-[] code art []-
intent one:Creating a type of project that will try to communicate with the user, using entirely improper english. The user will be able to correct the English, changing how the program will learn. Almost like the idea of SmartBot, except with more of an emphasis on how words can be destructive to the language barrier and communication. I would really like to see if people try and correct the language or if they ignore/encourage the behavior; tracking whether the language possibly evovles.

intent two:Creating a program that will use a peice of music (preferably one voice/single instrument) and use data input from that (like pitch and length of the notes) to create color, positon, overlapping, evolving the visual art as the audio art is being preformed.

intent three:Creating a website where people can start creating a story; but where the previous parts are not editable and are "set" in stone. Having to work with what you already have, and seeing how people take your ideas and "mess around" with them. I think this one would be the most interesting, but am not quite sure if it falls under the code art header or not. . .

-[] hacktivisim []-
intent point five:
Can we just. . . do what the Yes Men did and hijack the Maine Campus? Make it a year ahead? Because I think that would WAY WAY WAY cool!

intent one:
For my first hacktivisim, I'd really like to go around to libraries and find classic and popluar texts in which I would insert different words, cards with questions and what-ifs into the text. Ideally, I would actually go in and physically change things in the books, so that a person reading them would have a more emotional reaction.
----> approach one: see FINAL PROJECT
intent two:
I would like to create a series of images, using real people's portraits and photoshop them all, changing eye, hair, skin color. I think it would be more effective if they were all portraits of family members, and see how different it would be if something about us were different; if just one peice of that code was changed. Would any one notice? Or would it be a drastic change?

-[] autobiography []-
intent one: For this project, I'd really like to take a video camera and just, carry it around with me, set it in my car, basically journal my travel for an entire week. I would even bring it with me to class, to work, when I'm at home. . . have it running all the time; but have no audio, just the visual. Obviously when I go to put it into a video, I would speed up time. I think it would be interesting just to see how people get around/travel/their schedules as a visual representation of our daily lives.
----> approach one: So, after checking out some really neat videos of other versions of this (this is actually a really common project come to find out, but most of them are for long journeys, nothing seems to be a daily repetition of any kind) I found this video -> clicky!. This gave me further idea to spread out my project from a week, to an entire month- especially where we have winter coming up! The changing of the seasons would also be neat to document as well. I have also decided to use a iPod Touch as my main recording source as it seems to have the best battery life out of most recording devices, as well as the fact that it's also fairly small and could be carried around without having to worry. Also, it would be fairly easy to mount an iPod to my dashboard or whichever for easy recording!
I plan an starting the recording starting Sunday, Nov 6th. At the end of every week I will edit and compile that footage into (under) 5 minute chunks so that at the end of the month I can just put all four parts together and do some minor editing!
----> approach two: still going to mount camera on dashboard, but actually leave the audio on all the time. Really try and dig into how crazy my life is and how much I do in my car- the normal crazy adult life…. using a microphone to record a audio diary in conjunction with the visual. time to experiment.

intent two: I actually got this idea almost from a site called PostSecret. What I'd like to do is have everyone, for again, another week, create audio diaries. No visual, no hand writing, can even disguise your voice if you'd like. But just make a audio file every night, say whatever you want, how your day went, things you want to share but don't otherwise know how to, things you want to say to someone and don't know how. . . just, whatever.

n/a ;n;

-[] echotech []-
intent one: I suppose I will call this one.. guerilla gardening. In downtown Bangor (not specifially, but since it's where I live we'll go with that) there aren't many areas for full gardens due to walkways and bridges and such. In the few areas there are gardens, but the gardens are planted purly for visuals and not for pratical as well. What I would like to do is to make little like, mud-seed-packet things and under the cover of night (!) plant them in those small gardens so that after a while, they would begin to grow and hopefully take over. The seeds that would be in the ball/packet would be not only beautiful to look at, but pratical in nature so that they can either take care of themselves, or help maintain the enviroment. Practical and Prettiful!

intent two: This isn't really my intent, but I have offered to help Anna with her GYI project. The project encourages people to garden and become self sufficent (or group sufficent) by the means of an alternate reality game (for more information on alternate reality games you can hit up wikipedia, they actually have a great article with even better references). I have offered my services on the website end- as well as my knowledge on games and gaming. Here is a link to her blog for the project -> GYI Gaming

-[] FINAL project []-

:: INTENT :: for my final project, I would like to change how people read books. The first part is to get a hold of a physical book and insert notes (either cards, or stickies or something) so that when the reader reads the book, they come across these cards. The cards will either have notes about something imporant in the book, questions, comments or what-if statments. Whatever the note-writer feels is nessecary for that particular card. I feel that it is important the the book is a physical medium, rather than a digital version, not only for impact- but the personality that the books/pages/cards can project. Preferrably, I would rather do this with a longer, more in-depth story, but for the purpose of the project and due to time constraints- a simple, controversial fable/fairy tale will do.

step ONE:: Picking the book ----- I really wanted to go with a fairy tale, knowing that many of the orignial versions can be quite controversial in today's society. Hans Christian Andersons Little Mermaid is by far one of the most changed versions from the original to the Disney version, and that was the first one that came to mind. After looking at several different fairy tails (and really wanting to pick Beauty and the Beast, but ultimatly deciding not to) I did settle on The Little Mermaid.

step TWO:: Finding the book ----- this was actually quite hard. Since the original version is no longer under copyright, finding on online is actually quite easy: but finding a print version was quite a challange. Most bookstores (either online or retail) only carried the Disney version, which is again-- totally different. I ended up buying a anthology book of all of Anderson's works to place my cards in.

step THREE:: Decideding what to put on the cards ----- the bulk of the work remains here. Not wanting to actuall write in/destory the book, I printed out a copy of the story from the internet ( * link can be found at the end * ) Using that printout, I began to read and mark things that piqued my interest. Words, comments, events, questions that came to mind- it all got put down on the paper. After I wrote everything down, I then began to narrow down what would go onto the cards. Given the size of the story, I decided on only 5, it was enough that I could put one on every other page, but not so much that the book would be raised from the amount of things stuffed into it. Once my 5 items were chosen, I put them on the cards, using different colors and designs- part of the expression. Once the cards were made, I went about threading them with ribbon- so the ribbon could serve as a bookmark, an indicator that something was in there, so that the cards wouldn't be accidentally thrown out. Et Volia!

The Little Mermaid Story
( the image gallery is really funky. . . my apologies x.x)