ahhh it has been a little bit, but I wanted to make sure that this didn’t die towards the end of the semester since I’m working on the paper/presentation, ironing out details, adding things, refining ideas and topics, etc. basically the thesis is on my mind everyday but frankly I’m really excited about and I really want to make it big and wonderful. oh man a project I care about….this is scary.

ok…what was I going to write…

yes yes~! my thesis…I’ve gotten to the general core of my thesis. learning about Japanese culture through and by the interviewing and interaction with people who live the culture and those who subscribe to it. This will be done through interviews(paper, audio, video and photo) and an artifact collection (indexed, collected and analyzed, not just gathered). But to do this I’m going to need to push push push this project.

in terms of online content there will be three main sections of the website.

• >thesis core (what I like to call it) includes all documentation for interviews and artifact collection, along with FAQ, goals, progress(through blog link), funding(through donation link), and contact. Basically the intermediary between myself and the rest of the world. I do not think there will be member sign ups, but there will be some php interactivity.
• >Blog - the update/information center. while the thesis has the project parts, the blog will have the progress and collection statistics. along with photos of progress and data collection. a direct way for people to stay involved and updated and to correct me when I fall. Plus it serves as the blog portion for many of the social networking sites I will sign up for to promote the site.
• >”send me to japan” / donations page - this part is focused on getting funding for the project. starting as a separate project so that I can push this by itself to possibly gather a reader/fan base for helping to send me to Japan for a week to collect interviews and artifacts for many of the Japanese people that I will hopefully meet and have help me out, since this is their culture that I’m ‘invading.’

each of these need names mainly, I think the name has a big part in all of this and I want choose it carefully. while I’ve used words such as genuine, authentic and spirit often in my copy for the project, I don’t feel that they are representative enough of the goal of the work. Plus I will need to create the visual language of the sites/paperwork that continues with the documentation/interview feel. Something solid, a little scientific but friendly and well designed. Sans-serif types and small flourishes here and there.

as for self-promotion I’m going to list my sites on as many places as I think are related in some way to art/culture and Japan. As a short list if you will, of social networking sites and blogs that I plan to contact in my endeavor. And if I can get these people to post on their sites, as a favor to me, I need to find a way to thank them. I’ve decided that not only will there be recognition on the site and a hard copy inclusion in the exhibition but I think that if at ALL possible I will have some sort of thank you mailer, possibly from Japan if at all possible, but that will require money, around ~300 yen a piece and so I think that will be for people donating more than 10~15 dollars so i can afford it and it doesn’t drive me in the hole with 100 donations of 1 dollar for a post card. anyway…the list.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

• facebook profile/group
• myspace
• asoboo
• vimeo (maybe)
• mixi profile
• piqniq.jp (possibly)
• bebo
• del.icio.us (link farm to the thesis site and donations)
• experience project (maybe, this seems a little off base)
• friendster (worth it anymore?)
• gaia online (directs to a community of people I don’t really want to target, but they are a part)
• 43things.org
• rhizome.org
• twitter
• vox
• WAYN
• yippi.com

haha, I could link all of those…silly google SEO practices. But the thesis network would be good practice on SEO…haha this thesis is involved.

BLOGS

• jeansnow.net (i love this one)
• pink tentacle (it isn’t what you think O.o)
• tokyo mango
• notcot.org
• mauerpower.net
• tofugu.com
• daily J
• alljapaneseallthetime.com
• keepingpeaceinjapan.com
• stippy.com
• jp.blognation.com
• japanprobe.com
• dannychoo.com
• kirainet.com/english
• whatjapanthinks.com
• mboogiedown-japan.blogspot.com
• aichi-alex.blogspot.com
• tokyojosh.blogspot.com
• gaijinpot.com

and there they are. of course this list will expand like a balloon when I get started, but it was just what I could conjure up tonight in a couple of hours. I started getting into the blogspot personal sites, but if I can hit as many peopl as possible that adds the chance of participation in anyway they can.

Now is the time I need to work on my presentation, its mainly done, and more for adding images and diagrams so that I can give an idea of what I’m doing to the committee on this Thursday. Time to work some more!

my mac is getting slow…firefox seems to take some time processing keystrokes and mouse clicks, and ideas? I’m only using 1/3 of my vmemory at the moment. boo. time for a new one? maybe so.

here are some images from a space that I built up in google sketchup for one of my art history classes. It is meant as a space to have a tea ceremony. somewhat inspired by james turrell and terunobu fujimori.

this was just a peice that I saw on a blog that I read, but it has the elements of generosity and the viewers removing part of the work if they want to. While it says something on its own, the audience can remove parts of it and interact on a one to one level. Something I’d like for the piece that I’m making for the exhibition next week., oh man, what am I going to do?

In each of these containers is a mixed drink  and throughout the night the gallery viewers take glasses from a selection on the other side of the room and slowly empty the containers. I really like the idea of the audience taking a [art of the work with them. I’m trying to go for something like that in the work for IM3 this semester.

thecoolhunter.net

after talking with Jason and Andres about my raw thesis idea they gave me wonderful feedback. but its all scattered in my notebook, so I’m just going to organize the questions and notes here.

!! Why are you doing this? !!
What is it about these other things, to be involved in or desire another person’s culture? dissatisfaction? will it add to us?

WHAT/WHY/HOW - Am I doing?

break it down like that, the most clear way to see the clear goals of the project.

What questions are you asking?  What questions do you answer?

What do you want to get out of the project. Does the project terminate? or evolve once the data is collected?

How does the exhibition live? outline, interactive, art space, collection?

Is there a selection process for the subjects? If so, how will people find out about the project? networking, friends, publication, advertisement.

Models, sketches + how will it manifest in the show / ENDING?

——

How does interactive media play into this, what role does interactive media play in making this possible now?

the role in documentation? facilitation? implied? explicit? or hidden?

internet has bridged space and time

interpersonal relationships rely on space and time, internet making them easier to occur

video/audio lot more context than email

letter > has pen, ink, paper, handwriting, smell, envelope showing travel wear, stamp..etc

where is the richness coming from? high context data

voice, style, haircut, tone, pitch, glasses, time, place, location, wallpaper, weather… are these things important in knowing?

high context factualization or exchange > as much data as possible. as the person lots of clues to form a complete picture. Knowing everything. How does IM inform w/ all of this.

WITHOUT PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE (communication) YOU HAVE NO CULTURE.

I better have something to show, and too bad I don’t really. Thesis was put on hold for a family matter, I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past week about timing, responsibility, and well my late uncle.

One thing I found out this past weekend was that I did not know much about my Uncle, minus his never ending smile, big heart, and prank-pulling attitude. I only knew one side to him, but hearing the so many people speak about him it made me wish I had gotten to know him better, and to learn as much as I could of from him while he was still alive. I’ve had these thoughts recently about my late uncle Sammie. He served in WW2 and died a couple years ago, but here was a man who was alive during a time that was completely different.  I once spoke to him about his service when I was younger, but it was very limited and recently I had been thinking about what he could of taught me. And so with my inaction towards my Uncle, taking his presence for granted, we lost him in the blink of an eye. Seeing my aunt, watching her tears as she looked upon him for the first time since his departure, all I could think of was “this is what true love and pain is.” I don’t know if I am done mourning, but what he has taught me in his leaving is this. The correct path isn’t always the easy one, but do what you think is correct. Understand your responsibility and take it by the horns and do what you have to do. There isn’t enough time to fool around, so do what you have to. His childhood friend said this “John seemed stubborn and closed minded, but when we thought he was taking the hard path, he knew he was taking the right path.” A wonderful person he was and will ever be, down to earth and not concerned with frivolous things. My life is very different than his, but that doesn’t mean i cannot learn from his actions.

time is short, it sounds like what people always say after this, but its true. He passed within two days of having anything visibly wrong with him, not even enough time to figure out what the cause was.  But his determination was obvious, and now that he’s gone, the way he lived is what he leaves for me. I hope that I can be half the man he was.

I think my father put it best, but in Heaven, which is where he will end up , even though John wasn’t religious he’ll meet all these people, George Washington, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King…and he will get one of them to pull his finger.

John Corey Miller

October 14, 1947-November 1, 2007

I’ve decided to dedicate my thesis to him. I never understood dedications, but I do now.

I dunno. I really liked this image. Its so WHAAAA yet descriptive.

time to read the article later. I’ll reply to it soon, I have to read it first.

into the schoolgirl inferno

not something to be done often…or at all…but I had a stroke of genius while I was driving back to school tonight about thesis. If you can read them yay, but its more for me since I had to use a notebook for something else and I’ll have to return it to my car later.

yep. I’m at a blank for my thesis. I have two directions, I want to go in both, so yeah. what to do, what to do.  I’m going to try not to over think this one.

so I took the lights home and played around with what I had, only this time out in the environmental goodness that is southern Maryland. I just wanted to take them away from the similar modern/unnatural that the photos seemed to concentrate on before, so I took the lights and put them in some places that I think the light would describe the space or an object close to it. I’m not totally satisfied with these images, but hey, its a work in progress sort of? At some point I still want to polish these a bit more, maybe hide the cord and one possible one of having these neon lights out in the middle of a green field with nothing else around them. I would of when I took these photos, I just didn’t have enough extension cords.

the last ones were just some of the shots that I had taken while I was shooting the others. They were just for fun, but I enjoyed the way they came out, so I decided to post them.