feed it to the birds

2009-05-19T22:13:00.004-04:00

Art Museums

2009-03-22T14:29:00.002-04:00

Museum as a space where you can only view what is being contained—is there any artist who gets rid of the restricting physicality of the museum or it’s reinforcing ideologies of how people are “supposed” to experience art; or even how the museum begins to restrict what art is defined as?

I can think of Michael Heizer--who literally broke the physicality of the museum through literally digging holes into the ground (left).

site study-hipster's OMG

2009-02-22T17:13:00.010-05:00

DETROIT HIPSTERS:

WHO: 20-something, middle to upper class suburban kids

WHAT: Moving to the city of Detroit, usually to attend CCS or Wayne State college. A substantial population of what I will refer to as “hipsters” has created a nodal system of hangout spots within the city of Detroit.

WHERE: Detroit Michigan: specifically downtown and midtown areas.

WHEN: NOW.

WHY: The city offers a sense of escape and freedom. It is a way to experience a culture different from the burbs. Detroit is graffiti: it’s a post-industrial, brick, concrete, steel and glass city intersected with a neon and inventive culture that spray-paints its way across decaying surfaces. It combines the nostalgia of an era our parents generation experienced: a booming industrial heart of the Midwest that ignored class and race issues before the ’67 riots, which many consider the “downfall” of Detroit. This new and bright hipster culture offers a positive and bright future for the young generations perspective and impact on the city.

Why should people care about the hipster crowd in Detroit?
They are young, hip and optimistic. They bring money to businesses and have created a new art and music culture in the city. They are in love with Detroit. They take pride in the history, its current state and what they have to offer in the future. Though somewhat transient, they are a crowd that appears to maintain their population within the city—offering an optimistic perspective when comparing it to the overall loss of almost fifty residents a day.

What mode of transportation do they mostly use?
Carpooling, walking and biking are the most common modes of transportation within the hipster community. Roads, that some think of as too wide for today’s traffic, offer a safe and perfect biking surface for those without cars. In our immediate site area, there is an endless amount of parking available for those within and outside the immediate city to migrate, park and come together as a collective.

What are advantages of the nodal system?
Leisure activities within the hipster community are spread out in a series of nodes between downtown and midtown. Woodward Avenue becomes the most convenient way to travel between nodes, thus is the most used street; it is the spine of the hipster community. Though there isn’t a concentrated three block radius of this specific community, there are advantages of having diffused places of leisure. Since leisure nodes can be found in the Eastern Market, Corktown, Midtown, Cass Corridor, Downtown, Greek Town and New Center areas, there is more opportunity with interacting, and hopefully integrating with other communities and cultures in the city of Detroit. This simple act of traveling between nodes means there is a more traveled surface area, thus more post-industrial and abandoned buildings realized. This creates the possibility of a hipster seeking out future places of business and leisure between nodes. Thus, there is an opportunity for nodes to extend to farther boundaries and areas in the city, as long as this trend and culture continues to thrive.

What are the disadvantages of the nodal system and how does it compare to Manhattan?
When comparing the hipster community in the city of Detroit to Manhattan, there is an obvious difference. In Manhattan, there is a concentrated 3 block radius referred to as the Williamsburg district. This type of community formation allows individuals to reside and live in a condensed area where their culture thrives. New coming hipsters to a city of Manhattan could easily seek out this Williamsburg because it is so concentrated. Therefore, visual references to the community could easily lead them to this area, submerge them in the culture and make them feel at home. In Detroit, the nodes don’t allow for a strongly condensed and visual hipster culture, which could potentially leave a newcomer to the city feeling lost. This leaves the incoming hipster wondering how to connect with and where to find other hipsters. The disadvantage of a concentrated community is the less likelihood of people involving themselves in activities outside of Williamsburg. People who don’t associate themselves with this community would probably not feel as welcome to hangout at bars, cafes and venues in such a concentrated area of hipsters. This results in less integration of communities and cultures within a city.

ART SPACES:
Graffiti. Historical images collaged with the young and new. Paintings cover concrete walls and brick. Beads and neon lights hang from the ceiling. Creative work is based on the group dynamic and a certain in-the-moment spontaneity. Hipsters produce, they don’t think about how they are going to—they just do it.

HANGOUTS & EATERIES:
Places that haven’t been updated in 20 something years combined with the new, obscure and creative businesses that have popped up. Detroit is home to the dinner of coneydogs, beer, cigarttes and grungy, hole-in-the-wall spaces.

OUTDOOR LEISURE AND ACTIVITIES:

The fairs and festivals of Detroit bring all kinds of people to one place. They become a temporary utopia created for one hot and humid summer night. Fairs and festivals in the city offer the best sights, smells and overall are a pure representation of the immense mixture of culture and communities within the city. They are a spectacles for out of towners and holidays held with the same importance of Christmas for city-dwellers. The Dequinder Cut offers exactly what the hipster culture represents: a post-industrial, urban area collaged with a fresh coat of hot pink paint. Belle Isle is available to those who want to escape the urban setting: smoking cigarettes in the park or drinking beer on the beach and diving into the Detroit River; it’s a little green combined with the grunge the city-dwellers bring with them.

MUSIC AND DANCE VENUES:
Detroit is the birthplace and celebrator of many genres of music. Motown, soul and jazz. Detroit Rock City. Funk and Punk. Techno. Rap. Today’s hipsters pride themselves in inhabiting a city with such strong music traditions. Venues offer jazz one night, rock another and noise shows another. The current venue and sounds of Detroit is a diverse collage of all the historic sounds of Detroit: it is fresh, noisey, hip, dance-able and head-banging. Venues are dark, dirty, sweaty and crowded. They bring together anyone who embraces the current music scene Detroit has to offer.

greek (geek) agriculture

2009-01-26T20:30:00.003-05:00

if chipotle on state st. didn't exist....

2008-12-22T01:56:00.005-05:00

Hypothetically, the "extremely generous" U of M business school is funding a gathering place for the 10 fellows of Youth Action Net. The fellows, who have started non-profits around the world, would meet here in Ann Arbor, mi. Since their meeting spot is here over any other place in the world, my main goal is for these fellows not only to interact with each other, but to mix with ann arborites as well; essentially, to feed off the city.

I wanted my design to reflect the diverse population of ann arbor. I thought of creating some sort of symobolic representation of each "type" of person in ann arbor (example: diamond for the sorority girl, peace sign for the hippie, etc.). This led me to categorize people and separate ann arborites as if we are not one; as if we are not a community. It was time to rethink my concept...

WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE HERE FOR? WHAT BRINGS PEOPLE TO ANN ARBOR? WHAT DO WE ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

Ann Arbor is one place I have lived where freedom of expression exists. I wanted to attract the funky motherfuckers of ann arbor into my building so that the fellows could have a taste of the personality of the city.

agricultural green walls and roofs form spaces of herb shop

2008-11-06T16:53:00.005-05:00

Summary of Chado - The Way of Tea

2008-10-13T16:35:00.007-04:00

Looking at the ritual and history of tea to design an environment that encompasses this ritual. The goal: bring others together in harmony to achieve tranquility.

Results later...

WA KEI SEI JYAKU

HARMONY RESPECT PURITY TRANQUILITY

HARMONY
Between ourselves and nature,
between us and other people.
Balanced relationships between
things which are complementary.

RESPECT
For the moment, the person, for ourselves,
for the objects we use, for nature.
Respect demonstrates our understanding
of the interconnectedness of all things.

PURITY
Of mind,
purpose,
action,
vision

TRANQUILITY
The state of being free from agitation of mind and spirit.
If we are in harmony with our surroundings,
and if we respect the moment and what it brings us,
then we can achieve purity of mind,
purpose and action,
and thus carry with us a state of tranquility.

Feed youtube to the muthafuggin birds

2008-09-29T00:11:00.002-04:00

"Dear agirlnamedpeter,

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video Highway. The audio content identified in your video is Runnin' Down A Dream by Tom Petty. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team"

feed him to the birds

2008-08-25T01:43:00.012-04:00

ALL PHOTOS OF MR. PREZ CAREFULLY SELECTED FROM THE FIRST 20 OR SO PICTURES ON GOOGLE IMAGES, KEYWORD: "GEORGE BUSH." A 2ND GRADER IN WISCONSIN IS BUSY PRINTING OFF PHOTOS OF GEORGE FOR HIS PRESIDENT'S DAY SCHOOL PROJECT AND WONDERS WHY TODAY'S YOUTH HAS TROUBLE FINDING TIME TO BE PATRIOTIC. HE FINISHES HIS PERFECT 1/8" SCALE GEORE BUSH REPLICA, TAKES A BITE OUT OF HIS CAT, AND THINKS TO HIMSELF, "I AM GONNA BE PREZ ONE DAY."

Bird in Oscoda

2008-08-12T19:06:00.001-04:00

My Saturday:
Drank early in the afternoon. Napped. Woke and rolled a loose cigarette with Evan. Walked out the back door with blue plastic cups of gin along lake huron and watched sun set behind us; longing shadows reflected in shallow tide pools. A humming purple strip of sky to the north; we ran from summer’s storm along the lesser public beach. Cigarette butts and leathery old ladies panicked in the wind. A sea bird walked along for a cigarette’s length, it was sick, broken-winged.

2008-08-10T19:17:00.002-04:00

"fuggin feed it to the birds." - mama peterson

2008-08-03T14:34:00.002-04:00

the hood

2008-07-15T23:13:00.004-04:00

work and art and dancing and better crack than ann's vagina.

GRAVITY POAM

2008-04-23T21:28:00.002-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3fZxt4fUxw

video poams

2008-04-23T21:20:00.002-04:00

Framing, where obsessions begin: Birds

2008-04-04T15:45:00.007-04:00

an obsessions with birds,
never seen in writing, but often in my drawings. maybe thoughts will soon accumulate on paper, then in blog form. we'll see.

Symmetries, Predictions (revisited with video/sound)

2008-03-31T11:38:00.001-04:00

Finally, I have completely finished my first video poem/poam. I hope you enjoy it. Special thanks to Matt and Emma for all the hard work :)

Great American Highway

2008-03-17T12:22:00.009-04:00

We need no great American highway
to smoke our lungs black,
to toss yellowed butts
out the window,
a pool of smoked tobacco
on the second floor.

This space was always here,
but it’s the fullness,
the part of me I am afraid to lose:
the walks, the circles,
the friendships.

Inhaling,
curious about everything we had forgotten,
we watched my grandpa shakey
and slow down the front steps.

When do we realize we got old?

We never planned on going far,
just enough to say we had
been gone a while.

Experiments with gravity (bound to change)

2008-03-12T00:56:00.000-04:00

Gravity

I.
Side by side in a sickly sweet kitchenette,
My grandpa smartly rolls his
shirt sleeve, revealing that
blue faded tattoo and smacking out
stories about
WWII and Southeast China.

A curious collection of porcelain dolls
wait in cupboard corners,
wide-eyed, high
and ready.

In a single, polished motion,
he correctly peels a granny smith.
It’s waxy, spiraled skin
settling between thin thighs.

II.
A school of soldiers strategically step,
spines straight,

negative spaces equal.

Regiment six-sixty-six
conquers and collapses
your local George Washington Bridge.

III.
Damn aeroelastic flutter—
always threatening my equilibrium.
So that I step sporadically on
gridded grates, a hundred holes,
perfect rings for my big toes.

Braided steel cables, joints knotted
cast gray-toned toothpick shadows
(gift my eyes quick breaks
from an unassailable sun).

At bridge center I bend to an arch,
tie my right boot, grab my last cig
(tucked safely
under thick laces).

The innate strike of a match
and the harbor below:
sulfur-salty and fresh.

Nicotine numbs the day’s travels.
Thoughts thicken and the mind wanders.

IV.
A gray hand belonging to
a gray man, grips my shoulder.
He fails in bumming a cigarette—
my pockets and belly empty
like his.

The man’s face:
a weathered and wrinkled map
of juxtaposed journeys and lost childhoods.

From a history book?

Pausing mid-bridge,
we exchange dwarf tales of
midlife crises and motion physics.

Before parting, he declares,
Change scares me,
relationships as well,
sex even more.

Heart plump and juicy,
falling through an orange sky.
Sailors delight?

The man whispered with wind,
Everything hits the ground eventually,
and he walks, in perfect beat, the other half of the bridge

V.
Journeys end and curiosities collapse
with the strangle of sudden death.
Grandpa’s dead, come home.

VI.
At Rosemary Cemetery,
Grand River and Woodward.

These bodies have been here
longer than us—
time and space imply change,
like the Pacific tides or a mountain
weathered to sand under pink toes.

Is change creation or destruction?
Both.

Beneath buzzes of busses,
The dead are whispering.
Their words warnings—
everything makes sense.
It’s too late to fix things.

VII.
We march on gravel paths,
a line of red ants,
down the great wall of the deceased,
deep into a rectangular grave.

I can’t see my shadow anymore.

My uncles assemble, one at each corner—four
stones, stern and unaffected.
They lower him gently,
with the same love as his mother,
my great grandmother,
when she first held him.

We come into this world
with no memory and leave
the same way—death and birth
painless miracles of God.

VII.
They cut the ropes,
an empty thud and the beat
of breaking hearts.

His journey ends here
with other lost souls.
Where am I supposed to go?
I waited for his whisper,
Everything hits the ground eventually.

More thoughts about nothing that probably mean nothing.

2008-03-01T20:28:00.001-05:00

Is Garfield without Garfield nothing? No. It's fricken' hilarious.
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

FORCES VIDEO

2008-02-18T20:38:00.001-05:00

Does "nothing" exist?

2008-02-18T17:27:00.004-05:00

Does "nothing" exist?

Nothing is a creation of the human mind simply because space without matter has yet to be found. A spaceless space or the absence of matter would have to be found, but how do you even begin searching for "nothing"? How would you measure "nothingness"?

POSSIBLE "NOTHINGS":
Nothing exists only when placed next to something or compared to something.

"Nothing" as a measure of importance, such as the expression, "That ain't nothin' at all!"

Nothing can be the subject, but how do you talk about nothing without mentioning something?

For example, think of a blank, white piece of computer paper. It's not nothing because it is a nameable object: a piece of paper. But it's not really "something" because it's indistinguishable from any other piece of bond paper.

So let's say nothing is given a boundary, such as a jar with nothing in it. But this doesn't really make since I(maybe the jar is lacking in jelly beans) because there is still air in the jar, which is something.

Links to other thoughts on nothing:
http://express.howstuffworks.com/mb-nothing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing
how does technology and computers relate to nothing?:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SzFXa-TytUA

ANTHROPOCENTRISM:

2008-02-10T14:18:00.006-05:00

"In the beginning there was information. The word came later." (Dretske 1981: vii)

In the 19^th century, the concept of history becomes fundamental and we begin our understanding by comparing it to everything else that has happened before. Now that we have the concept of history, we have a limited perception of the world around us due to the fact that we now evaluate the present from the past.

How can you understand something through information? What do you think of when you hear the word “force”? Train of thoughts occur according to information learned or experienced. The only way to understand this information is to create an organization out of the data. Everything we know becomes categorized and connected due to neurological processes. In the modern world, computers are the manipulators of this information. Computers process and organize information faster than any human is able to

Information is based on events: the time and place of when something happened.

We interpret the world as past, present or future because of how time, space and history are defined. We need to understand information and how it relates to mankind, so time and space are references for doing so. It is possible to express personal variations within systems of information, but an individual is still limited to what they know. Expression of individuality depends on language BUT if you create your own language to become the “ultimate inventor,” no one will understand the information but the inventor. The goal is to create new systems or new languages that people can comprehend. By creating a new language, one is overcoming existence by creating the existing, but in the end it’s all just information anyways.

Human ability: we can only perceive the world with what we have learned or experienced (information). We can also DISCOVER new ways of organizing information. Nothing is boundless except for the “infinite” simply because it is defined as boundless, yet this definition limits the “infinite” from ever being “finite”.

Symmetries, Predictions

2008-02-07T18:55:00.000-05:00

girl curled, cold feet tucked
tight behind swollen knees

at night, ghosts climb attic stairs,
scratching in dusk corners, searching

for seeping orange sun, early morning
loneliness isn’t for the weak

minded, she don’t know herself
sometimes and forgets

to lock the front door,
never to come back in

this life, these spaces, this time
she will be stronger

bite the nail, hide the tear,
forget the thought

processes that seem abnormal,
lost in ideas, she forgets

her realities, briefly while
dreams pulse and ghosts sleep

Missing You

2008-02-03T14:14:00.002-05:00

http://static.flickr.com/122/265805232_be12df4b42_b.jpg

While I dreamt of you, they had sex three and a half times. I woke to tell them about my dream while he rubbed her rib cage, naked limbs knotted. They listened and giggled, smoking dirty cigs in bed.

He left colored shoes in front of our big wood door or on the second landing of our stairs. How odd, I thought, and wondered where he’d leave them next. And in the mornings, no one left our house until he did.

At one of our parties, a girl peed in a cup and I told her to get the fuck out. I explained to him I hated the smell of piss for the same reason I hated the smell of popcorn.

She told me about how they held hands and talked about when he used to be fat and when she used to run for miles on end.

He bought her a new dress, the pretty kind; and they swapped sweatshirts and kisses and hearts and silly stuff like that.

She liked to read his poems and he liked to read hers. For once, I saw that she could be herself, and it made me wish you were here so I could do the same.

Capacitors and Dielectrics

2008-01-31T15:25:00.000-05:00

parallel plates
field lines pointing towards your center
curving around your hips
the spaces between, realities
as insulators
k (the dielectric constant)
increasing truths and emotional tendencies

2008-01-28T19:15:00.000-05:00

GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB: graffiti using light and laser technologies

first poem of 2008

2008-01-26T15:39:00.000-05:00

Thoughts, 3:07 a.m.

For: Shaelyn

sinnlichkeit

mathematics is of the mind,

independent from touch

balmy hands, cupped close

on cold nights

and taste

salty lips, stale beer kisses

and smell

we haven't showered

for six and a half days

do you draw spirals

outward or inward,

find comforts in the center,

discomforts in infinity?

streets gridded

for easy navigation,

curvilinear walks

inevitable and possible

along Lake Michigan

what can we know?

verstand

the clock ticks in black,

transcendental spaces

simple creations

of the human mind

steel-sculpted towers,

collapse sooner than built

gravity deceives

more than the living

how things appear to us,

this is what we know

fall between

the positive with ease,

confusing the known

with the unknown

all philosophers do

is ask more questions,

where do we find understanding?

what ought we to do?

vernunft

the thing versus

the appearance

cut open a body, look for "I"

all we are made of is blood and bone

trudge the earth, search for the world

infinity, uncomfortable like silence

climb clouds, shake hands with God

the creator unsatisfied with creation

we escape the constraints of the mind

the mind escapes a constructed reality

what may we hope for?

enlightenment.

no joke, yolk

2008-01-23T21:42:00.000-05:00

Most people pronounce them ehgs.

I pronounce them aygs.

WHAT CAME FIRST: THE FRIED EGG OR THE FRIED CHICKEN?

The other day I fried 30 or so chicken wings after buying a 10 pound bag of them at Costco. Yea , I fry chicken! Chickens have 2 wings. I ate 15 chickens.