Caroline made a mobile out of a bike gear, copper wire hanging from the round gear, and paper cut-outs that she painted colorfully (and in one case colored with crayon) with quotations on the backs of the cut-outs. The cut-outs are in the shapes of a planet, a sun, a UFO, and various extraterrestrial/sci-fi objects (one is maybe a turntable). The quotations are from the Sounds Like the Future unit. There are some cellophane people, too.
Jennifer: Cool. What's the circle [bike gear]?
Evan: I think she uses it as a turntable. Represents a CD or vinyl.
Wafa: When I look at this compared to other objects, I think, This looks out of the blue.
Evan: What are the people [cut-outs]?
Jennifer: Are they the data thief? Musicians? Aliens?
Gail: Why is it a mobile?
Jennifer: It exists in space.
Gail: I like that it moves. I like that it has the potential for movement. And the bike gear - that's the level of technology that Sun Ra to indicate space and the future.
Jennifer: They talk about scavenging in the readings. So maybe she was referring to that - scavenging.
Brian made a camera obscura out of thick black posterboard and hard clear plastic. On the outer section of the camera, there are several plastic shapes (cylinder, cube) painted silver and connected by wires. It looks like a robot. There are two sections to the camera obscura, and so in the inside section, there are printed-out pictures, that look like the refracted image of the robot. There are quotations pasted into the object in various places.
Evan: It looks very clean-cut, it looks simple yet complicated.
Jennifer: It's very thoughtful, where he placed everything. Really geometric.
Wafa: It's very organized. Is there a mirror-ish effect? You can see yourself looking at it.
Jennifer: Where does he get his material from?
Gail: This was my husband's favorite piece. This and Caroline's.
Jennifer: It's intriguing.
Gail: A lot of people comment on it when they see it.
Evan: It's a project within a project.
Jennifer: What are the quotations from?
Gail: There must be something from Barthes, no? From Camera Obscura?
Evan: Mostly from Moravec.
Jennifer: And Bryant. Maybe it's about virtual reality. "Transplanted human minds will often be without physical bodies but hardly ever without the illusion of having them."
Gail: So it's about illusion. So it's about appearances.
Jennifer: It's the idea of having a mind without a body and just watching the body. It's weird. There's something more, I don't know what it is. You know what, I think this [the robot] is a human with his body replaced. Didn't Moravec say your body will slowly be replaced, with more and more machinery? And then the Uncanny Valley - how human are they [once their body parts have been replaced]?
Marie made a journal that is a sort of book/scrapbook essay. It's called "Performing Me: A Look at Every Piece of the Puzzle That Makes Up Marie." On the bottom of the front cover is the quote, "All performance involves a consciousness that involves doubleness." She gives an Introduction of herself, her status in life, and the goal of the project. Each of the pages has a photograph of Marie (self-taken) in various "states" and a description of that state. The first page is "My 'Relaxed' Self," and the photograph is of Marie without makeup, fresh out of the shower. She describes that state, and how this is how she looks when she's chilling at home, watching TV. The next page is "My 'Checklist' Self," "My 'Dead' Self," "My 'Ehhh' Self," "My 'Fresh' Self," "My 'Semi' Self," "My 'Going Out with People I Know - Daytime Self," "My 'Make a good impression Day to Night' Self," "My 'Tyra' & 'Fierce' Self." Each page has her description of that state and quotations about the nature/definition of performance.
Wafa: I think that she could have been a little more specific with her pictures. In these pictures she's acting [these states] out.
Jennifer: I have worse candid shots than any of those.
Evan: They look so normal.
Wafa: She could have had pictures from the past, pictures her friends took.
Evan: The fact that she's doing this is also a performance.
Jennifer: It's a double performance. I don't even know what that means.
Wafa: Is this about how we all have different personalities, or moods, depending on the environmental self?
Evan: She's performing for herself.
Jennifer: She's performing what she thinks she looks like in these different states.
Wafa: It's a very creative idea. One way to improve on it would be to have more random shots.
Gail: I have to say that this was an extra credit project and I'm incredibly impressed with the fact that she did this amount of work totally aside from anything else she had to do for the class.
Jennifer: It's a cool concept.
Evan: Yeah, the concept is great.
Gail: This is about how "I" is a "we" and we all consist of multiple people. She's performing all the different selves that she performs in her daily life.
Stacey made a Christmas tree ornament that was an eyeball in the theme of Foucault's panopticon. One side of the styrofoam ball was an eye whose pupil was a mirror, and the other side of the ball was a quote from Foucault.
Gail: I can't show this to the peer reviewers because this is actually in my house. This was one of only two Christmas ornaments that my husband and I had in our house during the holidays. My husband came to my office before the holiday break and saw this ornament and said, We have to take this home with us, so we did. I love this piece so much. It was extra credit and I gave it like a million points. So clever, turning the sphere of the tree ornament into the eye of the panopticon - something associated with such warm and nostalgic feelings coupled with a concept that is about fear, discipline, punishment, paranoia. And the giant eyeball hanging over you at Christmastime - the idea that you are being surveilled even in your warmest family moments - so, so, so great. Instills exactly that paranoia that Foucault is trying to explain.
Michal made a very artistic book whose every page was a collage of images (including diagrams and pictures) and words related to a concept that she first explained in her first essay for the class, the idea that as technology develops, our understanding of what is developing is more limited than the development itself. In other words, emerging technologies have their own stories which we (the people developing those technologies and watching them develop) only understand partially.
Gail: This was totally creative and so intricate and involving. Michal needed to take this away b/c she graduated at the end of last semester, so I don't have this in my possession, but it was remarkable in its conceptualization and execution. I love Michal's theory, it's amazing. I can't explain it as well as she could.
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