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route22ny · 5 years

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ERIE, Pa.—To local leaders, a row of abandoned redbrick buildings in the heart of this Rust Belt city’s ailing downtown presents the best hope to spark a citywide revival.

The buildings—stripped down to their plaster walls, tin ceilings and worn wood floors—are part of a $150 million plan to draw more people to live and work downtown. One building, most recently a biker bar, will house a food hall with seating for nearly 200 people. An old bus terminal will be demolished to make space for an indoor courtyard that will connect to an incubator for culinary startups.

The project is the cornerstone of an effort to reimagine a city once defined by industrial giants such as Hammermill Paper Co. and General Electric Co. Erie has lost more than 30% of its population since 1960. Nearly 27% of its residents live below the federal poverty level, according to the Census Bureau, well above the 14.6% U.S. poverty rate.

Older industrial cities across the Northeast and Midwest are struggling to replace lost manufacturing jobs after decades of deindustrialization. Erie, with a population of about 96,000, presents a new test of whether—and how—a town built on manufacturing can redefine itself, the role a city’s largest employer can play and the potential impact of the new federal opportunity zone program, which provides tax benefits for those who invest capital gains in low-income areas.

“One of the biggest questions policy makers, economists and pundits are asking now is, ‘What do we do for places like Erie?’ ” said John Lettieri, chief executive of the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan think tank that helped develop and promote the opportunity-zone program. “Is there a future for these places when the industry they were built around has withered?”

Previous efforts to turn around the area’s fortunes haven’t worked. A pedestrian-friendly mall downtown failed. A regional economic development agency filed for bankruptcy liquidation in 2016 after a plan to create a new transportation hub for freight traffic and other projects fell apart.

“We hit rock bottom,” said Tom Hagen, who moved to Erie at age 7 and is now chairman of Erie Indemnity Co. Known as Erie Insurance, it is the city’s largest employer and only remaining Fortune 500 company. “I compare it to an alcoholic who has to be in the gutter before he or she sees the light.”

The 94-year-old insurer will next year complete a $135 million expansion of its corporate campus. The sleek brick-and-glass building is within Erie’s downtown opportunity zone, but was started before the legislation was enacted and won’t qualify for the tax benefits.

As they looked for ways to rebuild, local business and philanthropic leaders traveled west to study how the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. helped revitalize the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, an effort led by Procter & Gamble Co., that area’s largest employer.

(above: The Erie Downtown Development Corp. is renovating Park Place and Sherlock's building in Erie, Pa).

Among the lessons: Start in the core of downtown so that the city’s anchor doesn’t pull you down. Cluster investments to gain momentum and attract additional capital. Create a nonprofit to redevelop blighted properties with the help of philanthropic, state and federal dollars. Tap private financing, a considerable challenge given Erie’s soft real-estate market and blighted properties.

One of Erie’s first steps was to create the Erie Innovation District in 2016, with a $4 million grant from local sources. It recruits about 10 technology startups to come to the city each year for a 10-week accelerator program, with the aim of creating local jobs. Several startups, including one developing tracking technology for manufacturers, have made Erie their home.

The following year, some of the city’s biggest employers and its largest foundation created the Erie Downtown Development Corp., a nonprofit to revitalize the city’s center. Many of the same firms kicked in $27.5 million to create an equity fund to support redevelopment projects that wouldn’t otherwise make financial sense.

Erie was one of the first cities to jump on the federal-opportunity zone program, creating a 58-page prospectus and identifying a dozen “shovel ready” projects, including the renovation of a 133-unit downtown hotel. Redevelopment would have happened with or without the opportunity-zone program, city leaders say, but the tax breaks will speed the process.

But so far, investors have gravitated to bigger cities such as Baltimore and Los Angeles, said John Persinger, chief executive of the EDDC. Social-impact investors, he said, want greater returns on their investments and are reluctant to invest in a city where they don’t already have a presence.

“Opportunity zones should never have been seen as unlocking a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow,” Mr. Persinger said.

Erie is looking to advanced manufacturers like Plastikos Inc., located just outside the city’s borders, to keep some factory work alive. In clean, brightly lighted rooms, robotic arms swing back and forth molding resins into medical device components for insulin pumps. More than 150 employees earn about $11 to $24 an hour; experienced toolmakers can earn up to $90,000 annually.

Going forward, technology companies will play a bigger role, said Joe Schember, who became Erie’s mayor in 2018. “A lot of people in Erie think we might have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn it around,” said Mr. Schember, a former bank executive who put himself through college by working at a foundry in the city. “And if we miss it, we might not have another chance.”

Health care has become another source of growth in Erie. Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network are investing $140 million to expand their medical campus; the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Hamot is spending more than $110 million on a new building.

Erie is still home to a handful of old-line companies, such as American Tinning & Galvanizing, founded in 1931 and employing about 80 people. The company has managed to survive by keeping costs low and maintaining good relationships with other local manufacturers, said its president, Robin Scheppner.

Erie also hopes to work local connections. More than 300 people turned out to the city’s third-annual Erie Homecoming in August. This year’s event focused on opportunity zones, part of an effort to get local investors and expats to invest in the city. At the event, Erie Insurance announced a $50 million opportunity-zone fund that will include investments in its hometown.

The EDDC is planning $150 million of opportunity-zone projects focused on the city’s core. For the first project, Erie Insurance and the new equity fund will each provide about $2.6 million of the estimated $10 million cost of the new food complex. The new equity-fund arm is providing capital to purchase the buildings; it will cover the first losses on the project and gap financing if the EDDC can’t raise enough to cover the full project cost. Other projects will include more than 200 market-rate residential housing units, retail and office space and a new parking garage.

Liz Allen, a city council member, said she’s excited about development downtown but worries about potential displacement of some businesses and low-income residents.

“It’s a real balancing act, because you want cities to thrive,” she said.

The food hall was partially inspired by the city’s inability to persuade a grocery store to locate downtown. Another building on the block will include a fresh-produce vendor, a bakery, a butcher and a distillery.

“When people raise fears of gentrification, I say we can’t afford to lose one more person,” said Mr. Persinger. “We don’t want to push anyone out. We want to bring more people in and raise the quality of life for everyone.”

Corrections & Amplifications The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Hamot is spending more than $110 million on a new building. An earlier version of this story misspelled Hamot as Hammot. (Oct. 7, 2019)

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This was the entire story, sans a couple of photos, copied & pasted to circumvent WSJ’s paywall; thanks to my wife for finding this & passing it along. Remember WSJ is part of News Corp--the Murdoch media conglomerate that produces Fox News--and boycott accordingly.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/erie-hit-rock-bottom-the-former-factory-hub-thinks-it-has-a-way-out-11570440601

#Erie Pennsylvania #rust belt #depopulation #urban decay #fuck rupert murdoch

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randomtowns · 4 years

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50 Worst... Sometimes

This is going to be a long post, because I’m going to be discussing 50 towns instead of just one.

These 50 come from a USA Today clickbait article titled “America’s 50 Worst Cities to Live” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/29/americas-50-worst-cities-to-live/111367058/). In addition to the obvious ambiguity in “worst,” “cities” also isn’t quite right as it mostly contains unincorporated census designated places. However, it’s not without merit. I remember, as a kid, pouring over the “Places Rated Almanac.” My parents had two of these, from the 80′s, apparently to try and pick a place to live. The almanac used statistics like climate, crime, available of mass transit, team sports, schools, and other publicly-available information to create a score that determined the town’s rating. What was the best? I actually don’t remember, but I recall that, in both editions we had, Yuba City, California was dead last. But my history with this led me to actually scroll through this entire article one night, thinking of why exactly these places had been deemed so deplorable and unworthy of habitation. I’m going to go through each one on the list, and talk about my thoughts on the place, if I’d been there, or reasons as to why the area comes up, in my opinion.

Let’s get started...

Piney Woods, NC Been there? No

Piney Woods is a CDP located just east of the Jacksonville, NC city limits, and directly across the road from the main entrance to Camp Lejeune, most known as a facility for Marines when they are deployed. The area is mostly low density residential, with a mix of middle-class homes and mobile home parks. The article faults it for its poverty rate, unemployment (both slightly above the national average), and lack of public transit. Like any community adjacent to a large military, Piney Woods is going to see many ebbs and flows in its fortunes, and is not going to be a place where most people would want to live. Being a military community means it’s a largely transient area, with few interested in the improvement of the overall community due to the temporary nature of their assignments there. Those who stick around are likely mostly if not totally dependent upon the fortunes of the base.

Oskaloosa, IA Been there? No

Oskaloosa is a town about 60 miles southeast of Des Moines along Highway 163. It’s just far enough to miss out on being a Des Moines bedroom community, but maybe close enough to live within its shadow. The article cites the slightly above-average poverty and unemployment rates again, and points to the home value being half of the national median. There’s an annual regional fair held here, there’s a small liberal arts college (William Penn University), and a couple of companies located here. Originally a coal mining area, it’s possible that Oskaloosa has fell into the trap of a lot of industrial Midwestern towns, where they are unable to move on with a mostly unskilled labor pool.

West Pensacola, FL Been there? Yes

West Pensacola is a CDP with a number of unrelated neighborhoods just west of the city of Pensacola. There is a strip of retail along the major highways, including a number of hotels. It’s mostly a community of small homes in small neighborhoods with medium- to large-sized lots. However, it does include a particularly rough, poor section of Pensacola that is conveniently just outside of the city limits. Additionally, the area is just north of Pensacola Naval Air Station, and the southern boundary of the CDP is littered with strip malls, tattoo shops and low-end motels. It’s likely that a lot of the residents here work at the NAS. The article points out high unemployment, low income, and low home values, all attributable to the above. I’ve stayed here a couple of times, last in 2003, and I recall the area as being somewhat dumpy but not having an overall dangerous feel.

Greenville, MS Been there? No

It’s inevitable that a Mississippi Delta community would come up on the list. The region is notoriously poor, and with a poverty rate of 35%, the article points out that Greenville is the poorest city in the country. It’s the economic center of the area, but it being located in a particularly poor area is going to inevitably doom it to being a poor town.

Moss Point, MS Been there? Yes

Moss Point is at the eastern end of a string of towns along the Mississippi coast. Unlike the other towns though, Moss Point has no beachfront property, and sits directly north of Pascagoula. This likely leads to it having lower home values than those surrounding towns, which was exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, from which the town has never fully recovered. The article points out that it’s one of the poorest towns in the country.

Middletown, OH Been there? Yes

Middletown sits almost directly between Cincinnati and Dayton. Originally a canal town, it became a steel town in the 20th century, and has seen a similar fate as other steel towns. The article points out that the unemployment rate is just below 10%, and the poverty rate is just over 25%. Medium-sized (Middletown’s population hovers around 50,000) Ohio towns have had a rough time in the late 20th and early 21st century. If it’s not industrial exodus, it’s opioids, and Middletown is not exception to these issues. It’s pretty though, and it’s big enough that there are still nice areas in spite of the problems.

Augusta, GA Been there? No

One of the largest cities I have never been to. But can you blame me? James Brown’s beloved hometown has an awful reputation. Aside from the annual Masters golf tournament, there seems to be nothing to do here. The article points to a 10% unemployment rate and a 23% poverty rate. Like many southern cities, it’s a town of haves and have nots. The western side of town, home to the Augusta National course, features large, well-kept homes on large lots with mostly white inhabitants, but cross the tracks to the south and you’ll find many abandoned homes, or homes with bars on the windows, in a predominately black area. The consolidation of the city and county in the 90′s was meant to stem the tide of flight to the suburbs, and the resultant loss of revenue, but many middle-class residents have instead chosen to live across the river, in South Carolina. While Augusta has seen massive population decreases, North Augusta, SC saw a 20% jump between 2000 and 2010.

Bay St. Louis, MS Been there? Yes

Where Moss Point is at the eastern end of the Mississippi coast, Bay St. Louis is at its western end. You may look at a map and point out that there are communities to the west, but I’ve driven through here at night, and leaving Bay St. Louis is like leaving earth: it’s just dark, trees and bugs until New Orleans. Just like Moss Point, Bay St. Louis was heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and has never fully recovered. The article points to its slightly above-average unemployment rate and its lack of recreation activities. It’s hard for me to judge that but, in looking at the map, it does seem to have few park areas that are not dedicated to sports facilities.

Lithia Springs, GA Been there? Yes

Lithia Springs is a small CDP just off I-20 west of Atlanta. Like a lot of suburban Atlanta, the area was developed with middle-class homes and little thought to zoning, only to be passed on in subsequent housing booms as the city grew. The article points out its lack of access to grocery stores. There is a Kroger at its eastern edge, but it’s strangely just outside of the CDP’s boundaries, which may explain this.

DeRidder, LA Been there? Yes

DeRidder is a small town north of Lake Charles, and is the seat of Beauregard Parish. Just across the Sabine River, in Texas, the region is known as “the pine curtain,” a reference to both its pine trees and its reputation as backward and isolated. DeRidder largely has the same reputation. It’s a logging town, and, likely due to that, it has a high unemployment and poverty rate, as the article points out. The parish’s low population is likely the cause of the lack of grocery stores and recreational options that the article laments.

Denison, IA Been there? No

Denison is a small town about 90 minutes north of Omaha. It sits in a heavily agricultural region, reliant on farming and meat production. The article points to its high unemployment rate, made higher within the last four years, a lack of an educated workforce, and low home values. Denison has emerged as a face of the new Midwest: now at 42% Hispanic. The unemployment increase can be attributed to the Tyson beef plant closing in 2015.

Atmore, AL Been there? No

Atmore sits just off of Interstate 65 north of Mobile. The article points to Atmore’s recent massive drop in employment and its current unemployment rate of nearly 20%. A new casino by the interstate, and some surrounding commercial development, are possibly the city’s plan at getting out of its rapidly declining economic state. As far as small Alabama towns though, Atmore does not seem anymore unsustainable.

Pahrump, NV Been there? Yes

Pahrump is a place you move to when you want to get away from people. Whether you’re a preper who distrusts the government, a retiree just seeking to live on your own terms, or a meth manufacturer, Nevada in general is possibly the most libertarian state, with Pahrump its possibly most libertarian community. The area is a mostly unorganized and random roads running off of just a couple of highways an hour or so west of Las Vegas. It’s close enough that you can still get what you need in the city, but far enough that you don’t have to feel closed in by the city or its housing prices. The article points to Pahrump’s drug issues as its main point of contention, but also its 10% unemployment rate. But it’s a cheap place to live, and its various qualities make it an attractive place to live while on government assistance. The town also features two of the few remaining legal brothels in the state.

Lakeland Village, CA Been there? No

On the more isolated southern shore of Lake Elsinore, against the Santa Ana Mountains, Lakeside Village did not grow the same as its Temescal Valley neighbors did. Interstate 15 has brought both steady traffic and a commuter route to Lake Elsinore, the lake’s namesake town on the other shore, but Lakeland Village seems to have been largely passed up. It has a reputation locally as both crime- and drug-ridden. The article points to its 12.9% unemployment rate, and high commute times.

Makaha, HI Been there? No

An isolated community along Oahu’s western shore, this is the only time Hawaii makes the list. The article points to its high cost of living contradicted by its below-average median income. It also points to its excessive 16.7% unemployment and 28% poverty rates. Its isolation (over an hour from Honolulu on a small, crowded highway) and reputation for having dangerous waves have kept it from being excessively developed like other parts of Oahu, but that also has meant that it has remained poorer than other areas.

Lehigh Acres, FL Been there? Yes

Lehigh Acres actually started as a stereotype: one of those large pieces of swampland where developers marked streets and plots on a map, and then speculators ate up, occasionally building homes with little or no infrastructure available. The area sat as mostly undeveloped until the 2000s real estate boom, and the subsequent crash was particularly devastating on the community, with its poor climate, lack of services, and longer distance to the beach. The article points to the community’s below-average income yet above-average cost of living. Google amazingly has nearly the entire area on StreetView.

Artesia, NM Been there? Yes

A town I actually like. Yes, despite having an oil refinery directly in its center, I’ve always found Artesia to be a charming little town, and a stark contrast to its larger, despicable Estacado neighbors to the north and south. There’s even a little brewpub here, called The Wellhead, that’s been open for many years. But the article reports an elevated poverty rate and lack of access to grocery stores. The latter may be due to the town’s only supermarket being very near to the Walmart Supercenter.

Arizona City, AZ Been there? Yes

Arizona City is a small, isolated CDP stuck between desert and cotton fields just south of Interstate 10, between Phoenix and Tucson. The article points to its above-average unemployment and poverty rates, and residents’ lack of access to both restaurants and grocery stores. But this is a snowbird town, and isolation is typical in places like this. This area just happens to be especially isolated. There is a large Hispanic population here, likely due to the surrounding agricultural industries, which may account for much of the poverty.

Bacliff, TX Been there? Yes

When I lived in Houston in the early 2000s, I would sometimes take drives to this small community along Galveston Bay, to sit by the water, and buy some quick food at one of the places along Highway 146. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been, and the article points out some changes. Bacliff’s above-average poverty may be directly related to the closure of its local chemical plant. The gang activity mentioned in the article is surprising, but it may be due to its proximity to Houston.

Earlimart, CA Been there? Yes

Yeah, okay, Earlimart sucks, I’ll give you that. There was an LA-based band in the 2000s called Earlimart, and the music led me to believe that they just got the name from the sign on the freeway, and never actually stopped here. I would say that Earlimart is the closest thing to a scummy Mexican border town I’ve seen in California. The article points out its staggering 41% poverty rate, above-average unemployment rate, and isolation from services. Despite its population, there are few restaurants here, but that’s largely because locals can’t afford to eat out. I’ve stopped here mainly for its cheap gas, but it’s a depressing little town, even for the low standards of the Central Valley.

Coatesville, PA Been there? Yes

Another steel town that has been forsaken. Meanwhile, it’s just a little bit too far from Philadelphia to be a viable bedroom community. The article points out its high unemployment and poverty rates, as well as its low home ownership rate. It’s hard to pick this as a lot worse than any of the countless similarly-sized towns throughout Pennsylvania, but I suppose the numbers are what puts this over the edge.

Perry, GA Been there? No

It’s strange to see a town right along a major interstate corridor be on this list as interstates often have a way of keeping a town afloat just enough with service and retail jobs. Reading over the article and the numbers, I’m not totally clear on why this one deserves such a high ranking (#29). Its unemployment rate is high, but not compared to cities surrounding this. This part of Georgia blows (the people are great though), but I don’t know why Perry gets such shade.

Bessemer, AL Been there? Yes

Another steel town, and one that has had issues with unemployment, poverty and blight for longer than most steel towns. This is partially due to early white flight, as the city was majority black by the 1950′s, and continues to be so today. A major interstate, close proximity to Alabama’s largest city, and a large water park, are not enough to boost the town out of its perpetual rut. The article points to a high unemployment rate and a very high poverty rate of 28%. However, there’s also an excessive violent crime rate (the highest of any city over 25,000 in 2019) and, it’s not just USA Today that thinks Bessemer sucks: the Wall Street Journal ranked it the worst city in Alabama in 2019.

Stockbridge, GA Been there? Yes

At one point, Stockbridge was a tiny town well outside Atlanta. As Atlanta grew though, Stockbridge became a large part of that city’s rising black suburbs, as African-Americans pushed out of the urban confines into home ownership as red lining and other racist policies were struck down. Based on the numbers provided in the article, it doesn’t seem that bad. My guess is that, like a lot of these poorer suburbs, it looks bad in terms of area housing costs versus incomes. Just like Perry though, I’m not sure why Stockbridge is getting picked on so much here.

Brooksville, FL Been there? No

The seat of Hernando County, Brooksville may be a symbolic center for the county’s issues with poverty, drugs, and crime. The article points to the town’s high unemployment and its low home value, and $49,000 median home value seems especially low for Florida. Then again, there are just not many large homes built in Hernando County in general, and Brooksville may be a more extreme example of that.

WHEW!!! That’s 50 to 26. I’m going to cover 25 to 1 tomorrow to break up the posts. Hope you enjoyed.

#worstcities #worsttowns #worstplaces

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cr2brooklyn · 6 years

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Meet Mischa Abakumova: Jane of all Trades Creative Technologist

Interview by Mikhal Weiner

Mischa Abakumova is an alumnus of Parson’s School of Design and Technology, a designer with a twist. On a recent, gray, autumn morning I sat down with her at a local cafe to hear about her relocation to NYC and her wide variety of projects - whether teaching kids creative tech and interactive design at Blink Blink, exploring how tech and dance can interact at Lehman College, or imagining futuristic objects with the Iyapo Repository. She’s also building a musical instrument that will record the pulse of the musician and use that along with other biological information to define a message characterized by pitch, timbre, and duration. With each of her answers, the day grew clearer and more inviting, until we hardly noticed the drizzling sky at all.

Abakumova, 27, was raised in Yaroslavl, about 4 hours from Moscow. “It’s like Boston”, she laughed. “When I was about four I went to Moscow and saw the high-rise buildings. I knew I wanted to live in a city.” Fifteen years later she got her chance - while studying architecture in Russia she came to New York for a summer and never left. A naturally curious person, she finds that NYC’s strong DIY community allows her to experiment with defining space and experience through tech.

“Growing up in a town with a rich historical background definitely had its upsides and drawbacks. A thousand years of history nurtured respect for tradition and understanding the need for cultural preservation in me. However, my relationship with it has been very complicated. I vividly remember the moment when I started analyzing different traditions, folk stories, food recipes, and questioning which were uniquely Russian and which were borrowed and appropriated from other cultures.”

Abakumova dabbles in many fields - environmental design, architecture, graphic design, animation, and web design (to name a few), but the thread that connects her current projects is an insatiable curiosity. Her works draw connections between history, philosophy, and technology.

Her main short term project is a workshop for Lehman College she’s teaching with her design partner, Ayo (Ayodamola Tanimowo) Okunseinde, who she met while studying at Parson’s. The workshop explores ways to incorporate technology, such as motion sensors triggering projectors and other visual effects, as a continuation of human movements. Student dancers are taught to program these sensors, but also take time to discuss the introspective side of utilizing technology in daily life and art.

She encourages student dancers to ask philosophical questions. What if machines take on the human quality of believing in a Creator and start worshiping us? What if they question our authority? When I asked about this, she just said that “[Religion, technology and humanity] is something that’s very interesting to hear [digital natives] work through.” To Abakumova, it’s equally important that students learn that technology can help them “use their limbs like a paintbrush” and ask questions about how this fits into a continuous historical arc of religion and humanity.

vimeo

“In my hometown, Yaroslavl, most efforts were focused on preservation of history, essentially turning the city into a large scale open air museum. There was little to no room for young creatives to experiment. As an act of defiance, a group of my friends and I organized a festival that brought together different art forms. We claimed and repurposed underdeveloped areas - parks, abandoned parking lots, dilapidated buildings - as hosting platforms. In the work that I do today, I like to explore and reference traditions of different cultures, but always try to find the balance of how this knowledge would translate in the future. This was partially why I got interested in joining Iyapo Repository project.”

The Iyapo Repository is an ongoing archive of futuristic objects created to imagine, and therefore affirm, the futures of people of African descent. “To [Okunseinde], a Nigerian man born in the States and raised in different parts of the world, it was a natural course of action to identify [...] social injustice towards marginalized communities.” The project draws on community participation; the artists conduct workshops where participants of all ages imagine and create possible objects by tracing a logical arc of traditional African materials and cultural objects. “While it started with the African Diaspora, it quickly spread to other disenfranchised communities as well, because social justice isn't confined just to your immediate circle.”

Mikhal: You've worked, and continue to work, in many educational roles, exploring tech with students at Blink Blink and now at Lehman College. Why is this kind of exploratory work important to you? How do you empower students to use technologies on their own?

Mischa: I never thought I’d find myself in the position of teaching and I never sought after it either. When I first started at Blink Blink all I wanted to do was technology powered products that would hopefully make technology more inclusive to all. When I helped host my first few kids’ workshops at Blink Blink, though, my eyes opened to a whole new world of possibilities.

You really need to deeply understand how technology works and what you’re trying to do with it in order to explain it to someone else, especially someone with a limited knowledge of physics. Also, kids - especially 5 and 6 year olds - are naturally creative and not yet influenced by the standardized learning system. They can take a simple piece of technology and put it in a context that you have not considered or ask a question that you do not have an immediate answer to. I should also mention the endless reserve of patience that you need to muster up in order to work with youngsters. Working with kids definitely pushes my creativity forwards and allows me to stay current with new trends, and the fact that my students come from different backgrounds keeps me on my toes. I have to be very flexible and think outside the box about the application of technology in meaningful and relevant ways.

Mikhal: One of your main projects is a spatial, interactive musical instrument that uses biological information tracking to create new levels of communication. What drew you to create this object? How do you think technology can enhance or detract from human communications?

Mischa: Octocom was the original project that sparked my interest in using biological information to enhance communication. At the time, when I was working on the concept, I was very interested in the ways humans converse face to face as opposed to online interactions. When we converse face to face, we rely on things like tone of voice, timbre, intonation, body language, and eye contact. By analyzing all this abundant data, we subconsciously calibrate our body to the same wavelength as the person we are talking to. This happens so that we can react to the same emotions as our conversational partner.

Obviously, there are various degrees of synchronization, but the idea is that we do this to form special bonds. In digital communication, these patterns are removed, causing a lot of misunderstanding and confusion as people often misinterpret and assume. My solution was to use the biological data our bodies generate and apply it to the metaphor of a radio wave. Octocom was using our pulse to alter voice messages. Custom built software was taking measurements of the human pulse when the user was recording a voice message and altering it once the pulse of the recipient was available. The amount of distortion would change based on the discrepancies between the pulse measurements; the further the parameters from each other, the more distorted the message is. So the receiver has to work toward synchronizing her pulse to the pulse of the sender and getting to the same wavelength thus fostering better, deeper communication and connection. More recently, the project has evolved into a spatial musical instrument that uses the same mechanics to generate sounds. It was a very natural transition, many think of music as a binding, expressive element. I’m curious to see what can be done with it and how music can potentially enhance the way we converse.

Mikhal: Who are some of the people in your fields who you find particularly inspirational and why?

Mischa: NYC has such a vibrant community of artists working with technology, which makes it easy to meet people who are doing awesome things. Check out some of people I follow:

Dave and Gabe: a duo of artists who work with technology to create interactive experiences. There are many people working in the experiential area of design, but D&G create playful, engaging and poetic interactions that are accessible to anyone, and not just a few tech gurus. I first saw their art at the big music festival, which so many artists would consider detrimental to the art, because of the way that concert goers interact with installations, treating it like wallpapers for Instagram. Entertainment gets a bad rep for being shallow, but in reality, it might be the hardest industry to be in. Artists showing work in an entertainment space have a responsibility to make technology accessible and engaging to everyone, while still conveying a compelling message.

Zack Lieberman: Zack was a super star of my program at Parsons. His name was the first name students learnt entering the program. Zack was one of the guys behind OpenFrameworks, an uber popular C++ library that is widely used in creative tech community. His work is displayed around the world and in the permanent collection in MoMA. Now I share a workspace with Zack and I have even more respect for his practice. Despite having international success, he works on his craft every day, which takes an enormous amount of self-discipline, something that I have struggled with! Everyday, when I go to his Instagram it's an enormous source of inspiration and wheel to get me going and keep adding to it. He also started a School of Poetic Computation - a hybrid between school, residency and a research group.

Theo Watson. Theo was Zack’s closest collaborator at some point created many acclaimed projects together including OpenFrameworks and Eyewriter. But the project that really stuck with me is Connected Worlds - a massive scale interactive installation that can be seen at the New York Hall of Science. It’s one of the most magnificent and poetic pieces of technology I've seen. It's fairly simple in its implementation, but the impact is undeniable. When going through the installation - one is completely transported into the fairytale making you completely forget that this environment is completely artificial. What drew me to the project was the fact that it wasn't trying to take away or substitute nature, but rather to create an imaginary world that can only exist there. I'm glad I found this project early on in my career as I was struggling to justify the creation of the artifice when I could be encouraging people to interact with the real world. Connected Worlds opened my eyes to how technology can enhance and alter its surroundings.

My conversation with Mischa Abakumova left me full of wonder. After just an hour or so of hearing her unique, poetic way of looking at technology and humanity I was full of questions, excited to learn more. We hugged our goodbyes, and headed down the misty streets of Brooklyn - two simple, complex humans walking off into a city full of invention.

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