marientina

Following our recovery from walking pneumonia, Marcus and I left the house yesterday in search of a fourth bird for our growing pet family. We tend to troll pet shops every month and look for birds. We generally are interested in unpaired or sick birds. We pick a name ahead of time, and head on out. Following the adoption of 'Fluorine', a female blue-capped Cordon Bleu waxbill we have been searching for 'Neon'. There is a pattern as you may have guessed. We already have Dimanche (male mutant Bengalese Society Finch, Neptune (male white Zebra finch) and there were birds before them that have passed on over the years.

We adopted a Lady Gouldian (red head, white breasted normal). We can't tell if it is a boy or a girl yet. The pet shop thinks it is a male, but thus far I was only able to make it sing a short call. Neon has a lot of wing damage, but we hope s/he will recover well and make good friends with the rest.

The next quest will be for 'Enteka' (#11 in Greek). Maybe we'll have him or her by next year.

***
3/28/07, Btw, it is a SHE and we love her.

Posted by marientina at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Somewhere between contemplating whether I truly need another pair of shoes while people in Pakistan are still waiting for their after-quake rescue, the Sudafed (I have a cold) has kicked in and is keeping me up all night. Thankfully, the post from Brad around 1.30am is making me feel not so nuts for being up late again, and it reminds me once again about that wonderful race to graduation. No, no, (readers who don't know me): I am not graduating but we have a new batch of cookies in the oven ...er I mean MFA students. Or should I say MFA candidates? That is btw the correct title for you 3rd year students.

I sat through the first official MFA thesis planning session and even though heavily sedated and buried deep into research on network attached storage, I was excited... Somewhere between the grandiose thinking, the thoughts about projection, promotion, experience design and random left-field jokes, I felt the jitter by proxy. I am so looking forward to this!

I often wonder the following because as I get older, I gotta evaluate to survive. When I was younger I used to say that I shall only regret things I didn't do but of course that is bullshit. After all, I regret ever hurting anybody, I regret a few boyfriends here and there and I regret taking that Sudafed pill.

I am sure many of you are wondering about the same things so I will pass on to you what I have discovered and you can take it or leave it. That is the beauty of the blog after all: it is elective reading.

a. Did I do the right thing by getting an MFA
Absolutely, positively yes. It wasn't just a fetish although I was in love with EVL since I was 15 years old. I remember doing applications for it, and I went to my advisor Dan Sandin with the arrogance of any 20 year-old who already had a kick-ass job, and I asked him "what do you have to offer to me and why should I do this in the first place?". I think he was stumped. But he was a good sport so he told me that the MFA wasn't about getting a job: it was about doing something you really want and it was a good time to grow.

You see the problem with my job at the time was that it was all-consuming and I was an artist, and I didn't have any time to do what I wanted. So in a way, going into an MFA program was like me buying time for myself to study and grow. I had to buy my own time to study - I wasn't buying Dan's time or anybody elses, that's for damn sure.

In doing my MFA I had the opportunity to teach all over town for four years, I did research, I did IT, I did writing, I did art and I did an MFA show. And in between, I still did my consulting work to pay some more bills. In IT, one would call all this 'bleeding-edge' load-balancing...And did I mention that I made some incredible new friends? Since I went to a state-school funded with my tax dollars, I have to say that it had a great return-on-investment.

Greg Dawe (a really cool person) told me once that the MFA was the most versatile degree you could ever get. My long-time friend Donald Nielsen told me to make sure whatever degree I got wouldn't wedge me into some category and to keep throwing more into the melting pot. I guess all that had an impact on a young mind back then. And thanks to my father, I have skills that will always find me a job no matter what else happens so I never worried about being able to make money. My family made and lost so much that not much scares me, except for major illness of course.

So yes. The MFA was worth it. I highly recommend it if you have an open mind and if you are willing to get your hands dirty.

b. Am I in the right place?
Say what you want but it only matters if I feel right in my place. University pay is very crappy unless you have seniority and the benefits are worth it only if you have a family. In fact, I made more as a self-employed person, could save much more if I wanted through a self-employment retirement account and get a whole lot more tax-deductions. And if it weren't for the fact that I always try to choose what is interesting instead of what is profitable, I would have a very high paying job at a company or would have opted to become a more purebred academic and published more and exhibited more and pursued a tenure-track job somewhere.

I kinda tried all of it and I wasn't happy. The industry jobs - been there done that and I much more preferred to consult for small businesses or not-for-profit organizations...Teaching? Well, I do miss teaching but full-time faculty jobs are not for me yet. I am such a control freak that I would rather do the monkey work staff has to do than have someone else do it for me...Teaching art and tech at smaller schools was the most enjoyable thing I ever did. But I did burn out quick because I was full-time grad and teaching 2-3 classes off-campus. What can I say? I am an overachiever.

So why take the job here? Of course I was grateful to be a contestant but I had to think long and hard about it. But I think that if you kids keep graduating and making me proud for any contribution I made to you success, then I am happy. And if things get more streamlined, I can work on some of my projects and that will make me more happy. And sure, a few more bucks would really help. I got student loans too. And a shoe addiction apparently...

So make me proud kids because that is 1/3 of my motivation to be here. The other 2/3's are for Fisher to figure out (it is a joke - relax).

Since my MFA show two plus years ago, I have managed to get into all kinds of stuff besides this job which includes loads of monkey work. Outside of this job I do some small things, some big things and all things that I choose and that interest me. And now, I can finally do things that make a difference in some people's lives. And that is a big thing for me. It is enormous and I have that opportunity because I have an MFA and my field of view is wide open.

Growing up in a socialist-capitalist- birthplace-of-democracy-kind-of-place (take a wild guess), I was taught that every vote counts and every gesture has a meaning. It was always about how the one or the few made a difference for the many. And I am not talking about grandiose gestures or taking over the world, but small gestures. That is the quintessential definition of social work (and did I mention that USC is a four-star charity?)

I used to think 'but is it art?'. But now I think who cares? If it makes a difference, it is what I do. And sometimes, it is art that I make.

(And if you are wondering how on earth this blog post makes a difference in your life: if I can vent, share and go to sleep and be cheery tomorrow, it will benefit many of you...)

c. Do I really want a PhD?
So this is a big issue these days. Lots of MFA's are getting PhD's for all kinds of different reasons. Some feel inadequate, some want to switch disciplines, some feel they have the energy and focus and there are all kinds of other reasons. Those who think they can get more money just for the PhD - they are crazy. If you suck with an MS, MA or MFA, you will probably suck with a PhD too...And yes I know that many people slip through the system, but many also self-select so it evens out in the end...

In my first few months in CA, I applied for a PhD in Education. It was a long shot since the application was very last minute, it was crappily done, my tests sucked since I hadn't taken a standardized test in ten years and to top it all off, two of my recommendation letters came in late so I was immediately disqualified. Bummer yes. But as they say, one door closes and another one opens. I can only be mad and depressed for stuff like that for only a few hours, at most a week (I did mope).

These days, I feel strongly that the MFA is a terminal degree. But it is only if you put the effort into it. If we all did that, and if we defended it and the quality of our work showed it, it would truly be a terminal degree. A PhD is a totally different beast and I am not sure I have the attention span and desire to put all my eggs into one basket for the time it takes to do it. Talk to me again about that in a few years...It is like me trying to buy a PDA: what I really want isn't in the market yet.

So there.

The Sudafed is starting to wear off and I gotta pee so this is it for now. Another over-the-counter-medicine induced rant. Who needs recreational drugs if I can write all this with a lousy 30mg of pseudoephedrine?

Posted by marientina at 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, every couple of years I try to update all my personal data (don't worry Scott - not leaving quite yet) because it helps me make my 5-year plan. As of today, my EVL site is ancient and Google doesn't always do justice to who I am.

With a new class coming in the Fall and my one-year anniversary approaching, I feel that maybe it is time to try to feel like home here. I used to always make a 5-year plan and it gets harder rather than easier as one gets older.

So first I have to look at what I have done and I have been a very busy girl as it turns out. Tom DeFanti once told me beware of 'breadth and go for depth' but 'depth' comes with age and 'breadth' is who I am by nature.

So here is Episode I:
(in Honor of George Lucas, I will do a trilogy installment of this)

Many years ago when I was in high-school and had to decide quickly what I wanted to do in life (this was Greece and if you don't know what you will be doing by 15 you're screwed) I knew two things: I loved art and I loved tech. Now back then, the marriage of the two disciplines in a traditional country like Greece was deemed 'just too darn weird' and I was advised to go to the US for studies. I went to the (late) Dean of Athens School of Fine Arts, Nikos Kessanlis and he looked at my portfolio and told me "if you have the means to study abroad my dear, you should go".

"Go and do what?", I wondered. My answer came while reading an issue of Time Magazine that featured the CAVE(tm), Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin. I was a teenager and I was mesmerized (busted!) but the real answer came much later.

At this time, I was taking art classes and french after school and my mother wanted me to be a classics teacher. I did great in all BUT my science classes and gym class (yes I was sickly and nerdy). And then, my 10th grade classics teacher hung himself and suddenly, being a classics teacher didn't seem like a great idea to me. You can say that he somehow did me a favor.

Thankfully, my high-school was one of those prestigious snob schools with an actual US college placement counselor who helped me figure out how to do what I wanted under my parents' nose. That counselor (whom I will not name) alone was worth the thousands of bucks my parents spent for tuition. My after-school art teacher (Liz Tenny) also helped by convincing my mother I had a future in art school. Liz's class was my safe haven and Liz was my personal savior.

I wanted to study painting first (somewhere cool!), then go do a graduate degree at the home of the CAVE at UIC. However, since my father lived in Chicago, I decided I would do a double major in two schools: A BFA at UIC in Electronic Media and a BFA at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in Studio Arts and then stay at UIC for the MFA. I applied and I was accepted and I packed and I left and I kissed my boyfriend goodbye. I was 17 years old and 4 months. And after I confused my advisors at both schools art offices, I managed to make a 5-year plan for graduation with two degrees. Lesson learned: be persistent and don't take no for an answer.

Enter dot.com era, my father and I started a business of computer services: custom pc's (pre-dell, back when a dell was from 'hell' and so was packard-bell), design services and soon, internet service and websites. Ahh...those were the days (sigh). I stuffed all my courses to 2.5 days of the week and worked with my father 24x7 the rest of the time and I am not exaggerating. It helped that my snobby school made me breeze through pre-reqs so I can focus on art classes coursework only.

Dad and I were busy and ambitious and a great team since I was a little kid. In Greece, child labor is the horrible act of contributing to the family business any which way you can. Picture me as a 12-year old translating for my father in his board of directors meeting or on trips with vendors in Europe. Or working at the gift shop at 15, decked out like I was 20 so that I can run the business without anyone noticing I was a teenager...I met lots of celebs at that post, including Jeff Koons and his ex-wife paging through his special Playboy issue, and James Hetfield of Metallica who asked me "where can one have some fun in this town [Athens]?" while holding a giant can of Sapporo in his hand.

On a side note, my family was living in comfortable middle-middle class until George Bush senior decided to go to war in Iraq and cause 30% of all tourism-related businesses in Greece to go bust. We had a good ten or so years before that in business, even through the Reagan/Thatcher recessed Europe of double digit unemployment and inflation. In those ten years I learned the basics of business: sales, customer service, marketing, packaging, merchandising, schmoozing, accounting, data entry and 'tough-love' economics.

The business dad and I opened in Chicago did great except for the fact that we ran out of money after 2 years because my father for the first time took a risk on business rule #1: always save for 2-3 years of rain when opening a new business. When we closed the doors of our operation, we had 3000 customers and were doing great. Except for being broke. I cried and cried and so did my father but we pulled through and it was easier for me because I was not a 55-year old white man with a thick greek accent and no college degree.

So how did we do it?

Wait for Episode II on my next cough-syrup induced insomniac night. And no, I won't do it backwards like George. Since I already posted the Official Bio first, it is more like 'in media res', as in the Iliad and the Odyssey. (Damn my classics background.)

Posted by marientina at 1:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MARIENTINA GOTSIS is a new media artist and uber geek interested in gestural interfaces, dance, introspective narratives and precolombian art. She manages several facilities and assists with research at the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California. In the past ten years she has run her own consulting business catering to small and medium business and not-for-profit organizations with service offerings ranging from design to technical writing and information architecture to server and network deployment and administration. She moved to Los Angeles from Chicago in 2003 where she received an MFA in Electronic Visualization in 2003 and a BFA in Photo/Film/Electronic Media in 1999 from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1995 to 1996. She has taught many art and technology courses at Harold Washington College (Chicago), Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at the University of Southern California. She is affiliated with the oXymoros Dance Theatre in New York and The Free School Project in Athens, Greece.

Posted by marientina at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)