Tuesday, December 13, 2011

10 Incredibly Bizarre Art Installations

http://www.oddee.com/item_98001.aspx

Brother's Keeper

 Two weeks ago I watched "Brother's Keeper" after seeing it listed on Morgan Spurlock's "50 Documentaries to See Before You Die". "The documentary by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky details the murder trial of Delbert Ward. Delbert was a member of a family of four elderly brothers, working as semi-literate farmers and living together in isolation from the rest of society until William's death. A police investigation and Medical Examiner's autopsy suggested that Bill may not have died from natural causes and Delbert was arrested on charges of Second-Degree Murder."

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Best Place To Be a Woman!

I've been thinking recently about where I'll end up after graduation, this coming spring. I like Chicago, and there are also a lot of other places throughout the U.S. I would like a chance to get to know better, but I've also been thinking about moving back to Europe. I lived in Dublin for nearly two years after graduating from undergrad, and although I don't think I'll be rushing back to Ireland any time soon I am increasingly more interested in the idea of living and working in Europe. My partner is Irish and we talk a lot about the places we'd like to live, Germany is high up on our list! I'm seriously concerned with the future of the arts in the U.S. and also the prospect for getting a job in my field after I'm done with school. Sure, Europe is going through a tuff time like the States, but after reading this article in The Huffington Post Europe is looking much more enticing. Especially for women!
Iceland
 The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/global-gender-gap-report_n_1070466.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=110211&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Sunday, October 30, 2011

"Barack Obama's White House of Horror"

By Brian McFadden for The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/

Northern Lights

This past Monday the aurora borealis or northern lights were visible across many areas of the United States.

"According to the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, auroras are created when electrons from space collide with atoms and molecules of gases (like oxygen and nitrogen) from the Earth's atmosphere. These collisions produce the amazing displays of light that we can see."



Monday, October 17, 2011

The Language of Less

New Exhibit at the MCA in Chicago, The Language of Less (Then and Now), will be showing through April 8, 2012. Minimalist and post-Minimalist work from the 1960-70's as well as new works by contemporary artists are installed and reinstalled by the MCA.


Jason Dodge 

Chicago Girl Talk

This Saturday I will be attending the Chicago Girl Talk info session. I am excited to begin working with the group and also begin collecting data for my fieldwork.
http://chicagogirltalk.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Chicago Children's Museum

Last Wednesday my classmate and I visited the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier. I found the museum to be three floors of non-stop fun and excitement. There were kids everywhere, each one in engaged in some way or another. There were areas to run around, exert energy, and just focus on movement, as well as areas that focused on exploration, like the dinosaur dig, and on building Chicago skylines.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Chicago Girl Talk: Info Session

I will attend an info session for the organization Chicago Girl Talk Saturday, October 29, 2011.  And then on Saturday, November 12, 2011 I will attend an all day orientation with the group. I am excited to join the group and begin participating in the workshops. I hope this will help spark the field work for my thesis.
http://chicagogirltalk.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

A Digital Interactive for the Museum

Last week, in my Cyberpedagogy class, a classmate and I came up with an idea for a digital interactive within a museum. The basic idea was to allow museum visitors the oppurtunity to both state and discuss their opinions about works of art through an audio recording and a group discussion. We created a three step process as to how this might happen, as well as a mock-up for what it might look like in the museum. 

Here is an example of the interactive: 

Step One: Self-Identification- Museum visitor or visitors explore the museum. They find a work of art, that links up to the Participatory Platform project, that they have a reaction to: good, bad, elated, confused, challenged by, etc. After thinking about the work, and perhaps discussing their thoughts and feeling with their fellow museum goer, they move on to step two.

Step Two: Recording- Recording booths will be located near a number of works throughout the museum, e.g., A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.),
Remember the Crimes of the Germans! Gerbeviller 1914. When a museum visitor enters one of these booths they will have the opportunity to relay their thoughts and opinions about the piece they were viewing.
    These will be smart booths, that not only record the participant, but also detect key words and ideas that may have been used by many participants. The Museum will have a record of these recordings, but they will also be able to listen to and understands the thoughts and views of the museum visitors in a more personal way. This could help the museum in the future with writing wall text or giving museum talks.  
    After the participant is done in the recording booth, they will have the opportunity to meet up later with other participants as well as museum curators to discuss the works in greater detail.

Step Three: The Lounge- The lounge will be an area of the museum dedicated to the open discussion of the AIC’s collection. Museum goers will not only be able to share their thoughts on what they have viewed and experienced, but they will be able to listen and talk to other museum visitors, museum curators, and museum educators about the content and context of a piece of work.  

Monday, September 26, 2011

Finland: An Education Leader

http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/07/18/tony_wagner_finland

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

If You Take Away the Death Penalty, There's Justice All Around

Troy Davis, a man imprisoned for over twenty years for the alleged killing of a police officer, was put to death by the state of Georgia last Wednesday night. "Despite the evidence of his innocence, despite the support by a former president, an FBI director and the Pope, despite the seemingly endless appeals, Troy Davis was doomed to die. His fate was sealed the moment Mark MacPhail was gunned down on that hot Savannah night in 1989."


During the last hours of Davis' life and now among the aftermath of his death, the great debate surrounding the death penalty is once again surfacing in the media, and loudly. Issues of race, poverty, and the South have come to the forefront as major players in the debate, and controversy at large. What is the answer and where dose America go from here? 


Alec Baldwin and David Protess, both contributers for The Huffington Post relay their thoughts: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/if-you-take-away-the-deat_b_981075.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-protess/troy-davis-execution_b_981305.html

Monday, September 19, 2011

The Interrupters

The Interrupters, a new film by Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz, documents three "violence interrupters" in Chicago who try to shield their communities from gang violence. 



Chicago Girl Talk

I am excited to start working with the group Chicago Girl Talk. They will begin training new group facilitators on November 12th. I am hoping to link this group with my thesis fieldwork. 

http://chicagogirltalk.wordpress.com/