My thoughts on NJ

New Jersey is a well oiled machine from the roads to the justice system to schools, all of which help you to go to work. Jersey is the crossroads of New York City and Philly. It's a work emphasized culture. The stores are the size of warehouses and from a business point of view seem overwhelming to start your own. There is little sentiment to mom and pop shops and people would much rather shop at a Walmart or department store than care about a small business run by a resident. The houses aren't much bigger than the plot of land they are built on and everything and everyone is squeezed in. Fast food is widely available. The design of NJ is formulaic and with little personality so as to get the most function and money out of small uses of land. The people who live here are suspicious of people they meet cause their is such a high volume of people living in small spaces. Most people in this state don't know their neighbors. Products are designed to sell to a broad range of consumers and are mass produced with little individuality. People who seek individuality still shop at brand stores (how many hot topics have you seen?). So I think the value and demands put up on us by growing up in this state are different than the ideals we were taught and that's very confusing. New Jersey is like a snowball from when I watched Ducktails as a child, its starts off as a snowball rolling down a mountain then picks up more and more snow and momentum until it's so big and call roll over anything.

Things I'm thinking about

Here are some themes I've been brainstorming:

People that you run into everyday who you have small one minute conversations with and get to know them through routine (could make a cool commercial).
Places that are so large they are overlooked.
Places everyone goes to during the day but at night they are empty.
Private places in Public Spaces (could even be thinking with everything going on around you).
Places you've been to so many times but never got to know.
Bringing a sense of intimacy into NJ.
Things that aren't desirable but have personal attachment.
Traces of people in the environment, things people leave behind.
NJ as the crossroads.

METAPHORS FOR ROADS
fork in the road - choice between two directions in a persons life
the road not taken - the path in life a person didn't go down
crossroads - when people lives cross each others
it's a bumpy road ahead - life won't be easy in the foreseeable future
the long and winding road - life is long and there are many turns
along the way
the information super highway - the fast exchange of information
on the internet
road rage - a frustrated driver

NIGHT ASSOCIATIONS
night as fear
night as unconsciousness
night as loneliness
night as peace
night as death
night as a dreaminess
night as rest
night as intimacy

last week (test)

Last week I ran a test to see if reproducing the image used as inspiration was possible. I shot the resulting image on the right at 100 ISO at F6.7 on a tripod. One thing worth pointing out on the original image is that the camera appears to be looking downward but we are looking upward at the light. This change in perspective could have been accomplished in Photoshop or a wider lens may have been used. The light itself looks scaled down to more human proportions than the enormous light I found. I photographed from 2am to 6am, it was freezing outside. The photo was taken in a shopping center near Target in Middletown.

This week I meet with a couple writers, who are interested in helping me create written material for my thesis project. I sought them out because I want to create a larger pool of written material with which to draw from. The broader viewpoints will also help to make my campaign more believable and add personality. These writers though are helping me for free so there is no guarantee they will stick.

When brainstorming my deliverables (hitting my head against the wall) for my project, I hit upon a dilemma that needed to be attended to first. The questions I needed to solve were, who was my campaign for and who would buy my campaign? Would it be the state itself, the NJ department or tourism or the chamber of commerce? Who would benefit the most from changing from the garden state into an identity that is more urban? And what is the chamber of commerce anyway? After doing research, I found out that the chamber of commerce is an association run by individual business people, civic leaders and business firms, whose interest it is to develop and promote commercial and industrial opportunities. The need for a chamber of commerce arose because businessmen needed an organization to represent their interests in the community. The chamber of commerce than would be a good client to think of when deciding on the appropriate deliverables. They would seem the most likely to run a campaign about the ungarden state.

The NJ department of tourism would also be fun but seem more content to keep things the way they are. Sill I will develop a set of appropriate deliverables for both groups.

transitions

I think there is an opportunity in this photo to think of it as a stage where a verity of people and things can enter onto. The transition from person to person, to thing to animal, to historical figure, to even a revolutionary war hero could be very interesting. This photo could be seen in New Jersey at a mall, a drug store, a bank, a library, a pizza shop and anywhere else in NJ. Here is a list characters that could enter this stage:

1. Skateboarders
2. People Loitering
3. People Making Out
4. A Shopping Cart
5. A person walking the dog
6. A deer
7. Someone listening to music in their car
8. Person on a cell phone or smoking
9. Camera on the light pole
10. Cops hanging out
11. Businessman
12. Family

Things could also happen within the stage such as the going out, the light flickering, the weather changes

Crown Fountain





Interesting use of materials that blend and shape the landscape. Materials for NJ could include concrete, metals, plastics, woods, glass and rubber. Using what’s around you to describe yourself.

The standard-issue plate is yellow with black lettering and displays the state's motto, "Garden State," across the bottom.



































LIST of DELIVERABLES
1. License Plate
2. Drivers License
3. Lottery
4. New Identity for The Garden State Parkway
5. Murals on the sound barriers that highlight parts of the town behind them, which block the view of the town.
6. State Flag
7. The seal of the state
8. Police Uniform and car
9. Stamps
10.Fire hydrants
11. School bell ring
12. EZ Pass
13. Website
14. State Slogan