Personas – try it out!

August 30, 2009 by lesliefedorchuk | Edit

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display until Sept 09 at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab(Please contact us if you want to show it next!). It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person – to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrates the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

Personas was created by Aaron Zinman, with help from Alex Dragulescu, Yannick Assogba and Judith Donath.

Click below to go try!

personas

RISORGIMENTO!!!

Alright - yes - I know....I have been a lousy blogger of late. This will stop here and now - as I will begin blogging regularly with the students who are taking bookarts this semester at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Maybe some former students will chime in as well (yes, I know you are out there!!)

First step...get these blogs up and running. Would you like to check out what we are looking at, learning about, DOING???? Go to my netvibes site - and there you can find all the resources that we are using. Feel free to send us suggestions -- we are building as we go along.

This is the public component of our work. We will also be utilizing a course moodle for some of the work that we are doing.

I'm happy to answer any questions - always.

April 9, 2010

Danse Dance

Simon's Cat 'Cat Man Do'

Joe.....

Yeah I know you missed me...and I know this look is as close as you can get to telling me. Nice guy. Really cool guy.

Lyon - last night

Lyon - last night, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

My last night in Lyon was so beautiful and so hard. The city is wonderful. Something to feast your eyes on in every corner of it. A wonderful combination of old, new, color, shape, texture.....

I have a lot of images to put up and talk about in the next few weeks. BUT....this was the last night - the moon was reflecting over the Rhone - with all of the illuminated buildings as well.

And I was sad to be leaving. So sad. Incredibly sad. But today I think - hmmm....I will be going back, I know. The moon, the rivers, the city, the friends....they will all be there when I come back.

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


~ Mary Oliver ~

An image of the ceiling of the Basilica of Fourviere in Lyon. Neobyzantine guilding ALL over the inside of it. On top of a hill - it gives you a view of the city and surrounding areas that is like no other. I have a little video of that - and will get it up here as soon as I can.

Radiohead Nude Bercy Paris June 2008

btw....did I mention???

Lyon at Night.

This is what we do..... (well, what the American tourist does...these two do go to work, so I don't have a clue how they do it - but they do it with very little sleep). Meet in the early evening - talk, coffee, wine. Lots of laughing, trying to teach the American how to say things in French (pointless)...then a late dinner. If the weather is nice (not pouring rain - although Virg seems to think that anything that is not HOT and SUNNY is pointless) we go for a walk. Did I mention that by this time it is well after midnight?

Lyon is....magical. In a totally different way from Paris. It is calm. It has a presence - a mystical presence that I need to learn more about. It is the history, the coming together of so many things in its past. But you do feel it....walking on the silent streets at night. Looking in shop windows, moving quietly through the square, talking softly - laughing....lots of that.

I am so thrilled to be here with these two good friends. We already know each other in many ways....and so when I see something moving and burst into tears (I can hear those of you who know me laughing....) - they aren't bothered - they just wait for me to contain myself and we move on. More soon.

It is always better when you have a friend to point out things that you wouldn't see otherwise, take you to places that are more fun with someone else....or just point out when you are about to make a raging cultural blunder.....(who knew that you would never give peonies as a gift to a French person because that is a flower that goes on a gravesite?).

Spent the day being tourists....walking around icons and small streets...drinking and laughing with Virgil and his friends. We are about to head for the train station for our trip to Lyon. I hate to leave Paris....it is truly one of the most intriguing places I have ever been.

Paris seems to hold unlimited beauty. Now that I have found my bearings and have an adventure on the metro everyday, I can see the scope of the history and diversity within the city. Yesterday I bought a bunch of peonies at a "magnifique" shop that was a work of art in and of itself - near the Ecole des Beux Arts.... I was missing my garden, and walking by the school - seeing students inside the gates - carving and drawing - just heightened the feeling.

The candles were burning in St. Germain des Pres. I find myself going into everyone of these cathedrals....they are incredible. They are also cool (it has been hot and muggy) and a quiet place to take out the map and figure out where I am. This particular one is / was connected to a once enormous Benedictine monastery. It has the tomb of Rene Descartes. These candles, always lit, are very very moving to me.

At the end of the day - I am back to my neighborhood...I climb the streets up and up and then the large stone staircase to my apartment building. At the bottom of the hill, the neighborhood is full of African immigrants...the hair shops and textiles and smells of food cooking are wonderful. Everyone out on the streets...everything is a feast for the eyes.

The switch from the west coast...to Paris

It took me a while to realize that part of what I was experiencing were not only the differences between Paris and County Clare. It was the difference between a quiet rural village - with the sound of the sea and the presence of the clouds over the limestone hills - and a HUGE urban area full of people and tourists...where I am on my own for now and don't speak the language.

Most of the things that have happened to me have been comical. Like the ride from the airport - that involved a forty minute traffic jam. No lanes of traffic (that I could see) ....we just forgo those...and everyone laying on the horn and screaming at one another. Did I mention my taxi driver wore a suit (very stunning) but we were unable to speak to each other - even a word. I handed him my map and he delivered me to...well...it was the top of a hill....but the bottom of a very large, very old, pedestrian stone staircase. Me and my 700 pound suitcase. Ahhhh, but that, is another story. Au revoir.

, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

So .... we are (sadly) into our final week. Research being completed, projects being pulled together. An edition of 20 books will be due in mid-August - but the completed mock up is due on Thursday, as is a facsimile "journal" of some kind.

It is wonderful to watch the ideas and the experience come onto the page and the book form.

Maybe the only thing as impressive as standing at the top of the Cliffs of Moher, is being in a boat going slowly along the bottom of them. OR maybe going in the ocean in a kayak...or diving....to take a close look at what lives there....(thanks to Lauren for the kayaking pic of Jim...one of our fearless and funny guides.)

dublin

dublin, originally uploaded by lesliefedorchuk.

Been meaning to post this image....and I have a couple minutes now...waiting for a bus in the internet cafe in Doolin. Went on a boat to the bottom of the Cliffs of Moher earlier today. Will post those later.

The doors in on this island....are some of my favorite things....so many painted bright colors. Often containing tongue in cheek humor....such as this one......

Here is a little peek into the book I am making this summer. Recipes from the people who are cooking for me on my travels.....starting with Maurizio.

Sea Bass with Olives and salted Sardinian Capers
(and rosemary and garlic)

Buy fish......

WILD sea bass (line caught...and bought in Galway at the open market the same day)
you can see ours as we bought it...in the video above.....

clean if it isn't clean, dry it with a paper towel

put aluminum foil in a tureen, lay the fish in it

In the meanwhile....

strip leaves from fresh rosemary and toss on top of the sea bass -
along with black olives (also from the market)

Pour on top of this....olive oil with capers and garlic that have been sauteeing. Splash of white wine....

Close aluminum foil

Put it in the oven at 200 c. / 400 f ..."hmmm...I have no idea if this is right...just CRANK the oven up then after five minutes reduce it to 375 f"

"You realize that all of these things cannot be repeated in Milwaukee, right?"

A fish like this (maybe three pounds) maybe an hour, or 45 minutes.

Serve with freshly made bread, also from market. Chilled white wine. Salad.