Web Portfolio

Here is the link to my web portfolio:

http://samantha-wise.wix.com/portfolio

Final Project Proposal

The idea behind this project is to bring people together not only as a nation, but also around the world. What is the one thing that the entire world is able to share and see absolutely anywhere? The moon. My idea is to create a monument showing the world coming together as one, on the moon. The United States tends to take claim for having the first man on the moon, but now anyone can be a “man on the moon” through this monument. People won’t physically take steps on the moon, but they can send their piece, their flag.

This idea came to me when Carlos mentioned that we should think out-of-the-box and could even put a monument in outer space. I couldn’t get that out of my head, so that lead me to think of the moon. I had to come up with why I would want to put something on the moon, and all I could think of was the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Armstrong described his experience on the lunar surface as “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” This ended the Space Race against Russia to get the first man to the moon. These events lead me to think, “what if anyone could go to the moon?” I came up with the flags to show that the moon is neutral ground; no one owns it, even though the US likes to think they do. The flag idea came from the fact that Armstrong placed an American flag on the moon to show that we did it. This way, the entire world can come together as one to put their mark on the moon. This monument shouldn’t be thought of as public or private, it’s more of a commons monument. It’s a common monument because no country or government is in charge of it in any way. There is a sense of a mutual agreement between everyone globally to be involved in this monument.

This monument won’t be just one item but multiple coming together. The flags together will create this monument on the moon as one. The simple act of sending a flag to the moon is part of the monument too. It’s not just something to look at, it’s something everyone can be a part of and participate in. To me, this monument represents the world coming together as one. The moon is neutral ground that the US likes to claim as their own only we don’t really have ownership at all. The moon belongs to everyone is I think is the perfect place for this type of monument.

The location is the moon, obviously, and I chose it simple because I thought it would be interesting to have a monument there. I looked up moon monuments, just to see if there was anything to even mark the fact that men have been on the moon, but there are only monuments on Earth. How crazy would it be if there was a monument on the moon? That would be pretty incredible.  The monument is based more on the interaction than on the visibility. You’re able to send a flag of your choice up to the moon to make your mark just like you are a “man on the moon.” You could see the moon with all the flags from Google Earth, but not just by looking out your window. The flags would be too small to make them visible. The flags will be arranged to look like a smaller version of Earth. So, the countries flags will be placed where their country would be located on Earth, just on the moon.

The monument is improbable because it would cost millions of dollars to do this. One trip alone to the moon is well over a million dollars and to take multiple trips would be outrageous. Also being able to place flags on the moon to stay permanently is questionable. I don’t think they would be able to stay put. There’s also the possibility of country’s not being able to be involved in this monument whether they don’t have Internet access to view the flags. It would even be difficult to get word spread about the monument to the lesser countries. The main countries would have no issue being able to know about the monument, see it and also participate.

This monument is important in my opinion because it shows that the world should come together as one. It is more focused on the moon and the fact that no one in particular actually owns the moon in any way, but you could take the meaning of it as far as bringing the world together. Hopefully, this monument does just that. The public gains multiple things through this monument, I think. They get to be their very own “man on the moon”. Only a few people have ever been to the moon and been able to take steps or place an object up there. With this monument the people get the chance place their flag. Anyone who is involved with this monument benefits by the experience and the feeling of unity with others around the globe.

Various sites that I found say that a trip to the moon today for two passengers will cost them $150 million dollars for one ticket. For this monument if we decided to take one trip to the moon per year and people continued to want to be involved with this monument for 10 years it would cost one billion five hundred million dollars. For this monument if everyone sent a mini country flag to the moon each flag would cost around $2. So if all 7 billion people in the world chose to send a flag to the moon it would cost $14 billion dollars. Now, if I add up the $150 million dollars for one trip to the moon plus the $14 billion dollars for every person around the globe to send a flag, it would cost fourteen billion, one hundred fifty million dollars. Even if all 316.1 million people (as of 2013) from the United States sent a flag to the moon it would cost seven hundred eighty-two million two hundred thousand dollars. Any way that you try to combine it, this monument would be a multimillion-dollar project.

This project doesn’t exactly have a definite timeline. This is something that could last as long as it wants to. Over the years, more and more people could send flags to the moon and participate in the “man on the moon” experience if they choose to. This does not have a for sure start and finish date attached to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/fly-me-to-the-moon-for-150-million-140613.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/10/news/funny/moontrip/

http://www.iflscience.com/space/vacation-moon-150-million

http://www.flagsimporter.com/argentina-flags/?sort=pricedesc

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+in+the+world+2014&oq=how+many+people+in+the+world+2014&aqs=chrome.0.57j62l3.6646j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Inspiration & Ideas

These are just some images that I found while researching that inspired my design for this project. 

Below is my general idea for what the "monument" will look like once the flags are placed on the moon. Obviously it would be a much greater scale considering the number of flags, but this is just a sample.

Monument Research Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/fly-me-to-the-moon-for-150-million-140613.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/10/news/funny/moontrip/

http://www.iflscience.com/space/vacation-moon-150-million

http://www.flagsimporter.com/argentina-flags/?sort=pricedesc

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+in+the+world+2014&oq=how+many+people+in+the+world+2014&aqs=chrome.0.57j62l3.6646j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

http://www.purdue.edu/uns/x/2007b/071026CelArmstrongSculpt.html

http://degreed.com/blog/top-10-facts-apollo-11/

Final Project Proposal

When we were assigned to come up with an "improbable" monument, I couldn't stop think about outer space. The moon is something that every single person on Earth can view and enjoy, so why not make a monument on the moon. Once I decided I wanted to put a monument on the moon, I wanted to think of some significant event that took place there, which lead me to the first man on the moon, Mr. Neil Armstrong. Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon. Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, were those first humans on July 20, 1969. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21. This major event coined the phrase "one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind. " 

My idea for this project is for everyone to be a "man on the moon." So many people say they would love the opportunity to go to outterspace and/or go to the moon. Through this monument, people can do just that; virtually. This monument would be interactive with anyone who would like to be involved. It's open to the public, not only in the U.S., but anywhere in the world that is able/willing to participate. The moon is universal, it shouldn't just be dedicated to one country. 

 

The way I image this monument working is anyone and everyone could have a simple flag of their country. With this flag the person can write their name, draw something, be creative with the flag itself. Then, somehow, we would be able to go place the flags on the moon. Through Google Earth people would then be able to view their flags actually placed on the moon. This way, they are "virtually" on the moon. It's like taking you're very own steps on the moon, just not literally. 

Virtual Placemaking in Google Earth

For this exercise I chose to map out some of my favorite places I've been to in St. Louis. St. Louis is a major part of my life since my brother lived there since I was eight years old. I included photos with every place mark that I chose from the past two summers combined. I started at the St. Louis Arch including images of my friends and I as well as multiple different perspective views from below and also above. After the Arch the tour goes to Bailey's Range, a restaurant in downtown St. Louis. Right after Bailey's Range, the tour takes you to the City Museum. The City Museum is an incredibly unique museum in that it's not a museum at all, but a massive playground. I included an image of me and my best friend on the roof of this museum where you can ride a huge Farris Wheel. While on the roof you can see all of downtown St. Louis, which you can see in the background of the photo I have with the tour. Inside the museum there is a fun art center, which is just one small section of the inside portion, but of course it's my favorite part. I have a photo included for this part as well. Next, the tour takes us to the Wax Museum where I have a ridiculous photo of me imitating a dinosaur wax sculpture. After the Wax Museum, I included the Art Museum where I have photos of my boyfriend viewing an amazing image drawn by Chuck Close and also my brother and sister-in-law viewing some Van Gogh paintings.  This next place is one of my absolute favorite spots in St. Louis, Sculpture Park. This is a unique park where there are massive sculptures placed all throughout the park. I show a photo of a massive sculpture with my boyfriend standing next to it to show scale. This park is the perfect location to have artsy-farsty events. I have a photo of a fun food truck event we went to at the park this past summer. The last place I have on the tour is the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I took my nephew here multiple times this past summer when I was his nanny. It's just a really fun place to go for all ages.


Here are some screen shots to show the places on the map and also the images that I included in the tour on Google Earth:

Seeing the Past in Present Tense

This is the first reading that I actually really enjoyed and feel like I got a lot out of. The main monument that I found the most interesting was the Monument Against Fascism, War and Violence - and for Peace and Human Rights. I liked that people could interact with the monument by signing their name on the monument itself. I also thought it was interesting how over time it slowly descended under ground. While I really like the concept behind this monument, it was disappointing to find out that it was a forgotten monument. When the author of this article went to find this monument, they had to ask multiple people in the town where the monument was since it was already underground. The people of the town didn't even know where it was and some didn't know what they were talking about. I couldn't figure out if that was the point of this monument was to put the fascism, war and violence behind them and in a way "forget", or if it was just an unmemorable monument all together.

Radical Cartography

For this project I chose to map out my three years (so far) at Kansas State. I first listed all the classes I took Freshman, Sophomore and Junior year at KSU. Then I thought of other activities I did a lot while in Manhattan. For example, I'm involved in a sorority on campus, so I mapped out the route I took to get the my sorority house on a weekly bases. I also thought about going to the rec, football games, basketball games and of course going to Starbucks for coffee.

Overall, my map is incredibly simple yet extremely personal. I thought this was a cool way to map all the places I've been while in college.

Here is my list of activities I planned out before actually making my maps:

Here is the final projects:

Radical Cartography Proposal

I have a couple ideas for this project that I haven't quite decided on. 

The first one is to simple map out the paths I take to my classes. To make it a little more meaningful and different, I was going to map out the paths I've taken every year I've been at KSU. So, starting with my freshman year all the way to current (junior). I also thought it might be need to highlight moments I've had at KSU on this map. For example: getting accepted into the graphic design program. This event happened while I was in my metals studio in Willard. So, I could make a star or somehow label this memorable event. I could go back and do this for every year as well. All the different years could be a different color to help seperate them from each other. 

My second idea is based around my plans to study abroad this summer in Italy. I was considering taking a map of Florence (to be specific) and map out all the places we plan on seeing while in Florence. I chose Florence because this is where we will be located for the majority of the trip. We are planning on study at Lorenzo de Medici for 4 weeks and the taking 2 extra weeks to backpack around Europe. I thought this could be a fun way to document our plans and how it's coming along as a "work in progress" piece. I wasn't sure if that would be alright to have it not so finalized and definite, but it was just an idea. 

Logo Heist

The company I chose to for this exercise is Urban Outfitters. They came out with a shirt that said "Eat Less" on it and was shown on their website by a teeny, tiny girl wearing this shirt. This causes a major uproar from many customers saying they would no longer shop at this store. Urban Outfitters had many other shirts that they sold that were just as bad. One has the Jewish star on it and another with blood stains. All of these shirts have created a terrible image for their company. I, personally, used to love their store and after seeing all of these and hearing about the "Eat Less" shirt changed my views on what they consider "fashion".


Here is how I changed their logo:

The quote: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" was said by famous super model Kate Moss. Her saying this caused a big stink since she is a "role model" to many girls and women everyone. How can someone who is such a large icon say something so damaging? I thought this quote fit the Urban Outfitters attitude with their select styles perfectly.

Mail Art

The mail art I designed is based on Italy. I honestly had no idea what to design in the beginning, and I researched some mail art and saw several that had been inspired by different countries. I'm planning on studying abroad this summer and I thought it might be cool to design postcards that would be personalized to me that I would want to send back to the states while I'm over there. These are how they look originally. I would like to print them and write on them about my travels, or what I hope to do while I'm in Italy. Just to add a little something more to it. I also really like them just the way they are here, as well.

Augmented Body

A couple of pieces that sparked by interest for my design were Sensory Substitution:

Seeing With Your Tongue and cat ears brain waves. The first one, Sensory Substitution, designed a way to see using your tongue. I found this incredible due to the fact that I have terrible eye sight. One of my biggest fears in life is losing my eye sight because it is already incredibly bad. For me, laser eye surgery will not work on my eyes and my only other option is major surgery to implant a contact onto my eye. The idea that if I lose my eye sight and could somehow see in a different way is encouraging. 

The other design, the cat ears brain waves, was interesting in how they used brain waves to control cat ears to show your emotion. The fact that it was using brain waves is what caught my attention and really blew me away. I wanted to dig deeper into how they were able to grasp brain waves to control something like simple cat ears that a person could wear on  a daily basis. 

For this project, I started thinking about other things I would like to help cure for people, such as sight, hearing, vocals, etc. But I wanted to dig deeper into things rather than just senses. I then thought of different things that effect my family and could one day effect myself. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and multiple types of cancers are in my family. These diseases have no cure and they are still struggling to find one. Doctors are coming close, but in my opinion not close enough if it's not solved yet. I wanted to come up with something that could cure these, but also be painless and effortless. 

I then thought of Nanobots. These little robots that go into your system and do multiple things in there that I never quite understood when reading about them (it was all scientific and hard for me to follow). I decided to go off of the idea of Nanobots but change multiple things about them to channel them to exactly what I wanted. 

I decided first off, that they should not be made of metal. Metal is something our bodies can possibly reject if put into our system. So, I then thought of DNA printing. What if we could take a sample of our DNA and print it into a mini robot such as a Nano. So that's what I came up with. These little guys would then go into our system, basically a part of us from the start. They could go in and fight the multiple cells that carry the disease, whatever it may be, to take care of the issue for us. You would get them into your system by taking a small pill. That way, it's completely effortless and you only have to take one pill once. Not every day, or once a month, just once. 

After the Nano's are finished fighting the disease in your body, they would be able to communicate with your doctor that their job is done. They would do this by using a wifi chip that is embedded inside them. It's so small and cased around their little bodies that it wouldn't be an issue in your system. This way, the doctors can monitor exactly what they are doing to ensure that you are being taken care of.

Once the doctors have the information and you no longer need the Nano's to do their job anymore, they Nano's simply become a part of you. They are already printed to your specific DNA so they don't really need to go anywhere. This way, they can continue to monitor your body to ensure you are always completely healthy and safe from other diseases. Also, because they are designed specifically to you, if for some reason rather than fighting a disease they needed to mend a failing organ or failing cells, they could just simply replace them. They couldn't replace an entire organ, but they could make up many cells to help mend one. Again, simply becoming a part of you as they were printed. 

Here is the step by step explanation of what I came up with: