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May 31, 2007
Cincinnati02
In the last two days of prepping for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival it's been a lot of set up. The video rig (see video below) contains just under 20 televisions all which company members had to cart down here from Chicago over the past few days.
Posting when I get the time...more to come
Posted by andrew schneider at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2007
Between Race And Republic
I arrived early yesterday morning in the beautiful city of Cincinnati, Ohio, my college nickname's namesake (Joey Cincinnati). From Wikipedia I have gained the knowledge that Cincinnati was orininally called Losantiville:
"Losantiville" from four terms, each of different language, meaning "The city opposite the mouth of the Licking River." "Ville" is French for "city," "anti" is Greek for "opposite," "os" is Latin for "mouth," and "L" was all that was included of "Licking River."
Indeed. I am here with my theatre company Big Picture Group to participate in the Cincinnati Fringe Festival opposite the mouth of the licking river. We are furthering our production of TRUE+FALSE.
With no one else around today I was able to take in the city. The best way to get to know a city is by walking it. Although I didn't charge myself with the task of walking the entire city, I did set out to get to know my immediate area. Our company is being housed in an arts complex on the southern border of Over the Rhine and Downtown. I started out on a giant loop around the area. First north on Vine up to 13th. Right to Main. Main all the way down to 3rd Street which is where The Taste of Cincinnati was happening this memorial day weekend. Then it was over to Elm and all the way back up to 14th Street. I was getting some looks mostly on the North side of Central Parkway, which is apparently the dividing line between Over the Rhine and Downtown. I got a "what's up big man?" from a kid hanging out with his girlfriend. And as I walked between Race Street and Republic on 14th I heard some shouting from down the block near Washington park. "White boy!" It could've been anyone really, if there had been any other white boys in the vicinity. "White boy!" I don't think the Mohawk is helping here. "Go the fuck home white boy!"
huh.
I can't say that it didn't affect me. I'm still not sure what I think about it. Am I a white punk gentrifying this man's neighborhood for the week? Why am I getting yelled at here, but not a couple blocks south?
When I got back to the arts complex I'm staying in, I started doing some research on the history of the area. Most notable are the 2001 riots sparked from the death of Timothy Thomas. Thomas, 19, was shot in a dark alley by officer Stephen Roach who was later cleared of criminal charges. Thomas was unarmed. Thomas was wanted and had a number of warrants out for his arrest. Among them, he was wanted for driving without a seatbelt.
There are a plethora of articles on this subject that I've found through a simple google search or two, and none of them stand out as anything authoritative, in fact, they seem to contradict one another in a number of small ways.
One video produced by the extremely and frighteningly racistCouncil of Concervative Citizens (cofcc.org) is a scary really fucking scary example of a big part of the problem in racial tensions in cities like Cincinnati. Sad.
Midway through my research, I decided to head down to The Taste of Cincinnati downtown. There I ran into several beached-whales of red-skinned boozy business men and their families, I met a kid working for a company that is giving away a free luxury car, I met a police woman named Stella who didn't want to talk about the local shelters Cincinnati has to offer, and I talked at length with Anthony Merit, a homeless man living in Cincinnati his entire life.
I've started writing about the experience, his story, and am trying to actively weave something together for T+F. Anthony's story is very much true, he just doesn't have a venue withing which to tell it. Much more on this later. For now I am excited to continue to explore this area in the minimal amounts of free time we'll have here.
I will continue to post about BPG's time at the Cincy Fringe here. Everyone arrives today. Here we go.
Posted by andrew schneider at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2007
LeftCoast01
hello.
Here we are. "The Golden Tube Sock." I'll be posting a video per day here hopefully chronicling my first trip to California as well as my time at the Second Annual Maker Faire. Disco Frisco!
Posted by andrew schneider at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2007
Maker Faire
I'll be heading to San Mateo (just outside of San Fransisco) for the (second?) annual Maker Faire. Maker Faire's site calls itself "a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It's for creative, resourceful folks who like to tinker and love to make things. We call them Makers." Indeed. I'll be showing the Perform o shoes and the Prolixus which can each be seen at this glittery new URL: experimentaldevicesforperformance.com See you there!
Posted by andrew schneider at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2007
Live Image Processing Final
Last Thursday, I gave a performance at ITP as part of the LIPP final. I was able to use the TwitchSet and the FaceMask, which are both part of my thesis. I used the source text from PLEASURE, which I've done before at the build/decay festival earlier in the semester. This performance seemed to go over really well. It was more humorous that it has been in the past and I was pleased at the reliability of the TwitchSet. Video below. Kind of dark. But thanks a bunch to Wendy Coutau for documenting!
Posted by andrew schneider at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)
THESIS
I gave my final Thesis presentation on Tuesday at noon at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. The whole thing came very much down to the wire. I ended up builing the whole presentation in Max/MSP and Isadora. The idea was to have it look exactly like a Keynote or a power point, but with the ability to build interaction and live video processing into the mix. Overall, I think it went well. The archive is here, but I've edited off the first few minutes of the screensaver here as a standalone:
More ITP thesis info here. More ITP Spring Show '07 info here.
Posted by andrew schneider at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)