Convenience stores in their various forms are not only commercial outlets of foodstuffs and sundry items but are also experiential in nature; the act of going to a convenience store is a culturally shared experience. In homage to these spaces, Cozy Mart is a public art installation and performance which recreates this shared experience in an idealized form. Based on do-it-yourself culture, appropriation of public space, and artistic traditions of sculpture and printmaking, Cozy Mart invites interaction with art outside of the traditional gallery space and capitalizes on alternative methods of art distribution.

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The dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” takes a comprehensive approach to the informal economy by studying traditional shadow economic activities, household DIY activities, and the smuggling of illegal and legal goods. Chapter 2 analyzes shadow economic and DIY activities and presents a dual estimation for the development of both types of informal economic activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. It also considers the impact of German reunification on shadow economic and DIY activities and employs a proper estimate of domestic currency in circulation within Germany as an indicator variable for the shadow economy. Chapter 3 studies an informal economic activity that has attracted much attention recently: legal goods smuggling, or the illegal trade of otherwise legal goods. The main channel of this type of smuggling is the falsification of trade documents. By reporting false amounts of exports and/or imports to authorities smugglers, or trade misinvoicers, seek to avoid paying taxes and/or tariffs. Chapter 4 widens the analysis of smuggling to the smuggling of illegal goods and studies the smuggling of legal and illegal goods across the U.S.-Mexico border in order to improve the understanding of illegal trade. Studying the U.S.-Mexican case is particularly interesting as most illegal drugs and immigrants enter the United States via the Mexican border. The empirical analyses in the dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” are based on structural equation models (SEMs). The results demonstrate that the informal economy is significant and that growth of the informal economy is not exclusive to developing countries, although it is a more serious problem in these countries. Moreover, although the informal economy covers a wide range of rather diverse economic activities, the dissertation works out that a few similarities exist. These are important, especially for policymakers, in first understanding what drives informal economic activities and second designing appropriate policies to deter them.

The dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” takes a comprehensive approach to the informal economy by studying traditional shadow economic activities, household DIY activities, and the smuggling of illegal and legal goods. Chapter 2 analyzes shadow economic and DIY activities and presents a dual estimation for the development of both types of informal economic activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. It also considers the impact of German reunification on shadow economic and DIY activities and employs a proper estimate of domestic currency in circulation within Germany as an indicator variable for the shadow economy. Chapter 3 studies an informal economic activity that has attracted much attention recently: legal goods smuggling, or the illegal trade of otherwise legal goods. The main channel of this type of smuggling is the falsification of trade documents. By reporting false amounts of exports and/or imports to authorities smugglers, or trade misinvoicers, seek to avoid paying taxes and/or tariffs. Chapter 4 widens the analysis of smuggling to the smuggling of illegal goods and studies the smuggling of legal and illegal goods across the U.S.-Mexico border in order to improve the understanding of illegal trade. Studying the U.S.-Mexican case is particularly interesting as most illegal drugs and immigrants enter the United States via the Mexican border. The empirical analyses in the dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” are based on structural equation models (SEMs). The results demonstrate that the informal economy is significant and that growth of the informal economy is not exclusive to developing countries, although it is a more serious problem in these countries. Moreover, although the informal economy covers a wide range of rather diverse economic activities, the dissertation works out that a few similarities exist. These are important, especially for policymakers, in first understanding what drives informal economic activities and second designing appropriate policies to deter them.

In this project I conduct two experiments in redistributing media power and reflect upon how successful they were. The experiments include a poster campaign specific to Richmond and a project dealing with educating people about guerrilla media techniques.

Le biohacking est une vive critique contre les institutions scientifiques officielles et un appel à plus de liberté à travers notamment la constitution de laboratoires citoyens « indépendants », les biohackerspaces. Mon étude philosophique et anthropologique s’est basée essentiellement sur un laboratoire citoyen, la Myne à Lyon. Après une partie historique décrivant et analysant les influences épistémologiques dont s’inspire le biohacking, je me suis posé plusieurs questions : en quoi la pratique du bricolage technique et scientifique réalisée dans ces espaces, amène à construire de « nouvelles » normes et valeurs morales ? Comment se construit l’éthique collective au sein d’un espace tel que la Myne ? Comment les valeurs morales défendues sont opérationnalisées sur le terrain ? Comment s’articule la construction d’une éthique collective avec l’ensemble des éthiques individuelles au cours du temps ? L’objectif de ce travail, à travers l’analyse critique de ce mouvement, est de conduire à une réflexion plus large sur la participation citoyenne dans les choix technoscientifiques et sur les politiques de production scientifique et technique. / Biohacking provides sharp criticism against official scientific institutions and endorses a call for more freedom through the constitution of “independent” citizen laboratories, the so-called biohackerspaces. My dissertation, which has a philosophical and anthropological focus, is based essentially on the study of a citizen laboratory, la Myne in Lyon. After a historical part, dedicated to the description and analysis of the epistemological influences which inspire biohacking, I poses several questions: how does the practice of technical and scientific Do-It-Yourself in these spaces lead to the construction of “new” norms and moral values? How is collective ethics articulated in a space like la Myne? How do the moral values defended become operative with the set of an individual ethics throughout the time? The aim of this dissertation is to lead through a critical analysis of biohacking to a broader reflection on citizens’ participation in techno-scientific choices and on policies concerning scientific and technical production.

This thesis considers the cultural significance of Web-based exchange practices among the participants in contemporary western mainstream culture. The thesis argues that analysis of these practices shows how this culture is consumption oriented, event-driven and media obsessed. Initially, this argument is developed from a critical, hermeneutic, relativist and interpretive assessment that draws upon the works of authors such as Baudrillard and De Bord and other critiques of contemporary 'digital culture'. The empirical part of the thesis then examines the array of popular search terms used on the World Wide Web over a period of 16 months from September 2001 to February 2003. Taxanomic classification of these search terms reveals the limited range of virtual and physical artefacts that are sought by the users of Web search engines. While nineteen hundred individual artefacts occur in the array of search terms, these can classified into a relatively small group of higher order categories. Critical analysis of these higher order categories reveals six cultural traits that predominant in the apparently wide array of search terms; freeness, participation, do-it-yourself/customisation, anonymity/privacy, perversion and information richness. The these argues that these traits are part of a cultural complex that directly reflects the underlying motivations of contemporary western mainstream culture. The daily practices of Web-based search and exchange thus reproduce and reinforce this cultural complex. The empirical work of the thesis validates the critical assessment of western mainstream culture developed in the initial chapters of the thesis.

DIY- “Do it Yourself” är en ny trend som går ifrån konsumtionssamhället för att istället värna om det genuina hantverket. Få studier har presenterat hur en visuell varumärkesidentitet bör utformas för att förtydliga dessa typer av verksamheter. Rapporten syftar till att undersöka hur en logotyp kan utformas för ett Hantverksföretag utifrån verksamhetens kärnvärden, för att skapa önskvärda associationer och därmed stärka varumärkets identitet. Under studien har arbetet genomförts utifrån ett “case-företag” vid namn Hantverksgården. Genom företagets kärnvärden, genuint, lantligt och idylliskt har rapporten undersökt hur en logotyp bör utformas för att reflektera verksamheten. Genom att identifiera verksamheten och söka inspiration utifrån kärnvärdena togs två logotyper fram. För att besvara syftet värderades vardera logotyp med åtta respondenter. Logotyperna undersöktes utifrån sex kriterier minnesvärd, meningsfull, älskvärd, originalitet, skalbarhet/mångsidighet/överförbarhet och utförande. Studiens visade genom att framhäva verksamhetens ursprung skapades associationer till begreppet genuint. Kärnvärdet lantligt reflekterades genom avbildade objekt kopplade till verksamheten. Genom dekorativa illustrationer kunde logotypen uppfattas som idyllisk. Kriterierna älskvärd och meningsfull visades vara de viktigaste kriterierna för att uppfylla önskvärda associationer.