The Blog of Larry McAllister II

Quality Time

2011-10-25T17:14:00.000-04:00

So last week was much more relaxed than the week ofHomecoming. It’s always nice to be able to unwind after frantically runningaround and helping with events. Being able to take in a show, visit withfamily, and travel are the perfect antidote to exhaustion.

Karmin

Amy and Nick of Karmin playing for an energetic Rutgers crowd.

So the “Youtube sensation” Karmin came to Rutgers last weekin a concert put together by RUPA (The Rutgers University ProgrammingAssociation). Admittedly I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I had watched afew of their videos on Youtube and they had some good covers, but a fullconcert? Well admittedly I was pretty impressed.

Dom Nero interviewing Amy and Nick.

Amy and Nick were incrediblynice when we interviewed them and just generally pleasant to talk to. I feellike the ability for an artist to communicate is always a great litmus test forhow things are going to go.

They gave a great performance too. I was really amazed by thecrowd they brought out, and the energy level was impressive. They even gotmembers of the crowd to get up on stage and dance when they preformed theircover for Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Know.” It was definitely great to see thembefore the release of their single, and I really do hope they come back to playtheir original songs.

Check out some pictures from the show.

RUPA announces the show and plugs some upcoming events.

Jeff LeBlanc opens for Karmin.

Jeff LeBlanc

The Orphan Sporks lent a little a cappella flavor to the show.

The Orphan Sporks

Karmin takes the stage.

Amy and Nick invited students on stage to dance while they preform their cover of Chris Brown's Look At Me Now.

Family

Always great to spend time with the family.

This past weekend was Family Weekend down at the Universityof Maryland, so my parents and I went down to see my little sister. It’s alwaysinteresting hanging out with the family, always a lot of yelling and fighting,but so much love too.

DC Metro

So Instead of doing any of the overpriced things that wereoffered on campus, we decided to head down to DC to check out a museum. It hadbeen a long time since I had been to DC and I have to say, I was reallyimpressed with the Metro. It was pretty clean, the trains were timely and forthe most part, the trains weren’t too crowded. Some of the architecture wasalso really interesting.

At the Woodley/National Zoo stop, we experienced pretty muchthe longest escalator ride we had ever taken. What made it a little moreinteresting was that people in Halloween Costumes were running up the stairs.

My father wanted to draw my mom's attention to the different stops available for us to get off at.

The ceiling down there was pretty awesome.

There were some pretty interesting architectural elements down there as well.

Newseum

A bulk of our time in DC was spent in the Newseum (it’s aNews Museum, if you couldn’t guess). It was a really amazing museum and therange of the exhibits and artifacts was astounding. I’m a little sad that wecouldn’t make it through the entire museum, but it gives us plenty to see thenext time we go.

CNN's first satellite video phone.

They have a pretty awesome out of service news truck on display.

The interior of the news truck.

In the bathroom they had small headlines intermingled with the tiles. Some of them were pretty great.

Personally, I wish the section on newspaper comics was a little larger, but it was still pretty cool.

The Nikon sponsored Pictures of the Year exhibit was filled with some beautiful and devastating photos.

The G-Men and Journalists exhibit was really fascinating and filled with some really amazing artifacts from crimes and terror attacks.

The number of toys and comics and stories created profiling the FBI are numerous and varied.

Dillinger's "death mask" is kind of creepy.

Mobsters used to have the best nicknames.

Weird seeing engine parts from the planes that hit the tower...

Shoe bombs... shoes that ugly have to be bombs...

Seeing artifacts from the Siege on Waco was interesting and pretty disturbing.

Patty Hearst's coat and firearm.

The Unabomber's shack kind of amazes me.

Dillinger was one dapper bastard.

Lenin's beheaded statue was pretty awesome.

It was also really cool to be so close to pieces of the Berlin wall. The graffiti on them was pretty cool.

It was hard to take all of the 9/11 stuff, but it was still pretty amazing.

The mangled remains of the North Tower's antenna served as a focal point for the 9/11 section.

The remains of a camera from the only journalist killed during 9/11.

I had to end the photos on a positive note!

There is definitely a great view from the 6th floor of the Newseum, you can see right down Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course while we were up there we had to get the obligatory family in front of the Capitol Building shots.

Had to play around with my camera while I had some free shots.

Two of my favorite ladies!

The little sis is weird sometimes, but I love her.

Sometimes it's fun to make people look small.

I never realized how many Segway tours they run in DC...

What Am I Checking Out Online?

So I decided to add a section for the stuff I am checkingout online. Each week when I do my post I’ll include one thing that I amcurrently checking out on the Internet. I don’t really know who reads thisright now, but I feel like it will be a cool way of sharing some of the awesomestuff I find on the Internet (some might be duplicated for those who follow myTumblr or if we are Facebook friends).

Juan Rayos

Recently, well for the past few months, I have been prettyobsessed with Juan Rayos’ videos. Juan is a photographer and videographer basedin Madrid, Spain. Juan does a lot of skate videos and I was actually turnedonto his work when I watched Frozen Wave:

The way he shoots his videos, and a great mixture of cool,beauty, and location, makes all of his videos worthwhile. Juan's ability toedit also shines through with the way he syncs his cuts with well-selected music.I often find myself re-watching videos that I’ve already seen just because ofhow gorgeous his shots are, or how amazingly his cuts work with the music.

Because of Juan’s videos I have also found myself falling inlove with the Longboard Girls Crew.

Kind of hard not too… they are just too cool.

Currently Juan is putting out a series called Endless Roads,which follows 7 girls from the crew around Spain for 15 days. I really can’twait to see how it progresses.

Check out the first chapter.

--

I think that's enough for this week. I don't know if anything exciting is happening this week, but we'll see next week.

Dual Homecoming

2011-10-17T10:14:00.001-04:00

So last week was incredibly exciting for me. Not only was itthe week of Homecoming at Rutgers, but I also moved into my new apartment.

The Move

It’s always interesting moving. The tension of leaving aplace you have lived for years and trying to figure out what you are going totake with you can be really maddening. I feel like I had been putting off themove for a while now, well, I know I have. While I was away at college, I hadmissed a lot of my little sister maturing into the amazing young lady she istoday and I felt a need to spend some time with her, before she herself wouldbe going to college. In the long run it was a good idea, having her off atcollege made moving out last week so much easier.

I’m not quite finished turning the new apartment into ahome, I’m using an inflatable mattress as my bed right now, but, I’d like tothink it is coming together nicely.

The Bed Races

For the last four years at Rutgers one of my favoriteHomecoming events have been the Bed Races. This adrenaline filled event isexactly what it sounds like: a bunch of different organizations decorate bedsand race each other down the street. Very few events even come close to beingas exciting as the bed races are.

It is great to see the different bed decorations and themesthat the teams come up with. There are so many off the wall ideas, mixed inwith subdued themes, and it’s always amazing to see what people show up andgive it there all, and what groups try to skate by with the bare minimum.

The race itself is an unrivaled spectacle at the university,and it seems almost crazy to see how many people come out to cheer on theirfriends or their beds.

RU VS Navy: Return of the Chop Squad

After last year’s devastating Homecoming loss to Tulane, Iwas a little nervous about the Scarlet Knights’ chances against the superiorrun game of the Midshipmen. However, this year, despite some bone headed plays,the Knights managed to squeak out an impressive 1 point victory over the NavalAcademy. Even though our R and U in the end zone weren’t as good as they havebeen in years past, I like to think that the outpouring of school spirit helpedelevate the Scarlet Knights into the victory.

The Show Must Go On

2011-10-08T12:56:00.001-04:00

This week has been pretty wild. From iPhone 4S' announcement, to the death of Steve Jobs, to seeing deadmau5 in concert, there has been a lot of buzz and excitement this week. This also marks the second week I am actually updating this blog as well. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up.

iPhone4S

So on Tuesday Apple announced the iPhone 4S... to minimal excitement. Admittedly I was one of the not so impressed. I mean, the taut of faster processors and adding an S to the end of the name were enough to lull anyone to sleep. Maybe it was the media hype that helped catch people off guard. We were all expecting the iPhone 5 and the next evolution of the iPhone. The presentation itself, sucked away all of the momentum. Maybe it was the lack of the Steve Jobs charisma, but the whole press conference was flat. No one tuned into an event titled "Let's Talk iPhone" to learn about sending Hallmark cards from their devices, and who cares how many different clock faces the iPod Nano has, we all wanted more iPhone and faster. and without the number we were hoping for attached to it, we were all left wanting.

However after thinking about the new camera features alone, I found myself wanting one. How great is a device with an 8 megapixel camera and a f2.4 lens that is constantly connected to the internet? Oh and what's more? 1080p HD video that you can shoot, edit, and upload from anywhere. One thing that I really love about Apple's approach with the iPhone is their emphasis on it's photographic ability. With each iteration of the device, they have shown marked improvements in the cameras ability to process photos and now video. I really can't wait to get mine and take it for a spin.

RIP Steve Jobs

I would be a complete an utter liar if I said I didn't think the death of Steve Jobs was significant. In my lifetime we have had very few true visionaries and creative minds that we can draw inspiration from. To think of the different areas Jobs influenced we can see how far his reach truly was. I'm not going to go too in depth into my feelings on Steve Jobs, but I think it is important to make sure we follow his example of thinking we can change the world.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Apple Inc.

deadmau5... EPIC!

So I went to see deadmau5 at Roseland Ballroom in NYC with a few of my friends, and the show was pretty ridiculous. Everything about the show was epic, the lighting, the staging, the music, everything. I especially loved his entrance, just wish I could have been able to keep the video more in focus:

Sofi also made a guest appearance at the show and preformed to songs with deadmau5 which was kind of awesome. I wish I had been able to get a little closer to get a better picture of her on stage.

We had a lot of fun and I really wouldn't mind seeing deadmau5 again sometime. I'll leave you with some other photos from the night. Hope you enjoy.

Coming Up Next Week...

New moves... new office, new apartment, the start of new things. Stay tuned!

A Return to Actual Blogging?

2011-10-03T12:51:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. It's been a long time, I have almost no followers to this blog and no one knew this existed to begin with... BUT, I think I am about to come back to blogging (the right way).

Over the weekend I saw the below video for the new views of Blogger. Frankly, I was pretty blown away by the number of different ways someone could view your blog and got really excited by the idea of sharing in this manner.

After my initial excitement about how cool the new Blogger views are, I started to have a realization: I DON'T BLOG ANYMORE. Over the last two years I stopped actually using this blog in favor of the ease of Tumblr. I stopped writing out my thoughts every week, I stopped sharing my deep feelings about art and technology, I stopped writing in general. I replaced actually conceptualizing my own thoughts with re-sharing images that I liked and adding a sentence or two, and occasionally writing a paragraph or a rant. The actual flow of writing has been coming too infrequently and I have started to realize that in some instances, when I actually need to write out my thoughts, it has become harder.

Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoy Tumblr as an easy way of sharing images and videos that inspire me. It definitely has it's benefits in terms of having a huge network of interconnected users, and it's tagging makes it easy to find things related to what I like to view. They even have great curated tags. It's great for finding inspiration or sharing what inspires you, but it doesn't seem to be the best place to create or tell a cohesive story. It has become apparent that Tumblr isn't necessarily the best place to actually write out my thoughts or document my life.

So I am going to take Blogger back out for a spin, and hopefully it will last longer than the last time I said I was going to give it another go. What I am going to do this time around is try to post once a week like I was supposed to do in college. I'll share some things that are going on in my life, some of the top things inspiring me on a specific week, reviews of things I may have watched or listened to, and maybe some of my own work.

Stay Tuned.

The Start of Something New

2009-12-06T10:13:00.003-05:00

I have decided to re-purpose my old thesis blog. I feel that using this blog will be a much better way for me to share things that I am working on, or looking at than just posting to Facebook. What I intend to house here are projects that I am currently working on, or ideas that I am a fleshing out, so that I can get feedback, or just inform you what I have going on. Another purpose I hope for this blog to serve, is being a space that I can use to post interviews with different creative individuals I know (this is an idea I had during the summer that didn't go anywhere, and I want to try to make it a reality). I will also post things that I am currently checking out, like cool artists or designers, musicians, music videos, events, all different kinds of things I find interesting. Hopefully you all will find what I post interesting and try to keep up with it.

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO
The month of November was very busy and exciting for me. I got to take photographs of a few different events.

One such event was the Inaugural Chop Squad at the Rutgers V USF game back on November 12. This happening was meant to help boost fan morale.

1500 students in the student section of the stadium came together to form a giant "R" and "U." It was a fun, at times frustrating event, and it was really great to see the whole undertaking come together. Hopefully this will catch on as a big tradition at Rutgers.

A day after shooting the Chop Squad, I had a chance to attend the RJD2 concert at Rutgers. It was a lot of fun, and his set was solid, but a few issues with a broken lens prevented me from getting as many shots as I would have liked.

Feel free to check out the few other photos I have from the concert by clicking here.

By far the coolest thing I did in November was hang out at my friend Dirty Mac's video shoot for his song "iLL Scalpel."

It was a lot of fun to hang out with the video crew and Mac as they shot the video. The video shoot was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see the finished product. Hopefully it doesn't take to long for them to finish it, I'll post a link when they are done with the video. Check out some other shots from the shoot here.

WHAT'S COOL?
In this section I will highlight things that I have been checking out. I will be posting cool things I find as often as possible.

Recently in Boston.com's "The Big Picture" section, they have posted photographs for the 2009 National Geographic's International Photography Contest. The images are really beautiful and I think you should all check them out.

Another cool thing I found really cool was the "Evergreen" project by Autobahn. It is a really cool project that reminds me of an old project I did using artificial grass. The use of real soil and grass here makes this project really compelling. Definitely check out how they made this, it's really sweet. Check out the rest of their projects as well.

Acciona RE from Garlic on Vimeo.

A little while back I saw this video online and I thought it was one of the coolest things. It's a commercial for ACCIONA, one of the world's leaders in sustainable development. Check out the making of video as well. It's in Spanish, but you can still appreciate the work that went into it.

Alright, so I think this went well. Check back often to check out other cool things I find, or the stuff I am working on.

P E A C E K I D D I E S!

Special Post! Sneak Peak

2009-03-29T15:46:00.006-04:00

Prototype version of Heterogenesis (www.heterogenesis.org) installation.

Thesis Post #11

2009-03-18T20:54:00.009-04:00

THE PLUG!

The visual portion of Heterogenesis will finally be revealed. If You have not submitted contribution to Heterogenesis, please go to http://heterogenesis.org/contribute.html and complete the survey there.

U N T I T L E D # 2
BFA THESIS EXHIBITION

Mason Gross Galleries
33 Livingston Ave
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

The show runs from April 9th-April 17th
The reception for the show is April 16th from 5p.m -7p.m.

Untitled #2 is the second BFA Thesis Exhibition for Mason Gross' class of '09 and features the work of Aarati Gopal, Alana Burman, Alberto Hernandez, Alexis Palmaffy, Allison Siu, Chris Matrone, Diana Marsh, Esther Kim, Jason Buonocore, Jennifer Nolan, Karilyn Johanesen, Karl Doerrer, Kerry Carolan, Larry McAllister II, Laura Weber, Michelle Fisher, Rebecca Harris, Rich Cusumono, Ryan Gutierrez, Shawn Stidem, and Sindhoori Sridhar.

For additional information and the guest list, click here.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog entry...

The last few days have been pretty crazy for me. I've got updates.

The Mighty 400

So as you probably know,this past Friday night I discovered that I had 367 surveys completed and needed just 33 more to reach my goal. I sent out messages, blogged, and used my twitter, to let people know I still needed more. A few friends also contributed their Facebook statuses and found more people to fill it out the survey. Fast forward to Monday, at around 1:00 pm I received the 400th survey (I am now up to 407, yay). It feels great to have received this many. And I just wanted to thank everybody for taking the time to fill out the survey and help me out. It is greatly appreciated, to be honest, this project would not exist without all of you. Once again thank you.

That Doesn't Mean Stop...

I may have the 400 surveys I needed for my thesis show, but this project is in no way finished in my eyes. I want to run the survey for as long as possible. My hope is that as I travel and go places in my life that this project can grow substantially and take on new and more grandiose forms. The first step in this is leaving the survey open and trying to have as many people as possible participate in it. I hope that you, my supporters, continue to tell your families and friends about the survey.

Thesis... Show... Installation ... Promotion... Blah... Blee... Blah...

So I am at the point where I am really buckling down and getting series about getting everything set for my thesis show. This past Sunday I sorted 2000 multicolored push-pins for use in the installation, and this Friday (hopefully) I will print 400 of the surveys so that I can begin highlighting and color coding them. Yesterday I made a trip with Michal to Pearl and picked up several colors of string. This weekend I will be prototyping the use of string in the project.

One minor setback that recently came up is the fact that I will only have 3 days to install. I thought that I would have from April 4th to April 8th to install, but in discussion with Basem Hassan, I discovered that my installation dates are April 6th through April 8th. Just three days. This drastically increases how important it is for me to have all of my materials prepared for installation.

As far as the promotions go for the show overall, it seems like everything has slowed to a halt. To be honest, I don't care. Originally I was going to make a website for the show, with the photos of the artists, biographies, and descriptions/explanations of their work. This would have been a great portfolio piece and all, but currently I don't have all of the photos of the artists, and barely any have sent me anything written. In one way it seems kind of bad that we don't have a site for the event(perhaps I will do something quick and dirty with a Tumblr page), but on the other hand it seems like much more effort than it is actually worth.

Become a Fan

So for fun, I decided to create a fan page for myself on Facebook. It is just a little experiment I am doing. Currently I have 8 fans and I am interested in seeing how it grows. For the most part I am only telling select people to join directly, and I have only advertised it in the walls for my Heterogenesis Facebook group, and the corresponding event, and... well, here. If you are interested in being a fan of me, click here.

Cut&Paste

This Saturday I will be volunteering at the Cut & Paste design competition at Webster Hall. I won't know what I will be helping out with until I get there, but it should be a lot of fun. Hopefully next year I will be brave enough to compete. For more info, click the picture below.

I will be going into New York mid-day Saturday, so if you are interested in coming with or meeting up there please let me know.

P E A C E K I D D I E S !

Thesis Blog Post #10

2009-03-13T19:09:00.001-04:00

First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to my project, and for all the support you have thrown my way. It has been a long and arduous task sorting through all of the information that has been sent to me, and I am no where near done.

The reason why I am messaging you all is because so far I have 367 contributions to my survey. This is a great number, but given the space I have in the gallery, an even number is more practical. Since I am so close to 400, I am looking to get 33 more surveys filled out.

So, please let any of your friends or family who may be interested know that I am looking for more entries. As always, I appreciate the help and the support. As always the address to contribute to the survey is http://www.heterogenesis.org/contribute.html

Thank you.

Thesis Blog Post #9

2009-03-09T13:51:00.002-04:00

The visual portion of Heterogenesis will finally be revealed. If You have not submitted contribution to Heterogenesis, please go to http://heterogenesis.org/contribute.html and complete the survey there.

The show runs from April 9th-April 17th
The closing reception for the show is April 16th from 5p.m -7p.m.

More info and Guest list can be found here.

Thesis Blog Post #8

2009-03-06T09:23:00.005-05:00

What's Happening?

So nothing truly significant has really happened since the last entry. I am still working on formatting the entries to be as "uniform" as possible. Not to say I am really changing people's entries, but rather I am simplifying aspects such as favorite music. The answers I have received for this item in particular are very diverse, however, they are not quite general enough. Music seems to be one of the fields that is very hazy. It is often hard to identify what the differences are between the various genres, sub-genres, and styles. So for example, someone put "8-bit" as one of their favorite musical genres. Now that sounds promising and very specific, but 8-bit is not necessarily a genre of music, but rather it is generally classified as a style of "Chiptune" which is a sub-genre of Electronic Music. So in formatting the documents for the project, I am attempting to boil done the genres to there most simplistic form. This is proving to be where most of the time on the project is currently going. Over the next week I should be completing the process of formatting the documents and can begin to lay them out and do mock-ups of the project in the assigned graphic design studio.

String Theory

Last weekend Michal Krauthamer and I went to Michael's to get some supplies for our respective thesis projects. I picked up six colors of string just to begin to assign colors for the different items I will be connecting in my project. In thinking heavily about my project I arrived at a very helpful conclusion. Originally I was going to connect everyone who had certain intersts to all of the people that share those interests. This would be an amazingly time consuming and difficult process, and make the project almost inaccessible to people attempting to discern the data underneath. I have now decided that all of the people that share certain interests will be connected over a path. Doing this in a "6 Degrees of Separation" style will make the project a little more easy to read, and, in my eyes, much more visually appealing and less messy.

Social Networking... Kind of...

So recently I have been finding new ways to branch out online. First off, I signed up for Twitter, the microblog. Now everyone can follow what I am up to. It is a pretty cool thing, and it is a lot easier to stay on top of than a normal blog. Hopefully I can keep up with it and keep posting things that interest everyone, I like to think my life is pretty interesting sometimes. Follow me here!

I also signed up for LinkedIn which is like a business version of facebook. I don't know too much about it, but we'll see if it opens any doors. Check out my profile here.

Thesis Blog Post #7

2009-02-20T09:14:00.003-05:00

The last two weeks have proved to be a roller coaster ride of sorts for the project. Some things are going great, but there are always going to be step backs. For those of you that don't get to really talk to me about the project, I'll shed a little light on what has been going on.

A Few Steps Forward

So to start one of the great things so far is the number of contributions I have received. After reviewing the data that has been sent to me so far, I have found that I have received 346 official contributions to this project. I feel like this is a good number for what space I have in the gallery and I am very interested in how many more I may receive in the coming weeks. I am very thankful that Matt Ferguson, Assistant Director of Programs for Rutgers Student Life, sent my project out to about 200 people in his classes and organizations at Rutgers University. This is very helpful in boosting the number of contributions I have received, as well as the diversity of the data pool.

Another major happening this week was the conversion of one of the graphic design classrooms into a design studio and work space so that we graphic designers can have some studio space. This is very beneficial in that I will now have space to conduct some trials in installing my piece and determining how I want everything laid out on the wall, and how I want to represent connections. I am very excited to final have some space to hang things up and work. It should also be an interesting experience working in this space with the other designers, so I can get a better sense of what their own projects entail.

The biggest news from the last two weeks would have to be finding a way to get my e-mails from the internet to word documents relatively quickly. Since I have been using Gmail to host the receiving of the contributions, I was a little wary of how this feat would be achieved. Luckily, I surveyed different forums and discovered the Google Labs section. This section has an assortment of experimental tools designed to increase the usibility of Gmail. The feature that came in most handy for me was one called "Create a Document." This tool allows you to take your Gmail e-mail and create a GoogleDocs document out of it. From GoogleDocs, you can download your newly created document in several formats, including Microsoft Word. Needless to say, this has made one aspect of my project increasingly easier.

A Few Steps Back

Despite finding a way to get my e-mails into Word documents, I ran into another slight issue. Because of the way Gmail works, I am having a problem in converting the e-mails to Word documents, as Gmail "Hides Quoted Text." This feature was made so that you would not have to read the same info over and over again, however it prooves problematic when people's answers are removed because they were quoted. So, I suppose that when I create these documents, I will need to work more carefully to not lose this information.

Thesis Blog Entry #6

2009-02-06T07:12:00.002-05:00

The last two weeks have been pretty non-stop so far. School started back up and thesis has revved up again.

It's hard to figure out what to say right now in this blog. Seeing as how I have been paying a lot of attention to balancing edits to my portfolio with working on my portfolio, I don't know how substantive I can really make this entry. So I will make this as simple as possible.

Heterogensis

My project, Heterogenesis is shaping up quite nicely. I have received roughly 340 different different contributions to the project. This is a much lower number than I would like overall, but looking at the gallery space, I feel that this is a good solid number to begin preparations for mapping out how I will install the project. I have received many unique responses to the prompts that I selected, and the data is very interesting. Now it is time for me to start compiling the data into one place to start coming up wit my key and the way the data will be interpretted and placed in the gallery.

The hard part is the first of those two points. Compiling the data is not quite going as smoothly as I would have liked. As I have recieved all of the contributions throgh e-mail,it is proving difficult to put the data together in a streamlined manner. I have found a way to get the data ino one text document through the use of AppleScript. However upon creating this document I have run into the issue of e-mail metadata. When compiled together, before the meat of each contribution, I am bogged down by the e-mail metadata, which is proving difficult to weed out. I attempted to use GREP strings to isolate the metadata, but for some reason this is not quite working the way I anticipated. In most instances, the strings are having a tough time isolating the metadata, even when I use the strings to check for text between perenthasis. In the worst case scenario, I will have to go in and delete the metadata by hand before converting the document into a CSV, the problem there being the amount oftime that will be needed to comb through the data deleting each section of metadata out.

If anyone has any suggestions here, I am all ears.

The Stereotype Party

One big decision I made this week was to hold a "Stereotype Party" on the last day of February. Coinciding with the end of Black History month, I felt that this is a good way of tackling themes related to my thesis. The basic premise of the party is that people come dressed as a stereotype linked to their people. Ideas I proposed include things linked to your race or ethnicity, possible your religion, or maybe your sexuality. Seeing as their are so many different types of stereotypes, their is almost an endless number of ways in which people can approach this.

Stereotypes can be very hurtful, and help to put people in boxes or categories without any reflection of their own self. The purpose of the party is to confront that head on. By making a joke out of how ridiculous stereotypes are, perhaps we can send the message that we are better off without them.

Check out the guest list HERE.

Thesis Blog Entry #5

2008-12-31T18:25:00.003-05:00

Thanks!

First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in this project thus far. After a little over two weeks of having the project live, I have received 273 contributions to my project. I have received a lot of great contributions which will definitely help for making the visual representation of the project exceedingly interesting.

Still Need More Support...

For this project to be what I envision it to be, I still need a lot more contributions. I know it can get a little annoying helping other people with their projects, but I still need quite a bit of assistance in getting more contributions, and those of you have already assisted me are my best bet for that. I respectfully ask that as many of you as possible invite your friends to fill out the survey which can be found at here, www.heterogenesis.org/contribute.html Also please invite your friends, acquaintances and coworkers to the Facebook group, Help Larry McAllister II With His Senior Thesis.

Also, if you guys know of any other ways to disseminate this project, please let me know.

Larry VS MySpace

In an attempt to gain more contributions to the site I attempted to add a link to the project on my MySpace account. The next day, one of my friends alerted me that MySpace was blocking the link, saying it was a malicious site trying to steal account information. After being alerted to this I immediately sent a complaint to MySpace support, and still have yet to see a reply. I found this little set back quite interesting and just felt like letting you guys know.

Heterogenesis is Live

2008-12-14T22:01:00.002-05:00

Hey all, the online survey is now availible for my thesis project, so please go to http://heterogenesis.org/contribute.html and complete it there. Also, please invite and send it to as many people as you can to also fill out the survey. This is for my thesis project and I need as much data as possible to make it a compelling project. It is an information design project and depends greatly on a diverse pool of data, so let your friends family, coworkers, or whoever know about this so they can contribute. Below I have posted a poorly written mission statement so you can gain a little bit better understanding of what my project is about.

Mission
Het`er`o`gen`e`sis
n. 1. (Biol.) Spontaneous generation, so called.

2. (Biol.) That method of reproduction in which the successive generations differ from each other,the parent organism producing offspring different in habit and structure from itself, the original form, however, reappearing afterone or more generations; opposed to homogenesis, or gamogenesis.

Heterogenesis is generally a project about race, class, and any other form of classification that both groups and separates people. The reason the name Heterogenesis was picked for this project is the fact that it implies that the parents of a certain offspring differ from that offspring fundamentally. At a metaphoric level, this principle can be seen simple that each generation of people is different from the previous. This is not meant to suggest a genetic difference, but a difference in the way each generation thinks. This project is designed to allow people from various generations to add their own point of reference as well, and data collected from people of varying generations will also play a key role in the manifestation of the project.

The most important part about this project is providing people a space in which they can self-identify. Self-identification is important in that too often in our society we are placed in to preexisting boxes. This identification is accomplished through a survey, which allows people to express certain aspects about themselves and their family, all of which are nearly as arbitrary as skin color or gender. By using these questions to connect people, the project aims at showing some of the shortcomings of basing social classifications on negligible factors.

In order to collect this data it is still important to have a constrained structure to funnel this information into. Although the questions do seem rigid, they are very open, and will help draw links between people of different races through seemingly mundane cultural tendencies, physical traits, etc. In that sense this project shows a type of integration and a sort of web of interconnectedness from seemingly different people. This project will culminate in a sculptural presentation of the data, which will be displayed in April of 2009 in the Mason Gross Galleries at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Besides the overarching component that will be displayed in the gallery, each week information design projects will be created from the corresponding data. Please check back weekly to see what projects have been produced starting in January 2009.

Thesis Blog Entry #3

2008-12-03T16:28:00.016-05:00

November 2nd-8th
This week was spent mostly discussing my collaborative project with Michal. We were having a few issues working out what our intentions were with the project and how to visually represent it. It was also interesting discussing with her our varying views of how we each have viewed race. It became very apparent that we were coming from vastly different fields of thought on how serious of an issue race still was in America. The definite positive to come out of this was a cross education on both of our accounts in which we could get a more clear picture and idea of the others way of thinking and point of view on the matter.

November 9th-15th
This week in Advanced Design we handed in revised versions of some of the projects we have done through out the year. Mainly for this was a sligtly revised version of my stereotype flash cards project. Seen below.

This project is representative of my wish to draw attention to the absurdity of the stereotypes and perceptions that exist in our society. The idea behind the stereotype flashcards is to comment on the idea that we are taught stereotypes at a very young age, and they are probably the easiest thing for us to learn. There is much more to come in regards to the material that is reflected on these cards. Stay tuned for further developments.

November 16th-22nd
This week Michal and I finished our project for Advanced Design. Despite the ups and downs we had working on this project I feel that we created some compelling images and an interesting project.

For a little bit of a background, my thesis deals with "race", prejudice, stereotypes, class and perceptions in America. The project I am currently working on is a collaboration on being a fan of black people and white people. My partner, Michal, is white and to make things more interesting we decided that we would be a fan of each others "race."

In order to make this project happen we decided it may be a good idea to pull ideas from people we know. So, we each polled our friends and acquaintances to find out why white people are "fans" of black people and why black people are "fans" of white people.

We then took the answers that we felt best worked for our project and after much fiddling created the following posters to speak to each side. Feedback is welcome.

November 23rd-29th
During the beginning of the week I finished and handed in a paper in my Race Relations class dealing with racism and race oriented treatment in commercial environments. The paper goes into my observations as a shopper and how my race plays into how I am treated (for this I talk about my experiences at a Best Buy). I also explore this topic from the standpoint of a simple observer watching other people of different races interacting in commercial environments (here I look at a Ross and Macy's). Finally I discuss what it is like being the sales associate or service provider in a commercial environment and how that is also affected by race (here I discuss my work as an employee at an Apple Store). I found the exploration and observation very compelling, and writing the paper was quite enjoyable. Feel free to read the paper below.

Observation of Racial Treatment in Commercial Environments

As a racial minority, I feel obligated to think about how I will be received whenever I enter a new environment. Will people see me as a hoodlum invading their space? Will I be treated the same as everyone else here? Will I be ignored entirely? At shopping centers or at the gas station, in almost any environment or situation I find myself in I always seem to have these questions on my mind. With this assignment, we are asked to confront issues that I have already been dealing with everyday of my life. In a sense, it is interesting to see how working on this “experiment” has only bolstered my past thoughts.

To be clear, I feel that it is important to compare three specific angles in regards to how race factors into the treatment of individuals in a commercial or service based environment. First, one of the most important aspects is how you are made to feel as a customer in these environments. Second, it is important to look at these issues from the view of how the people providing services and their customers interact. Lastly, I feel it is important to look at the issues from the view of the person providing the service and how the customer treats them. I feel that these three distinct angles, coupled with an explanation of the environment itself, help to create a much clearer picture of the distinct effect of race on a service environment.

First we will take a look at things from the viewpoint of the customer. In my experiment, I went to a Best Buy in New York City. My group consisted of myself, a Black male, my friend [censored*] a White female, and my friend [censored], a female of mixed Asian and White descent. This store specifically seemed to have a majority of Black and Latino workers throughout, with the rest of the employees rounded out by a mixture of White and Asian associates filling out the rest of the staff. Looking around the store the clients were quite diverse, with a wide range of racial and ethnic groups represented. The store itself had an interesting dynamic with the registers located near the door accompanied by guards.

The experience started out fine as all three of us were greeted with a smile and a salutation as a group upon entering the store. We began to explore the environment starting off looking at DVDs together. At this point I decided to look for a specific DVD that I could not locate. I asked an associate who was merely standing around for some assistance, a 20 something Latino male, for some assistance. He seemed relatively courteous though his body language suggested he would rather be left alone, he slouched and looked around (perhaps looking for someone else to help me), as I asked him for help and told me to hold on, as he was to go to the back and look for the product. While I waited I continued to browse the DVDs while the rest of my group went to other DVD sections and looked for things. I found myself waiting for the associate who had said he would look for the product for about five or six minutes but played it off in my head as the store was quite large and probably had an extensive inventory. However as I continued to make my way around the DVD section I found the same associate helping a White customer. As I made eye contact with him, he told me to hold on for a little longer, broke eye contact with me, and continued to help the White customer. When he finally did leave the other customer, it only took him about two minutes to go and come back to tell me that they did not have the product I requested in stock. The first thought that came to mind after this is that I was treated in such a manner because I am Black; or rather, not because I am Black, but because of the associations that come along with being Black. Perhaps the associate felt like I would not be able to afford the product if they had it in stock, or perhaps I might steal it

To test the hypothesis of why I did not receive quick and uninterrupted service, it was up to one of my friends to ask for help. I observed as my friend [censored*], who is white as stated before, asked the same associate who had “helped” me about a product she was looking for. The associate had a very different body language when helping my friend. He stood very astute and focused on her the entire time. He quickly found out if her product was in stock, and found time to deny distractions, other customers requesting his help, along the way. The problem with this in regards to the experiment is that I do not know if he was treating my friend more properly because she was white, or because she is a girl. That said I still see race as a factor in this equation since he did stop to help a White customer in the middle of assisting me.

In most of the rest of the store there was very limited interaction with the employees. Many were either avoiding helping customers by performing menial tasks like straightening shelves or watching the TVs. Experiencing little interaction with the associates for the next half hour or so, we decided t would be a good time to leave. Check out went fine as everyone was filtered into a single file line until the next available register was open. The cashiers were mostly Latino and Black women, and all seemed fairly courteous. My friends and I all experienced the same service there. As we left the store however, a guard, who was Black, stopped me. He proceeded to check my receipt and my bag, making sure there were no extra items no doubt. Guards stopped neither of my friends though each of them purchased more items than me. It is quite clear that my earlier idea, the fear that because I am black I am bound to steal, was in full effect during this encounter. The thing that is more shocking about it though is that there is no benefit of the doubt given from one black to another in this situation. The other clear thing that can be taken from this situation is that I was singled out, it didn’t matter that I was with people of other races, the guard saw black and felt obligated to inspect me.

The second viewpoint I would like to explore here is from the point of a non-participant, observing the interactions between the service provider and customer. For this observation I used two similar yet different stores: Ross and Macy’s. Ross is a clothing store that sells designer brands at large markdowns for things such as misprints and minor sewing defects. Macy’s is a well-known department store that sells a large variety of products ranging from clothes and jewelry to household items like bath towels and bedding. Both of the stores picked in this scenario are located in Pennsylvania in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia.

Ross and Macy’s have many major differences in the feel of the stores. Ross has a very unkempt feel, very little work is done to keep the clothes sold there arranged in an organized manner, and there seemed to be a layer of dust on everything. Macy’s on the other hand seemed to be ultra clean, with highly polished floors and displays, and all of the clothes seemed to be organized in a sensible and easy to follow manner. Aside from the appearance of the store itself, there is also a drastic difference in the appearance of the associate working in the stores. Ross has a staff comprised of mostly black associates, while Macy’s seems to have a mostly white staff with a few Blacks and Latinos sprinkled in.

That said the cliental of each store seems either to be affected by or be the catalyst for the type of employees at each store. Standing in the Ross I noticed a large number of it’s patrons happened to be middle aged black women. Other patrons included a few white males, and two Latino families. At Macy’s on the other hand the largest population was whites, and this was mostly comprised of middle aged white women and their daughters or their husbands. Other Macy’s customers at the time I was there included a few black families, an Asian family, and a few Latinos. At Ross, the associates on the floor made little effort to interact with anyone until checkout (this is most likely due to the bargain hunting nature of the store and has nothing to do with race). At Macy’s associates made a concerted effort to approach people who were in groups first, followed by people looking on their own.

From the vantage point of a non-participant of the interactions, whites were generally approached before Blacks, Latinos, or Asians in Macy’s. Whites were also approached more favorably greeted with a “Hello” or a “How are you doing?” Racial minorities were greeted with the slightly colder, “Can I help you find anything today?” Another thing I noticed in the interactions at Macy’s is that for the most part the associates tried to sell up, or rather tried to sell more expensive items, to white cliental where racial minorities seemed to be shown more middle of the road items. At checkout, associates seemed to show little interest in Ross, though in some cases involving the middle aged black women, they did make a little bit of small talk. Generally speaking white customers seemed to make disparaging comments to the staff about the upkeep of the store and the selection. At Macy’s during checkout, most of the associates seemed to be happy or at least satisfied when ringing people up and the customers, both white and non-white, made little to no fuss.

In viewing Ross in comparison to Macy’s it was clear as to why certain stereotypes about the lack of Black work ethic come from. On the surface it would seem that the predominately black staff of the Ross were lazy and disinterested in the work they were doing. At the same time it would seem that the white employees of Macy’s make the difference in work aptitude and attitude more drastic.

It is important that we approach these ideas from the viewpoint of a service provider though. This is often over looked in a customer driven environment and it is often not even talked about how the approach of the individual customers can effect the ways in which services can be provided. To clarify this point, I think it is important to use myself as an example as an associate in a retail environment. This past summer I worked at an Apple Store in Bridgewater Commons Mall. It is important to note that Apple Inc., is a proponent of equal opportunity initiatives, and prides itself as a diverse and accepting employer. To understand the complexities of racial dynamics at Apple, it is important to understand the general set up of the store itself. Both the hiring practices of the store and the cliental of Apple seem to highlight an unspoken racial tension.

The associates of the Apple store are divided into four distinct types, outside of the managers. First there would be the Concierges, whose duties include greeting customers at the door, checking people in for store services, and generally making sure everyone in the store is being taken care of. At the store I was working at, when I first started, all of the concierges were white females, with the exception of one Asian male; and at the time of my leaving the store two more males were added to the concierge staff (both were white). The second group type in the Apple Store would be Specialists. Specialists assist people with questions ranging from computers to iPods and iPhones to accessories. At my store the specialist team was primarily composed of white males in their 20s. The exceptions here included two women, two white males over 40, one Indian, one Asian, and two black associates including myself. The third group at Apple is the Creatives, whose primary function is to teach people how to use the computers and programs installed on them. The creative team had one female member, and no racial minorities. Finally there are the Geniuses who work on repairs for various products sold in the store. This group included one female member, one Latino, and one Asian, who was on the sales floor as little as possible. At first I thought that the lack of racial diversity of the stores associate was in someway due to the area that the store was located in, but in observing the diverse cliental of the mall I realized that their may be a deeper reason for this.
In terms of the hiring of practices of Apple, they look for their associates to have an intimate knowledge of Apple’s products and the programs Apple produces. At face value this may seem to be race neutral, but in fact it is very divisive in deciding who can potentially work for Apple. Because Apple’s computers are more expensive than other computer brands, many Blacks and Latinos don’t have much experience using them at home, school or work. As an extension of this, Apple offers no training for associates to become more familiar with the products. It is unclear whether or not this is a purposeful decision on Apple’s part, but it produces a very clear outcome.

The greatest racial tension at the store occurred on the sales for in interaction with customers. Racial steering seemed to be a large factor in many of the interactions I had in the store. Often times [censored], the other black associate, or myself were directed to help blacks specifically when they entered the store, even if they had already been greeted by a free white associate. It was unspoken but it was implied that they were “our people.” To be fair though in some cases we were requested by black customers who felt that white associates would steer them down a path to spending more money. In fact much of the racial tension in the store would be the direct result of various preconceived notions brought by customers. Often times when minority or female Specialists would greet customers and ask them if they needed assistance, the customer would say no. That same customer would make quick work to find a white male to assist them.

The assumption was often made that in the environment, minorities and women did not have the expertise necessary to talk about technology. One tell tale sign of this way of thinking came in an interaction I had with two white males in there 30s. I was explaining to them about how I used the Apple computers in my job as a graphic designer. As I was explaining the customers cut me off and said, “No you don’t. You don’t do that.” It was quite clear that because I am black they felt that there could be no way that I have the level of technical expertise I was describing to them. This seemed to be a common part of many interactions I had, specifically with White and Indian males. There was often a desire to speak to other associates because it was assumed that my race was some sort of hindrance to my knowledge of computers and computer programs. It doesn’t matter what is being sold, in any situation with a majority of white associates, racial minorities will always have difficulty being taken seriously or being approached for help.

Both customers and associates engage in racially discriminatory treatment in shopping environments, and in many ways it seems like this is an inescapable reality. Being a customer I experienced being treated differently than my own friends. Being a spectator I witnessed tension on both sides, customers treating associates with animosity and associates treating customers with hostility. Even as an associate I have experienced having my own aptitude called into question for no reason other than my race. In many of these situations, gender sometimes plays a part of the outcome of these interactions, but more often than not, race is the major factor. It seems that no matter what angle you look at commerce, there is a drastic disparity in the way people are treated based on race.

November 30th-December 3rd
This week I finished writing my letter of intent for the work I am currently doing in design. It is perhaps the poorest thing I have ever written, but if you would like to read, it is below. Be forewarned though, it is all complete and utter B.S.

B.S. of Intent
As a designer I feel that my work and profession are both misunderstood. Either people assume I am just an artist or they have no clue what a graphic designer does. When lumped in with artists I am met with a sense of condescendence. The thought is that I merely sit around all day drawing pictures. There seems to be a sense that it doesn’t take much all to be an artist, and being a graphic designer can’t be much different. I find this way of thought appalling. Why are artists now seen as trivial rejects and outcasts in society? During the Renaissance artists were seen as our greatest minds. Da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, they were our philosophers, poets, mathematicians and scientists, on top of being artists. Mostly, they were respected and celebrated.

I feel it is our duty to bring about a sort of new renaissance; our goal should be to bring about new ways of thinking to the masses. Think about it, what better way to do this than through the images we produce. As a visual culture our greatest assets are our artists and designers. In a sense we are in our own type of Dark Age, and it is time for enlightenment. Why should we as artists and designers be seen as the recluses of our society? We have the ability to affect many areas of society and culture. In a sense we are the gatekeepers of thought and perception, and have the power to drastically change the way in which people view everything.

For me, my manifestation of this belief is through creating work that deals with race, class, gender perception and learning. I feel that the best way to address the shortcomings of our society is to bring them to the forefront. To take ideas seen as taboo and to force people to look at them and discuss them is key in making any sort of change.

In order to do these things, I feel that it is important to transcend what we traditionally think of a graphic designer as. Too often designers are seen as not having any ideas of their own. We take ideas that other people have had and try to find a way to make them visually appealing. Commercially this is respectable, but as individuals, who have their own thoughts, this becomes maddening. It is one thing to have a vision for someone else’s words, but the importance in our profession is to find a way to visualize our own voice and thoughts.

As I said before, my work deals with the issues of race, gender, class, perception and learning. Subsequently I would also say my work deals with religion and humanism to an extent. I am looking at what drives us apart as a human being. The goal is extremely lofty, but I feel that by addressing these issues, my true purpose is to develop ideas that will work to a sort of unification. That is not to say that my work is designed to undermine and discourage individuality, but rather I aim at celebrating the things that make us different in order to help develop a more efficient type of coexistence.

I do not want to come across as some sort of revolutionary, but in a sense my work is an attempt to battle the information and the way we are taught in our society. I want to look at why we have the perceptions we do, what reinforces them, and how we can counter them. To accomplish this, it is important to adopt past ways of thinking and use them to counteract what they have originally been used to do. What I mean by this is to use tools and words and thoughts to work against their original intention. Boiling it down further, I see my work as a type of propaganda to hopefully achieve a greater sense of togetherness.

To make my work realize my intentions, it is important that as little of it as possible comes in the form of strictly visual representations of concepts. On the contrary, I like to approach my work from the basis of a sociological experiment. By this I mean that the most important part of my work is getting feedback to either generate content or to substantiate a hypothesis. Polling, interviewing, surveying, and observing all play a major roll in creating a more effective vision of my goal. If I am to speak to the idea of a furthering sense togetherness in society, my work will backfire if I do not attempt to pull as many people into my work as possible.

Working in this manner is also helpful in that it provides me ways of thinking that I may not have. The use of different individuals in my work helps provide me with the perspectives of others and gives me new and diverse ways to approach and develop my work. I feel that this is another important aspect of my work. The idea that what I am producing can evolve based on the input of others thoroughly reinforces what I see as the major goal for my work. This interconnectivity, between myself, my thoughts, and the thoughts of others, establishes a kind of common ground that helps what I am producing to stay relevant and accessible to others.

In closing, I feel that the way in which I am currently working will bring about a few of the goals I have laid out for myself and my work. Through working with others, and addressing important social issues, I am working to establish myself as one of the voices in this new renaissance. The goal of my work and my vision of society are not mutually exclusive in any manner. Rather, the manner in which I am working represents a small-scale manifestation of my vision for our society and the type of togetherness and interconnectivity I want my work to address.

Thesis Blog Post # 2 10/21-10/27

2008-10-28T11:24:00.010-04:00

So it is a good thing I decided to start this blog. In thesis on Friday I found out that we will be required to keep a log of our thesis work.

October 21, 2008
Tuesday at the Civic Square Building, we were visited by Michael Ian Kaye, a graphic designer/art director.

He gave us valuable insight into his evolution in design and how the industry is. It was interesting to hear his take on issues ranging from Art school to drugs to grids to money to the presidential election. He also showed us a great deal of work. His design portfolio was quite diverse and it was good to see that there are possibilities for someone to make it as a graphic designer. All and all he was an enlightening and charismatic speaker and made a lot of people think of what they are doing and the way they think as designers. I was very impressed that Mason Gross could summon a designer of MIK's caliber to come and speak to us, and I am quite glad that I did not miss it.

October 22, 2008
On Wednesday I wasn't very productive in terms of my own work. I went to work and did a few design projects there. That evening I went to see a talk by Renee Cox.

Renee Cox as a very impressive and (to some) controversial portfolio of work. To hear her speak about her work and the motifs and stories behind them was quite amazing. It was good to see an artist speak so naturally and intelligently about their work, while not sounding stuck up or egotistical. When she finished her talk there was time for a question or two, so I decided to raise my hand. I asked her what, if any, obstacles she faced in creating her work. She asked me to explain, so I talked to how, often in our society, being black or being a woman is sometimes seen as almost a "handicap." Her response to this was very interesting and filled me with a kind of hope for my own work. She said that she didn't see anything as an obstacle, and went on to express that the most important thing is to do your work and not take no for an answer. This resonated with me and reinforced what I see as my own ideals of doing what I feel even if those around me may see fit to denounce or even dismiss it.

Later that night I met with Michal Krauthamer to discuss our Advanced Design project. For this project we basically need to create a fanzine that combines our two thesis topics into one coherent form. As you may know (or rather should know from my previous post), my thesis topic is Race, and Michal's thesis deals with Violation. In discussing our two topics, she had the amazing idea of making a fanzine where we act as fans of each others race. So directly we deal with both of our topic as she, as categorized in America, is white and will be a fan of black people, and I am, again in America, a black man who will be a fan of whites. After much discussion of the form of this project, we decided it may be ideal to create both posters and a small book or magazine to communicate our message. In terms of the content, we decided that it may be best to take photographic images, mostly photos that we will take, and we will, in a sense, make notes on these photos about the things that we like about the persons race, ranging from blatant stereotypes to physical appearance to who knows what.

October 23, 2008
I did not actually do anything thesis related this day. For me this was a relaxation and recuperation day. I did talk to my Advanced Design teacher Michael Gallagher though. He gave me the names of some designers and some studios I should check out. As I look into them I will be posting some links for them here.

October 24, 2008
During the Friday morning thesis meeting we found out we are required to keep a daily thesis journal/blog as well as attend at least for of the visiting artist lectures. Luckily I have already seen two of my required for, but I will more than likely try to go see all of them for the rest of the year. Another thing that we found out in this meeting is that we would be forming thesis support groups. The purpose of these groups is not to critique eachothers work, but to discuss logistical issues and process problems. I find it interesting that the class is structured in such a manner that we are basically not encouraged to immerse ourselves in each others work. How am I supposed to feel comfortable being in a show with twenty other students when I have no idea what three-fourths of them even do?

Later that day Rich Couzzi, Annie Sobrin, Chris Matrone and I went to New York to visit galleries. Once There we split up, Rich and I going around together. All and all I was pretty unimpressed with most of the art.

One of the few artists that caught my eye was Jean Dubuffet and his huge sculptures. The show was was one of the most impressive I have seen in a while in terms of the scale of the work. These sculptures are polyurethane paint on epoxy, and are primarily white, with black, red, and blue areas painted in. The pieces in the show are influenced by the artists love of architecture and promote a sense of overarching interaction with the viewer.

Siebren Versteeg was another artist who really impressed me. He deals with new media in a very interesting and innovative way. His most interesting piece, to me, was his Infinite Touchscreens. They were about 30 inch high def touch displays displaying "random" images that seemed to be pulled from all over the internet. In one of his videos he is using a grinding dishand grinding. The video starts out very pixelated, and as he grinds it becomes increasingly more focused. When the movie is fully focused he continues to grind and the video gets smaller and you see more videos surrounding it. These videos become smaller and smaller and smaller as he continues to grind.

October 25, 2008
Saturday morning I talked to 8th graders participating in the Future Scholars program at Rutgers. These students come from New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden. These predominantly minority students represent intelligent students coming from underprivileged educational systems. The great thing about this program is that if the students are accepted by Rutgers and choose to attend, they will receive full ride scholarships. In my portion of the talk I spoke about visual arts and it's importance as it is farther reaching than just paintings and sculptures that they may have seen in art classes or museums. It felt really rewarding to impart some of my knowledge and experience on these up and coming kids.

Octber 26, 2008
Sunday was pretty uneventful. After returning to New Jersey from Pennsylvania, I updated my website. I added a few new sections as well as uploaded new photographs and projects that I have done.

Feel free to take a minute and check it out. I also started to develop some new ideas for what I can do on the new portfolio site I am developing.

October 27, 2008
On Monday I did nothing even remotely thesis related. 'Nuff said.

Larrytron Thesis Blog Post #1

2008-10-08T10:26:00.009-04:00

Introduction

So as you may have figured, this is the space in which I will be posting information about my thesis, as well as posting artists that I am looking at, and articles I am reading to shape my thesis. I will be posting often so try to keep up.

Main Project: HETEROGENESIS.ORG

The overarching project I am working on will be run through my new domain,
Heterogenesis.org. My project is generally about race as well as racial identification. The most important part about this project is providing people a space in which they can self-identify. Self-identification is important in that too often in our society, we are pre-placed into boxes. By self-identifying and expressing ourselves in a way we see fit, we can have a better understanding of our own view of ourselves. However, in order to collect this data it is still important to have a rigid structure to funnel this information into. For this I have created a group of questions for people to answer. Following is the list of questions:

Upload your photo

What is your Name?

What is your age?
What is your gender?
What color is your skin?
What is your religion?

Where were you born?
Where do you live now?

How many siblings do you have?

Where is your mother from?
What does she do?
Where is your mother’s mother from?
Where is your mother’s father from?

Where is your father from?
What does he do?
Where is your father’s mother from?
Where is your father’s father from?

Do you go to school?
Have you ever failed a class?

What is your Occupation?
Do you have a job?
Have you ever been promoted at a job?
Have you ever been fired from a job?

How tall are you?
What is your shoe size?
Do you wear glasses?
What color are your eyes?

What are your favorite genres of music?(Up to 3)

What are your favorite foods?(Up to 3)

What are your hobbies/interests?(Up to 3)

How would you identify yourself?(No Max.)

All of these questions will have form fields in which the answerers of this survey can type in information the way they see fit. Although the questions do seem fairly rigid, they are very open, and will help draw links between people of different races through seemingly mundane cultural tendencies. In that sense this project shows a type of integration. On the other hand, I can use this data to segregate people and show, in a sense, how ridiculous it is to separate people by skin color, when there are so many factors,just as meaningless, that we can use to separate people into different groups. I guess with this project I am asking the questions, "Why is it accepted to separate and discriminate people by their skin color? Why don't we separate and discriminate people based on what their occupation is? or what food they eat?" So in a sense I want to map how integrated we really are in our society, but to also show ways in which we could further segregate ourselves.

The form and website should be up within the next 3 weeks, and I will be posting on the date it is operational so I can begin the data collection process. The data collection will run from the end of October indefinitely. I would like this project to proceed past the scope of my thesis in the hopes that it will constantly evolve.

Feedback

Please feel free to give me questions you think I should add to this survey. Also let me know what you think about the nature of these questions and the phrasing. Also feel free to provide feedback on the overall scope of the project. Any critique I can get will help me in proceeding with my project. Thank you.