Parks and Recreation Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay. Alright. Good morning, everyone. I would like to call to order our, Appleton Public Arts Committee meeting for today, Wednesday, April 1, happy fool's day, at, 08:00AM. So if we could all please stand for a pledge of allegiance.

Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. So I am Elise Christa Michi. I am the chair of this committee. If everyone else could just do a quick roll call, please. Jane Lasty.

Jake Bauer.

Laura Hoekstra.

Luis Fernandez.

Kim Rooster. And then

it looks like we have Bo Vang. So else is here. So first step today is to seek approval for our minutes from the previous meeting, which was last month, March 4. I would gladly motion to approve.

I'll second.

All right. All in favor? Aye. Great. So the next step today, it looks like we've got a little bit of public participation. I do just want to note that for public participation, please take this time to speak. And then once the committee begins doing any of our action item proceedings, I would just ask that you please forever hold your peace then. So speak now and forever hold your peace, please. Anyone want to speak? Alex?

Good morning, committee. Alex Schulz, 7106 West Front Street, associated with Sculpture Valley, ADI, and the Houdini effort to recognize the one hundredth year anniversary. At the last meeting, committee directed me to provide 30 or so potential images and requested that each of those come with a recolored and squared version potentially to sort of reimagine those. I sent out a note to the committee saying that as I began that process, realized it would take me a little bit too much time to go through and create those variants for each one of the 30 plus images. So provided a sampling of those, which is what you were able to vote on.

Personally, think you could, as I stated in that note, maybe make maybe this is a choice to go down two lanes. One is to sort of embrace this opportunity to use original imagery as is, as sort of an archival format, historical format, and not retouch anything and just sort of let what it is exist as it is and replicate it, means you don't have to do much by way of defining what's on the tower. It's just a replication of existing imagery that's in the public domain. The other path is to consider recoloring and giving this a slightly different look and maybe some additional sort of vibrancy in life. But if you go down that road, have to think about a clause on the tower that states that this is AI assisted or generated artwork and make it very clear why it looks the way it does.

So just something to consider as you're thinking about this because if you make one choice or the other, that may influence your image selections. If you choose to use existing, you may lean more heavily into the posters that already have color work on them and could look just fine as they are. If you choose the other route, you could lean more heavily into the candid action photos and portraiture of Houdini. So it's something to think about as you're going through the imagery. And I would just encourage the community to leave their minds open and figure that out before you get too far along in the selection process. Maybe have that discussion first. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. All right. Do we have any other public participation at all?

Don't have much more to add. I'm Jennifer Stefani. I'm the executive director with Appleton Downtown Incorporated, creator of Downtown Appleton. I'm also the president of Sculpture Valley. We feel like there's a lot to pick from here and like the mixture of maybe some of the poster images that already have color, some of the action shots where he's hanging upside down and he's got the chains on. We also like some of the more posed images where he's with his wife, Bess. Maybe not the one with his brother, that one doesn't seem as relevant, but I think there's a nice mix here to pick from and hope that we can do that together. So thanks so much.

Alright. Anyone else? Do we want any, like, comment on the posters now or sorry, the banners now, or should I just open that up once I do? Okay. Sounds good. So alright. We'll move on to then our action items. We are gonna be swapping them wait. Sorry. Go ahead. I missed uh-oh. We cannot do that yet. I apologize. We actually have a really wonderful next presentation now by Jaemin. Jaemin, want to come on up here and tell us why we all should be so excited today?

Yeah, so please introduce yourself and

Yeah, good morning everyone. I'm Jamin Homan. I'm a local woodworker. I'm also the husband of Kara Homan and I acquired a honey do project. Let's just say that. My day job though is I am a registered nurse. I am a doctorally prepared registered nurse. I work with ThetaCare as the director of patient safety and have the privilege of presenting to you a project that I had that came from this committee. I am actually going to put it up a little bit so you can get a better view of it if that is okay.

It's definitely okay.

All right.

So I had a project request that came forward and a couple of requirements that came from it. First is that it had to model the existing Houdini Plaza monument. I think that that's the correct name for it. Secondly, it was going to be used as a tool for this committee to be able to present images that were going to be potentially planned for presenting on it. So with that in mind, I did acquire the architectural drawings of the existing tower and scaled it appropriately.

So this was able to be produced in a one six scale to the actual tower. So everything is exactly to scale on it. And since it was being used as a model for your meetings, I the design language that I used was to make it look like a model. So for that purpose, I did not look at creating it completely refined, but instead wanted to use plywood. So a simple material, not anything fancy by any means.

But the material that I used was Baltic birch plywood. So normal plywood that you would buy at a local big box store would probably be about five plies. This has about 11 plies per layer on it. So it's a beautiful material but it still gives it that model look to it. So the only materials that it has is plywood and three quarter inch, half inch, all trimmed out over a, a box. And the biggest requirement that you had was that you could use, you could attach photos to it. So what I used for that is actually, these are felt panels. So I do have pins for you. And when you wanna put a picture on it and there's already one on there, can easily just pin those in place.

And to

take them out, you just take the pins out. So it's all made out of felt and plywood, and I feel like this will help meet your requirements for this and also looking great in the in in the meantime. There's in in the spirit of Houdini, there is one illusion that I would like to say is present on the model. So this piece at the top, this is all solid plywood at the top. But since the model that you have has these different layers of texture in here, in order to create that texture these are not solid pieces of plywood here.

Instead these were glued together and then use a band saw to cut them off. So those are actually veneers in there. When you look at it, it looks like these are all solid going all the way through. But this entire thing is hollow and it's just a little bit of an illusion to it. But the edges of the Baltic birch plywood were used as a design element just to give it that additional texture that the original design has with aluminum that they use. So I would be welcome to answer any questions that you may have on it, but I hope that it will fit the needs of this committee.

Well, first I

just want to thank you, Jaemin, on behalf of the Public Arts Committee, and I think, like, the whole world, because this is really amazing, for doing this. I have been on the committee for all of the selections of the Houdini Tower, I know that this is gonna really help us out. We're artists, and it's great to have an artist make this for us so that we can really, you know, visualize what this our selection will look like. So thank you so much for doing this. How long did it take you?

If you asked my wife, it probably took me longer than what she wanted me to take out. I would say about six hours. It.

Oh, wow. That's yeah.

It moved pretty quickly because, again, it's just a box with a top and then it trimmed out. But, again, if people have touched it, I encourage you to come and touch it. It's nice and sanded over. All the lines are nice and even. So I put some of my more fine woodwork expertise into it. But again, it was a pretty good project when you think about overall projects.

Amazing. I've been looking at everyone's faces and everyone is delighted. Like literally everyone is delighted.

Yeah. But I can contribute.

Any other questions or comments for Jaemin by anybody before?

It's fantastic. Thank you.

You're very welcome. Thank you.

She's an architect, so that's Well, can't

You can totally appreciate this on so many levels.

I just had to do it by scale. I had the actual drawings so I didn't have to design anything. We'll just put it together.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Seaman.

I'll put it down so it doesn't block anybody's There you

go. I heard it doubles as you so much for your gift. We really appreciate it. Let's give them another gift. And when it's not working for us, it doubles as a plant stand, I hear.

All right. So we will move on then to our action items for the day. We are going do a little swapparoo just so that we don't hold up all of the ADI staff that came to present. So our first action item will be to request to approve proposal from Appleton Downtown Incorporate to replace the existing College Avenue banners from Badger Avenue to Drew Street with a new design as described in the attached documents. So this is what we had talked about in the last committee meeting, and they very kindly gave us a few other options, and we're going to be looking through them.

I don't know if, Steph, you'd like to say anything more on this or Brett.

And you began touching on it already, but just as a refresher, we did have this item before the committee last month. At that time, there were four banner design themes that were included. Based on discussion at committee in early March, a suggestion was made to modify the Come Thrive banner and also add additional themes focusing on family friendly, community oriented, and or the farm market. So what you see before you today is the updated proposal from the applicant. There are now six different banner themes included.

And as a reminder, the proposal would be to use the existing brackets that exist along College Avenue. There are 36 existing banner locations along College Avenue. Banners that are currently there have been in place since 2015, so this is essentially a refresh. Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

So I know we added a couple other options. Are we to narrow them down, or are we to kind of just discuss what that

You know, I think that that's at the discretion of the committee. With there being 36 banner locations, in theory, you could use all six themes and have six apiece throughout the corridor. Four would also be a logical number, right, and have nine use each banner nine times throughout the corridor.

All right. Does city staff want or sorry, ADI staff want to present on this at all before we kind of chat about it?

So we did add, based on the comments from the committee at the previous meeting, some additional options for you. Some of the themes are a little duplicated because those are

the words that we use

in our advertising right now. So come explore, come thrive, come shop, come savor. So they come together, so they really do fit. This is probably my least favorite one, but come together was a tough one to find some kind of general imagery around. We would like to use four.

If we're being required to use six, then we'll use six. If you have any questions about them, we're happy to do that. We really would prefer to not have to make any more adjustments to them and select from these. Just from a timing standpoint for getting them produced and up when we have the opportunity. But of course, that's at the discretion of the committee. So thank you.

Thank you. Alright. So why don't we just take a minute to peek through them? I would be comfortable personally keeping it narrowed to four in, you know, some ADI was so kind to come back with a few extra options for us. I personally do really think that the farmer's market one is a nice addition, so thank you for adding that one.

It's a new favorite.

It's new a favorite around here.

We worked with our designer. We worked with Willems Marketing as our graphic designer on these. And I don't know. When did we turn these in? About twentieth?

Yeah. The yeah.

Okay. We didn't hear anything back. So we're hoping that you like what you see.

Yeah.

We didn't get any additional feedback from staff as well. I hope hope staff likes what they see. I would love to hear from the staff as well, if that's appropriate.

Yeah, so I guess I would just clarify that really, staff's role not just with this submittal, frankly any submittal that's on track to proceed through the Arts Committee is to review it against the art in public places policy, verify that it has the necessary submittal materials, constitutes a complete application, and we leave the aesthetic evaluation and review to the committee. So for that reason, there wasn't staff feedback aside from just confirmation that we had received what was requested at the previous meeting and that it was on track to proceed to the April 1 meeting today. And again, the role here of the Arts Committee is to review the aesthetics, also the theme and spacing of the proposal as submitted.

And I believe that you all did come back. You know, you've you did follow our request. I think I stated my concerns at the last meeting was just that, keeping in mind with, like, the feedback that we had with, like, the selfie sculpture from the community and just keeping in mind community's preferences on maybe being a little bit more complex or a little bit more creative in how some of our public art is. But I think that not that I'm in in love with these by any means, but they are your you know, they are what this we have to select from, and so it's not our place to really, like, get in on your branding or anything like that just to kind of decide which ones would look, I think, the best within the parameters of our of what we can do. So my personal, I guess, preferences would be for the keeping with four.

I know that I've heard here that people do like the Come Explore, sorry, the farmer's market themed one. So I think that that is definitely our top Sorry. Go ahead, Kim.

Four versus six, pros and cons. Can we just decide four versus six first?

Yeah. I think, personally, I think four just because that's based off of what they want. And then I think that maybe that would keep it a little bit more simplified. But what else? I mean, does anyone else have any preference? What do you think, Kim?

I'm leaning I get the busyness. I get the there's too many. But I all six are important to what Downtown Appleton represents. I would have a hard time saying, we can't have Thrive. We can't, you know, have the businesses represented. We can't have the Sabre. We can't have the restaurants. So that's my struggle. Yeah. I get that it's busy. I get that there's a lot. I get that it's two more to, you know, have But to keep track I think all six concepts are important to what makes, you know, Downtown Appleton, Downtown Appleton.

Makes sense. Would it affect the cost to add two more, or does it I mean, does the cost for you change? That a concern? Or what is your concern with adding more?

The cost would change a bit when if we do six just from replacement standpoints, but I don't think it's significant enough to really make that an issue. I guess what I would ask is, is there potential to say, yes, we approve all six of these and leave that decision of four or six, or which ones we use up to us. So do the designs that we present, have they met your expectations? Do they meet the policy? And are we able to move forward with our project based on the ones that fit our brand best?

I'll just jump in here. I think that last piece about just giving a blanket approval and then allowing process. So question. Installed. So if I think it's the will of the committee to select four, I think that they would be very specific about which four they want installed. And if it's six that is the desire of the committee, then I think the expectation would be all six would be utilized throughout the corridor.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I think we need to be kind of specific in what we are deciding.

You were going say Yeah.

Want to

say, yeah. Definitely, I support King. The six represents the community in some way in different forms. It would be extremely hard just to

To pick. Would yeah. Be pretty

Yeah. You want to leave something behind.

We want to avoid that somehow.

Okay. The six. Okay.

If everyone just wants to say a quick little bit on what you prefer, and then we'll kind of go ahead here, we can think about the motions.

Mean, I'm in agreement that, yeah, it's hard to pick. I think maybe Come Shop and Come Thrive are my least favorites, I guess, if I had to cut two. But again, that's tricky because I do think those are very important facets of what downtown is. I'm also just, you know, not a huge fan of how the color scheme between Come Explore and Come Thrive are so similar. I like green a lot, actually. But it might just be a bit maybe just a bit too similar.

Yeah. I'm kind of in agreement with keeping all six. If I were to cut two, it would be shop and thrive. But I do like Kim's point of them being part of what makes Appleton Appleton. And I do think it would be a shame to cut any of them. So yeah, I'm leaning towards just all six.

I agree with the six.

It doesn't seem like it would be. Did you want to say anything last before I we go ahead here?

Some of these concepts are really critical to us, like shop and dine. We really need to have those. They're kind of key elements of what we help to promote in the district to make our small businesses thrive. So I I would ask for your consideration on all six and allow us to fully execute our brand.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So what I'm hearing from the committee is that six is the preferred number.

So I also have heard that the color maybe just keeping we'll keep in mind color placement. So I would be comfortable motioning to request to approve proposal from Appleton Downtown Incorporated to replace these banners, keeping all six banners designs. And then when placement is put, just keeping in mind maybe staggering the or spacing out the banners to assure that similar colored ones are not maybe directly in line with one another. So kind of, you know, doing the yellowish, the greenish, the pinkish, the bluish, staggering them in that way. I thank you greatly.

I know it was probably really inconvenient and a little frustrating to have to redesign or add on to these, but like the committee said, I do think that it was beneficial. So yeah, I motion to keep all six with staggering the colors and approve ADI's banner proposal.

I'll second that motion.

All right. All approved.

Aye. Aye. All

right. Thank you, ADI. Alright. Now we are on to the tower. Very exciting.

So our primary action item for today is to review images received from Creative Downtown Appleton and the Year of Houdini volunteer group based on Year of Houdini theme, detail any potential edits, and recommend the images and layout of the tiles to be placed in the welcome tower in Houdini Plaza on College Avenue. So I did get a little note about regarding edits just so that we all can kind of keep this in mind too, is that the community we are allowed to make ourselves if we had wanted to, just keeping this in mind. So Alex had talked about AI, which we can have a discussion about. And then there's also the option that the committee can edit the photos as well. And so that would, you know, probably be Photoshop tweaking.

And then if we decide to pick any already edited photos, then those are you know, have been started by Alex, so those would be in his hands. So we just would have to keep in mind that if we're going to want to be the ones to edit the photos, we have to select photos that have not already been edited. The ones that have been edited, to my knowledge, are the square ones. I Do you want to speak on that a bit more? That would be great. Yeah.

So I I organized the the different photos that were submitted based on the votes from the SurveyMonkey that I sent to you all. I do have them up on on the the counter up there, and I cut them all out as best I could to be as close to the size as possible. I really encourage the committee to go up and fold the pieces of paper how you want them cropped. Feel free to make notes on the back. I put some little markers up there.

Really make this what you want it to be. Feel free even though we have the votes, like, there's there's I I also have the lists of where all the votes were. All of the votes that have all the photos that have b were photos that were edited by by Alex, a d I, and Yir Foudini. Those were the ones that were submitted through the or edited through Alex's AI algorithm. And so if if the committee is opposed to using the AI edited photos, I would say select the the a photos from those.

So even though you guys all voted on these, don't feel like the top 12 of the votes are what you need to pick. I really, really want the committee to be able to make whatever decision they think is best with the tower and the placement.

All right. Well, I think that we should begin this by just talking about AI for a second and how we feel about that because that will help us decide whether or not we want to keep the square ones over or select alternative images. So if each of the committee members maybe just wants to give a little bit of a

I have a question here, like, on Tuesday. So

it's filled in, the cityscape? Where does that come from? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because that wasn't Exactly. So

that it's just an AI hallucination. So it's not from the original photo. It's just the AI kind of adds in things as

That were never there. I think that's a problem.

I personally think that the colorization I understand we wanted color to make the building pop more. But at least on the real photos, I think the colorization kind of adds an unrealistic feel to them. And then that is a really good point that cityscaping added that is, I do agree, a problem. I also see a lot of mostly online, but a lot of people in the Midwest rejecting AI with all these data centers being built in our area. And I don't want to have somebody look at the tower, realize it's AI, and then be upset with that fact.

I like the use of the colorization more for the posters because it doesn't seem to add such an unrealistic touch. And personally, I would kind of like to maybe think about using the black and white photos. We can upscale them still, but not use AI to change the fundamentals of the image. And then we can use the colorized posters, and then maybe we can intelligently plan what side's going to be black and white, what side's going to be colorized.

Yeah. I had similar thoughts that I think the AI was more successful on the posters than on the photos. So yeah, and maybe even staggering so we have some colors, some black and white on each side. I don't know. We can play Now we can play around with it and see.

Alex, we had just asked that maybe not interrupting our proceedings, so I don't know if you just want to hold on a second. Thank you.

I

agree that the, you know, the AI was more successful in the images that were not photographs. Personally, I do think that AI can be kind of controversial and for for art. And I think that just keeping with the historic idea of these photographs, I personally feel that any editing should be minor and more focused on copying and contrasting and making sure that the images are easy to view and that our goal here isn't really to recreate the images as art pieces rather than just display them as historic photographs.

Yeah, well, we'll keep it simple. No AI. But yes, if I need to do some kind of to shop, you know, constants, lighting, make it a little bit maybe chalkboard. Yes, something minimal.

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, the AI makes them look weird.

And that maybe should have been maybe something that we specified, but I guess at the last meeting, I did not consider that that was what would be done with editing because it just seems a little bit more of a retransformation rather than an edit.

My one other concern, too, is just the resolution of some of the images, too. Some were quite pixelated and blurry, so just making sure whatever we pick that we can actually find a high enough resolution image. And maybe that is something that AI could help us with. I'm not sure.

I actually own a resolution like upgrading, upscaling program. It is technically AI, but all it's doing is adding more pixels based on the pixels next to it. It's not adding you know, imagery to it or changing the color. Right. So I think something like that would be really useful for these black and white photos, but it doesn't do any colorization.

So how would I guess okay. So it seems that the consensus here is that we would prefer not to use AI generated images. Is is that okay overall for all okay. And then do we have a preference of editing the photos ourselves or having that back in the hands of the group that presented this. Is that something that we can decide, is that something that we work together with

them to edit? Or what is the I guess your what is the stance on that? I would almost say it would probably be best to select which photos you want first Mhmm. And then decide what edits are needed from Okay. There because like, if you decide that, like, you pick a photo and you just wanna go through the resolution, then I'd say Jake has the best software to do that. So that would make make sense.

Alright. Well, I think then I think we should get over to the little tower, and we can just play around with the images just a bit here. And then maybe we'll just check-in with the group before we proceed with

our voting. And I'll just add with the with the tower, I did label the back of the photos with the the sorry. I'm just gonna steal this for

a second.

With the voting results. So I labeled all the photos, and then I also included the number of votes that was for each photo on the back. Again, decide whichever photos the committee wishes, But just know that I did organize them based on the number of votes.

And then just to clarify, so the Bs are ones that had been AI generated? Have all of the ones that were edited by them been AI generated? You just Alex, yes. Can you just yeah, let me know if they're all AI generated?

You just need to ignore everything with a B behind it. Those are AI enhanced in some ways.

Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you.

One like this one right here, I don't think this one is problematic with, like, the AI colorization. I just think it's the ones where it's like a real photo that is very obvious and, like, stands out. But these posters, I don't think, look bad. In fact, I voted for quite a few of the B versions of these posters.

Is everyone a little bit more comfortable with that if Okay. Well, we'll discuss. Why don't we get over to the tower and then we can visualize a little bit so we don't have to take everyone too much time? It's so weird to stand up during a meeting.

And then just when you are discussing by the tower, try to speak into the microphone.

My spider senses were there we go. All right. Can everyone hear us all right? Yeah?

Two votes has got a lot of them, right?

I yeah. So I think depending on what we have here, I do think that a combination of some of the historic ones and then the colored images would be nice. So doing, like, a balance, making sure we disperse them throughout the tower.

Let's just start here.

Yeah. We have scissors. She gave us a whole kit. Do you have anything you want to say or you?

You could bring up an extra table if that would

be helpful.

Can we do it over here? Are we okay over here with our backs?

I have a question on the AI file. Is that what kind of file does it develop? Is that Photoshop file with layers, or does it just alter?

No. The challenge with AI artwork is it's a flat generation. So anytime you want to go in and edit something you've recolored, have essentially used cloning tools. You can't separate layers. And AI, if you ask it to create separate layers, doesn't know what you're asking of it. It's a flat artwork. Like this was like a two minute quick AI rework. That's why I wouldn't want to necessarily select this one because it's AI generated but you certainly could take an original, use Photoshop as a tool to clean up, maybe res it up. Just have to be careful about what you ask AI to do and not do. A lot of the filters I ran were a lot of those clean up and up res, up res.

But then again, you have to give AI some parameters because you can really res it up and it'll make that photo look brand new versus age. There's a really fine balance in trying to be really specific if you're going to use that tool to enhance these images where you're not doing something that is obviously AI generated. I just maybe caution you to run it through Photoshop. But Photoshop has that same kind of AI generation possibility as well. So, you know, I think it's up to committee if you do any.

I would say the easiest thing to do, no matter what you choose to do, even if you don't use AI to regenerate or reclone artwork, is to have a clause saying these were slightly enhanced using regenerative tools. So at least you cover yourself even if you're ressing up an image or clarifying a black and white image.

Yeah. And I know, like, I am the graphic designer and do the stationary for funeral home and we do have some I mean, lot of the software nowadays does have, like, you know, the enhancement tools. A lot of them are AI, but not in the same way that I think that, like, you know, these photographs that have little extra hands and stuff are. So we just have to maybe avoid those for

sure. Okay.

So why don't we start getting some images on here? So we had where's our tally sheet? It looks like we can get 17. Is that one are the four bullets? Okay.

These are the three bullets. And then these are the two bullets that don't have the AI.

There's extra pins right there.

You, Jamie.

Love the photographs. The posters.

Yeah. They don't look bad with the AI. I just feel like, especially after you point out the extra city it added. The one that's

painted already was the blue Yes.

The one that I posted on there was the one that had five votes. So feel free to change that if you want, but I just posted that just as a visual. Okay.

So let's just start throwing them up there and see what we think.

Do we wanna do, like, a whole row of, like, black and whites, or should we do, like, a black and white and color of black and white? Will support that one. Like, doing the whole row? No. No. The other way. Yeah. The other way. Yeah.

I think they're staggering. Yeah.

They're staggering.

So right now, I think there's a color going up on

top over here.

Oh, that's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

So we pinned the sizes as well.

Well, and we need to understand if we have how many black and white versus how many color It

would be nice if we could get an even split, but we have more.

Love the pushpins too.

Is

this exciting for you all? I hear a lot of

Are we taking orders?

We'll try to be

swift. Can do color, color?

That's what

I was thinking. So we have to swap this black and white one over here.

So black and white. And then this is color, black and white.

I think also staggering the posters with the real photograph. Yeah. Feel free, anyone else, pin them wherever you want. Like, literally.

Too many hands to do.

We have talked about doing captions for the photos. Is that still something we're going to discuss?

Yeah. We'll need to.

Some kind of explanation of what everybody's

right? If I cite the

Okay. So

I like it.

Oh, and we've got to make sure that

So these are the other three. So we can mix and match and swap out. So the posters themselves

square. Yeah. Which ones do we scale them? I mean, this one So organized this and then printed it.

So this one Sure. Yep. They looked There's some of

it in

this box.

I who these went to.

But Yeah. I was thinking I cleaned them. They Okay. Some of them are pretty skinny,

so I wasn't able to get them all, like, the Concerns about with

Yeah.

Menacing guys in this one?

I agree. I Is

it a little too menacing?

Well, no. Let's just be concerned

about it. Right?

Yeah. Well, we can get something a little bit friendlier. Yeah. We have two we have more options.

I think we need to keep in mind some of the imagery and how it will be perceived by the public and whether or not it could be misconstrued as, yeah, rude in any way.

I don't care for this one.

Because it is a different era.

Will, you know? Yeah.

I don't

know about context for this one. Okay. I would Well, what color is that? It is 22B. Oh, yeah. It's just the context. I don't know.

If you think the context is we can swap it out, yeah. And

then we still we have this photograph which is more of a yellow which

So why don't we all just take a look real quick at what we have up here and if there's any potential problems with any of the context? If it could be perceived as

I like the photograph, though.

The photograph could be un yellowed. I guess that could be edited to just to be the scale of the coloring to be less yellow.

This one is very fuzzy.

Don't know.

From a resolution standpoint, do you think that you can do something with that one?

Yes. I I can't guarantee that it's gonna come out perfect, but my program can go up times 12 resolution. So it does it does clarify things quite a bit.

I I like the photo. Don't get

me wrong. It's very cool. It's kinda neat to

have it Mhmm. Hanging out. A lot in this. Yeah.

Really good one.

Elise, just so just so you know, Kara's gonna grab some post it notes so you can make a note on what edits you want to each photo, and then we can have that. Perfect. Yeah.

These are very similar. Mhmm. So I don't know if there's another poster that is Or

even if we switched them.

We could switch them. Yeah. Just so that they're Yeah. Maybe these. This, like

Switch that one with that one?

Yeah. I'll give you this.

So that

one borders

This one here. To me? I think why don't we just look at are there a couple posters that maybe haven't been used? Let's this one's a no. We can also just have one color appearance.

If there are more black and white images that are appropriate than posters, then we can always just have, like, you know, a four to like like, four, you know, posters and then or a poster on each side and then more photos too. So now we're at work.

Are we busting into the one vote ones?

These are the these are the zero votes. Those are the brothers. Yeah.

Like a picture, though.

And some of these are super, super, super blurry. That's yeah. Well, these are problematic.

So what are we just looking for? One more poster?

One more poster.

Either one more poster or just having three posters and then more black and white photos.

Sure. I prefer to do one more poster.

If you can find this one.

It's got a little less structural. Thank you. I mean, they they got kids. That's what they're doing. Right? Thank you Fred. We don't know about it. Yeah, that one. All

right. One more poster that's least offensive. Just make sure you're talking so that everyone can hear. So I

were to use Maya AI to upscale, it takes about a minute. It's called oh, geez, what is it called? Gigapixel AI is the name of it. And that's upscaling specifically upscaling AI. I would typically use it when I make art. At the end, I'll upscale it so you get a higher resolution.

I know that this is being supported by Mr. Bolt, do you want to say anything just about your preferences at all on if we help edit or collaborate with you?

That's up to the committee. That's why we're here. So it's your preference. I think as far as the Houdini committee is that we're just happy that you've considered this and hope that we can get these produced and installed before the Society of American Magicians has their convention in July.

All right. I wish we would have all worn our cloaks or capes or wizard outfits.

We need more art committees where we do art projects together.

Yeah. Which poster do we have there? You just seem to swap out potentially. There are two. These Egyptian ones are very similar. Like there's this one that's similar to this one over here, the imagery. So if we were to swap out, I would say swap out one of those.

So this one, good or bad, I don't know. It kind of replicates like this.

Oh, does? Okay.

Which might be actually kind of cool to see those juxtaposition next to each other. Yeah.

I mean, this one is gonna need a lot of this it's also sort of well, no. It's different.

One will take a lot more water.

This is gonna take a lot more water. If anyone has any comments on the editing that they'd like to write down and start getting on here, you're welcome to do that while we deliberate. I don't know. Just so that we can get them, like, any editing notes that we might have to include because we have to be including when we make our motion anything that needs to kind of be changed.

Are are we good with these 12? Are we still thinking that we need to swap out maybe some of

the photos or any How of the

do we feel about do we want to swap this poster out for any of the other posters, or are we okay with the selection currently?

Yeah. I I would probably swap it for me personally. Mostly just because all the extra border doesn't have to be added. But that's just my opinion.

We can just add a border.

Oh, yeah. We can we can add border.

I mean, not you don't need to do it in

the program. You can do it in any

Oh, oh. Yeah. Just just add whatever.

The only thing that I liked about this one was that the imagery and being in the cage is not necessarily representing Oh, someone true.

And that is where it

is. This

is. Mean, couldn't we if we are editing, could we edit out that I mean, well, I mean, I think that the text is just it will look like a pattern. So it will I mean, I'm not too

worried about reading megapixel it. Can always make text look perfect. Yeah. It's more meant for photos.

So it's

just not a text based thing. But

Well, why don't we anyone else?

Consideration. Know, like really you get the 12 and then you have to look at the photo and say carefully look at the photos. Yeah. You know? Don't know. Think there's got

to be

a little bit more of a look than for the editing I'm thinking that you have to look at the photos more carefully, like actually study them a little bit and see what is in them and what the wording is and, you know, make sure that's appropriate.

I could, I mean, I can have it, like, you guys send it to me and then I can send it back to, like, a cloud or something that we can all look at and then we can discuss from there. I'm not sure the best route to go on that.

Okay. So are there any of these that we want to take a scissors to right now to say this is how we want to crop them? Or is that still a next step sort of a thing?

Yeah. I mean, this one we can just say crop square because this gonna be pretty easy. I think just, like, cough, square, and enhance. They they are.

You know, like, this one, I could see. Right? You'd still have that on orders. Like, we open to having those kind of edits right now?

I mean, well, we're going to have to have borders on a lot. So we'll have to figure that out at some point. Then guess And

then does the border just be like more of a background, like consistent color? Like they decided all yellow, all red?

I think because we selected an image because we selected one of the images that is Alex's that we cannot be editing, this one we can't edit. So any of the ones that he did that are square were not to edit again. Okay. And so I think that if we were to or like, you know, we'd have to collaborate with him to have

We can use the original and do our own enhancement.

That is true. We can do that, too.

Use the original one. Yeah. Okay. It's very easy for me to upscale the edits. I mean, when it comes to adding things or deciding what to crop out, I I can do that all myself, but I would like to do it as a group to decide what parts we're going to crop out. But the upscaling, that's easy. I feed into the program. Oh, sorry. I apologize.

Thank you. He's on the floor.

The upscaling is very easy, though. I feed into the program, it upscales the pixels, and then

We needed to a tower that goes like this so that

we can, like We're getting

them new projects, though.

Okay. So do we have to have every single I don't know why I didn't use that one. These are really confusing things. Do we have to have, like, all of our edits decided, or can we just do a like, can it be in, like, a general, like, we're gonna crop and enhance and add, like, a cohesive border to all images?

Thank

you. I thought they were on.

It was on. Oh. So okay. So I would say making a being specific about what in general, what edits you want. Like, you wanted to crop it. I I think the the wording that you used would be appropriate. I would say it's not necessarily don't need to get super, super in the weeds. Just get, here's generally what changes we're planning on making to these photos. And I do have on the screen behind you all, I did add up a start a list of the different photos. We put the put the number of the photos, say, like, which you want at the the top, middle, or bottom.

And the Northwest is the one facing the intersection of College and Ableton. Thank you. It's like, I do live here. Promise.

Getting rid of Aren't I in favor of getting rid of this one or this one?

I'm okay with that.

This

one? Yep. There's also just

a portrait of the paper.

I think that maybe swapping out the family one for this either portrait just because we that might make it a little more interesting than just a bunch of portraits of him.

I think can we can we keep this one as, like, a what I'll call a runner-up in case if this one doesn't

come out well? Can we do that?

I I Yeah?

Okay. Perfect.

I think we have the power.

Kim says we have the power.

Oh, well, he's covered where it goes.

I

didn't know if Houdini was such a beefcake.

This is an alternative. Don't know if we make note of

that one. What's the

Number A. What's The A. Eight. Okay. Perfect.

Sorry. Didn't do the translate. Photo and then three votes.

I'm sorry. It's good.

I should have explained my my chicken scratch. Okay.

I'm just really literal, so I'm, like, eight, three checks?

Okay. Any other changes to photos or posters? And then we can talk about what goes on which. I mean, because we know we want a black and white poster, but do we have the right

The orientation.

The right configuration of images to posters.

I think that we're good on the images. I think we already have that one. Yeah. But

is this one better than that one? Because it shows the full length, which is kind of points of change. So, yeah, so we've got this guy is what we had up.

This

one we thought might be too much skin.

I'm okay with that.

Okay. Sure, ma'am. Not the lies. Do you like that one better? That way it shows.

Yep.

Alright.

Okay. Now which goes where? I think that so I think just keeping the staggering like we have. So which which side is the facing?

So the Northwest would be the one facing the intersection of Appleton And College because it's kind of yeah. It's it's not quite parallel. It's kinda

So why don't I think that the most important then would be the, yeah, one facing out. So if we just wanna put, like, maybe our favorite three on that side just to make sure. And then maybe the other corner is also really crucial. That would be the Northeast. So the Northwest and Northeast. Yeah.

I think this was the one that we had find the road score. Right? So maybe this is a favorite?

Yeah. So this why don't we say this is right here? All right. So actually this makes more sense because this is College Avenue and then this is the corner.

I don't feel like that's my favourite anymore, though. Seeing the whole whole tower now, I don't feel like that's enough of the impact of what Houdini was and did.

What about this one?

Yes, I like that one classic.

So let's swap.

So I guess the first question should be, do we want two posters or two photos on that? Would be the first question.

I think we oh, go ahead.

Oh, yeah. I like this configuration with the two posters and the photo, especially with the poster that has his name in large text on there so you

can see it. I like that. Yep.

Yep. Agreed.

And it's like a portrait of him. Right? I mean, these are very similar. That's the only thing. But they're pretty iconic. I think the most iconic grab your eye, obviously, Houdini would be really good for that.

I really like both these two sides right here. The bottom two are the only two that I would want to switch on these two sides. I don't necessarily want to switch them, but if we had to switch them, these are the two that I like instead of these six.

So what would you switch that would help with?

Okay.

I'm liking this a lot.

Yeah. Me too. That's really good.

Okay. So this is our other main space? Is that correct? I think these all need to go.

I I would rather have like this.

I'd like confirmation that this is the only committee that's on its hands and knees doing its work. To do the work.

This is the fun committee.

Yeah.

100, which, you know, I I you can get up to, like, 17,000, but it starts to lose its you don't really, like

This is amazing, isn't it? I feel like I should have been in over there more. Make sure just make sure any discussion is being able to be heard enough. Yep.

So after I upscale these, I can upload them all to, like, some kind of cloud that we can all access so we can discuss. And then I don't mind being the person to fill in the borders. Just would like a little bit of I don't want to do it myself and just, you know, come up with the stuff myself.

Question. I don't think we have a so like if we did editing, we would need to kind of get that done pretty quickly. Would there be an opportunity for us to just like as a committee, we're like

Special meeting?

Discuss that in any way or not? Like like through a like a vote or less?

Or is there, like, some kind of cloud that we could all access to, like, look at the pictures and no. That's not that.

Okay. Yes, please. Thank you. If

the committee would want to review the edits before it moves on to Parks Committee, we would need another meeting. Okay.

Don't know if we can do like a special meeting. We don't have to wait for the next scheduled meeting. Can we like

we could do a special meeting.

We could do a special meeting. Okay. Do you all have any feedback on our selection at all? We'd be willing to take that into consideration since, you know, he come why don't you come up? You want to kneel and poke him?

You lie down there.

I

love how he brought us another table and we didn't even use it.

You've done this is your committee work. And so all we've done, we've presented the numbers of images that you wanted for your selection. You've made your selections. And I guess there's a little bit of work. And from the Houdini committee, as I said earlier, our goal is to enhance this and get this in place as soon as possible.

As as

Certainly by the time that the Society of American Magicians has their convention. So you've done your work so far, I think. Appreciate it. And who, you know, people should want to come and be on this committee because you have so much fun.

This is the most fun, so thank you, Jaemin, for that.

So how would that work with the captions? Would they be put on the original photos or would they just be added separately, like, as a Photoshop layer or how would that

I think we'd have, like, a QR code at that, right? Is that

That's fine.

Like, could we have, like, a plaque with a QR code or, like, a little poster? I don't know how yeah.

Guess how would that work? I would suggest it would be something we'd almost stick into the landscaping of the tower where it kind of pops up and then there's a QR code for more information on x, y, z versus affixing it to the panels themselves.

Okay. Yeah. We wouldn't want to interfere with the images by adding anything on there. We would have a QR code.

I'm digging it. Any other changes anybody wants to see?

Yeah. Let's make a quick kinda walk around, and then we can kinda start wrapping this up. I think that would be good for everyone so they can get more coffee or whatever they need. And if

you wouldn't mind, while you're going around, if you could just let me know which, which side you're you're looking at and then what the the photo is labeled as. And then that way, I can put it on this Word document, and I can put the little little edits on there. That way, we have it in in words this way and then also just physically on the tower.

Right. And is that everyone's fine with the selection that we have right now? Okay. So on the Northwest panel, have 37 is on the top. And then 5A 17 Northeast. So

that would be the Northeast.

We have one.

If I can jump in, would be the Southwest,

South. Thank you. Yeah. Really good. We're really good here. We're artists, not

All good.

Thank you. Do you have a compass? Yeah. That'd be a couple. 3 oh, yeah. That's one. Okay. One. Done. 38.

2.

Southeast. 19

a. 6. 30. And

Four.

26, I believe. I'll verify that. Sorry if

my writing's not good.

16. A.

And then number eight is our alternative in case we don't have in case some of these can't be cleared up or one of them, guess mainly that one. Number four. Yeah. In case number four can't work, number eight will replace it. Okay. Any other comments on the tower? Otherwise, we can sit down and we can finish this. Oh, go ahead.

It looks like there are some Post it notes here with recommended edits. I'm assuming we'd want that somehow captured in the record as well.

Yeah. You

could just

read the Post

it notes for me.

Oh, okay. Because I do I think we agreed to on, like, a general. So Yep. So should I do okay. So do you wanna know for each, or should I just read the general of what we want done?

Are all of them just crop, improve resolution, and Yes. So what is it?

Oh, add borders too or add Okay.

Yeah. So I think our and the border would be

just Yeah.

Just a

flat color probably. Right?

Like a I kinda I mean, was everyone okay with kinda like that cream color of the or, like, just a flat like, what are we thinking? Border black? Okay.

I could just say add a colored border.

Oh, color border. So for general edits, it would be adding a colored border to any of them that need that. There would be they'd all be cropped, squared, and then we would enhance with contrast and pixelization any of the images.

Enhanced resolution. Is

that sufficient? Yep. That's perfect. It's not my lingo, so thank you. Yeah.

Jane, did you have one other thing I don't know that's captured? Readability of the words.

Then you

can That's that stuff.

Legible. Or

readability, whatever that word is. Okay. We good?

Think so.

Yay. Give me a new reality TV show here. All right. Gain composure.

Can I recommend a motion?

Yes. If I could recommend wording for a motion, I would say I would recommend a motion to approve the northwest side of the tower to have image 37, five a, and 17, the northeast corner to have four with an alternate of eight, twos or twenty six and sixteen a, the Southwest side to have one thirty eight and two a, the Southeast side to have 19 a, six, and thirty, and have all images cropped, have the resolution enhanced, and add a color border as needed.

And mentioning the runner-up as well, correct?

Yep, yep. I included four alternate A, eight.

And I did verify 26 is correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Was it still the committee's intention to review the edits? Oh. I think we'd want to add that to the motion.

Yes. I believe that you were going to leave the editing and then we were going to review it.

Yes. Yes. I would I would prefer that. You know, I can do the editing myself, but I would prefer that we were all involved in any design choices. You know, I'm upscaling. No problem. I can do that all on own. But, you know, if we're gonna if I'm gonna be making design choices, I'd like to be doing it with the rest of the committee.

Okay. I think that's the way that we would need to do it because of time wise of trying to get it up as soon as possible is that we would probably have to have you edit it with our, like, idea in mind, and then we would have a special meeting where we would then just, like, say yay, like, just, guess right? Because we wouldn't be able to provide feedback along the way or what is no. We can't do that. So I just am looking at his nods. Please speak on that.

As the editing process is going along, you really can't email each other. Being that you're a public body, that could be considered a walking quorum then as you're exchanging information, gathering consensus. I understand in a situation like this, that might present some challenges. But the committee is putting faith in you to exercise your best judgment and come up with what you believe the committee will approve. And it sounds like a special meeting will be scheduled to have everyone kind of review what you came up with.

Okay. Got it. Is yeah. Is would it be possible for him to, like, speak with me at all or if that's under a quorum?

That if it's just the two of you speaking, that's not a quorum issue.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now there's pressure. So you

couldn't put it in a PDF which we could add comments to and use a SurveyMonkey like you did prior or no?

Unless we were to have another meeting. Right?

Would that be Before. Yeah. We just have to like, could that be for the special meeting

or not? So another so you would first set a PDF with your all co commenting. That would be a walk in quorum. Okay. If we were just selecting photos and you were all individually taking a survey, that wouldn't be you communicating with each other.

Mhmm.

So the so then I would say that the option would be if you wanted to edit them and have, like, two options for each one, then we could do a vote on them and then just have that be the selection. Is that correct? Like, again? And then that would be what we would agree upon or have yeah. Like, would you be able to do that? Then that would be less, like, having to have special meetings and everything. You could just, like, have this is that something that would be possible, or would we then have to have a special meeting to approve that?

I would I would recommend just have Jake use his best judgment with the edits, present them at the special meeting because we want to be cognizant of the timeline to get this before Parks and Recs Committee

Mhmm.

And also the because it would be reviewed by council after that, and then having enough time to have the tiles actually produced and installed. So there is still an overall timeline Mhmm. In place that we're trying to to be mindful So I would say avoid any further too much tweaking from here and out.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

So so then before we leave today, personally, would like it if we could just have, like, a small discussion on, like, what type of borders you want. Am I just doing black? Like, you know, I'll make them square and then, like, the extra

Black.

Think black. Is that what we're do? Okay. Okay. Yeah.

And then what is the date, just the timeline real quick so we can know, like, when does he need to get that in and when would we then plan for a special meeting to keep this rolling?

Let us verify that. Okay.

I could probably have the edits done by Sunday if that's what we needed. I have the weekend free and it shouldn't take me more than six to eight hours at the most to do all this. I don't know. Can I? That's fine.

Is everyone okay time wise? We'll wrap up shortly. I know. Hopefully there's no tickets.

So a little bit on tentative timeline, recognizing that not only would it come back to the Arts Committee as a special meeting, it then would need to proceed to partner act committee and then on to common counsel. So I'd say an ideal target for having the touched up images completed would be Friday, April 10. That would allow us to ideally target an April 22 morning meeting. We would get the agenda out sometime on or around the April, which would allow committee members to review the materials in advance of that April 22 meeting. And then that would put us on track for after the April 22 Arts Committee meeting, it to proceed to Monday, April 27, Park and Rec Committee, and then on to Common Council on May 6.

So that, in effect, Jake gives you nine days to work through this.

Do you feel good about that?

Oh, yeah, definitely. Can have that done by ten for sure.

Just gonna clarify the timeline works for for them to have that produced.

Yeah.

Does that timeline align with with what you need? Okay. Okay.

Alright.

So we need to make that motion. It's a lot of words. Alright. We're ready for this. Okay. Yeah. So the public arts committee Appleton Public Arts Committee would like to recommend, the motion to have, for the, let's see, Houdini Tower, images, the following. So we would have on the Northwest corner, we would have the images three set 37 three seven. 37, five a, and 17. The images on the Northeast corner will be four with alternate b. Wait. I can't. Sorry. I cannot read that. Yeah.

It's okay. Eight. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then 2616 a. And then for the Southwest corner, the image selection is number one, thirty eight, and two a. The southeast corner image selection is 19 a, six, and 30. And then we will have Jake crop all of the so all edits will be done by Jake, and he will be cropping square, enhancing resolution, and adding a black border. He will have these completed by the tenth, I believe, April or sorry, the April 10?

April 10.

He will have them he has nine days by April 10, and then we'll have our special meeting. The Appleton Public Arts Committee will then have a special meeting to review the images on the April 22. I can that is my motion. If I can get get a I will second. Oh, sorry. Go for it. Two seconds. Right. And then everyone in favor?

Aye. All

right. I think we all deserve a pat on the back for that one. Wonderful job, everyone. Thank you for your patience, and thank you so much to the committee, Mr. Volt and the rest of your committee for bringing these to us. And we appreciate your patience and all the time that you put into it. And Jen, thank you. Thank you. And Alex. Alex, thank you very much for the time that you put into this as well, even though you were not here. All right, so I would then like to request a motion to adjourn or make a motion to adjourn.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Alright. Send it. You. You. We're all done for today.

Thank you

so much, everyone.

Thank you

our lawyers too.