APT HUNTING

Back to square 0…

Stuyvesant town did not work out… no guarantor…

So back to square zero – starting search again – was REALLY frustrated yesterday but after deciding to pay the broker’s fee I actually found quite a few interesting apartments for the budget I have…

So feeling better today about it… might actually find something better that Stuyvesant Town and closer to NYU…

Let’s see what I find 😉

SECOND & THIRD DAY OF CLASSES

WOW!! That is all I can say!

Not necessarily overwhelmed by the amount of information but the QUALITY of information and resources we have available here…

For example – we have access to a 3D PRINTER – that’s right – you send them a 3D model and then you get the actual PHYSICAL object out the next day!! Not to mention the large format high-quality photo printers, full multi-media studios with video and sound editing software and hardware…

So – let’s take it one step at a time:

Wednesday:

Communications Lab

Frank Migliorelli

“Good interactive design is good story telling”

Recommended 2 books:

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” by Marshall McLuhan – “old” book but still very current in its ideas.

“Charles Chaplin – my Auto-biography” – thought it was interesting how the story teller fell in love with technology.

VERY interesting homework – 55 word challenge – have to write a full story with who, what, where, conflict, and resolution in no more than 55 words. This was a “theory” that Steve Moss, the author of “The World’s Shortest Stories: Murder, Love, Horror, Suspense, All This and Much More in the Most Amazing Short Stories Ever Written, Each One Just 55 Words Long” came up with – the least amount of words you can use to write a full story is 55…

Here is mine:

“THE DUTCH IN THAILAND”

TEMPTATION OVERTOOK.

“NO ONE IS WATCHING.”

THE FASCINATING JADE BUDDHA STARED AT HIM FOR ONE YEAR ON HIS DESK.

GUILT OVERTOOK.

“I MUST TAKE IT BACK.”

FOUR MONTHS BY BOAT, TWO WEEKS ON FOOT.

HE PLACED THE BUDHA BACK AND HEARD A MONK SAY:

“GLAD TO SEE YOU AGAIN. YOU’VE CONTEMPLATED AND LEARNED YOUR LESSON!”

55 WORD CHALLENGE BY LUCAS LONGO
BASED ON A TRUE STORY FROM

“THE BUDDHA IN THE JUNGLE” by Kamala Tiyavanicht>

Seems like it will be a pretty cool class where we will look at all kinds of media and how to use them.

On Friday:

Introduction to Computational Media

Shawn Van Every

Basically a programing class with the focus on how to manipulate, create, and automate media… using an open-source program called Processing to start with… seems to be pretty powerfull – wanted to see if I can use it to do my M5 Bus tour presentation – wait for next post 😉

The first exercise was pretty cool… each student drew a picture with a few basic shapes (lines, squares and circles). Then we had to write instructions on how to draw it. Instructions swapped, you had to draw according to the “program” you had – and as homework – had to do the same but using Processing.

Here is my first assignment – pretty basic – “Drawing #2”

FIRST DAY OF CLASSES

So it beggins!!

First day of classes at ITP!! Applications class with Red Burns… What an interesting lady… Founded ITP in 1979 and participated in technologies such as Public Acces, Teletext, and the first emails in the world!

Some of the things she expects us to do:

  • Embrace the unexpected
  • Value serendipity
  • Play
  • Create a whole with disparate parts

A quote from one of the founders of Xerox: “If you want to know what the future is – INVENT IT!”

Another interesting topic:

Consumers are becoming content producers – how to sort/distribute/access all of this media/content?

***

Our first assignment was handed out:

“Take the M5 bus on a weekend at Houston and La Guardia Place to the last stop – George Washington Bridge – and return.

Make notes of what you find surprising – e.g. Changing neighborhoods, changing people, changing architecture, or none of these – and write your personal experience of the trip – observing, imagining, and reacting to New York, or you can choose to imagine a story about the people you see.”

Some ideas I have:

  • Video/picture sequences of the route
  • Map pinpointing position
  • Retrace route on bike – shooting video and pictures along the way
  • Include heart rate monitor data
  • Interview people along the way (not so good)

***

Second half of the class we had the guest speaker: Acconci

Here are two VERY short exerpt of the lecture – was really just testing the video capabilities of my phone…

(Coming back soon)

Started out as an artists experimenting with the self – showed us some of his pieces:

  • Video with him using a candle to burn the hair off his body and trying to become a woman
  • Installation in an empty room with a ramp – he was under the ramp talking “dirty” and masturbating – experiment on togetherness and isolation
  • Installation with a dining table that stretched out of the window – becoming a trampoline
  • Installation of 4 planks on the floor – all with the American colors – and a seat in the middle. The seat is connected to pulleys that tilt the 4 planks up to close up and form a room – the exterior walls having the Soviet colors. The room existed just as long as the person existed sitting there.
  • Upside down houses – 3 houses upside down one on top of the other

“Art started to become specific to space and time. If the piece was somewhere else or at a different time it would not make sense or make a different sense.”

Nowadays he is a designer/architect www.acconci.com

Dwells on natural shapes – how architecture should move to adapt to humans – not the opposite. Organic shapes.

In NY:

  • Queens College – sphere installation
  • Clothes shop in Japan – cloth used to cover the interior to give it a soft feel – in the changing room, if you liked the clothe, press a button and take picture of yourself – picture is projected on store front’s panel
  • Staten Island subway station – walls that become the seating

***

Can’t wait for more!

My Temp House

You cannot imagine the position I am in…

Well – the bed is in the middle of Henry’s living room – I was staying in a little room behind his office (adjacent to his apt – connected) but now they are renovating the office so the office moved into the room I was staying in… And the bed came into his living room…

Just sooo thankfull to him for having let me stay here…

It gets better – I am on the bed – my laptop on the floor – wireless keyboard and mouse with me on the bed and me in my undies typing away – oh yes – have the Apple “zoom” feature on so that I can see a little better what I am typing… Eheheeh…

As far as the aparment hunting goes, I have decided that I will stop the hunting and just go to Stuyvesant Town… It is not the “cool” place to be in and not the fancy neighborhood but I think it is the best deal… It is simply so much bigger than everything else I saw… Got a good one today via email but then there is the brokers fee… One month worth of rent just evaporated… I can furnish the place with that money 😉

The Switch

So many options – so many widgets for my new Mac – so many tools

Ran away from using MySpace as my bloggin tool – even though my Helio phone is integrated with it…

Figured the Blogger Widget would be more usefull… or maybe not… this just seemed like a cleaner, faster, and more customizable blogging tool.

This was my old blog (from which I copied the entries into this one 😉

My Space – Lucas Longo

Thats it for now!

Second Entry

Second entry… this might actaully become adictive!!

Zipped around on my rollerblades with great music blasting through my iPod while systematically going through the list of potential apartments for rent.

Started off at Graduate Housing who told me that there were no more subsidised apartments available… nothing more than expected.

Went to Styuvesant Town to check it out… inside the “complex” it feels like you are not in the city… reminded me that I wanted to be in the middle of it all to counterbalance the time when I lived on dead-by-night Wall St 10 years ago.

But also realised that it would be a big plus to have a nice quite area that I could call “home” in the middle of this bubbling city… also at a different stage of my life where you start caring more for the smaller details, the fine pleasures – as opposed to the hustle and bustle of the frenetic street life the Village can offer.

Not too close to NYU but could use the walk – no 1 bedrooms available – for now – but good excuse to get Otto here 😉

Funny how when I first saw it I figured I would end up there… same way that happened with the Wall St apt – something similar about them – the one owner/big complex/leasing/no broker style.

And I actually saw it while being shown the very first apartment I looked at here… it all happens for a reason I guess…

It is all connected…

An interesting topic to explore artistically/technically at ITP – how this small world effect/coincidences/”fate”/subliminal messages affect our daily lives and how we actually look at art and technology differently depending on what we have experienced in the past few moments…

Ok – that`s it for now…

Getting sleppy 😉

First Entry

First blog for me… lets see if it becomes a habit…

Figured friends and family back home might enjoy reading some news about what is going on here… even thought that is quite an ego-trip to think that all will be interested in what I am doing here…

In any case – today was the first day at ITP – student orientation at least – very interesting crowd of people – everything from musicians, dancers, writers, electric engineers, designers, computer scientists and some random people of course…

Almost half international – Korea being the most represented country… 2 other Brazilians – a girl from Rio and a guy who I did not get a chance to meet yet… + 2 other people who actually speak Portuguese – a Turkish girl whos name I will remeber soon – lived in Brazil for about a year – says it was the best year of her life… and another guy who’s mother is brazilian – and cousing with Fabio Laniado who went to school with me at Graded!!

Small World…

Bought almost all of my toys already – MacBookPro 15, Specialized Tarmac Expert – full carbon road bike, and Rollerblades…

Still thinking if I should buy the Apple Cinema Display 30″, an extra hard drive for backup, and a Canon EOS 30D… lets see…

Well… that is it for now 😉

Cheers!