to be refused. The whole thing erupted through a viral email campaign based on Nike and Peretti's correspondance that made the int'l media rounds.

Peretti is the boss when it comes to meme-making. Not only did he start the Nike Sweat Shop shoe but he also began 'Black People Love Us' , The Rejection Line, Contagious Media Showdown, and the Fundrace2008.

Peretti also coined the term the "Bored-at-Work Network", which he proposes is bigger than some major television network audiences^[3]. Peretti claims this relatively untapped market segment is behind the bulk of the e-mail forwarding and link sharing that drive the spread of Internet memes.

Some things to think about...
“What happens online is only as valuable as what happens off line.”
-Ed Cone
"The problem, though, is that contagious media is usually silly (the opposite of your cause). Also, what goes viral is radically unpredictable."
-Peretti

Wen Fang

2008-09-20T12:00:00.006-07:00

Found this great project by Wen Fang. He affixes images of hundreds of immigrant workers to common bricks symbolizing the backbone of the growing city. Hinting at the terra cotta soldiers and the displacement of so many workers that make up the foundation of modern China.
"The building blocks are the humble support of a country in perpetual change. Unlike those used in ancient buildings, their lives are ephemeral as they are infinitely reproduced and replaced. Each of the migrant construction workers wears the mandatory plastic helmet, each of them is smiling, even if they are often (and rightly so) described in the press as the victims of China's urbanization frenzy."

Scratch off Cards

2008-09-19T05:51:00.001-07:00

Had some strange ides just now of ordering scratch off cards, (think lotto style ). I could use the scratch off part to conceal a part of history. Hmm, how could I ween this into a grander scale?

Woah, dems is 'spensive. Hmm, now I need a sponsor. More work to do...

Hsiang Ju Hung Notes

2008-09-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hsiang Ju Hung, whom has so, so, so many great projects, just sent me these great notes>>
"My major studio research of last semester is about collective memory so here are the precedencts that I think is helpful for you. Troika and some related reading that i never finish...ha.
James Young's books, At Memories Edge, Texture of Memory
-and I think wall painting is a historical way of memorize things. It's even earlier then texture or any sculpture.
-it's also related to symbolism and how information is stored outside of human brains.
-I regard every artificial/daily objects as memorial sculpture as well. each object has human collective memory stored inside..."
Ok, so I did some research. Thanks H JH.
Troika is a fun company who has been doing sms public art pieces for Mtv and Warner Bros. This Sms memory wall for the BBC Electric Proms 2007 is pretty slick as well as their sms driven projections for 'The Streets". Also check out this awesome handheld, self-contained projector. This has such an awesome Ghostbuster proton pack type of feel.

So next is James E. Young's book about memorializing the Holocaust. It was interesting to learn that Young was the only foreigner and the only Jew to serve on the German commission to select a design for a national Holocaust memorial. Which by the way is my favoriate Museum/Memorial ever. The book mostly tackles the question of how should Germany commemorate the mass murder of Jews once committed in its name?
If that doesn't tickle your fancy then check out these images of projections by Shimon Attie. This guy is the thread I needed. I can't actually tell if he is giving my project more hope or derailing it with the vain feeling that something too similar has already been done. Moving past the pervasive feelings of realizing the unoriginality of an idea I am actually invigorated and motivated by Attie to continue and refocus. Build of his work and continue connecting the dots. Check out more of his stuff here at the Museum of Contemporary Photography site.
Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz, Monument against Fascism, 1986-93. Harburg, Germany. (Photographed in 1990).

Young, James: At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture (Yale Univ. Press, 2000).

Attie, Shimon. Sites Unseen: Shimon Attie European Projects: Installations and Photographs. Burlington, VT: Verve, 1998.

Attie, Shimon, and Christopher Beaver. Between Dreams and History: The Making of Shimon Attie’s Public Art Projects (videorecording). Ben Lomond, CA: distributed by The Video Project, 2000 .

Attie, Shimon, Natasha Egan, and Alexander Stille. The History of Another. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2004.

Attie, Shimon, et al. The Writing on the Wall: Projections in Berlin’s Jewish Quarter. Heidelberg: Edition Braus, 1994.

Words of Wisdom

2008-09-17T09:24:00.002-07:00

Found some good advice from an interview with Saul Williams.

"I am with you in not trusting the media and the so-called powers that be, but if those powers have made us less than exuberant about being alive, less than imaginative about the change that we might create in our lifetime, less than aware of the fact that the powers of being will always prevail over the powers that be, then you’re already wearing the suit that you have rejected. The uniformity of cynicism that appeals to the intellectual elite, to the do-gooders, and the so-called rebels of our times is bad business for creative prosperity. We need to focus our energy on the creative upliftment of our times. Imagine the best possible results and begin manifesting them."

Prototype "Reappropriating a Public Space"

2008-09-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

As I layed down to read last night my girlfriend was playing on the keds website, building herself a shoe. Thousands of people had already made there own custom shoes where they were posted on the kedsstudio site for sale. Hmm, I wondered how I could manipulate this app. beyond it's commercial function.

User Generated Content permeates every facet of our lives. From the iTunes playlists, the print-on-demand books, the instructables, one can easily build or buy something that someone else has made. Why wait for the newest and greatest thing, when you can make it yourself.

Following with my concept of using everyday and vernacular settings for historical insight I decided why not use this shoe as a memorial. As I researched Keds history I quickly dug up a lot of information regarding their labor policy. Below is the article...
Kunshan Sun Hwa Footwear Co. Ltd.
Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, China

16-year-old girls assemble Keds sneakers applying the toxic glue with their bare hands, the only tool they are given is a toothbrush. The Sun Hua Footwear Company is a South Korean-owned factory located in Kunshan City, which is about 65 kilometers west of Shanghai. The factory is surrounded by a 15-foot high concrete wall topped with barbed wire; the heavy metal entrance gate is kept locked and is patrolled by armed security guards.
more here at the National Labor Committee Site
and read more here too.

Reappropriation Technique for Keds Shoe Site
1. collect and download images of any issue you want to address.
2. go to http://www.zazzle.com/custom/shoes
3. select the type of shoe you want to make,
4. click 'create shoe' then click 'customize it'
5. click 'area' and select a part of the shoe,
6. click 'add images' and select from your images
7. position on the shoe using the rescaling and positioning tools they have. Super easy.
8. title anything you want but subtitle with the phrase 'do not buy these'
9. click 'post for sale'
10. voila!!! "

US Railroad from Radical Cartography

2008-09-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

Consider the issues from the first prototypes. Gentrification, cleanliness, control, sanitation, organization, history removal, memory, invisible happenings, truth.

Address the old getting replaced by the new. Very basic concept. Show the new replacing the old on a historical level, technological level, social level, commercial level.

Do I want to hone in simply on the subway? Public transit, freight and raw material transit, mobility of art, graffiti, endangered languages, endangered culture?

>>From Marko
Hone in. Simplify. Specify.
History of Future.
Watch 'La Jatte', 'Persuaders'.
Hone in on the nostalgia. Watch 'Stalker' again by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Go see the Buckminster Fuller show.
Watch the Brian Eno music videos in New York.

>>From Shipra:
Reassess statement about the public as a physical space becoming a cyberspace. Is it really? How do both exist independently and co-dependently? What is the audience of each? Who is my audience?
Where are congregation centers? Physical congregation, social congregation, cyber-congregation...
What is my artifact? Does it have to be a memorial? Why is it not public art? Can it serve a higher purpose than art? What purpose does the memorial serve? What purpose does public art serve? Examples of these existing as one or co-dependently...

>>From Lynn:
I am really focusing on ways to re-appropriate tools. I am making public space interactions. My toolkit is adaptable depending on my public realm.
New direction ideas:
paint by number graffiti // x ray projection on trains // telescope window projection

>>Other ideas
*get newsprint and affix type on it like a stencil. place in sun until it becomes tinted by the sun. remove type and wheat paste to billboard spaces. watch the text fade over a weeks period as the sun bleaches out the letters to the same tint as the rest of the paper.
*make memorial to oil as if it is gone, dead, dried up. place plaques on gas pumps reading "r.i.p. oil, 5 billion years - Sept. 17, 2008. You had a beautiful life and although very crude at times, always remained loyal, rich, and energetic." Make the plaques so they mount on the gas pumps and some how block the trigger from actually being pulled back.

Memorials: The Archetype

2008-09-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

Unorthodoxed becomes traditional
Maya Lin's 'Vietnam War Memorial'
The Virtual Wall
Shalechet - Fallen Leaves by Menashe Kadishman @ Jewish Museum, Berlin

Current Concept Statement Brainstorm

2008-09-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

Memorials: Visualize the past while connecting to the present.

As culturally rich centers of town are replaceed by information rich social networks on the internet I think the idea of public needs to be readdressed. Borrowing from the conventions of Memorials in the public space I will memorialize historical ephemera in contemporary emergent social networks such as facebook, craigslist, and commerical ugi's. Using these locales as contemporary Agoras I hope to reach a broader audience and expand discussion on historical and contemporary issues.

Flattenings

2008-09-13T17:41:00.001-07:00

Went to the amazing reference library on 6th ave. near 11th and made some copies from these books, then I scouted high and low to find the locations. Out of about 9 contenders I was only able to find only one location that even slightly resembled the image. ONLY ONE! And I biked from the Bowery all the way to 110th to make some allignments.

The one that worked was in the Meat Packing District at the little w. 12th at Bleeker and 9th ave. I had to come back twice to try and get a decent exposure and still looks bad and blown out. But some ideas are brewing and started looking at the progression of shots I got and the idea of infinite histories. All bringing me back to Photosynth type ideas of collective meta-tagging and flattening a collective flow of data into one, yet ever changing, world.

Acts of Defining

2008-09-13T16:33:00.000-07:00

When I began the thesis process I felt that the topic nestled around nostalgia. So I've been asking myself a lot lately, 'what is nostaliga?'

Nostalgia, as much as I can wrap my head around it, is a longing for the past. It seems to be a fatalist view where there is no way in hell to attain the thing that one is longing for. Where I want to bring my user is into a zone somewhere between pessimism and optimism.

As of late I have discovered a new term that fits my thesis much tighter. And before I spill the name to you, I want to add that I love this term the most because it is Portugese word.

Saudade:
(pronounced [sawˈdade] in Galician, pronounced [sawˈdadɨ] in European Portuguese and [sawˈdadʒi] or [sawˈdadi] in Brazilian Portuguese) is a Galician and Portuguese word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost.

In his book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G Bell writes:

"The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present. One might make a strong analogy with nostalgia as a feeling one has for a loved one who has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one who has disappeared or is simply currently absent. Nostalgia is located in the past and is somewhat conformist while saudade is very present, anguishing, anxious and extends into the future.

Precedents of Saudade
Love And Rockets has a song 'Saudade' that evokes it quite well with its sound (and it is also appropriately the last track) on their album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven.

The Good Son,, a 1990 album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, was heavily informed by Cave's mental state at the time, which he has described as saudade. He told journalist Chris Bohn that "when I explained to someone that what I wanted to write about was the memory of things that I thought were lost for me, I was told that the Portuguese word for this feeling was "saudade". It's not nostalgia but something sadder."

Portuguese American singer/songwriter Jorge Ferreira recorded in 1992 the song "Saudade" from his album Regresso Prometido. A large number of songs of this emigrated artist speaks in majority about the feeling of saudade.

The usage of saudade as a theme in Portuguese music goes back to the 16th century, the golden age of Portugal. Saudade, as well as love suffering, is a common theme in many villancicos and cantigas composed by Portuguese authors; for example: "Lágrimas de Saudade" (tears of saudade), which is an anonymous work from the Cancioneiro de Paris.

Fado is a Portuguese music style, generally sung by a single person (the fadista) along with a Portuguese guitar. The most popular themes of fado are saudade, nostalgia, jealousy, and short stories of the typical city quarters. Fado, and Saudade are two key and intertwined ideas in Portuguese culture. The word fado comes from Latin fatum meaning "fate" or "destiny". Fado is a musical cultural expression and recognition of this unassailable determinism which compels the resigned yearning of saudade, a bittersweet, existential yearning and hopefulness towards something over which one has no control.

The Paragyuan guitarist Agustin Barrios wrote several pieces invoking the feeling of saudade including Choro de Saudade and Preludio Saudade.

The term is prominent in Brazilian popular music, including the first bossa nova song, "Chega de Saudade" (No more saudade), written by Tom Jobim. Due to the difficulties of translating the word saudade, the song is often translated to English as No more Blues.

In 1919, on returning from two years in Brazil, the French composer Darius Milhaud composed a suite, Saudades Do Brasil, which exemplified the concept of saudade.

Saudade (part ii) is also the title of a second flute solo by the band Shpongle, the first one being flute fruit.

The singer Amália Rodrigues typified themes of saudade.

New York City post-rock band Mice Parade released an album entitled Obrigado Saudade in 2004.

Chris Rea also recorded a song entitled Saudade as a tribute to Ayrton Senna the Brazilian three-times Formula One world champion killed on the track.

Rock band Extreme, featuring Portuguese guitarist Nuno Bettencourt have an album titled Saudades de Rock. During recording, the mission statement was to bring back musicality to the medium.

Nancy Spain, a song by Barney Rush, made famous by an adaptation by Christy Moore is a good example of the use of saudade in contemporary irish music.

Center for Land Use Interpretation

2008-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

CLUI has a great open source database where you can search by location, category, and keyword to find any site that has been marked by the human imprint. So it's possible to find toxic spills, nucleur and radioactive sites, but also landmarks and attractions. This morning I found New York's own Lake Placid Ski Jump and the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. You can even get a google map view of it here. Or this Abandoned Pyramid Project in Indiana or the Almost Heaven community in Idaho set up by Bo Gritz. Some memorials I found that stuck out wer the Ames Pyramid near Laramie, Wyoming constructed in 1882 to commemorate Union Pacific railroad businessmen/politicaina Oakes and Oliver Ames.

Also Lynn forwarded me some good geography/art references, one being Lize Mogel who is doing work at the conflux festival beginning tomorrow. Also check out An Atlas of Radical Cartography
as well as the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) in Brooklyn.
AJ Blandford
In The Field
Cmmwlth Projects
Sarah Nelson Wright
Radical Cartography

NY Historical Alignment

2008-09-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Testing of 2 sites. One at 42nd st and 6 ave. The other at 135th st. and Lenox. Want to follow the Tallinn example and compress these found images into the present tense. Perhaps with video...will see if anything changes or builds following nostalgia, compression, ephemeral memorials, the after image, etc...

Antithetical Projection Idea

2008-09-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Future possibilities involve projections onto various kinetic structures. The antithetical project would project packs of indians on horseback onto freight trains throughout the interior of America. I view the Railroad with contempt and disdain for it's treatment of Native Americans and early Chinese immigrant workers and would like to put their story into context.

Reading References:
Dylan Trigg, The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absense of Reason, 2006.
also check the Irish Hunger Memorial in NYC

Other Ideas
Find roll up doors at bodegas or stores of interest. Make a stationary video of the shop during the day. At night, project back onto the roll ups from of what was filmed their earlier that day, week, whatever. Play with speed, timber, ghosting, etc...

Theo Watson

2008-09-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

work by theo watson using open frameworks (more here)
a great tool with a huge library for making very intuitive projects dealing with interaction. Co-created by Zach Lieberman.
also relook at Joe Delappe's work for the Ghandi memorial walk as well as "Dead in Iraq".

Scott Snibbe

2008-09-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

more precedents...
scott snibbe, especially this piece called "You are Here" which tracks the trajectory of "visitors to a large public space. The system displays the aggregate paths of the last two hundred visitors along with blobs representing the people currently being tracked. When viewers approach the work, they can display the live video image with the paths of currently tracked visitors superimposed"

Flickr API

2008-09-04T17:43:00.001-07:00

For later use. Bike fatalities and accidents in NYC.
61e070d2c650b36eaf70298e38c29f0c
Mobile (http://www.flickr.com/auth-72157607113928050 Write)

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne

id (Optional): A single user ID. This specifies a user to fetch for.
ids (Optional): A comma delimited list of user IDs. This specifies a list of users to fetch for.
tags (Optional): A comma delimited list of tags to filter the feed by.
tagmode (Optional): Control whether items must have ALL the tags (tagmode=all), or ANY (tagmode=any) of the tags. Default is ALL.
format (Optional): The format of the feed. See the feeds page for feed format information. Default is Atom 1.0.
lang (Optional): The display language for the feed. See the feeds page for feed language information. Default is US English (en-us).

Collective Data for viewing History

2008-09-04T12:00:00.001-07:00

Found this talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas about Photosynth on TED and loved the ideas of scraping Flickr to use collective data for dynamic interactions. I've been building cubist influenced VR images in Photoshop and more recently worked for Melanie Crean making VRQT's in Stitcher. Would like to continue in this direction with a memorial project. Possibly by embedding a QR code on a mural that scrapes Flickr's API for all images associated with that location. Or to find historical imagery of a specific interest to a person at a specific place (political revolutions, police reports, real estate, old signage, graffiti, music events, etc.)

I liked Blaise's presentation so much I transcribed it.
"So what the point here really is is that we can do things with the social environment. This is now taking data from everybody, from the entire collective memory of what the earth looks like and link all of that together. All these photos become linked together and become something that is emergent, that is greater than the sum of its parts. You have a model that emerges of the entire earth. Think of it as the long tail to Stephen Lawler's Virtual Earth Work. And this is something that grows in complexity as people use it and who's benefits become greater to the user as they use it. There own photos are getting tagged with meta-data that someone else entered. If someone bothered to tag all these saints and say who they all are then my photo of Notre Dame cathedral gets enriched with all that data. And I can use it as an entry point to dive into that space, that meta-verse using every ones photos and do a cross-modal and cross-user social experience. And of course a biproduct of that is immensely enriched virtual models of every interesting point of the earth collected from over head flights, and such, but from the collective memory."

-Blaise Aquerra y Arcas about Photosynth

Alignment

2008-09-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Following with the alignment ideas from the past ideas of compressing time. I'm interested in creating a memorial that is site specific. The public art world is inundated with "plunk art" that serves a certain category of public art more than it does the public.

So taking the public solely into consideration is their a way to make ephemeral memorials to modern situations that trigger new responses? Especially, I'm interested in the hybridization of pedestal type memorials with everyday situations in order to create a hands-on experience that becomes lodged in the psyche of the public. Through the augmentation of public art and public life I hope to transpose art and utility to create physical as well as mental responses to the memorial.

When one thinks of memorials it is obvious in the title that one thinks about the past. The role of the memorial is to embody memory. As can be seen in countless memorials throughout the world this can take on many forms and serve many functions. On a macro scale large institutions, such as Gov't (England, U.S., Soviet Union, Iraq, Cuba(?)) create memorials to further the psychological magnitude of their Empire. While on a micro scale, organizations can take it upon themselves to create somber memorials for their specific cause, such as Ghostbike.

The memorial is so vast a concept that it can take on countless forms from mourning loss to celebrating victory, encouraging hope to circulating controversy. In all these scenarios the memorial is an artifact to visualize the past. Often times, the visual represents a far removed past such as the archetype memorial of the heroic male figure (hmf). In effect, one can deduct that the memorial represents the culture that created it much more acutely than it does the past which it tries to represent.

Why is this? Is it a cursory bi-product of nostalgia? Is the mere act of being nostalgic and reminiscing about the past the impetus of all memorials? If one were to trim the fat off of the typical memorial would they only need to be anti-nostalgic? If we we find this to be true then one can also say that to create honest memorials is to be anti-nostalgic or pro-present.

So how does that effect the idea of creating modern memorials? Even more so, how does it affect the creation of modern memorials for recent events.

Alligning a Flattened History

2008-09-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

While looking at a book of NY in 1880 I had the idea of historical remixes. I played with this a bit in Estonia 'tallinn marching flowers' and in Reno 'buff mark restoration' but never saw the connection and underlying premise, which was to visualize the past with the present tense. In a sense compress history into a new history.
I thought I could create some sort of transparency that could be affixed at certain location and when looked through would allign with pre-existing architecture to give a glimpse at what once was. Specifically I wanted to show the old signage of NY buildings on the present day buildings.

Next I wondered if it would be possible to create an affixed zoetropic transparency churned device that could flip through several periods of that building. Would it be possible to flatten the history of that structure into a cinematic and historically documentative timeline?

Precedents Tano on woostercollective

transluscent tombstones
Matt Siber 'Floating Logo"
Invisibility project
Glasgow Projection of Murder Victim

qr test

2008-08-31T07:36:00.001-07:00

use this site to make embed content into a QR

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=12&d=mural%20by%20Over%20Under%20painted%20during%20the%20last%20week%20of%20August%202008.%20%204%20quarts%20of%20paint%20and%2029%20spray%20cans%20were%20used.%20%20a%20loose%20interpretation%20of%20the%20neighborhood%20and%20its%20inhabitants.%20%20to%20see%20more%20work%20go%20to%20paintonwall.blogspot.com%20or%20eriktburke.com

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fsearch%2F%3Fq%3Dbushwick%2Boverunder%2B%26m%3Dtext

Patents

2008-08-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Got a good Marko tip to check the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to make sure I'm not recreating something that has already been done or even worse, patented.

Two Examples are this one about projecting on moving images
and this one about projecting on the walls inside of tunnels to create a zoetropic effect similar to the Berlin students project posted earlier.

Also checked out the work of Michael Naimark
who has done a lot of work recreating spatial environments with projections, google maps, or monitors.

Thermoplastics cont.

2008-08-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

L.A. thermoplastic Company Street Art writes back. I don't know how far I should take this but for now it's putting a little blood in my research. Since it cuts off the sentences a bit, click it to read the full size.

Subways 1905

2008-08-27T21:51:00.001-07:00

WOW! Love this gritty footage of subway cars in 1905. Would be great to use this footage later on in the documentation.

Parasite by Frédéric Eyl, Gunnar Green and Richard The

2008-08-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifJust refound this project. Not within my parameters, especially being post 9-11. This project was done by Frédéric Eyl, Gunnar Green and Richard The in 2005-2006 for the Digital Media Class at University of the Arts Berlin.
Parasite is an independant projection-system that can be attached to subways and other trains with suction pads. Using the speed of the train as parameter for the projected content, the projection starts with the train moving inside a tunnel.

Also in Japan this is nothing new. Here's an example of commercial projections on the train. Although this incorporates the brutest of technicalities of my proposed idea, it doestn' take into account any motion tracking and most importantly a context. Here it is any ways as an homage to the habitual headnod of the precedent.

I also like someone's grandpa's video verite of a Target ad in the DC subway. Love the self acknowledging wave-a-doodle at the end.

Here's a link Marko sent me of using the locomotion of trains to project.

And another is here called 'Two Unusual Projection Spaces' by Michael Naimark

And to top it off is this clip of Souljah Girl caught trippin out on the Bart. It's not a precedent in any way but lends a little levity to this whole thesis showdown. Also, does anyone know how many times she says, "i'm pressing charges?"