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Come Together for the GREGG BORDOWITZ: TETRAGRAMMATON Exhibition!

Final story is here for this blog!! Go check it out in the link down below, you won’t regret it!

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[lildigitaljournalism]

Come together for the GREGG BORDOWITZ: TETRAGRAMMATON Exhibition!

The final story of this blog is here!!! Check it out in the link down below, you won’t regret it!

Start

[lildigitaljournalism]

Suyu Chen and JG Lin, two public attendees of the exhibition, enjoyed the complexity of the exhibit while appreciating the work behind it.

“You wouldn’t realize it’s cultural art unless you read the description of the gallery online. I feel like the art itself is good to look at but it makes the art feel more powerful knowing the cultural ties that went into making it.” Chen replied when asked about their take on the exhibition. “ This art means something to people, and the message [the exhibition] sends is good.”

Both Chen and Lin spent around an hour in the Gregg Bordowitz: Tetragrammaton exhibit, and found this section of the gallery to be a peaceful place to sit and relax. They considered the area to be a nice break from the cold and the art to be comforting in its appearance with the environment.

“I like it here, I could listen to music here and probably chill out for a bit.” Lin when asked about his experience at the gallery. “It just seems so quiet that nobody would care if I just sat on the bench in the middle [ of the exhibition space] and watched art.”

This laidback attitude is relevant and deliberately created for the exhibition.

“The loose charge led Bordowitz into research on Hebrew language and customs, and eventually to the Tetragrammaton that forms the basis of all the work in the exhibition. The research became the basis for a unique creative practice that also gives us a peek into what feels like a meditative practice that might be how Bordowitz has been managing through the myriad crises we’ve all been living through over the past two years. It might even inspire a visitor to take up their meditative artistic practice.” said Reynolds on the continuation of why this exhibit is in the UB Anderson Gallery.

There are many ways to connect with your community this winter season, and UB’s gallery exhibition of Gregg Bordowitz: Tetragrammaton is one of the few to make both a cultural impact as well as provide a genuine space for the community to come together.

As Reynolds answers to what she wants viewers to take away from the galleries, “I hope right now that looking at both the Bordowitz and Nichol exhibitions, people leave with an expanded appreciation of language and letters and how these forms can construct meaning in so many ways.”

Thank you for sticking along! For further information, leave any comments in the notes and see what everyone else is thinking!

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Tetragrammaton (Non-binary with Plate) was another piece that caught immediate attention, mainly for its similarities and differences to the header piece of the exhibition, Tetragrammaton (Non-binary Hero). Sharing the same color gradient and peaking the white tetragrammaton, the only difference in the piece is the huge splash of gray in the middle. What color below the grey is somewhat visible, as a close replication of Tetragrammaton (Non-binary Hero).

 "It seems weird to have the block of gray right in the center of the piece but it works? It fits in the space well, and while I don't like the color, I respect the move to alter the tetragrammaton so it's covered almost completely by the "gray plate". Alaka responded to the piece. "You could say that it doesn't fit with the rest of the art but I like that it's an obvious change from the original piece. It's like people expect one thing, and you give them something surprising."

 It's up to opinion, on whether people will like the pieces, but it's worth noting that every piece requires some thought on the viewer to appreciate them in full, an activity that brings us together in both understanding the people around us and ourselves.

 "I just really like looking around, and spending time talking about what they mean." Menezes remarked," I'm not an art major but it's nice to go out and see what Buffalo has to offer. The artist who made these made his work to be appreciated by many people, not just people who can read Hebrew."

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Though this exhibit wasn’t explained in-depth by the UB Art Gallery information left by the former curator, the appearance of the art and its cultural significance are undeniable. Emily Reynolds, the Marketing & Communications Manager at UB Art Galleries, was able to provide some insight on why the exhibit was brought in. 

“Gregg Bordowitz: Tetragrammaton was curated by former UB Art Galleries curator of exhibitions Liz Park, and as we prepared for the show, she described how Bordowitz’s practice advances art as inquiry, and how this project particularly has a deep basis in research. She invited Bordowitz to create new work with the open-ended charge to use language as material…”

UB Art Galleries had planned an exhibition that was made to create a thoughtful audience. 

Beyond the intricate line work and aesthetic appearances, Bordowitz’s work is a product of hard work and planning. Taking the traditional representations of the tetragrammaton and turning them into abstract-appearing pieces revitalizes the practice of meditating on the letters of the tetragrammaton. Bordowitz’s exhibition embodies the UB Art Galleries’ mission to “We support art and ideas that are urgent and relevant to our time and place. We advance art as both inquiry and creative practice available to everyone.”.

Reynolds helped cultivate this mission statement when she first joined the UB Art Gallery and has since been working with her fellow staff to better focus on this goal. 

“A big part of what we’re here to do at UB Art Galleries is extending the mission of the university and the college into a museum environment where we can mount exhibitions and work with artists to create work around the same ideas that our community at the university is also engaged in. I think that it’s fair to say that UB as a whole is working to support students engaging in the art and ideas that are urgent and relevant to our time and place. ” Reynolds said in a statement.

Click here to read the next part!

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Tetragrammaton (Geruvah) is arguably the most aesthetic piece of the exhibition for its symmetry. Looking at the letters for Tetragrammaton, it's easy to see simplicity in the characters. The repetition of the he letter and both vav and yodh are similar enough that only the size tells the difference would make it easy to draw the characters in symmetrical shapes like triangles or stars, or mirror each other. However, in Bordowitz's work, his representation of the tetragrammaton tends to resemble a mesh of lines that overlap and connect. Tetragrammaton (Geruvah) is both sparser in lines compared to the rest of the pieces as well as more symmetrical and defined. The thickness of the lines is notably different as well, communicating a distinction between the shapes present.

 "[Tetragrammaton (Geruvah)] feels different than the rest of the art, I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't taken a second look. All of the pieces feel calm to look at, but this one is the most pleasing to see because it makes sense to me. I like the complicated pieces of the gallery, but I appreciate the comfort of this one." Alaka remarked on the piece.

 Though the size of the print is as small as Tetragrammaton (Purple with Tassels) and the color of the print is similar, the contrast in many aspects is clear with a glance.

Click here for next part of the story!

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Tetragrammaton (Suite I), is pictured above as one of the most unique pictures of the exhibit. Both the print and medium are near black, making the details of this piece harder to catch in most lighting and angles.

For reference, the video above details this print at angles trying best to capture how hard to see this work was.

Interestingly enough, if a purveyor of the art would take a few moments to look at the work from below it looking up, a glitter effect appears that highlights the lines of the piece. Chrisal Menezes, a UB student attending the gallery, notes the glittering effect as a deeper meaning to the art.

"...What I take from [Tetragrammaton (Suite I)] glittering only at a few points but remaining hidden when looked at straight on was that it's an allusion for who we truly are versus how we are perceived by the world. I don't know if this was the meaning behind this art, but I like that you have to work to see it."

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Tetragrammaton (Purple with Tassels) takes on a very different appearance than Tetragrammaton (Binary Hero) does. Sitting so close together, it's easier to find the differences than similarities. The tetragrammaton sits on a dark background that looks nearly black in the warm lighting of the exhibition. The white of the tetragrammaton stands out for the contrasting background, especially when the size of the frame holding the piece dwarfs the size of the actual piece. The rigidity of the white border of the frame contrasts deeply against the human-made lines of the tetragrammaton that look barely an eraser's head thick.

Though smaller than a majority of the pieces surrounding it, this work is no less complex and captivating. Ujunwa "Chika" Alaka, a UB student attending the gallery, was impressed by this piece in particular.

"The representation of the tetragrammaton is crazy, considering how small it is. You've got to wonder how long it took to get the really small details at the bottom. I could never."

The ability to identify the Hebrew characters in the writing can be easier or harder to decipher depending on the piece, but Alaka thought this piece in particular was the easiest to recognize the letters of the tetragrammaton.

Some of the artworks were almost impossible to see without taking a step closer, and both Tetragrammaton (Purple with Tassels) and the series Tetragrammaton (Suite I-IV) portrayed this design.

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Come Together for GREGG BORDOWITZ: TETRAGRAMMATON Exhibition

Tetragrammaton (non-binary Hero) is the piece that heads the exhibition. Its yellow-white-purple-black color scheme is repeated a few times in the pieces throughout the room but no two prints are copies. Having seen it online representing the exhibition as well as printed in the Gallery booklet, the piece becomes notorious for the gallery exhibition as a whole, featuring such contrasting colors, the tetragrammaton evident in every piece, and a representation of the LGBTQ+ non-binary flag colors. These components of the piece are a reoccurring theme of Bordowitz's work, integrating his perspective of being a queer Jewish man living with AIDS with the aesthetics of art. The coloring of the piece itself is rich, and the intricate line work on print indicates this piece was intensively focused on.

The attention and care that went into Tetragrammaton (non-binary Hero) was extensive.

"When work is so deeply tied to the identity and context of an artist’s life, I find that sometimes people forget to spend much time thinking about the process and materials that produce it. These works are all magnificent prints, many with beautiful gradients, gorgeously rich colors, and incredibly intricate line work…it’s hard to make that happen!" Reynolds stated on the art pieces.

For a work of art sitting in the corner of the gallery rather than upfront on the walls or an easel, Tetragrammaton (non-binary Hero) stands out as eye-catching amid other equally beautiful pieces.

Link to next post in the story! Click me!

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With more than 25 pieces to the exhibit, there’s much to see in a visit.

Link to next post in the story! Click me!

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Come Together for the GREGG BORDOWITZ: TETRAGRAMMATON Exhibition

With the holidays upon us, University at Buffalo is cold, sparkling, and ready to accommodate both the varied community that lives here and the international inhabitants staying for the winter session.

UB has always strived to create a diverse and inclusive community, creating the Department of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to assist the University in its commitment to foster and sustain a working and learning environment where each member of the community can succeed. The work of this department is evident in all facets of UB life, but the UB Art Galleries are expressly demonstrating this mission with Gregg Bordowitz’s current exhibit: Gregg Bordowitz: Tetragrammaton.

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In Judaism, G-d and his involvement with the world are viewed in a variety of ways. Whether the Father of Mankind and/or the World Reason, no one can dispute Him being a central tenant to the religion.

By the fact that he is the highest deity of Judaism, His name is only written and never spoken out of respect to the holiness of the word. Even then, references to Him have been titled Adonai (My Lords) or Hashem (the name).

"Tetragrammaton" by ideacreamanuelaPps is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Above is a depiction of the four letters to His name for clarification, the letters can serve as meditation or devotional symbols for viewers.

These letters shouldn’t generally be written out in full, which is why representations of these letters in the forms of triangles and stars are common, or in the case of artist and writer Gregg Bordowitz the subject of a new body of work.

The longstanding Jewish meditation practice of visually concentrating on the letters of the tetragrammaton, yodh, he, vav, he, is integrated with a medium that’s relevant to our time and demonstrated in creative practice.

From November 6, 2021, to March 13, 2022, The UB Anderson Gallery will be displaying Bordowitz’s exhibition Gregg Bordowitz: Tetragrammaton with free admission, available not just to UB students and faculty but to the public as well.

Next Post of the Story! Click me!

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The Ignored Warning Signs of Snapchat

Snapchat came out more than 10 years ago, and it’s still prevalent despite the warning signs.

As a college senior who has taken multiple communication courses, I’ve gotten to be pretty familiar with the application. Don’t take my word for it-- Urban Dictionary has a unique definition for the social media application.

Looking on the internet, any peer-reviewed study or news article can talk about the statistics of the app and its user base, but not many go into the emotional impact of using the application. With so many apps just like with slight variations of purpose, Snapchat becomes the general mascot for camera-based, messaging apps. All of them have something in common-- creating unrealistic and at times obsessive expectations in their user base.

While Snapchat doesn’t force its users to constantly use the application, it’s designed to encourage consistent use. Snapchat stories from different companies and famous users are a huge part of the app. Snapchat stories individually can be as long as a minute, but the way Snapchat links continuous Snaps together to form 5 to 10-minute videos as a whole defeat the purpose. Snapchat scores and Streaks also add more pressure to use the app, creating an unofficial competition to earn the highest numbers in these categories, with no significant prize for high-scoring individuals.

Snapchat becomes a chore when people consider how much work goes into maintaining an account.

In the U.S., Snapchat is regularly used by an audience made up primarily of college students. Regular users tend to spend a little less than an hour a day on the app. From a mental health standpoint, it’s draining on the attention span to have to keep track of who's messaging you.

There’s an unspoken expectation that you need to respond quickly when the opposite is seen as ‘ghosting’ someone. Reputation comes into consideration when family, friends, and strangers see an online profile and have unlimited access to a user’s time and privacy. There are time constraints on when Snaps need to be opened or otherwise they’ll be deleted. While there are some exceptions where users can delay when Snapchats disappear, it’s only a matter of when it’s deleted rather than if.

Group chats have a 24-hour window for Snapchat duration that can’t be changed by users at all, leaving for not a huge amount of time to see something that can be erased easily. People can argue that the point of Snapchat was to create a media-sharing application without the pressure of permanent content, but the existence of Memories as a Snapchat program that can save Snaps as well as Snapchat openly acknowledging that any user can just screenshot a Snap, which I've screenshotted from this link, makes the argument redundant.

In essence, Snapchat is a social media platform intentionally designed to grow a user base in a manner that doesn’t care for user safety or health. News flash: this is old news.

Again, numerous paid studies that prove this information, but the hold-up for any legal action against the site is mainly because people use it willingly. People will delete the app, then rejoin the next week for numerous reasons, most prominently addiction.

When it’s so easy to put your personal information on the app and get a closer look into other people’s lives, it can be hard to say no to opening yourself up to an application that doesn’t specialize in safety or anonymity.

The app is intuitive. The more information you feed it, the more it can appeal to you.

In less than a year, I’ll be one of many that enter a field of work designed to influence and use applications like Snapchat. For all the information against the use of this application and the dozens like it, they’ve become foundational in website sharing links and a crucial means of reaching out to audiences on the internet. With enough public acknowledgment from users like me and possibly, the statistics I’ve linked throughout the article can be changed to reflect better usage times and security in Snapchat and other social media applications.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/americans-got-16-billion-robocalls-this-year-heres-how-to-stop-them.html

Robocalls are a universal experience in the U.S.-- as of 2018, Americans receive over 16 million of them a year.

First off, the subject material of the article is on point. You can’t get a much more relatable experience in the U.S. than robocalls, at least, without getting serious. There isn’t an intense need to read the article, and this suits the form of the story perfectly. Being a smaller subsection of CNBC news, journalists don’t want to cover heavy material when they don’t have the space for it. The title serves as a decent lead in it’s statistics, but covers a topic light enough that the reader would be pulled in without huge expectations, making this a good filler article. The topic itself is annoying enough to get people frustrated, and interest readers if only for the possibility of reading about a solution. In this case, setting the article up with low expectations of content works for both the size and the attention span of readers.

There’s two videos available with the article that essentially sum up the contents. Barely two minutes in total together, these videos are just an easier-to-digest presentation of the article with a few additions. Aiming at a target audience of older individuals, think millennials, these videos cover topics that are tangentially related to the reading, and when finished connect to more articles in a similar field. This type of subtle advertisement of other work by CNBC gives another purpose to the article rather than just filling space. The rabbit trail of similar topics is within easy access to the viewer, who would click on the video originally to see if it offered additional information. Instead they would consume content on a similar topic with the goal of the audience being intrigued enough to follow the recommendations after the video. The appearance of the visuals is also worth talking about. CNBC has the money to afford a good editor and original stock content. These videos are designed to be easy on the eyes, with slow-moving textboxes, cooler colors, and human visuals that emphasize the general human reaction to the current scene being described. Viewers will consume content without seeing it, therefore making it that much easier for the viewer to jump on to the next topic unconsciously.

A subheader named ‘There’s an app for that’ was also a good move. When viewers click on this article, there’s an unsaid expectation that there should be something new to add to the issue that they didn’t already know. Robocalls have been around for a long time, why start talking about them again? It boils down to: there better be a reason I’m putting time into you. CNBC clarifying the answer in dark, bold text is the solution. Readers will scroll down for anything of interest and see the exact section they’re most interested in practically highlighted. The exposition was necessary, but the solution is what keeps readers interested. The subheader itself is catchy, and understandable, leaving little question to what the section is about.

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“It’s easier to find a belt that’s vegan than it is to find a belt that is ethically made.”

Silence followed this statement

Jason Zepp, CEO, and Founder of The Human Rights Supply Chain Certification continued, “We’re in America, we’re highly privileged, right? We have a lot of things that we take for granted and these people can’t go home at night to their families.”

At 8 p.m. on Oct. 21, Cam Hotto, a member of UB’s Blackstone Launchpad, interviewed Zepp for the second Founders Series event this semester.

For about an hour, the small audience of UB’s Open Coffee Club watched the duo speak on green polyester seats in room 201 of the Student Union.

The HRSC Certification or just HRSC is a company whose focus is on providing solutions to brands who desire an ethical supply chain and making the process as convenient as possible for the customer. The product they sell is a confirmation of ethical supply chains for businesses, similar to the USDA approval for organic food or J.D. Power awards for cars.

With an estimation of 16 million people enslaved in supply chains around the world making goods, governments like within the European Union are working to place regulations and fines against the supply chains that use these labor forces.

Earlier this year, the German parliament passed laws that could fine companies up to 2% of their revenue, if unethical manufacturers are found in their supply chain.

“It’s coming to the U.S., it’s just a matter of time before the legislation is passed, the government expects certain things of imports coming into the U.S.” Zepp spoke confidently, “The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol are starting to hold imports as they come in.”

This is crucial for American entrepreneurs who get their supplies from out of the country. For example, Someone orders 12,000 tee shirts from your hypothetical business. The transaction is finalized and you order the base cotton shirts needed from another country. You spend $25,000 on the shipment and it gets halted by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They need proof of documentation that these t-shirts were made ethically despite coming from a part of the world where bonded labor is legal.

Now you're stuck with $25,000 tied up in these shirts and communications with the company that made them is getting you nowhere.

The HRSC can not only guarantee proof and validation for the origins of the manufacturers but are prepared to meet governmental regulations in both their metrics and preparedness for the restrictions that are coming up every day.

“We built metrics based on the International Labor Organization, an entity that’s based in Sweden and they provide guidelines for businesses to operate ethically for humans.” - Jason Zepp, CEO, and Founder of The HRSC Certification

“What challenges are your business going through at the moment?” Noah Nardozza, a member of UB’s Blackstone Launchpad, questioned from the third row to the stage.

In short, most companies here in the U.S. don’t care about ethical certifications because their customers value convenience over quality.

“Shop for ethically made goods. It’s the consumers who will drive the market, the business models will shift with demand.”

DeVon France, a UB Senior in the audience, further questioned what advice Zepp had to give to young entrepreneurs getting into the business world.

“You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with.”

It’s a common phrase, but in a business that values the lives of humans and encourages ethical behavior, it is a good fit.

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Anyone remember the film 'Blackfish'? If you don't, this story's for you:

It's 2013 and a film just released at the Sundance Film festival revealed some of the darkest unsaid facts about a big marine park in the U.S. All ready, SeaWorld is in some trouble for the audience-viewed mauling of one of their trainers, the film really doesn't go over well with their reputation. 'Blackfish' wasn't just a single viewing either, having now been up for years on big streaming platforms like Netflix until it was recently taken down. So why should we be remembering it?

The article does an excellent job of reminding readers of its message-- the terrible treatment of orcas didn't end with this controversy. With multiple lines of text hyperlinked with scholarly sources and videos of the actual event, the author saves space that would have otherwise been in home to uninteresting support paragraphs. The text isn't long and it's searing focus on the impact and conclusions we should draw from the article doesn't waver.

Graphics are a key in credibility. Timelines and quotes of events are greyed out or colored in, differentiating the neat organization and credible sources from the filler words that hold them together. The audience wants to see change, and the static visuals the highlight the points the author makes are just complicated enough that readers have to give them a second glance but still understandable.

The linked trailer is another way the article saves time and interest. The audience doesn't want to see the movie and this article isn't a review. The trailer is a nice compromise because it tells the readers everything they need to know for context of the article in under 3 minutes.

The author's work and experience is verified at the end, sealing the ethos of this article. If a journalist is going to write about something controversial, they should be able to more than back it up. The article itself was well-written, but it would be for nothing if the information was just pulled from the internet. This interaction between physical sources consulted and the upload of the digital format can leave some to question the claims of the article, especially when we don't see a physical action of the author looking into the material on video. The end credentials are the answer to this, marking a physical consultation between zoological parks as well as the ties the article has with research conducted by the University of Oxford.

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What's a better way to start a story than demonstrating the real life conseqences of the story's subject? Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern will creep out you and the people she was recording with Facebook and Ray-ban's love child-- Ray-Ban Stories.

First off, this article may be a video but it's best visuals are its graphics. It's no surprise that a well- funded company like the Wall Street Journal would have great editors and visual effects. The movement of the investigation/review as a whole was smooth, the transitions subtle and the jokes funny. Altogether, this 5 minute video makes what could probably be a 30 minute discussion of the ethics of recording people unknowingly digestible for a bathroom break. The graphics are both necessary to demonstrate the physical product but also speed up explanations of its use and people's reaction to being recorded visually with audio. Why take the time to describe something when you can display it in real time? The comedic aspect also comes into play with the graphics making jokes on Ray-Bans, mocking previous camera glasses-- this story needs to have a lighter aspect with how short it is. Graphics crunch tge time down and keep people from immediately focusing on how these glasses can violate their privacy anywhere.

Credit to the interviews has to be given as well. For all that this product focuses on the digital inanimate, the human perspective gives weight to what's being discussed. Shock, dismay, and wariness are captured in the camera's eye and broken down for analysis after the interviews. These people do more to explain why the Wall Street Journal wanted to do a piece on this product than the host does. By using these people to break down what's questionable about the camera with a few potent leading questions, the accuracy of the conclusion-- these glasses are CREEPY-- becomes much more believable. This video format ultimately conveys the questions and human reactions very well.

A third and huge part of what makes this article good-- the accessibility. This is a clean-looking website that is easily changed by what the consumer wants. You can modify the text, the format you intake the article with, and even how the article reaches you in the first place. Digital journalism relies on 1. Reaching an audience and 2. Making the content easy and accessible. Wall Street Journalism has these concepts down flat. Everything about this piece screams sophisticated yet quick, two concepts that don't mesh easily. Journalists could learn a lot form the mix of exciting information with hard facts and how to keep an audience's attention.

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With National Hispanic Heritage month a little over halfway over, UB has hosted a few Latinx-focused events already, but none like “Latinx Heritage at the Intersections of Culture and Crisis: “Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance”.

Discussion involving the LGBTQ+ Latinx community had taken place previously to this speaking event, looking at the events that took place in the SU the week of September 20th, however, none of the previous topics had taken the deeper dive into Puerto Rico’s complicated history with queer and trans diaspora studies.

Last Tuesday at 4:00 p.m., guest speaker Professor Larry LaFountain-Stokes from the University of Michigan did a 40-minute discussion on his previous work “Translocas” and left the floor open for conversation in the last twenty minutes. With 11 attendees in total, the impact of LaFountain-Stokes' words seemed more direct and consequently more powerful in the silence that followed.

Closed Caption:

“They, or should I be saying, we, us, Puerto Rican and Caribbean translocas are upsetting and exhilarating but also dreadful. Redundant and passe, hilarious but simultaneously boring, gorgeous, except when absolutely hideous, or simply plain. Political, except when we are not. Alive, except when we are dead. Assassinated, like the homeless transwoman, “Alexa” Neulisa Luciano Ruiz in 2020 Say Their Names, or the young Puerto Rican trap singer Kevin Fret, in 2019, or burn and dismembered like the adolescent called Jorge Steven López Mercado in 2009, or lost to A.I.D.S. like Lady Catiria in 1999.” - Professor Larry LaFountain-Stokes

The event was over Zoom, a format that not only allowed for the Professors and a few of the attendees to join from out of state but also allowed LaFountain-Stokes an undivided spotlight on his work.

Puerto Rico’s LGBTQ+ community has suffered persecution since its first acknowledgment.

Puerto Rican society has been unforgiving as a whole on the sparse representations of the community, a theme that’s enforced in the language used to describe drag performances and the borrowed English terms used to substitute words like gay, queer, or trans.

So, language and terminology surrounding his studies were the first points LaFountain-Stokes addressed.

“So to challenge [the normal terminology for words like gay, queer, and trans], we present alternatives, such as marica, cuir, travesti, and transloca.”

LaFountain-Stokes addresses a larger issue in his studies with his terminology, trying to bridge a gap between English and Spanish linguistics when it comes to labels in the LGBTQ+ Latinx community. Through language, not only does he want to give a name to drag and trans performances in recognition, he wants to give them a name without the negative connotations previous words like the singular “loco” has had in describing these events.

Using his previous work Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance as a springboard, LaFountain-Stokes discussed the connections between vocabulary and performance, and the more famous Puerto-Rican natives of the LGBTQ+ community who would represent these themes in their work.

In furthering his message to the attendees, he also named more than a few scholars within the same field that helped build his research into his study.

His book, in particular, Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance had more than just a few scholars displayed above involved in the writing process, mirroring the breadth of knowledge LaFountain-Stokes would summarize from a 300 paged book into little over 30 minutes of speaking.

When it came time for discussion to occur over the presentation, no complaints were heard over unanimous clapping.

The conversations between the attendees and LaFountain-Stokes were bright and in-depth, colored by familiarity with Dr. Carlos M. Amador, Associate Professor of Spanish and Culture Studies at Michigan Technological University but also bright with curiosity from UB students who pulled the conversation to new thoughts and heights with their knowledge.

Regardless of the length or general opinion of the speaking event, UB students were present to witness a presentation of information not regularly available in mainstream media. With a new and/or more experienced perspective in Puerto Rican drag and trans performance, “Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance” made for a thoughtful addition to UB’s selection of events for National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Dr. Justin Read, a UB Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, was also attending the Zoom call as well from an airport terminal in Phoenix, Arizona, and ended the meeting with a strong note.

“I just wanted to thank everybody, this is a commemoration of Latinx heritage month, and I’m glad all of you could make it!"

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The Best thing I’ve read this week!

https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/ishu-scarf-flash-photos-invisibile-anti-paparazzi/

While the product is cool, the set-up of this article is even cooler! 

To start, the visuals are excellent. From the beginning, readers see why the paparazzi scarf is such a big deal with numerous accredited photos of celebrities wearing them. Since the focus of the scarf is how it blackens the figure of the person wearing them in photos, visuals are a key part of the presentation. If you couldn’t recognize a celebrity like Paris Hilton, there’s also names provided beneath which not only helps out the reader but makes the article appear more credible. The images are all portrait-sized as well, keeping the celebrities in frame as well as cutting out useless background filler around them. Another important aspect this article did well was actually demonstrating the effect of the scarves. If you say in the title ‘This Guy Has Invented a Scarf that can make you Invisible in Photos’ you should back it up! The side by side comparison done between the photos of the celebrities with flash and without flash really demonstrate the effectiveness of the scarf in a way that you can’t get with words. Finally, there’s a video attached with the article that brings out all together in an effective visual presentation. The video itself was an interview with the inventor of the scarf and really solidified the reliability of the article. If anything, it could have used more visual effects as the interview was on the longer side but one could argue that leaving the interview unedited adds ethos in it’s straightforwardness of reference. 

The organization helps for smooth reading of the piece. Subheaders are another key point to this article. With as many pictures as this article has, structure is necessary. Starting with the huge profile comparison pictures were good for catching the readers attention but the article keeps it when just below a section is labelled “Celebs using the ISHU scarf”.  Even though celebrities were seen in the big pictures, the possibility of seeing more is enticing. And the background information that isn’t super appealing is placed right between, causing the reader’s eyes to have to move over it. 

The wording of the article was fit for the article’s purpose. First off, all the right words were emphasized. In an article highlighting the cool affects of a scarf  in photos, people will want to focus on the visuals, not the words. Knowing this, the first paragraph is short and straight to the point. The name of the scarf and the creator has their name bolded and nothing else. The paragraph length is short and ends on the sentence “Check it out below” signifying the readers should peruse the images right below rather than draw them back to the words for discussion. Really an excellent article, their visuals were the star of the piece and they knew it.