Final: Texan Tiger Station

There is a secret Tiger Refugee organization found in Texas. It is a place where tigers and humans live together in harmony. The humans provide a safe home unnoticed by the rest of society and the tigers get to live in happiness without the threat of going extinct or being bored staring at stupid people watch them walk back and forth, or in circles, and the tigers don't eat the humans. :)


The tigers travel from all corners of the world from jungles and zoos using their stripes to hide in shadowy areas. These trecks are long and arduous, but you will see it is well worth it.


Though even in teh Tiger sancuary, the tigers must keep as hidden as possible as to not atract attention....


there is plenty of private protected space for the tigers to live freely..


From an outsider's eyes it seems as if the tigers were never there.


Head public relations councelor Kevin Orbo explains, "There are no tigers here. What are you talking about? We only have the most advanced disguises-uhh, the best darn coffee you ever had."


The Tiger sancuary at Tiger Station, Texas has recently opened up it's town to Ligers as well (Tiger and Lion mixed breed.)


Head Welcoming Counselor Steve Kabbas gives warm welcome to new tigers at a new drop location everyday.....the only problem is he forgets and gets lost on the way......what makes it worse is HE set the drop in spot.


Here at the Tiger Station fake golf course tigers enjoy many fun activities like songtime with Steve.....



and Hide n' Sniff


Sometimes things get a little too rough and out of hand. Oh my God!!! There's a fight!!!!


Steve rushes in stop the fight. "Hey you two! You know the rules, No Rough Housing!!"..........R.I.P. Steve....R.I.P.


Steve actually stopped the fight....but not until he had six fractured ribs, a concusion, and broken arm, various laserations, a twisted ankle, and a need for a neck brace. Anyway, Tiger Station is a lovely place for refugee Tigers and Ligers. Hopefully more of the world could follow their example and learn to work with animals instead of against them. .......and don't worry. Steve will be out of the hospital in a few days. :)

Mori

On Wednesday November 30 our class took a trip to the Arlington Art Museum. We explored the various floors that had very interesting art work. On the top floor there were very intricate paintings. They were abstract, but they had a certain format that was very interesting. The paintings tricked your brain not knowing what images were being made by the forms changing color. It was like seeing the abstract images through a cut out lens that changes the colors around. One of my favorite exhibits.

The exhibit we went to see and analyze is Professor Randall Packer's Mori exhibit. It was the most interesting of all and favorite due to it's unique complexities. Mori means mortality in Latin and in Japanese literally means "forest sanctuary". This is very intereting because it has to do with the power of Mother Earth. It is our sanctuary that breathes life into us though often we forget. At the same time she let's us know that we are not soverign over her. Through the mysteries of the Earth we are seemingly punished in natural disasters to remember to respect it's power and control. Our place of sanctuary and life as well as our place of death and jugdement. It is almost creepy in that sense.

Mori the art piece is a multimedic telepresence piece. It is like a big dark sound proof guitar that you can walk in and even lay down in. Inside the darkness guided by little light there are powerful sound systems playing a mix of 'Earthy' noises and sounds. What makes it special is that the sounds you hear on the inside are directly activated by a seismograph in California. The seismograph measures the Earth's movement of tectonic plates. It helps predict and measure Earthquakes.

We were lucky enough to see the Earth's movement during a very active time. Certain movements in the Earth's plates activated certain sounds like rocks falling or a landslide. In a sense it was like listening to Mother Earth herself. The various sounds played were an interpretation of the activity of the Earth. When we laid down to feel the booming of the subwoofer below us you could almost meditate to the music of the Earth. We felt one with the Earth almost. In this way actually we were. The seismograph activity connected each and every one of us to the 'heartbeat' of the Earth in a way we could understand. It was Telepresence to the max.

This is the first picture of the park across the street. So small.


This picture is a little closer. On line the pictures they had made the park look like an actuall park. It definately isn't a place to take a Kindergarden class to.


This is the sign to a metro stop. It stops right at park.


This is the plaque in honor of Sonny Bono........they could've made a bigger park in a less busy area
.


This is the street intersection where Sonny Bono park is located.


Busy people all around on a Saturday going somewhere doing something with seemingly lots of worries. No one wanted to talk to us.


Though there wasn't much to keep clean... there was a trashcan.


This is a building across the street. Fedex/Kinkos building. Huge.


Right down the street is Dupont Circle....You would never know Sonny Bono Park was there in the midst of the fast paced city scene.


We found some illedgible writing on one of the seats....I wonder.


Lots of busy people that don't care about our project.... ;(

A cool old vashioned car across the street. Nice.


Another large building around towering over the park.

Our goodbye picture of Sonny Bono Park......not what we expected.

Situational Tour #3, Sonny Bono Park

When Rachel and I got to the park we were astonished. It wasn't a park at all. Or at least not what we considered a park. The pictures online made the place seem a lot bigger than it actually is. The little metal fence around it looked huge, but in person it barely passes your knees. Our key topics were mood, formal/informal, cleanliness, business/speed of life, nature vs city, socioeconomics, law enforcement, youth (or lack of...), and gov't presence. The mood was urban. The small plot of land was surrounded by towering buildings that gave a business sense, but then there were more old fashioned buildings too that looked gave a historical importance to the area. Like living in an old time. The environment was a mix between informal and formal, but no signs of poverty. There were no police present. It did not look like an area requiring much law enforcement. There were no children and no trash around either. It was like a busy little corner in the middle of the city. Not much attention paid to it except for the fancy old style car across the street.

Flashpoint

At the Flashpoint Gallery I saw some interesting art pieces. Some of them I thought were a tad elementary but an interesting mix of technologies nonetheless. Most of them were heavily involved in the use of integration, interaction and emersion. My favorite piece was called Fields. It used a magnetic presence sensor that feeds data to microcontrollers. These microcontrollers drove stepper motors that shift the position of magnets and change the form of a frivolity. It detected body magnetism. The closer you get to it the more the liquid forms rose up like little urchins. There was a video close up of the fluid projected on the wall for a more clear view. The sent Project was cool. It was music made from sound files remixed by artists one after the other. My least favorite was quite simple. It was called Guinea Piggy Bot. It was a remote control bot that drove around with different commands. These commands came from a barcode scanner. There were four bar codes with different vitamin labels. When the user scanned a certain bar code, the guinea pig bot would move in a certain direction. I did this kind of project in highschool. It was a nastolgic experience, but not impressive. All in all the experience was fun and interactive. Lot's of creative thinking was involved.

Situational Tour talk

Me and Rachel's partners Yurike and Andy did there situational tour on a police patrol route. In our convorsatoin we discussed our different experiences. I told them about the cute cheetahs and they told me about the trouble makers in College Station. They were nervous at times and often afraid of what the problem students would do in the area. There seems to have been a lot of drinking and loud parties that get out of hand. In their picture blog they have a picture of shotgun instructions.....the police have a shotgun ready for use. I would be nervous too. Yurike and Andy went on patrol with poicemen to be on the look out for trouble and hopefully catch pictures of the officers in action. They went on their second trip with the police already and will post new pics.

Telematic communication

Roy Asscot telecommunications has grown over the years. The level of control of interactivity has risen and the amount of communication has expanded. With the internet things are communicated almost instantly. In the days of the Enlightenment things were not as swift. No longer to do we need a Paul Revere to race across the country to inform the people. An email or news blog is all we need these days. More people are getting their news online and less from reading newspapers. The Internet is faster with giving information on a larger scale. Now various types of communication has reached the web from online dating to business transactions to music and movies. I learned about the next Spiderman 3 villain before it came out on the news! The availability of information allows for no late birds. Because of the different types of media interests many artists have turned from being the omniscient creator to the facilitator of events. Role playing games are no longer played just by yourself and a friend who came to watch. Now everyone can simultaneously interact with each other in ever changing games. New "patches" are downloaded every week to improve on these digital interactive worlds where many can almost live another life. The internet has become a network of information creating a global personality. Living, thinking, ever changing all the time from countless stimuli.