Service Learning Proposal

I've been toying around a lot with this assignment. I think what I'd like to do is have my group of kids help me create a small portion of my senior thesis, namely, the interpretation of image through situational constraints. This feeds to a larger whole (a board game), as they will be taking any of the various scenarios I've come up with (cards that advance the player in game) and creating the image to go with the text. Immediate examples would be:

-You stub your toe. [The pain is agonizing enough to skip a turn.]

-Your house catches fire. [Terrible insurance gains you $100.]

-You decide to be a hobo. [Get $100 for begging.]

Et cetera. It will be a chance to test a portion of my game and, more importantly, adding a unique perspective on both my project and on a greater whole than what I am limited to seeing.

If it isn't interesting enough, I think I would like to draw faces/people with the kids. Have them draw each other to really see what they see. What information they choose to show and what they choose to ignore. I think that's an interesting project too.

Graphic Fiction

I have read David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, assignment is "TBA"!

Media and the Body

While I'm sure this is the obvious pick for a number of students, the Bodies Exhibition is, to me, a perfect representation of how media and the body relate. Not far from ballet, this bizarre post-exhumation and public display of people after death gives us a personal look at the literal insides of people while the world reacts to it all. The virtual statues of the men, women, and children have been the subject of both praise and anger, with indifference being less common a reaction than either. These figures, a blend of art, science, and philosophy, are also at the mercy of those who wouldn't want any body to be contorted and disfigured to be put in headlights, so to speak, as well as the families of the deceased being used, who, if I'm remembering correctly, have made claims that these bodies were not consenting to this kind of appearance before death. To that end, this is also a political ordeal, a religious upset, a question of morality, and a big vs. small phenomena. Is it okay to deface and manipulate someone who had no say in a matter if this person isn't even living? Especially considering the benefit of being able to explore the body (as a student, as a teacher, as a doctor, etc)? Does the end justify the means? in a nutshell. I'm pressed to say that the human body has been of so much controversy, especially through the lens of media, which is why I've chose this project as a representation.

Media and the Body

I have read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, assignment is "TBA"!

Cool Hunting

After reading William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and watching David Cronenberg's Videodrome, I am almost certain the next big thing is going to be profoundly sexual. But that may be a warped standpoint. My hopeful guess is that the next big thing is going to be an interest in human alteration. The only thing stopping us now seems to be ethics, but as soon as some twisted underground scientist gets his black rubber gloves and circular eye protection ready, the world will be ready for that kind of thing. What kind of thing exactly? Well, I have a few thoughts on the matter.

First and foremost, we find ourselves wanting to look younger and younger and live longer and longer. This is a bizarre dilemma, as youth enhancing products end up making a person look older when compared to their younger looking peers. Some people seem to fall into the uncanny valley, looking almost human enough to be human, but just a hair too un-human to be real. Even robots are looking more convincing these days! (Warning, video is terrifying.) So what's next? Well, we could all be robots. Or we could master the art of gene manipulation. Harvard Scientists have already reversed the gene that makes us age, and my guess is that they'll eventually have to try it on humans.

If that isn't the next big fad, I think we'll probably still be a pretty entertainment based culture. Entertainment has always taken a stranglehold of everyone, dating back as far as written language will tell. Those next-gen graphics look pretty amazing. I've read somewhere (though I can't find the link for this) that 'they' are in the talks of making fully immersive gaming systems, dwarfing the Xbox Kinect in quality and fluidness. Maybe instead we can just download our mental selves into some new persona, like in James Cameron's Avatar. And if we're more interested in movies by that point, I'm sure Cameron will come up with some way of keeping us awed in just the theatres. I wouldn't be surprised if both scenarios end up together. (Suppose for a moment an Avatar video game in 2020 could completely and physically immerse any player. All those depressed internet kids might never have to leave Pandora! )

Really though, who knows what the next big thing is? 2012 is just around the corner, and if we're not going through a rebirth of knowledge, then we're probably going to all be fried in some crazy electrical field, or the like. That would be just my luck. Graduating college then getting punished by the earth itself just for being born at the wrong time. Why me?

Television

I have read Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage, and these are what I came up with: