Much Needed Break

I guess I am just going to dive right in folks, I leave for a trip to Botswana in about 7 hours and I still have to sleep. I miss everyone. You are all on my mind constantly, especially you.

First I will tell you about the upcoming trip, then about my academic program, and then I will catch you up to speed through as many pictures as I can upload (there are 50 set aside). If I was not exhausted I would put a little more effort into being poetic. To be honest, I really enjoy this blogging thing. It gives me a great opportunity to look back on small portions of time and really evaluate what has happened. Anyways, thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy.


I think it was either my Sophomore or Junior year at OU when I took an Environmental Studies course (Geography I believe?) that was taught by Ted Bernard. He stressed what a wonderful place the Okavango was, and how everyone must visit this place to help understand its greatness in order to further preservation efforts. He showed us pictures of amazing things; untamed wildlife in quantities you have never even seen before. Happenings beyond belief. National Geographic once had an article in an issue with elephants swimming underwater that was filmed there!

Basically it is a river that does not drain to a sea, but into the land. You can imagine what occurs because of this. So this place has been on my mind as a metaphorical Mecca and I finally have the opportunity to go. To fly roundtrip to Maun, the jumpoff point for trips into the Okavango, it would cost $400. Include lodging in the most expensive tourist spot in all of southern Africa and a vehicle rental, not to mention excursions, and you start to get a pretty expensive trip. I saw lodging there for at least $1000/night/person; they show pictures of people getting candlelight massages 50 yards from an elephant. Not exactly in my itinerary.

A Nissan 3.0 L Turbo Diesel 4x4 Camp truck costs 400/six days/ person. It will be just Tom and I. The package includes all the necessities, even a table, chairs, fridge, long distance fuel tank, jerry cans (extra water), shovel, you name it. Tents on the roof people! So your transportation is your lodging, and you get on by paying $3 USD for a campsite for the night. One tenth the price, at least double the experience. We have to be (almost) totally self-sufficient. It takes about 15 hours to get there. You must have a 4x4 to go to the Okavango. I live for this stuff in case you could not tell.

If all goes according to plan, Thursday night we will be staying in Serowe, Botswana, an approximate halfway point. Serowe is east of the Kalahari Desert. On Friday its to Maun, and then who knows. Ted has given me some contacts in the Maun area, where he lived for five years. We will be visiting the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Center (HOORC) and possibly stay in their camp. Chobe National Park, in the northeast corner of Botswana, is also very attractive. We shall see. Wish me luck, on to information about the program. I encourage you to google the Okavango and just see what I am talking about in case the next blog post takes a while! Botswana tourism site is a very good site where we obtained some maps and found out a lot of info.

My program is......much more than I expected. For some reason it did not even cross my mind the amount of work I would be doing. It is good, I love it and I love the challenge, but it has taken a toll and me and all of my classmates. A personal record of mine was set this "quarter," 7 all-nighters and two back-to-back all nighters. And this time, they were not done as a result of procrastination.

There are only 4 full-time students and 2 part-time students in my classes. I only have two classes, one meeting twice a week and one meeting once a week only during the first semester. So my practice course is where we do all of our actual work, and then I have a tough tough theory course. Our practice begun with OpenGL computer language based on Javascript. For a couple weeks we focused on a free program called "Processing." I will not bore you with the technical stuff, but basically Processing allows you to program your graphics card to display whatever the heck you want. By typing lines of code you create shapes, movement, input based on the video camera, anything really. It is all related to math. We basically have a trigonometry lesson while learning a new program and learning programming itself. Yeah, yummy.

At the end of the Processing section we had a visiting artist teaching us and our class how to program, which was really cool. He held a 4-day "Machinima" seminar at Wits and we saw him on a daily basis. Machinima = Machine + cinema + animation. Basically people modify video games and use them as tools to create videos and various interactive artworks. YouTube "Red vs. Blue" to see a good example.

The Machinima seminar was highlighted my a 3d-body scanning demonstration. There was a kiddie pool filled with water and dyed with black ink. A contraption that a person lied onto was slowly lowered into the water and a camera positioned above the pool recorded an image frame by frame. This is then put through a program to connect it all and thus you have a 3-d body model. I did it, but I have not had the chance to compile the image, I will post it when its ready.

So once everyone began to get comfortable with what we were learning, it was on to the next program. After Processing is now Max MSP/Jitter, which is a more visual type of programming method allowing you to intertwine the actions of video cameras, audio, mics, anything USB. Pretty cool stuff. Lots of info about the projects will come after my trip.

The thesis proposal was also due recently. After much stressing and freaking out, I finally decided on a topic. At the moment, the title of my thesis is "Image In Me: Why Current Image Culture Requires Interactivity to Induce Engagement." It will not be a paper about the history of Photography. It will not be a statement saying the image is dead, or that a still image no longer moves an individual. It will discuss how the image has become so commonplace in our lives that new methodologies regarding creation, display, understanding, gathering, etc. are being formed as a result. More later.

The work has wore me down! This one week is the only scheduled break all year, I I have to say it is much needed.

If you have made it this far, I am impressed. You will be rewarded with pictures! They are in chronological order.

This is the security gate by the Theatre and Arts area at Wits.
Security is a huge issue here. I feel like everyone is always looking over their shoulder.

I took a trip to Alexandria. Alexandria and Soweto have very interesting pasts.
Most people here would never go there. The places are nearly shanty-towns, but the people glow with energy and life.




The whole town congregated around an intersection on Sunday night.
Everyone danced.





House music everywhere!
The DJ's here can't really hold it down, but I like the pic.




This is right outside my res. I am amazed by how plants can take root in the most adverse conditions. This was while we were waiting for a ride to Soweto.





Outdoor amphitheater in a park in Soweto








They asked me to take their picture.





Love this one.




Having drinks behind the boutique in Soweto.






A band played there that night.




They kind of sucked, but they rocked out.




These are some of my neighbors. Renji on the right and his neighbor ? on the left.
Good people.





So I bought that new zoom lens. A used one actually, Sigma 50-500mm.

Well I had a lot more to show and say, but the horrible internet here is not cooperating. So, the rest will have to wait until I get back. Thanks for checking in guys I really think that its awesome you are interested.