Hello and welcome to Urban Intervention: Curiosity, Desire and Pleasure in Public Space.

Links to relevant resources for the course as well as student contributions and discussions will be posted on this blog.

Please begin by viewing the syllabus page or the weekly schedule of lectures.

Previously, I constructed a giant hamster wheel in some bizarre ritual to help me come to terms with my life as an academic failure (for further coming to terms, please see my forthcoming novel on life-hacks).

I then rolled it several miles up a giant hill, left it in a friend’s garage over and avoided making eye contact with it for the rest of the summer.

Later, I destroyed it with a hacksaw and left it for dead on the side of the road. R.I.P., giant hamster wheel.

Anyways, it was determined that a giant hamster wheel constructed out of fear and shame was probably a poor choice in final project. This is so true, I totally do not recommend a giant hamster wheel built out of shame to anyone. So instead, I’m going to blog about my first semi-serious foray into Event Planning.

I co-organized SNAPHACK, a social media hackathon, with Miles Peyton (I know you’re all shocked and surprised @ my choice in partner). It was held on September 20th in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. It was an all-day event that started at 10am and went until midnight.

Some highlighted projects (aka ones I could snag documentation for) include:

• Rachel Binx’s Wifi Diary, which was “a tool for chronicling one’s movements and travels, through the lens of different wifi networks”. It’s a background script that takes a picture every time you’re in a new location, which is determined by the change in your SSID. I get a surge of nostalgia every time I have to look through my list of previously connected wifi networks, not because I actually have a fondness for “ATT_WIRELESS_798” or whatever but because I associate them with the places I travelled to, like my home in Ohio or my trip to Italy.

• Me and Lauren McCarthy’s sadAR: Augmented Reality for Bad Days, which was a joke-y augmented reality app that let you change the way you saw things with Instagram-y filters based on your mood.

• Owen Khan’s ObitCoin, a cryptocurrency where you basically just create a death pool and generate currency based on how accurate your predictions are. This is neat-o, but Owen’s worried about like, death, and won’t release the code. )-: I feel ya Owen!
• More documentation on the official website

If anything, I learned how insanely difficult it is to organize basically anything, especially a thing where people hang out irl for a day. I think I definitely wouldn’t have ordered as much food, nor ordered super carb-y food and tried to get healthy food, like lettuce and sandwiches. Too much pizza just makes me groggy, and same w/ everyone else.

I also would’ve like to have final presentations at the end. It was a really chill event which was great, because it was low-stress and friendly, but there was also no real conclusion.  \-: I would’ve also tried to be more authoritarian/make loud announcements instead of awkwardly motioning people towards food whenever it arrived, but that’s generally a social anxiety issue and probably a more long-term life goal than anything.

Overall though I felt it was a fun experience. It was nerve-wracking and awful to plan, and in some ways to execute, but I feel like I have maybe more of a handle on how to plan things now. I went on to plan the B☆A Presentations, a night of short undergraduate artist talks, with Caroline Record, and I thought that was pretty successful too. Maybe I will continue to plan things in the future! Who knows! It gets slightly less painful each time, which is nice.

But regardless, I’m turning this in like two days before the end of classes so this probably isn’t going to be graded, and I’m going to retroactively fail this course. I don’t really care at this point, I learned a lot in this class and will almost inevitably use my newfound projection/CNC routing skills in the future(/already have), which is maybe all that matters. lol! 😉

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This is attempt number 2 at using the drone in side the box. It is now a more personal experience, with the use of headphones that magnify the sound that is created by the drone in side the box. and using a cell phone. The box is lit from the inside, and the drone is now powered by a plug so it has an infinite power supply. You can view a video from the drones camera here which shows what the participant sees when they are flying the drone.  This is not the final rendition of this project but I am in need of more time and funds to work out some of the issues with the many cords, and the frame and space in which this is in.

After re-evaluating problems with my previous final project iteration I chose to change directions completely and start fresh with a whole new project.

Feeling the stress of finals, I decided to intervene in a way that would let others and myself relax and gather positive thoughts. To do this I assumed the role of a mystic shaman and gave blessings to others for good luck during finals week. I drew inspiration from meditation, hypnotism, CMU lore, and pop culture in formulating my words and traveled to various places around campus to give these blessings.

I wanted to travel to the places where people were working because most people are reluctant to move from their place of study during finals. I carefully considered the role of props and decided on a minimalist approach given the fact that I was to be mobile and needed to set up/tear down quickly. The LED crystals we held in our hands were ideal for this because they were easy to use and stimulated a psychic energy connection between us.

I was pleased with the reception I got from those who received blessings and with how smoothly the performances went.