Results from Student Forum 2007

Here is the link to my own blog and full documentation of the Forum that I conducted to discuss OCAD's renaming initiative further.

TRRA & Igloo.org

For research related to Toronto, check out:

https://www.igloo.org/trratorontoregion

and

http://www.igloo.org
(a virtual community)

~Bryn

Wilma's Story

This is my Personal video Blogger Assignment. I have posted a short video I made about a women I used to work with and her life story. so enjoy :)

Jill

Murmur Adventure

This is just my Kensington Market Project posted on my Facebook

Jill

What I heard [murmur]ing in Kensington

This entire post and experience was all based on this murmur story on Augusta at Nassau.




check out all the photos from this experience on this Flickr Slideshow

The Anshei Minsk synagogue.

Hi

My interesting experience in Kensington Market happened in 10 st. Andtew St in the Anshei Minsk synagogue.
After that me and Alicia Finished our adventure in Kensington market. I decided to go and take some pictures from out side of the synagogue. When I got there I realized that doors of the synagogue are open and some sort of holy ceremony is happening inside. With a lot of enthusiasm I walk inside and went to the second floor where women were suppose to sit during the ceremony.
Since this was my first time in a synagogue I watched the ceremony with enthusiasm and I payed attention to every detail of the building as well as rules that were fallowing during the ceremony like paying respects to each other and shaking hands. As I was strictly ask not to take any picture, I took some shots secretly from the corridors and colored glass window just to document my presence in the building:)

crazy woman

Here is another one!=)

Fiona

Toms Place

Here are some other stories from our journey through Kensington.

Fiona

Marco's Kensington Adventure

On saturday.. Fiona, Ghazaleh, and Marco when on a trip to Kensington market.. It started a little slow because we went out waaay too early for a saturday morning. It picked up once we got ourselves downtown out in the cold air though.

It was a familiar route, going through the Grange, walking along Dundas, and reaching Spadina. Normally I would stop here and turn left or right on Spadina... for my Chinatown adventures, but not today! Our quest is for Kensington, therefore we were to continue down Dundas for one more block. Before we continued though.. we realized there should be a green ear right near where we stood. Looking around .. we spotted it on a green pole across the street. Quite strange, I must have walked through that intersection hundreds of times and I've never noticed it... how could I miss an entire green pole with a green ear on it?

We dialed in, the story was about the street cars on Spadina.. it wasn't too exciting.. I was more entertained by the shouting match happening behind us between two men in different languages, I don't think they really understood each other but that didn't stop them.

From then on it became a GRAND ADVENTURE. We quickly dropped our original plan of splitting up to cover more ground because we realized there is much fun to be had with the three of us together. We listened to each story, and with each one we would try to find the location where it had occured (if it still existed). Along the way we met some very friendly people who told us their stories, we also met a woman that was... well... quite insane, yet quite entertaining.

The story that entertained me the most was one that we found somewhere along Augusta. About a boy who grew up in the area and witnessed an incident in a meat shop where two butchers got into a heated arguement and one of them brandished his holy butcher sword (aka. butcher knife.. cleaver.. etc.) and chased the other around yelling "Cease your fleeing heathen, such that I could banish you from the realm of the living with mine holy weapon of meat cleaving!!!" ... actually I have no clue what he really yelled, but I'm sure my guess is quite close.

I liked this story because it was funny, and it called up some familiar scenes in my own memory. When I was younger my grandmother would take me to street markets for groceries, I suspect the old Kensington market to be quite similar to be quite similar to the various markets in my past.

P.S.~ have some photos in the link.. i hope it works

Murmur Assignment

Kensington Market - Murmur Project (10 viewed)

#7 225 623 - every saturday when the narrator was young she would go to kensington market with her family, her mother, father and older sister. they went and her father alaywas bought green olives, sardines, and cheese. a shop 236, was a clothing store that sold ponchos and the narrator and her sister always looked at them. the narrator wanted a burgundy one and one day asked her mom if she could get one. her mother at first ask why she wanted one and said it would be way too big for her. but the narrator really wanted theburgundy one. so her mother baught her and her sister one. her sister got a buble bee coloured onewhile she got the burgundy one that she wanted. after her mother bought them their ponchos they wore them every time after that to the market.

My favorite one was #7 because my family has sort of done the same thing in the past. the story reminded me of my childhood and my experiences with my own family. I remember going up to my cottage with my sister and my parents and we woulds top by Santa's Village and me and my sister always wanted to get this fake jewellery set. We used to go to this one specific grocery store and me and my sister would buy candy.

The hunt for the burgundy poncho

Hi,

This is Fiona here posting my favourite [murmur] story. This story, taken from the Augusta and Nassau intersection, talks about a girl who on one of her ritualistic family excursions down Augusta Ave, fell in love with a poncho she saw outside a store called Casa Lisboa. After begging her mom to buy this poncho and admitting to her that she really wanted to be like one of the cool kids who also wore ponchos, her mom ended up buying her (Angela, the daughter) a burgundy poncho while the sister received one with a bumble bee pattern. Every family excursion after that, both Angela and her sister wore their ponchos proudly while walking down Augusta Ave.

Soon after hearing this story, our group went on a mission to find Casa Lisboa and see if they still sold burgundy and bumble-bee patterned ponchos. Not only did we end up going the wrong direction, running into the wrong store and finding ourselves in an awkward conversation with the wrong store clerk about burgundy ponchos …but in all this confusion what I think we really ended up doing was creating our own little narrative in response to the one we had heard. This to me made the story really stand out. We eventually did find Casa Lisboa (it was right infront of the green ear! DUH!) where we ended up talking to the store clerk about his sales of ponchos some 30 odds years ago, and how the majority of his sales now have translated to soccer jersey (see picture)







































Quite an adventure I must say!

Cheers
Fiona

murmuring in Kensington

So I wasn't sure how to document my experience with murmur... and then it just seemed practical to post on the blog, as I can access it from anywhere to edit and update it. (For some reason, Lev's wasn't up when I first posted, but now it's before mine! would that be our computer clocks being out-of-sync?) One of my classes was cancelled today, so I decided to do my wandering in the early afternoon, rather than late in the evening as originally planned. Because I rushed out, I completely forgot to bring the map with me, and therefore just wandered aimlessly through Kensington market looking for big green ears. I found about 16 (photographed 13 before the camera battery dies on me...), and out of 20, that's not too bad! Particularly for someone who doesn't know Kensington... I -DID- get lost for a little while, but I managed to find my way...

I brought my digital camera, to prove I'd really been there... taking photos of each ear I found, then taking a moment to call in and hear one of the stories for each spot... Two of the more memorable stories included one butcher being chased by another weilding a meat cleaver, and underage kids getting trashed at what was once the 3-peppers restauraunt....

It was a very unusual experience. As someone who lives outside of Toronto, I've never felt much of any attachment to the place, and it made my experience of Toronto on a whole somehow a lot more personal. It was strange, too, to be in Kensington without looking to shop! Everyone around me noticed it, too... I was being gawked at because I wasn't looking at shops, but all the telephone poles near them... taking photos of what appeared to be street signs and calling numbers on the signs everywhere I went... that was both funny and kindof unnerving.

I think I will add a story to one of the murmur listings, about my experience with murmur... kindof a redundancy, but I like that ;)

Murmur Project

I chose to do the treasure hunt on a Saturday afternoon; probably the busiest time to walk through the market. But despite the crowds - I still walked away informed and enlightened. It was a thrill to experience someone else's sense of nostalgia while simultaneously standing in the middle of the crowded market with a phone to my ear. It felt like a very intimate and lively experience - even though it was a recording. Using my sister's cell phone (I don't have one), I called as many of the numbers as I could - then wrote down the rest for later. It was interesting because I had made this walk on numerous occasions during the past three years but had only noticed the green Murmur ears in my peripheral vision. I thought nothing of them, mistaking them for some kind of traffic or emergency signs. For the class blog, I have selected a few of my favorite stories, and I have attempted to provide a brief description and in order to explain their appeal.

The Highlights : (My Personal Favorites)
The Deer at Paradise Bound
[232 626]

I found the first story told at this point to be the most interesting. A young man describes walking through the intersection of Augusta and College streets at around three in the morning (something I can easily relate to). As he approached the record store “Paradise Bound”, he saw a wild deer across the street near the laundry mat.
He was awestruck not only because he actually saw a deer, but because it was never something he ever imagined he would see in the middle of a huge city like Toronto.

This was far from the type of narrative I was expecting when I dialed the number - but I found the near mythic elements of the story really effective. It truly set the tone for the rest of the Murmur points I visited.

I actually have my own amusing anecdote about that record shop, but I can save that for another time.

Perola Supermarket and The Meat Cleaver Incident
[223 622]

This one was great! A young man describes visiting this area of the market with his mother back in the late 1960s. According to him, what is now the Perola Supermarket was once a meat market with live chickens in crates and lots of other livestock that produced boyish excitement, such as butchers who apparently were always arguing in Yiddish.
He describes a particularly memorable trip where the two butches argued more fervently than usual, which resulted in one butcher pulling out a meat cleaver and chasing the other around the butcher shop. Sounds like Kensington Market, alright!

Fu-Kien Society or Lobster Island
[214 618]

Although the building at this site is the Fu-Kien society, both stories I heard on the phone line described this location as being Lobster Island. It must have changed in the last three or four years. However, according to the voice on the other line, in the 80’s the building was a multi-purpose entertainment venue that offered avant-garde theater, punk rock, Frisbee parties, lesbian poets, and sketch comedy. He described watching The Kids in the Hall before they were Kids in the Hall (that was the coolest part by far!). I felt the story was really endearing because it offered an early glimpse at Toronto’s diverse cultural scene. It was really poignant when he added that the market is always changing and yet stays the same, which I think coincides nicely with topics related to this class.

Note: Due to my lack of a digital camera, I had to post an older picture of the market. This is just one of the many fruit stands throughout Kensington - but I feel it gets across the general ambiance of the place. I just wanted some kind of proof I had been there before.
Another Note: That is my hand. Those are not my lemons.

Zenya Zamani/ Bryn Ludlow

Hello VC classmates,

I will be joining the class for the first time on Wednesday Sept. 19th and am excited to work in this area of design and technology. I am in my third year at OCAD studying Integrated Media, focusing on Film and Performance Art and plan on going to Concordia in 2009 to pursue a Masters in Art Therapy. Studying Virtual Communities at OCAD will be beneficial to my studies because I am interested in how this form of technology can be integrated into experiential therapeutic art practices. OCAD feels like an exciting place this year and I am looking forward to the challenges ahead!

...pretending to play guitar- only know a couple chords...

Second Life Avatar: "Zenya Zamani"

Completed today (Sept. 29)- Zenya is my SL Avatar.

I created this film a couple months ago in response to noticing subtle movements in objects in an urban environment and wanted to capture these movements on film to also see what came up during the process, and after. The result is the video, "Subtle Movements". Looking forward to meeting you and working with you this semester!

Hi everyone

This is Goly. If you don't know what my nick name means I should say GOL means Flower in My language and "Y"makes it a nick name:) My real name is Golchehreh (no wonder I have a nick name ,ha!:D) and it means the face of the flower.

I am in forth year graphic design and I love it. I think this class will help me to bring a new perspective to my knowledge of virtual communities. I had my first experience with second life in this class and I found it very interesting. It is interesting how in virtual world we have the option of be who ever we want and even if we try to be ourselves we can not resist this option.

Thats all for now and see you all in next class

Goly:)

Ghazaleh on SL

I'm Ghazaleh - in real life and on Second Life. I joined Second Life about 3 months ago when a web developer friend Chuck Steneck who is highly active on SL informed me. He told me a great deal about SL that blew me away. I didn't get a chance to explore it too much but I grew an immense interest for it and became aware of what an amazing new world it is.

I'm doing my thesis on creating an online community and have been researching many networks over the past year. I've always been an online addict - since I first got hold of a the internet when I was 11. So, now I hope to apply my knowledge and encourge the use of the internet more effectively and bring together all the possibilities in a well designed, well research and well thought out format.

This class will be a very helpful in contributing to research for my thesis project.

machima

Here's a link to a video tutorial that shows you how to use the filming inside Second Life.

Loren Dawes / Judith Doyle

This is my avatar for Second Life for the "Long Crescent House Transformer" project I'm creating for the computer lab (room 665 - 100 McCaul) for Nuit Blanche on September 29.

You can participate in this project if you would like, and also visit our build site. The location coordinates are : Art Metropole / Odyssey -- 183 - 211 - 551 - we will be posting the times when we will work on the site so you can come visit and watch.

If you are building on our sky-high build site, please clean up after. However, I think it best that you build in Art Metropole for the time being, until we figure out some details. I think the Art Metropole site automatically disposes of things if you don't save them into your inventory. More about building soon ----

Also, check for an upcoming post from Mort Burger.

our roundtable class meeting today

Lev's Second Life Avatar

My Second Life avatar is named JeanDice Upshaw - - I like his sideburns.

About me

Andrew here,

I'm in 3rd year industrial design. I previously wanted to attend York's information technology program but opted out due to a lack of interest, plus my professor at the time confessed there were already too many students going into it so I thought, meh. I love building, used make toys out of recycled bottles and some duck tape (try not to picture it), it entertained me so. So here I am and I welcome you all.

Marco makes an overly long post.

Marco here~

A bit about me.. I'm in 4th year Graphic Design, but I tend to enjoy stepping out of the graphic world~ into fashion.. interiors.. I have vague dreams of opening a cafe on the roof of a skyscraper in some large and poluted city ..and I will personally design everything in it~ everything from the floorplan to the coffee cups...

On the topic of virtual communities.. I did not say much last week, basically because it was my first day of school after an eventful summer and it was 8:30 in the morning.. it was like jet-lag, except... more like.. holiday-lag. But no worries I'm prepared this time.

I spend a lot of time online, I have been accused of being able to type faster than I can speak. I find this to be kind of true, in fact I've noticed that I would say a lot more when I'm typing than I would if I'm speaking to someone face to face. I'll say that I have participated in many virtual communities.. various roleplaying worlds, discussion forums, MMORPGS. I have a sort of web persona that I've developed over the year and I would consistantly use it everywhere I go (Rainilla.. derived from Vanilla Rain.. which was derived from a nickname in Chinese.. yeah long story.) I have always been facinated (and quite bothered at the same time) at how seriously some people take things when they're online. I've gotten into arguements online before, and I would argue the crap out of it simply because I enjoy a good debate.. but if things get really ugly and I can see that it's not worth the effort, I'm perfectly willing to say "ok whatever" and back off. This isn't the attitude I see in many people though, very often people will never drop something.. they would fight to the end even if it means wasting hours arguing about it and reacting in completely unbelievable ways. This is why I'm drawn to this course, I have a passion for pyschology (it'd be my second career choice), I like to analysis people. One of the things I hope to do in this course is to look at why people behave the way they do behind an avatar, and why some people would take incidents in a virtual world so seriously. I've once heard of a case where a woman is trying to sue someone for a 'virtual rape' in Second Life, I didn't get much details on this but apparently she is quite tramatized.. and I can't quite figure out why someone could be tramatized by polygons performing pages of the kamasutra on the screen, nor can I even comprehend how a 'rape' is possible in Second Life because I'm quite sure you can get up and fly away with a couple buttons? or teleport? or turn the program off? Worse case scenario turn the computer off or even pull the plug? And if for some crazy reason you panic and completely lost control of your computer... you could just get up and walk away in real life?

Alright, enough rambling (see? I talk a lot more when I'm typing~).. see you all in the morning.

Yes. My avatar looks exactly like me.

Jill's Avatar

TaDah!

Hey Virtual Communities,
My name is Lev. I am a third year C.R.C.P. student (that is right...the boring major), but I like to take as many varied classes as possible. I am into sound design and people's relation to virtual and physical worlds and how art grabs there attention. Other than that stuff I like to make music with friends and sometimes just alone. The rest of the time I usually spend biking around town. This looks like an interesting year ahead - and this class is certainly going to different than anything I have ever been involved with at OCAD.

Oh and --- Second Life does not like my computer at home ... it kept crashing. Probably because my computer is pretty old. I guess I am just going to have to use it at school or at a friend's house, which kind of sucks because it seems like it requires an intense amount of attention and time put into to it to really get in depth with the program. Whatever - I am sure I will work something out.

Leveson,

About Shona Francis (ALICIA)

SHONA FRANCIS (ALICIA)

My name is Shona Francis but I prefer to be called Alicia (Ali-see-a). I'm a third year graphic design student. I've already finished my certification in web design and I'm just trying to finish my degree in graphic design so I can get into the field of web design and development.

I'm 21 years old and just trying to enjoy life and finish this degree (arghhhhh). My alter ego is called Prettie Price. Below is a picture of her, don't forget to say hi when you see her in Second Life!

I've had a passion for the art world since I was six years old. My biggest passion is web design and creating photo montages (look down below).

I'm a little skeptical of OCAD's teaching methods, but I hoping this year will be a more insightful and interesting learning experience. I look forward to seeing all of you next class since I didn't get to come to the first class. Take care guys.

Fiona's First Blog

Hi all, This is me, Fiona. And beside that is my Second life character.See the similarities?? Also, the attached video is a "mogo" I created for my gd class last year. The objective was to create an animated logo for a film label. I went for an indie label called bitter films which does a lot of low budget animations. Click on the title to see a still of the types of movies they create.... And then play the video. Enjoy!

Cheese!

Alright so this is part a of Assignment #1. This is a picture of myself modeling a tub of LUSH chocolate lip balm. I used to work at LUSH homemade cosmetics and fell in love with their products. The chocolate lip gloss is super awesome ;)

Okay so a little bit about myself. I'm a third year Integrated Media student, my main focus is film but I'm branching out and trying new things. I wanted to do metal working this year but didn't have enough room in my schedule. I'm Estonian (represent!), I like sushi and I'm thinking of colouring my hair purple...again.

ciao

Hello

Hello, Visual Communities Class

I'm just posting my first blog...ever. Blogger is very different from facebook or from any other "community" I have joined. I guess I just need to spend a little more time on it to understand it. Maybe my Blogs will be better later on in the month.

see you in class

jill

some of my photog...

Hi again. Here's a link to my photog work. I will post some graphic design later. bye!

PHOTOS HERE

Lil ol' me

hi Everyone,
Michelle here... I missed the first class so I will meet you all in person next week. A little about myself: I am currently in 4th year of graphic design. This is my second degree (yes, I think I am a permanent student... ) my first degree was in Photography. After Graduating photography, I worked in the industry for a couple of years but wasn't satisfied with what it offered. So I enrolled at OCAD for graphic design. What does the future hold? I am thinking my MBA... told you I was a permanent student. :)

I will post a sample of my work shortly... see you all next wednesday.

A moment of narcisism, brought to you by Kat

So here we are, assignment #1. Make a post, including a link (to one of my favourite virtual communities, myocad), a photo of myself:
an image of my second life avatar, Magdelina Baroque:
(heh, I changed the proportions to make them a bit more realistic... gotta love how it starts out with the body of a porn actress.)

and some info about me. Ummm... Well, I've always been conflicted between being a coder and an artist, my original plans for post-secondary education included going to Waterloo for computer programming, but in the last minute I switched to OCAD for art non-major... which shortly after found me switching into material art and design, which truly was my first love. I was weaving and sewing by the age of 5 with my mother. :)

And that's all I'll give you for now. I'm excited as to where this class may lead. I also may appear to be an obnoxious keener, but really, I'll be falling behind terribly by the end of the semester. Just trying to keep myself ahead of the game while I can. XD

Hey this is Lev

Just seeing if this is working -

ocad test post

Hi this is my test post.

Join Our Virtual Communities Blog

This blog IS the VIRTUAL COMMUNITY for our class.

The Virtual Communities blog is your community webspace. You can use it to post anything that is appropriate to the course and of interest to you.

Join the blog, and make your first posting this week.
Tell us about yourself!

Post a picture of yourself along with some information about your art or design discipline and year of study, and a bit about your interests. And tell us what you hope to get out of the course--for discussion next week.