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1

Farrell, Thomas S. C., Bradley Baurain, and Marilyn Lewis. "‘We Teach Who We Are’: Contemplation, Reflective Practice and Spirituality in TESOL." RELC Journal 51, no. 3 (2020): 337–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0033688220915647.

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For most of its history, the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has focussed much of its attention on teaching methods and curricula to the exclusion of the person who must deliver them. In this article we propose that TESOL recognize the inner lives of teachers through understanding their spirituality from the perspective of the teacher’s personal and professional being and becoming. We encourage teachers to reflect on the spiritual dimensions of practice and propose how these might interface with standard disciplinary knowledge to produce more integrated language teachers.
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Wu, Ko-Chiu, and Yi-Hsieh Huang. "Emotions and eye-tracking of differing age groups searching on e-book wall." Aslib Journal of Information Management 70, no. 4 (2018): 434–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ajim-01-2018-0017.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of a large e-book touch-wall, on which the visualized interface provides information in a fun, hedonic-oriented fashion on readers of different ages browsing in a public library. The authors examined how emotions exert influence on the information-seeking behaviors of readers. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigated the emotions and responsive eye movements of 38 readers in various age groups when operating the touch-wall interface of New Taipei City Library. They were monitored using an eye-tracker and a camera that videotaped their spontaneous facial expressions. A facial affect scoring technique was used to measure emotions and statistical analysis was used to explore the relationships among the scope of eye movements, emotions and information-seeking behavior of readers of different ages. Findings Results revealed that participants experienced an array of emotions, such as contemplative, doubtful or peaceful. The older the participant was, the smaller the scope of eye movements was. Scope was also affected by emotions (both positive and negative). Originality/value These results serve as useful reference for exploration into human – information interaction, perceived ease of use, affected searching and the formulation of knowledge structures in visualized interfaces.
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Barrass, Stephen. "An Annotated Portfolio of Research through Design in Acoustic Sonification." Leonardo 49, no. 1 (2016): 72–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_01116.

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The Hypertension Singing Bowl was shaped from a year of the author’s blood pressure readings, and 3D printed in stainless steel so it would ring. This digitally fabricated singing bowl is an “ultimate particular” that establishes the design space of Acoustic Sonifications. This paper presents early experiments with Acoustic Sonification and analyses them using an Annotated Portfolio to identify interaction, perception, aesthetics and contemplation as important axes of the domain. This illustrates how Annotated Portfolios could also be used to analyse New Interfaces for Musical Expression.
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Sharma, Amit. "An Approach to Facebook Post Analytics Using Python and Advance Open Source Tools." International Journal of Emerging Research in Management and Technology 6, no. 6 (2018): 78. http://dx.doi.org/10.23956/ijermt.v6i6.249.

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The paper portrays the utilization of tools for data gathering and extraction that permits researchers to fare data in standard document groups from various areas of the facebook long range informal communication benefit. Kinship networks, gatherings, and pages can subsequently be breaking down quantitatively and subjectively with respect to demographical, post-demographical, and social qualities. The paper gives a review over expository headings opened up by the data made accessible, talks about stage particular parts of data extraction through the official Application Programming Interface, and quickly connects with the troublesome moral contemplations connected to this sort of research.
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Karecki, Madge. "Mission Spirituality in Global Perspective." Missiology: An International Review 40, no. 1 (2012): 23–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182961204000104.

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Today there is a growing interest in spirituality at both the popular and academic levels. Some missiologists have been suspicious of spirituality because of how it has been defined. This article looks at definitions of spirituality and how they interface with missiology in a way that is mutually enriching for both disciplines. Four regions of the world are examined to see what they might contribute to our understanding of mission spirituality. Emphasis is placed on the need for contemplative prayer to shape and sustain mission praxis.
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Ambani, John Osogo. "Africa and the Decolonisation of State-Religion Policies." Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law 4, no. 2 (2021): 1–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24522031-12340009.

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Abstract This volume in the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law addresses religion, the State and discrimination. The long history of state-religion interaction has yielded four main interface models: the religious state; the state with an established religion; the antireligious state; and the secular state. African states have drawn from these four models when struggling to manage state-religion relations. This volume argues that the African countries studied here, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, apply the concept of state-secularism without having their triple heritage, which encompasses African religion, Islam and Christianity, in contemplation. This volume proposes that the best way to realise the full flowering of the triple heritage is to erect the three pillars of Charles Taylor’s definition of state-secularism, which in this case should entail i) the freedom to have and to manifest religious beliefs, ii) equal treatment of religion, and iii) and efforts toward an all-inclusive state identity.
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Franco, Francisco Carlos, Rosalia Maria Netto Prados, and Luci Mendes Bonini. "Cultura, cidadania e patrimônio cultural: interfaces entre a escola, a cidade e as políticas culturais na cidade de Guararema, SP." Perspectiva 33, no. 1 (2016): 319. http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/perspectiva.v33i1.32827.

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<p>http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2015v33n1p319</p><p>O presente texto aborda a questão do patrimônio material e imaterial e seu potencial educativo na formação cidadã de alunos da educação básica. Tem como objetivo refletir sobre as perspectivas de desenvolvimento de uma Educação Patrimonial em uma cidade educadora. Fundamenta essa discussão estudos que analisam a educação sob uma perspectiva crítica, em que esta supere a simples transmissão e contemplação dos bens patrimoniais destituídas de sentido, presentes em muitas propostas educativas em instituições de educação formal e não formal, de modo, ainda, que haja colaboração com a gestão do patrimônio cultural. Sendo assim, este texto contempla reflexões sobre a educação patrimonial como uma área emergente na educação e analisa uma experiência na região do alto Tietê, no município de Guararema. Os primeiros resultados apontam para considerações de que a Educação Patrimonial deve ser um diálogo permanente entre as vivências, experiências e percepções dos educandos e cidadãos ante os bens culturais e suas formas de ser e de agir cotidianos, com os conteúdos escolares e ações educativas desenvolvidas nas unidades escolares e instituições culturais, como forma de entender os processos constituintes de sua identidade cultural auxiliando na gestão do patrimônio cultural.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Culture, citizenship and cultural heritage: interfaces between the school, the city and cultural policies in the city of Guararema, SP </strong></p><p> <strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This paper addresses the issue of tangible and intangible heritage and its educational potential in formation of citizenship of basic education students. It aims to reflect on the perspectives for developing a heritage education in an educating city. This discussion is based in the Heritage Education in studies which examine education from a critical perspective , in that it exceeds the simple transmission and contemplation of the property meaningless, present in many proposals on educational institutions and formal education, and non-formal, so also there is collaboration with the management of cultural heritage. This discussion is based in studies which examine education from a critical perspective , in which it exceeds the simple transmission and contemplation of the property meaningless, present in many educational proposal in formal education, and non-formal institutions, although there is collaboration with the management of cultural heritage. This article includes reflections on heritage education as an emerging field in education and analyzes the experience in the upper Tietê, in the municipality of Guararema, in São Paulo state. The first results indicate that the considerations of that heritage education should be an ongoing dialogue among the experiences, perceptions and participation of students and citizens about cultural property and their ways of being and acting everyday with learning contents and educational activities developed in school units and in cultural institutions as a way to understand the constituent processes of cultural identity assisting in the management of cultural heritage.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Heritage Education. Cultural Policies. Educating City.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Culture, citoyenneté et patrimoine culturel: les interfaces entre l'école, la ville et les politiques culturelles dans la ville de Guararema, SP</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Résumé</strong></p><p>Cet article traite de la question du patrimoine matériel et immatériel et de leur potentiel éducatif dans la formation des étudiants à la citoyenneté dans l'éducation de base. Vise à réfléchir sur les perspectives de développement d’une éducation au patrimoine dans une ville éducatrice. Sur la base on a des études qui analysent l’éducation au patrimoine dans une perspective critique, pour surmonter la simple transmission et la contemplation des biens patrimoniales sans signification, présent dans de nombreuses propositions d'enseignement dans les établissements d'éducation formelle et non formelle, de moyen qui puisse exister la collaboration avec la gestion du patrimoine culturel. Cet article contient des réflexions sur la pédagogie du patrimoine comme un domaine émergent dans l'éducation et analyse l'expérience dans la région de l’Alto Tietê, dans la ville de Guararema. Les premiers résultats indiquent que les considérations sur l'Éducation au Patrimoine devraient être un dialogue permanent entre les connaissances, les perceptions et les expériences des étudiants et des citoyens devant les biens culturels et leurs manières d'être et d'agir quotidiennes, et les contenus d'apprentissage et des activités éducatives développées dans les unités scolaires et les institutions culturelles, comme un moyen de comprendre les processus constitutifs de leur identité culturelle en aident la gestion du patrimoine culturel.</p><p><strong>Mots-clés:</strong> Éducation au Patrimoine. Ville Éducatrice. Patrimoine Culturel.</p>
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Rao, PS, AK Rahul, and S. Agarwal. "Effect of non-Newtonian lubrication of squeeze film conical bearing with the porous wall operating with Rabinowitsch fluid model." Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part J: Journal of Engineering Tribology 232, no. 10 (2018): 1293–303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350650117749735.

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In this article, a theoretical study is made to explore the effect of squeezing film in conical bearing for the permeable porous wall utilizing non-Newtonian lubricants. The Permeable medium impacts are characterized by modified Darcy’s law. The modified Reynolds equation representing the non-Newtonian properties following the cubic stress law condition is determined. After general contemplations on the flow in a bearing clearance and in a porous wall, the Cameron approximation is used to acquire modified Reynolds equation. The perturbation technique is used to solve the modified Reynolds equation and closed-form expressions are obtained for the fluid film pressure, load capacity, and response time. The results are illustrated by the graphical representation which shows that the introduction of porous on conical bearing with Rabinowitsch fluid, dilatant lubricant increases the film pressure, load capacity, and response time and decrease for pseudoplastic lubricant as compared to Newtonian fluid.
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9

Cypess, Rebecca, and Steven Kemper. "The Anthropomorphic Analogy: Humanising musical machines in the early modern and contemporary eras." Organised Sound 23, no. 2 (2018): 167–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1355771818000043.

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Since the late twentieth century, the development of cybernetics, physical computing and robotics has led artists and researchers to create musical systems that explore the relationship between human bodies and mechanical systems. Anthropomorphic musical robots and bodily integrated ‘cyborg’ sensor interfaces explore complementary manifestations of what we call the ‘anthropomorphic analogy’, which probes the boundary between human artificer and artificial machine, encouraging listeners and viewers to humanise non-musical machines and understand the human body itself as a mechanical instrument.These new approaches to the anthropomorphic analogy benefit from historical contextualisation. At numerous points in the history of Western art music, philosophers, critics, composers, performers and instrument designers have considered the relationship between human musician and musical instrument, often blurring the line between the two. Consideration of historical examples enriches understandings of anthropomorphism in contemporary music technology.This article juxtaposes the anthropomorphic analogy in contemporary musical culture with manifestations of anthropomorphism in early seventeenth-century Europe. The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed a flourishing of instrumentality of all sorts. Musical instruments were linked with the telescope, the clock, the barometer, the paintbrush, and many other instruments and machines, and these came to be understood as vehicles for the creation of knowledge. This flourishing of instrumental culture created new opportunities for contemplation and aesthetic wonder, as theorists considered the line between human being and machine – between nature and artifice. Manifestations of the anthropomorphic analogy in seventeenth-century conceptions of musical instruments help to contextualise and explain similar articulations of the anthropomorphic analogy in the present day.
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10

Lamb, Rebekah. "Michael O’Brien’s Theological Aesthetics." Religions 12, no. 6 (2021): 451. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12060451.

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This essay introduces and examines aspects of the theological aesthetics of contemporary Canadian artist, Michael D. O’Brien (1948–). It also considers how his philosophy of the arts informs understandings of the Catholic imagination. In so doing, it focuses on his view that prayer is the primary source of imaginative expression, allowing the artist to operate from a position of humble receptivity to the transcendent. O’Brien studies is a nascent field, owing much of its development in recent years to the pioneering work of Clemens Cavallin. Apart from Cavallin, few scholars have focused on O’Brien’s extensive collection of paintings (principally because the first catalogue of his art was only published in 2019). Instead, they have worked on his prodigious output of novels and essays. In prioritising O’Brien’s paintings, this study will assess the relationship between his theological reflections on the Catholic imagination and art practice. By focusing on the interface between theory and practice in O’Brien’s art, this article shows that conversations about the philosophy of the Catholic imagination benefit from attending to the inner standing points of contemporary artists who see in the arts a place where faith and praxis meet. In certain instances, I will include images of O’Brien’s devotional art to further illustrate his contemplative, Christ-centred approach to aesthetics. Overall, this study offers new directions in O’Brien studies and scholarship on the philosophy of the Catholic imagination.
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Kumar, Sachin, Kumari Sarita, Akanksha Singh S. Vardhan, Rajvikram Madurai Elavarasan, R. K. Saket, and Narottam Das. "Reliability Assessment of Wind-Solar PV Integrated Distribution System Using Electrical Loss Minimization Technique." Energies 13, no. 21 (2020): 5631. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en13215631.

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This article presents the Reliability Assessment (RA) of renewable energy interfaced Electrical Distribution System (EDS) considering the electrical loss minimization (ELM). ELM aims at minimizing the detrimental effect of real power and reactive power losses in the EDS. Some techniques, including integration of Renewable Energy Source (RES), network reconfiguration, and expansion planning, have been suggested in the literature for achieving ELM. The optimal RES integration (also referred to as Distributed Generation (DG)) is one of the globally accepted techniques to achieve minimization of electrical losses. Therefore, first, the locations to accommodate these DGs are obtained by implementing two indexes, namely Index-1 for single DG and Index-2 for multiple DGs. Second, a Constriction Factor-based Particle Swarm Optimization (CF-PSO) technique is applied to obtain an optimal sizing(s) of the DGs for achieving the ELM. Third, the RA of the EDS is performed using the optimal location(s) and sizing(s) of the RESs (i.e., Solar photovoltaic (SPV) and Wind Turbine Generator (WTG)). Moreover, a Battery Storage System (BSS) is also incorporated optimally with the RESs to further achieve the ELM and to improve the system’s reliability. The result analysis is performed by considering the power output rating of WTG-GE’s V162-5.6MW (IECS), SPV-Sunpower’s SPR-P5-545-UPP, and BSS-Freqcon’s BESS-3000 (i.e., Battery Energy Storage System 3000), which are provided by the corresponding manufacturers. According to the outcomes of the study, the results are found to be coherent with those obtained using other techniques that are available in the literature. These results are considered for the RA of the EDS. RA is further analyzed considering the uncertainties in reliability data of WTG and SPV, including the failure rate and the repair time. The RA of optimally placed DGs is performed by considering the electrical loss minimization. It is inferred that the reliability of the EDS improves by contemplating suitable reliability data of optimally integrated DGs.
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Morey, Richard C., and David A. Dittman. "An Aid in Selecting the Brand, Size and Other Strategic Choices for a Hotel." Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 21, no. 1 (1997): 71–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/109634809702100107.

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The “go/no-go” decision for a candidate property, i.e., whether or not to actually acquire the site, choose the brand (flag), build and operate the hotel, requires the explicit consideration of the interconnectedness of the many myriad elements affecting the property's potential profits. The many facility design decisions (number and mix of rooms, capacity for F&B operations etc.) as well as other strategic choices (e.g., size of marketing program, level of service aimed for) must recognize the site's competitive features and interactions with the above. Also, the particular design and operational features for a given property will affect its different revenue streams, fixed and variable costs, efficiency and profits. The authors consider developers contemplating acquiring a given site, choosing a brand, building and operating a new hotel. They offer a normative approach for this type of decision which arrives endogenously at possibly attractive options for the brand, design and strategic choices for the site. The final decision as to which option to actually use, if any, should be based on subjecting the above identified scenarios, as well as others, to traditional feasibility analyses where judgment and expert opinion are applied. The authors' implementable approach integrates a “best practices” benchmarking methodology with regression analysis to yield a mathematical programming optimization model. A key advantage of this approach lies in its contrast to conventional approaches for site selection which often ignore the more detailed design and strategic choices. The approach deals explicitly with the complex interfaces between marketing and operations management as the endogenous site and competitive environmental factors interact with the endogenous brand and facility design choices. By identifying attractive options to be further explored (that might otherwise be overlooked), several types of errors are avoided: i) an incorrect “go/no go” decision could be recommended for the site in question; ii) even if the right decision to proceed is made, the forecasted level of annualized profits could be in error, leading to an incorrect priority for the activity; iii) the incorrect brand and facility design choices could be made for the site. Other key advantages of the suggested approach are that 1) various substitution possibilities (between more or less capital, labor, materials etc.) are considered; 2) not only is the best brand and configuration identified, but also a ranking of other brands is available if the “best” brand is not available; 3) the “best practices” at other specific sites (which serve as the basis for the recommendations) are identified, thereby enabling management (possibly through site visits) to isolate the actual cultures, processes and procedures to be transported and emulated at the candidate site. This paper illustrates the approach for two different sites.
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KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 163, no. 1 (2008): 134–220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134379-90003683.

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Michele Stephen; Desire, divine and demonic; Balinese mysticism in the paintings of I Ketut Budiana and I Gusti Nyoman Mirdiana (Andrea Acri) John Lynch (ed.); Issues in Austronesian historical phonology (Alexander Adelaar) Alfred W. McCoy; The politics of heroin; CIA complicity in the global drug trade (Greg Bankoff) Anthony Reid; An Indonesian frontier; Acehnese and other histories of Sumatra (Timothy P. Barnard) John G. Butcher; The closing of the frontier; A history of the maritime fisheries of Southeast Asia c. 1850-2000 (Peter Boomgaard) Francis Loh Kok Wah, Joakim Öjendal (eds); Southeast Asian responses to globalization; Restructuring governance and deepening democracy (Alexander Claver) I Wayan Arka; Balinese morpho-syntax: a lexical-functional approach (Adrian Clynes) Zaharani Ahmad; The phonology-morphology interface in Malay; An optimality theoretic account (Abigail C. Cohn) Michael C. Ewing; Grammar and inference in conversation; Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese (Aone van Engelenhoven) Helen Creese; Women of the kakawin world; Marriage and sexuality in the Indic courts of Java and Bali (Amrit Gomperts) Ming Govaars; Dutch colonial education; The Chinese experience in Indonesia, 1900-1942 (Kees Groeneboer) Ernst van Veen, Leonard Blussé (eds); Rivalry and conflict; European traders and Asian trading networks in the 16th and 17th centuries (Hans Hägerdal) Holger Jebens; Pathways to heaven; Contesting mainline and fundamentalist Christianity in Papua New Guinea (Menno Hekker) Ota Atsushi; Changes of regime and social dynamics in West Java; Society, state and the outer world of Banten, 1750-1830 (Mason C. Hoadley) Richard McMillan; The British occupation of Indonesia 1945-1946; Britain, the Netherlands and the Indonesian Revolution (Russell Jones) H.Th. Bussemaker; Bersiap! Opstand in het paradijs; De Bersiapperiode op Java en Sumatra 1945-1946 (Russell Jones) Michael Heppell; Limbang anak Melaka and Enyan anak Usen, Iban art; Sexual selection and severed heads: weaving, sculpture, tattooing and other arts of the Iban of Borneo (Viktor T. King) John Roosa; Pretext for mass murder; The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s coup d’état in Indonesia (Gerry van Klinken) Vladimir Braginsky; The heritage of traditional Malay literature; A historical survey of genres, writings and literary views (Dick van der Meij) Joel Robbins, Holly Wardlow (eds); The making of global and local modernities in Melanesia; Humiliation, transformation and the nature of cultural change (Toon van Meijl) Kwee Hui Kian; The political economy of Java’s northeast coast c. 1740-1800; Elite synergy (Luc Nagtegaal) Charles A. Coppel (ed.); Violent conflicts in Indonesia; Analysis, representation, resolution (Gerben Nooteboom) Tom Therik; Wehali: the female land; Traditions of a Timorese ritual centre (Dianne van Oosterhout) Patricio N. Abinales, Donna J. Amoroso; State and society in the Philippines (Portia L. Reyes) Han ten Brummelhuis; King of the waters; Homan van der Heide and the origin of modern irrigation in Siam (Jeroen Rikkerink) Hotze Lont; Juggling money; Financial self-help organizations and social security in Yogyakarta (Dirk Steinwand) Henk Maier; We are playing relatives; A survey of Malay writing (Maya Sutedja-Liem) Hjorleifur Jonsson; Mien relations; Mountain people and state control in Thailand (Nicholas Tapp) Lee Hock Guan (ed.); Civil society in Southeast Asia (Bryan S. Turner) Jan Mrázek; Phenomenology of a puppet theatre; Contemplations on the art of Javanese wayang kulit (Sarah Weiss) Janet Steele; Wars within; The story of Tempo, an independent magazine in Soeharto’s Indonesia (Robert Wessing) REVIEW ESSAY Sean Turnell; Burma today Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Robert Taylor, Tin Maung Maung Than (eds); Myanmar; Beyond politics to societal imperatives Monique Skidmore (ed.); Burma at the turn of the 21st century Mya Than; Myanmar in ASEAN In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde no. 163 (2007) no: 1, Leiden
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Kawamoto, Fernando Yoiti Kitamura, Lívia Perles, Levi Oliveira Dos Santos, et al. "Association of Rush Pin and Intramedular Pin Techniques for the Stabilization of Salter Harris Type I Fracture in Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)." Acta Scientiae Veterinariae 46 (June 19, 2018): 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.22456/1679-9216.86894.

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Background: In domestic rabbits, fractures are usually the result of household accidents. Fractures of the distal femoral physis are frequently observed in animals with immature skeletons and may cause future orthopedic problems. With this type of fracture, early reduction and stabilization are necessary to prevent additional damage to the physis and to preserve the growth potential of the bone. This report aims to describe the clinical and radiographic findings, as well as the surgical method used that combined Rush pins with an intramedullary pin, associated with a Salter Harris type I fracture of the right distal femur in a rabbit.Case: A 4-month male domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) weighing 1.2 kg, was referred to the Veterinary Hospital with a right pelvic limb lameness after an episode of trauma. Orthopedic examination revealed swelling, instability, crepitation, and increased pain sensitivity in the distal aspect of the right femur. Following physical and radiographic examination,a Salter Harris type I fracture of the right distal femur was diagnosed. The patient was premedicated with a combination of xylazine (2 mg/kg IM) and ketamine (10 mg/kg IM), which allowed placement of an IV catheter for the administration of fluids and intubation using an endotracheal tube with an internal diameter of 2 mm. Anesthesia was maintained with isoflurane, and an epidural was performed with a combination of lidocaine (2 mg/kg) and bupivacaine (0.75 mg/kg). Osteosynthesis was performed with two Rush pins and an intramedullary pin. Radiographic examination 110 and 330 days after the surgical procedure showed good alignment of the bone and adequate healing of the fracture. The combination of techniques used in this case report proved to be effective, resulting in functional recovery of the limb and rapid bone healing.Discussion: Preoperative planning for orthopedic surgery in rabbits is different from that of dogs and cats, due to the particularities of the species. Familiarity with the regional anatomy, patient preparation, and appropriate instrumentation are necessary when contemplating osteosynthesis in a rabbit. Salter Harris fractures affect young animals, where the physis is considered an area of fragility in the bone. Surgical planning should take into account the function of the growth plates.It is recommended that implants passing through the physis do so perpendicularly, since angulation greater than 45° may predispose the bone to premature closure of the growth plate. Another important consideration involves the choice of implants, since the use of trocar-tipped pins facilitates their precise placement in the bone. The use of threaded pins should be avoided due to their weakness at the thread-shaft interface, and the risk of impaired longitudinal bone growth and thedifficulty of removal if necessary. Steinman pins and Kirschner wires can be used to stabilize a variety of different fractures. In Salter-Harris type I and II fractures, the use of pins neutralizes bending forces but not rotational or compressive forces. In contrast, Rush pinning and cross-pinning techniques are effective in neutralizing the forces acting on the physis, and are frequently used for the fixation of fractures in this region. Complications, often associated with poor reduction and alignment, can result in varus or valgus deviation and are associated with a high risk of implant failure or migration, malunion, and patellar luxation. It was concluded that the combination of Rush pins and an intramedullary pin resulted in adequate stabilization of the Salter Harris type I fracture of the distal femur in this rabbit.Keywords: Orthopedic implants, osteosynthesis, trauma, bone repairing, lagomorph.
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Raillard, Matthieu. "Courting Wisdom: Silence, Solitude and Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Spain." Vanderbilt e-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies 10 (February 15, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.15695/vejlhs.v10i0.4213.

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Friendship as an ideal and a social institution has long been associated with the eighteenth century, and viewed as essential to the betterment of society since it promoted sociability and relationships. This essay explores how the notions of silence and solitude, seemingly antithetical to friendship and sociability, were in fact complimentary activities which interfaced with the idea of amistad. In Spanish authors such as Forner, Moratín, Jovellanos and Meléndez Valdés, silence and solitude were represented as positive, necessary components, alongside friendship, in the acquisition of wisdom. I argue that these works articulate a brand of neo-Pythagoreanism, which romanticizes the archetype of the silent master and the contemplative ideal of the solitary thinker.
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"An Innovative Way by Manipulating Things using the Power of Thought." International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology 8, no. 6S2 (2019): 439–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.35940/ijeat.f1124.0886s219.

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Using the force of thought to control the earth might appear like a thing removed from sci-fi books. Be that as it may, the advancements we see today were once sci-fi beginning from man arriving on the moon to examine in teleportation. Thus controlling the surroundings through musings is likewise one of the apexes of that development called Brain Computer Interface. Utilizing cerebrum waves measured of an EEG to control PC. The contemporary remote control is supplanted by the force of one's idea which couldturn considerations into reality. The application ranges from utilizing contemplations to play diversions to re-wiring of the brain.The numerous unending potential outcomes extrapolated from this innovation could be of Controlling prosthetic appendages, robots, PC and practicing the cerebrum to rewire itself in stroke patients. The thought of this is basic, utilizing the typical EEG estimation that distinguishes the electrical yield of the cerebrum and utilizing them as a data to different gadgets As no persons contemplations are same; this framework gives distinction to the one utilizing it. Deadened patients who can't utilize their appendages and persons experiencing 'secured disorder' whose cerebrum action are all the same can connect utilizing this kind of non intrusive BCI. This paper is a tricky study that considers in the domain of this advancement distinguishing both its advantages and disadvantages as it prompts another time of savvy advances for what's to come. [1],[ 3],[5]
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Silva, Junior Vagner Pereira da. "O Lazer de Interesse Físico/Esportivo no Cotidiano Infantil e sua Interface com a Saúde." LICERE - Revista do Programa de Pós-graduação Interdisciplinar em Estudos do Lazer 15, no. 1 (2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.35699/1981-3171.2012.734.

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A investigação objetivou analisar as atividades de lazer de crianças de 8 a 10 anos de uma escola pública em Campo Grande - MS. Especificamente buscou investigar os tipos de Atividades de Lazer Fisicamente Ativas (ALFA’s) e os tipos de Atividades de Lazer Fisicamente Passivas (ALFP’s); analisar o tempo destinado as ALFA’s e as ALFP’s; discutir as implicações do tipo de atividade de lazer à saúde e investigar o tipo de atividades no lazer de meninos e meninas. O estudo foi do tipo descritivo/exploratório, com 30 crianças entre 8 e 10 anos, de ambos os sexos. Os resultados indicam que as crianças se envolveram por mais tempo com as ALFP’s do que com as ALFA’s, sendo as ALFP’s mais frequentes entre as meninas e as ALFA’s entre os meninos. Conclui-se que a inatividade física (gênero contemplativo) predomina entre as vivências de lazer das crianças avaliadas, sendo observada interferência do gênero (masculino/feminino) sobre as oportunidades e tipos de lazer.
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Buche, Hélène, Aude Michel, Christina Piccoli, and Nathalie Blanc. "Contemplating or Acting? Which Immersive Modes Should Be Favored in Virtual Reality During Physiotherapy for Breast Cancer Rehabilitation." Frontiers in Psychology 12 (April 8, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631186.

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BackgroundEven though virtual reality (VR) is more and more considered for its power of distraction in different medical contexts, the optimal conditions for its use still have to be determined in order to design interfaces adapted to therapeutic support in oncology.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine the benefits of VR using two immersion methods (i.e., one participatory, one contemplative) and comparing them with each other in a population of women with breast cancer who have undergone breast surgery, during scar massage sessions.MethodsIn a physiotherapy center, each patient participated in four experimental conditions in a random order: two sessions used virtual immersion (i.e., one participatory and one contemplative), one session proposed musical listening and the fourth one was a standard session care. The impact of the level of patient involvement in the virtual world was apprehended through the evaluation of the feeling of presence; the estimation of elapsed time of the physiotherapy sessions and particular attention was paid to the evaluation of patient emotional state.ResultsOur study showed an increase in positive emotions (i.e., joy and happiness) and a decrease in anxiety regardless which support methods were offered. Participatory VR created a feeling of more intense spatial presence.ConclusionOur results highlight the importance of the context in which VR should be offered. The presence of the practitioner and his interactions with the patient can provide a context just as favorable in reducing anxiety as the emotional regulation tools used (VR, music). The use of technological tools should be favored when the practitioner is unavailable during the treatment phase or, even, in order to reduce the monotonous nature of repetitive therapeutic sessions.
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Muñoz-Mata, José Lorenzo, Juan Carlos Rojas-Garnica, Severino Muñoz-Aguirre, and Juan Pedro Cervantes-De La Rosa. "Diseño e implementación de un sistema de medición de respuesta de sensores de gas." Revista de Aplicaciones de la Ingeniería, September 30, 2019, 26–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.35429/jea.2019.20.6.26.34.

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Gas sensors are widely used in devices known as electronic Noses. Which are used for the detection of gas leaks, environmental quality and food, etc. However, it is necessary to perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of these sensors based on the measurement of their response to obtain their characterization. In the present work is shown the design and implementation of a measurement system for gas sensors response. Therefore, a sealed stainless-steel chamber that internally contains the sensors is designed. On the other hand, a temperature controller is implemented using a PID controller governed by an interface developed using virtual instrumentation software. Particularly, this system has the ability to measure the response of gas sensors, such as: metal-oxide and quartz crystal microbalance. The development of this project, presents an alternative to measure the response of sensors to commercial, contemplating a lower cost and same functionality. Measurements were performed at different temperatures, applying samples of ethanol, obtaining typical results in the response of this type of gas sensors. Therefore, it can be said that the system operates satisfactorily.
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Kallis, Rhiannon. "Creating a Future Relationship or Destroying My Self-Esteem: An Exploratory Study on Dating App Experiences and Well-Being." Journal of Communication Technology 4, no. 1 (2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.51548/joctec-2021-005.

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Location-based dating apps such as Tinder are rising in popularity as more adults seek online outlets to garner romantic partnership. Engagement on such apps can lead to an increase or decrease in self-esteem, which this study explored. Thirty-one participants explained how creating their profile, swiping, matching, and messaging connected with their well-being. Results reveal female users have an overall more positive experience than males, who noted more examples of unrequited communication on Tinder. Gay males in particular shared stories of insecurities while viewing others’ photographs and contemplating communicating with others. The practical implications provide suggestions for Tinder to continue to alter its interface: 1) consider implementing measures to ensure accurate photographs are connected to users; 2) create a swiping experience that does not allow users to rapidly swipe right on all profiles, and 3) explore options with subdivisions of Tinder, such as Big and Tall or Curvy. Continual evaluation of user experiences on Tinder is necessary to monitor users’ mental and emotional well-being.
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Gomes, José Cleudo, and Maria de Nazaré Tavares Zenaide. "A trajetória do movimento social pelo reconhecimento da cidadania LGBT." #Tear: Revista de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia 8, no. 1 (2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.35819/tear.v8.n1.a3402.

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Resumo: Este trabalho retoma um dos temas tratados em pesquisa de mestrado, que buscou analisar as ações implementadas pelo então Programa Brasil sem Homofobia do Governo Federal, a partir da sua transversalidade com as políticas públicas e das interfaces com o movimento de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (LGBT) em nível local. Dessa maneira, o objetivo deste artigo é refletir a noção de cidadania, a partir da história do movimento social LGBT, recorrendo aos seguintes referenciais teóricos: Marshall (1976); Dagnino (1994); Benevides (1996); Cortina (2005); Gohn (1997). Trata-se, portanto, de uma pesquisa bibliográfica, na qual foi realizada uma revisão de literatura de cunho exploratório e com abordagem qualitativa, em que evidenciamos a trajetória do Movimento LGBT, em nível internacional, nacional e local, enfatizando o seu surgimento e a sua luta pelo reconhecimento da cidadania de LGBT, a partir de obras científicas e escritos da própria militância, tais como Green (2003); Facchini (2005); MacRae (2011); Reis (2012); Vieira, L. (2015). Como resultados, apontamos as conquistas do movimento LGBT no contexto democrático a partir das dimensões política, civil, econômica e social como parte da trajetória e reconhecimento da luta social e cidadania LGBT.Palavras-chave: Movimento Social. Cidadania. História do Movimento LGBT. THE TRAJECTORY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR THE RECOGNITION OF LGBT CITIZENSHIPAbstract: This paper summarizes one of the themes addressed in a master's research thesis, which sought to analyze the actions implemented by the Brazilian Program without Homophobia of the Federal Government, from its transversality with public policies and interfaces with the movement for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Transgender (LGBT) at A local level. In this way, the objective of this article is to reflect the notion of citizenship, starting from the history of the LGBT social movement, using the following theoretical references: Marshall (1976); Dagnino (1994); Benevides (1996); Cortina (2005); Gohn (1997). It is, therefore, a bibliographical research, in which an exploratory literature review was carried out based on a qualitative approach, where we highlight the trajectory of the LGBT Movement, contemplating international, national and local levels, emphasizing its emergence and its struggle for the recognition of the citizenship of LGBT, from scientific works and writings of their own militancy, such as Green (2003); Facchini (2005); MacRae (2011); Reis (2012); Vieira, L. (2015). As a result, we point out the achievements of the LGBT movement in the democratic context from the political, civil, economic and social dimensions as part of the trajectory and recognition of the social struggle and LGBT citizenship.Keywords: Social movement. Citizenship. History of the LGBT Movement.
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"Network Sensor for Brain Wave with Automated Robot Assistance." International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering 8, no. 2S3 (2019): 1378–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.35940/ijrte.b1257.0782s319.

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Human thoughts consists of of a massive variety of interconnected neurons. The examples of collaboration among those neurons are spoken to as issues and enthusiastic states. As indicated through way of the human contemplations, this example will change which thusly produce particular electric powered waves. A muscle compression will likewise create a one in every of a kind electrical sign. a variety of these electric powered waves will be detected by way of the cerebrum wave sensor and it'll change over the records into parcels and transmit thru Bluetooth medium.Level analyzer unit (LAU) gets the thoughts wave crude records and it's going to listen and device the signal using MATLAB level that's seemed in data getting ready unit. At that factor the manage directions may be transmitted to the robotic it truly is the assistive robotic. With this whole framework, we are able to drift a robotic as consistent with the imparting instructions to the robot and it very well can be have become by means of squint problems and it has an inclination to be grew to become by flicker muscle constriction. Electroencephalography (EEG) is the estimation of electrical motion inside the residing mind. in this assignment we applied a brainwave sensor to dissect the EEG alerts . This plan speak about making geared up and recording the crude EEG signal from the thoughts Wave sensor within the MATLAB situation and through WIFI transmission control recommendations can be exceeded to the robotic section. thoughts wave sensors are not utilized in clinical use, however are applied inside the thoughts Brain Control Interface (BCI). The BCI is a prompt correspondence pathway among the cerebrum and an outside framework to offer direct correspondence and control between the human personality and substantial gadgets through disentangling various instances of cerebrum movement into guidelines step by step . This endeavor works of art fuses of a Processor utilizing cerebrum wave sensor and arranged unit block prominence unit as device parts and a fruitful musings signal system utilizing Matlab organize. directly, the proprietor wants to test whether the automated move or never again. on the off hazard that he's a now not strolling, by then the automated will obviously start. Be that as it can, at the off risk that he's ordinary mode, by then the vehicle will run and there's no notice. while the vehicle got gleaming request it will prevent at any rate the spot. what's more, if the owner wants to move the car he has a need to come ordinary mode. this can keep a key good ways from the improvement sooner or later of up close and personal. The present day system isn't having any faraway control leisure activity. depend upon others to work and No muscle withdrawal identifying and the proposed structure is having the mind wave examination for the sign which can be taken from the human cerebrum as appeared in the rectangular chart, is having controlling of the mechanical utilizing Human thoughts, Self
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"Robot Assisted Brain Wave Sensor Network in Smart Home Environment For Elderly Persons." International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering 8, no. 6S4 (2019): 1410–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.35940/ijitee.f1286.0486s419.

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Human thoughts consists of of a massive variety of interconnected neurons. The examples of collaboration among those neurons are spoken to as issues and enthusiastic states. As indicated through way of the human contemplations, this example will change which thusly produce particular electric powered waves. A muscle compression will likewise create a one in every of a kind electrical sign. a variety of these electric powered waves will be detected by way of the cerebrum wave sensor and it'll change over the records into parcels and transmit thru Bluetooth medium.Level analyzer unit (LAU) gets the thoughts wave crude records and it's going to listen and device the signal using MATLAB level that's seemed in data getting ready unit. At that factor the manage directions may be transmitted to the robotic it truly is the assistive robotic. With this whole framework, we are able to drift a robotic as consistent with the imparting instructions to the robot and it very well can be have become by means of squint problems and it has an inclination to be grew to become by flicker muscle constriction. Electroencephalography (EEG) is the estimation of electrical motion inside the residing mind. in this assignment we applied a brainwave sensor to dissect the EEG alerts . This plan speak about making geared up and recording the crude EEG signal from the thoughts Wave sensor within the MATLAB situation and through WIFI transmission control recommendations can be exceeded to the robotic section. thoughts wave sensors are not utilized in clinical use, however are applied inside the thoughts Brain Control Interface (BCI). The BCI is a prompt correspondence pathway among the cerebrum and an outside framework to offer direct correspondence and control between the human personality and substantial gadgets through disentangling various instances of cerebrum movement into guidelines step by step . This endeavor works of art fuses of a Processor utilizing cerebrum wave sensor and arranged unit block prominence unit as device parts and a fruitful musings signal system utilizing Matlab organize. directly, the proprietor wants to test whether the automated move or never again. on the off hazard that he's a now not strolling, by then the automated will obviously start. Be that as it can, at the off risk that he's ordinary mode, by then the vehicle will run and there's no notice. while the vehicle got gleaming request it will prevent at any rate the spot. what's more, if the owner wants to move the car he has a need to come ordinary mode. this can keep a key good ways from the improvement sooner or later of up close and personal. The present day system isn't having any faraway control leisure activity. depend upon others to work and No muscle withdrawal identifying and the proposed structure is having the mind wave examination for the sign which can be taken from the human cerebrum as appeared in the rectangular chart, is having controlling of the mechanical utilizing Human thoughts, Self controlled and working office for not to rely on others to work. This endeavor at Matlab, explains that tranquil speakme inside the sentiment of this stage is "discerning effort to express a word, portrayed through unpretentious advancements of inner talk organs without unquestionably voicing it." The way gets markers from the cerebrum to the muscle bunches while the client purposely vocalizes inside. The device later companions such banner with an out of entryways preparing framework. Like talk affirmation structures, it allows the customer to make solicitations to such gadgets, however without reporting anything.
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Kachinsk, Kleber Vinícius Barros, Maria Helena Mattos Barbosa dos Santos, and Eliana Cardoso-Leite. "Oferta de Parques Urbanos e Naturais em Sorocaba (SP): alavanca para políticas de uso público." Revista Brasileira de Ecoturismo (RBEcotur) 11, no. 3 (2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.34024/rbecotur.2018.v11.6683.

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Conservar a natureza e garantir o uso pelas populações é elemento central na construção dos programas de uso público dos parques urbanos e naturais municipais, tendo em vista a relevância que os temas vinculados ao meio ambiente, assumem em nossa sociedade, sobretudo, em interface com valores e práticas imbricadas na estrutura social, econômica e política vigente. No que diz respeito ao desenvolvimento da consciência e de práticas de conservação ambiental, é fundamental considerar as características locais e, ao mesmo tempo, não apenas garantir o acesso a programas de educação não formal e de uso público de espaços coletivos e públicos, mas também fomentar práticas culturais e lazer nestes espaços. Isto porque, inclusive, os espaços públicos e seus usos implicados, considerando os apontamentos de Jacobs (2011), são fundamentais para as cidades mais vivas, seguras, sustentáveis e saudáveis. O presente trabalho aborda os parques em ambiente urbano, buscando analisar a distribuição destas áreas na cidade de Sorocaba e como se dá o uso do espaço público pela população, por meio de práticas recreativas e de lazer. O estudo de caráter exploratório, descritivo, pautado em abordagem quali-quanti, foi realizado por meio da combinação da pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e da pesquisa de campo, balizada por observação sistemática (suportada por protocolo de observação) e realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas, com os usuários dos parques urbanos e parques naturais municipais do município de Sorocaba. Estas pesquisas foram realizadas na área amostral de 8 parques da cidade (4 delimitados - cercados e 4 sem delimitação física - não cercados) e os resultados apontam que há disparidades na oferta de serviços com relação à política de atividades e ao quesito segurança, bem como recorrente demanda por melhorias da infraestrutura e paisagismo ambiental. Os parques de Sorocaba, são utilizados para a prática de esportes, para o descanso, encontro com amigos, passeios com crianças e contemplação da natureza. Entretanto, apesar do elevado número de parques criados e de sua distribuição atender a todas as regiões de Sorocaba, estes resultados suportam ações para uma intervenção mais assertiva das instituições do setor público, no que se refere à devida valorização da importância das atividades de cultura e lazer, inclusive àquelas destinadas ao fomento da preservação e conservação ambiental – via práticas de educação ambiental – em todas as regiões, que forçosamente resultarão em melhorias dos aspectos paisagísticos, da manutenção e conservação e dos resultados, inestimáveis, de maior segurança pública.
 
 Urban and Natural Parks supply in Sorocaba (SP, Brazil): encouragement for public use polices
 
 ABSTRACT
 Conserving nature and guaranteeing its use by the population is a central element in the construction of programs for the public use of urban parks, in view of the relevance that the themes related to the environment assume in our society, above all, interfacing with articulation values and practices in the current social, economic and political structure. Concerning the development of environmental awareness and conservation practices, it is essential to consider local characteristics and, at the same time, not only guarantee access to non-formal education programs and public use of collective and public spaces, but also promote cultural practices and leisure in these spaces. This is because public spaces and their uses, considering the Jacobs (2011) notes, are fundamental for cities that are more alive, safe, sustainable and healthy. he present work deals with the parks in an urban environment, trying to analyze the distribution of these areas in the city of Sorocaba and how the public space is used by the population, through recreational and leisure practices. The exploratory, descriptive study, based on a quali-quanti approach, was carried out through a combination of bibliographic, documentary and field research, using systematic observation (supported by observation protocol) and semi-structured interviews with users of urban parks and natural parks in the municipality of Sorocaba. These surveys were carried out in the sample area of 8 city parks (4 delimited - fenced and 4 without physical delimitation - not fenced) and the results indicate that there are disparities in the service offer in relation to the activities policy and the safety question, as well as environmental and landscape improvements. The parks of Sorocaba, are used for sports, for rest, meeting with friends, walks with children and contemplation of nature. However, despite the high number of parks created and their distributions serving all regions of Sorocaba, these results support actions for a more assertive intervention of public sector institutions, regarding the proper appreciation of the importance of culture and leisure activities , including those aimed at promoting environmental preservation and conservation - via environmental education practices - in all regions, which will inevitably result in improvements in the landscape, maintenance and conservation, and invaluable results of greater public safety.
 
 KEYWORDS: Urban Parks; Public Use; Leisure; Environment; Sorocaba-Brazil.
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Waelder, Pau. "The Constant Murmur of Data." M/C Journal 13, no. 2 (2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.228.

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Our daily environment is surrounded by a paradoxically silent and invisible flow: the coming and going of data through our network cables, routers and wireless devices. This data is not just 1s and 0s, but bits of the conversations, images, sounds, thoughts and other forms of information that result from our interaction with the world around us. If we can speak of a global ambience, it is certainly derived from this constant flow of data. It is an endless murmur that speaks to our machines and gives us a sense of awareness of a certain form of surrounding that is independent from our actual, physical location. The constant “presence” of data around us is something that we have become largely aware of. Already in 1994, Phil Agre stated in an article in WIRED Magazine: “We're so accustomed to data that hardly anyone questions it” (1). Agre indicated that this data is in fact a representation of the world, the discrete bits of information that form the reality we are immersed in. He also proposed that it should be “brought to life” by exploring its relationships with other data and the world itself. A decade later, these relationships had become the core of the new paradigm of the World Wide Web and our interaction with cyberspace. As Mitchell Whitelaw puts it: “The web is increasingly a set of interfaces to datasets ... . On the contemporary web the data pour has become the rule, rather than the exception. The so-called ‘web 2.0’ paradigm further abstracts web content into feeds, real-time flows of XML data” ("Art against Information"). These feeds and flows have been used by artists and researchers in the creation of different forms of dynamic visualisations, in which data is mapped according to a set of parameters in order to summarise it in a single image or structure. Lev Manovich distinguishes in these visualisations those made by artists, to which he refers as “data art”. Unlike other forms of mapping, according to Manovich data art has a precise goal: “The more interesting and at the end maybe more important challenge is how to represent the personal subjective experience of a person living in a data society” (15). Therefore, data artists extract from the bits of information available in cyberspace a dynamic representation of our contemporary environment, the ambience of our digital culture, our shared, intimate and at the same time anonymous, subjectivity. In this article I intend to present some of the ways in which artists have dealt with the murmur of data creatively, exploring the immense amounts of user generated content in forms that interrogate our relationship with the virtual environment and the global community. I will discuss several artistic projects that have shaped the data flow on the Internet in order to take the user back to a state of contemplation, as a listener, an observer, and finally encountering the virtual in a physical form. Listening The concept of ambience particularly evokes an auditory experience related to a given location: in filmmaking, it refers to the sounds of the surrounding space and is the opposite of silence; as a musical genre, ambient music contributes to create a certain atmosphere. In relation to flows of data, it can be said that the applications that analyze Internet traffic and information are “listening” to it, as if someone stands in a public place, overhearing other people's conversations. The act of listening also implies a reception, not an emission, which is a substantial distinction given the fact that data art projects work with given data instead of generating it. As Mitchell Whitelaw states: “Data here is first of all indexical of reality. Yet it is also found, or to put it another way, given. ... Data's creation — in the sense of making a measurement, framing and abstracting something from the flux of the real — is left out” (3). One of the most interesting artistic projects to initially address this sort of “listening” is Carnivore (2001) by the Radical Software Group. Inspired by DCS1000, an e-mail surveillance software developed by the FBI, Carnivore (which was actually the original name of the FBI's program) listens to Internet traffic and serves this data to interfaces (clients) designed by artists, which interpret the provided information in several ways. The data packets can be transformed into an animated graphic, as in amalgamatmosphere (2001) by Joshua Davis, or drive a fleet of radio controlled cars, as in Police State (2003) by Jonah Brucker-Cohen. Yet most of these clients treat data as a more or less abstract value (expressed in numbers) that serves to trigger the reactions in each client. Carnivore clients provide an initial sense of the concept of ambience as reflected in the data circulating the Internet, yet other projects will address this subject more eloquently. Fig. 1: Ben Rubin, Mark Hansen, Listening Post (2001-03). Multimedia installation. Photo: David Allison.Listening Post (2001-04) by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin is an installation consisting of 231 small electronic screens distributed in a semicircular grid [fig.1: Listening Post]. The screens display texts culled from thousands of Internet chat rooms, which are read by a voice synthesiser and arranged synchronically across the grid. The installation thus becomes a sort of large panel, somewhere between a videowall and an altarpiece, which invites the viewer to engage in a meditative contemplation, seduced by the visual arrangement of the flickering texts scrolling on each screen, appearing and disappearing, whilst sedated by the soft, monotonous voice of the machine and an atmospheric musical soundtrack. The viewer is immersed in a particular ambience generated by the fragmented narratives of the anonymous conversations extracted from the Internet. The setting of the piece, isolated in a dark room, invites contemplation and silence, as the viewer concentrates on seeing and listening. The artists clearly state that their goal in creating this installation was to recreate a sense of ambience that is usually absent in electronic communications: “A participant in a chat room has limited sensory access to the collective 'buzz' of that room or of others nearby – the murmur of human contact that we hear naturally in a park, a plaza or a coffee shop is absent from the online experience. The goal of Listening Post is to collect this buzz and render it at a human scale” (Hansen 114-15). The "buzz", as Hansen and Rubin describe it, is in fact nonexistent in the sense that it does not take place in any physical environment, but is rather the imagined output of the circulation of a myriad blocks of data through the Net. This flow of data is translated into audible and visible signals, thus creating a "murmur" that the viewer can relate to her experience in interacting with other humans. The ambience of a room full of people engaged in conversation is artificially recreated and expanded beyond the boundaries of a real space. By extracting chats from the Internet, the murmur becomes global, reflecting the topics that are being shared by users around the world, in an improvised, ever-changing embodiment of the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, or even a certain stream of consciousness on a planetary scale. Fig. 2: Gregory Chatonsky, L'Attente - The Waiting (2007). Net artwork. Photo: Gregory Chatonsky.The idea of contemplation and receptiveness is also present in another artwork that elaborates on the concept of the Zeitgeist. L'Attente [The Waiting] (2007) by Gregory Chatonsky is a net art piece that feeds from the data on the Internet to create an open, never-ending fiction in real time [Fig.2: The Waiting]. In this case, the viewer experiences the artwork on her personal computer, as a sort of film in which words, images and sounds are displayed in a continuous sequence, driven by a slow paced soundtrack that confers a sense of unity to the fragmented nature of the work. The data is extracted in real time from several popular sites (photos from Flickr, posts from Twitter, sound effects from Odeo), the connection between image and text being generated by the network itself: the program extracts text from the posts that users write in Twitter, then selects some words to perform a search on the Flickr database and retrieve photos with matching keywords. The viewer is induced to make sense of this concatenation of visual and audible content and thus creates a story by mentally linking all the elements into what Chatonsky defines as "a fiction without narration" (Chatonsky, Flußgeist). The murmur here becomes a story, but without the guiding voice of a narrator. As with Listening Post, the viewer is placed in the role of a witness or a voyeur, subject to an endless flow of information which is not made of the usual contents distributed by mainstream media, but the personal and intimate statements of her peers, along with the images they have collected and the portraits that identify them in the social networks. In contrast to the overdetermination of History suggested by the term Zeitgeist, Chatonsky proposes a different concept, the spirit of the flow or Flußgeist, which derives not from a single idea expressed by multiple voices but from a "voice" that is generated by listening to all the different voices on the Net (Chatonsky, Zeitgeist). Again, the ambience is conceived as the combination of a myriad of fragments, which requires attentive contemplation. The artist describes this form of interacting with the contents of the piece by making a reference to the character of the angel Damiel in Wim Wenders’s film Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987): “to listen as an angel distant and proximate the inner voice of people, to place the hand on their insensible shoulder, to hold without being able to hold back” (Chatonsky, Flußgeist). The act of listening as described in Wenders's character illustrates several key aspects of the above mentioned artworks: there is, on the one hand, a receptiveness, carried out by the applications that extract data from the Internet, which cannot be “hold back” by the user, unable to control the flow that is evolving in front of her. On the other hand, the information she receives is always fragmentary, made up of disconnected parts which are, in the words of the artist Lisa Jevbratt, “rubbings ... indexical traces of reality” (1). Observing The observation of our environment takes us to consider the concept of landscape. Landscape, in its turn, acquires a double nature when we compare our relationship with the physical environment and the digital realm. In this sense, Mitchell Whitelaw stresses that while data moves at superhuman speed, the real world seems slow and persistent (Landscape). The overlapping of dynamic, fast-paced, virtual information on a physical reality that seems static in comparison is one of the distinctive traits of the following projects, in which the ambience is influenced by realtime data in a visual form that is particularly subtle, or even invisible to the naked eye. Fig. 3: Carlo Zanni, The Fifth Day (2009). Net artwork. Screenshot retrieved on 4/4/2009. Photo: Carlo Zanni. The Fifth Day (2009) by Carlo Zanni is a net art piece in which the artist has created a narration by displaying a sequence of ten pictures showing a taxi ride in the city of Alexandria [Fig.3: The Fifth Day]. Although still, the images are dynamic in the sense that they are transformed according to data retrieved from the Internet describing the political and cultural status of Egypt, along with data extracted from the user's own identity on the Net, such as her IP or city of residence. Every time a user accesses the website where the artwork is hosted, this data is collected and its values are applied to the photos by cloning or modifying particular elements in them. For instance, a photograph of a street will show as many passersby as the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament, while the reflection in the taxi driver's mirror in another photo will be replaced by a picture taken from Al-Jazeera's website. Zanni addresses the viewer's perception of the Middle East by inserting small bits of additional information and also elements from the viewer's location and culture into the images of the Egyptian city. The sequence is rendered as the trailer of a political thriller, enhanced by a dramatic soundtrack and concluded with the artwork's credits. As with the abovementioned projects, the viewer must adopt a passive role, contemplating the images before her and eventually observing the minute modifications inserted by the data retrieved in real time. Yet, in this case, the ambience is not made manifest by a constant buzz to which one must listen, but quite more subtly it is suggested by the fact that not even a still image is always the same. As if observing a landscape, the overall impression is that nothing has changed while there are minor transformations that denote a constant evolution. Zanni has explored this idea in previous works such as eBayLandscape (2004), in which he creates a landscape image by combining data extracted from several websites, or My Temporary Visiting Position from the Sunset Terrace Bar (2007), in which a view of the city of Ahlen (Germany) is combined with a real time webcam image of the sky in Naples (Italy). Although they may seem self-enclosed, these online, data-driven compositions also reflect the global ambience, the Zeitgeist, in different forms. As Carlo Giordano puts it: "Aesthetically, the work aims to a nearly seamless integration of mixed fragments. The contents of these parts, reflecting political and economical issues ... thematize actuality and centrality, amplifying the author's interest in what everybody is talking about, what happens hic et nunc, what is in the fore of the media and social discourse" (16-17). A landscape made of data, such as Zanni's eBayLandscape, is the most eloquent image of how an invisible layer of information is superimposed over our physical environment. Fig. 4: Clara Boj and Diego Díaz, Red Libre, Red Visible (2004-06). Intervention in the urban space. Photo: Lalalab.Artists Clara Boj and Diego Díaz, moreover, have developed a visualisation of the actual flows of data that permeate the spaces we inhabit. In Red Libre, Red Visible [Free Network, Visible Network] (2004-06), Boj and Díaz used Augmented Reality (AR) technology to display the flows of data in a local wireless network by creating AR marker tags that were placed on the street. A Carnivore client developed by the artists enabled anyone with a webcam pointing towards the marker tag and connected to the Wi-Fi network to see in real time the data packets flowing from their computer towards the tag [Fig.4: Red Libre]. The marker tags therefore served both as a tool for the visualisation of network activity as well as a visual sign of the existence of an open network in a particular urban area. Later on, they added the possibility of inserting custom made messages, 3D shapes and images that would appear when a particular AR marker tag was seen through the lens of the webcam. With this project, Boj and Díaz give the user the ability to observe and interact with a layer of her environment that was previously invisible and in some senses, out of reach. The artists developed this idea further in Observatorio [Observatory] (2008), a sightseeing telescope that reveals the existence of Wi-Fi networks in an urban area. In both projects, an important yet unnoticed aspect of our surroundings is brought into focus. As with Carlo Zanni's projects, we are invited to observe what usually escapes our perception. The ambience in our urban environment has also been explored by Julian Oliver, Clara Boj, Diego Díaz and Damian Stewart in The Artvertiser (2009-10), a hand-held augmented reality (AR) device that allows to substitute advertising billboards with custom made images. As Naomi Klein states in her book No Logo, the public spaces in most cities have been dominated by corporate advertising, allowing little or no space for freedom of expression (Klein 399). Oliver's project faces this situation by enabling a form of virtual culture jamming which converts any billboard-crowded plaza into an unparalleled exhibition space. Using AR technology, the artists have developed a system that enables anyone with a camera phone, smartphone or the customised "artvertiser binoculars" to record and substitute any billboard advertisement with a modified image. The user can therefore interact with her environment, first by observing and being aware of the presence of these commercial spaces and later on by inserting her own creations or those of other artists. By establishing a connection to the Internet, the modified billboard can be posted on sites like Flickr or YouTube, generating a constant feedback between the real location and the Net. Gregory Chatonsky's concept of the Flußgeist, which I mentioned earlier, is also present in these works, visually displaying the data on top of a real environment. Again, the user is placed in a passive situation, as a receptor of the information that is displayed in front of her, but in this case the connection with reality is made more evident. Furthermore, the perception of the environment minimises the awareness of the fragmentary nature of the information generated by the flow of data. Embodying In her introduction to the data visualisation section of her book Digital Art, Christiane Paul stresses the fact that data is “intrinsically virtual” and therefore lacking a particular form of manifestation: “Information itself to a large extent seems to have lost its 'body', becoming an abstract 'quality' that can make a fluid transition between different states of materiality” (Paul 174). Although data has no “body”, we can consider, as Paul suggests, any object containing a particular set of information to be a dataspace in its own. In this sense, a tendency in working with the Internet dataflow is to create a connection between the data and a physical object, either as the end result of a process in which the data has been collected and then transferred to a physical form, or providing a means of physically reshaping the object through the variable input of data. The objectification of data thus establishes a link between the virtual and the real, but in the context of an artwork it also implies a particular meaning, as the following examples will show.Fig. 5: Gregory Chatonsky, Le Registre - The Register (2007). Book shelf and books. Photo: Pau Waelder. In Le Registre [The Register] (2007), Gregory Chatonsky developed a software application that gathers sentences related to feelings found on blogs. These sentences are recorded and put together in the form a 500-page book every hour. Every day, the books are gathered in sets of 24 and incorporated to an infinite library. Chatonsky has created a series of bookshelves to collect the books for one day, therefore turning an abstract process into an object and providing a physical embodiment of the murmur of data that I have described earlier [Fig.5: Le Registre]. As with L'Attente, in this work Chatonsky elaborates on the concept of Flußgeist, by “listening” to a specific set of data (in a similar way as in Hansen and Rubin's Listening Post) and bringing it into salience. The end product of this process is not just a meaningless object but actually what makes this work profoundly ironic: printing the books is a futile effort, but also constitutes a borgesque attempt at creating an endless library of something as ephemeral as feelings. In a similar way, but with different intentions, Jens Wunderling brings the online world to the physical world in Default to Public (2009). A series of objects are located in several public spaces in order to display information extracted from users of the Twitter network. Wunderling's installation projects the tweets on a window or prints them in adhesive labels, while informing the users that their messages have been taken for this purpose. The materialisation of information meant for a virtual environment implies a new approach to the concept of ambiance as described previously, and in this case also questions the intimacy of those participating in social networks. As the artist puts it: "In times of rapid change concerning communication behavior, media access and competence, the project Default to Public aims to raise awareness of the possible effects on our lives and our privacy" (Wunderling 155). Fig. 6: Moisés Mañas, Stock (2009). Networked installation. Photo: Moisés Mañas. Finally, in Stock (2009), Moisés Mañas embodies the flow of data from stock markets in an installation consisting of several trench coats hanging from automated coat hangers which oscillate when the stock values of a certain company rise. The resulting movement of the respective trench coat simulates a person laughing. In this work, Mañas translates the abstract flow of data into a clearly understandable gesture, providing at the same time a comment on the dynamics of stock markets [Fig.6: Stock]. Mañas´s project does not therefore simply create a physical output of a specific information (such as the stock value of a company at any given moment), but instead creates a dynamic sculpture which suggests a different perception of an otherwise abstract data. On the one hand, the trenchcoats have a ghostly presence and, as they move with unnatural spams, they remind us of the Freudian concept of the Uncanny (Das Umheimliche) so frequently associated with robots and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the image of a person laughing, in the context of stock markets and the current economical crisis, becomes an ironic symbol of the morality of some stockbrokers. In these projects, the ambience is brought into attention by generating a physical output of a particular set of data that is extracted from certain channels and piped into a system that creates an embodiment of this immaterial flow. Yet, as the example of Mañas's project clearly shows, objects have particular meanings that are incorporated into the artwork's concept and remind us that the visualisation of information in data art is always discretionary, shaped in a particular form in order to convey the artist's intentions. Beyond the Buzz The artworks presented in this article revealt that, beyond the murmur of sentences culled from chats and blogs, the flow of data on the Internet can be used to express our difficult relationship with the vast amount of information that surrounds us. As Mitchell Whitelaw puts it: “Data art reflects a contemporary worldview informed by data excess; ungraspable quantity, wide distribution, mobility, heterogeneity, flux. Orienting ourselves in this domain is a constant challenge; the network exceeds any overview or synopsis” (Information). This excess is compared by Lev Manovich with the Romantic concept of the Sublime, that which goes beyond the limits of human measure and perception, and suggests an interpretation of data art as the Anti-Sublime (Manovich 11). Yet, in the projects that I have presented, rather than making sense of the constant flow of data there is a sort of dialogue, a framing of the information under a particular interpretation. Data is channeled through the artworks's interfaces but remains as a raw material, unprocessed to some extent, retrieved from its original context. These works explore the possibility of presenting us with constantly renewed content that will develop and, if the artwork is preserved, reflect the thoughts and visions of the next generations. A work constantly evolving in the present continuous, yet also depending on the uncertain future of social network companies and the ever-changing nature of the Internet. The flow of data will nevertheless remain unstoppable, our ambience defined by the countless interactions that take place every day between our divided self and the growing number of machines that share information with us. References Agre, Phil. “Living Data.” Wired 2.11 (Nov. 1994). 30 April 2010 ‹http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.11/agre.if.html›. Chatonsky, Gregory. “Flußgeist, une fiction sans narration.” Gregory Chatonsky, Notes et Fragments 13 Feb. 2007. 28 Feb. 2010 ‹http://incident.net/users/gregory/wordpress/13-flusgeist-une-fiction-sans-narration/›. ———. “Le Zeitgeist et l'esprit de 'nôtre' temps.” Gregory Chatonsky, Notes et Fragments 21 Jan. 2007. 28 Feb. 2010 ‹http://incident.net/users/gregory/wordpress/21-le-zeigeist-et-lesprit-de-notre-temps/›. Giordano, Carlo. Carlo Zanni. Vitalogy. A Study of a Contemporary Presence. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2005. Hansen, Mark, and Ben Rubin. “Listening Post.” Cyberarts 2004. International Compendium – Prix Ars Electronica 2004. Ed. Hannes Leopoldseder and Christine Schöpf. Ostfildern: Hate Cantz, 2004. 112-17. ———. “Babble Online: Applying Statistics and Design to Sonify the Internet.” Proceedings of the 2001 International Conference on Auditory Display, Espoo, Finland. 30 April 2010 ‹http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/icad2001/proceedings/papers/hansen.pdf›. Jevbratt, Lisa. “Projects.” A::minima 15 (2003). 30 April 2010 ‹http://aminima.net/wp/?p=93&language=en›. Klein, Naomi. No Logo. [El poder de las marcas]. Barcelona: Paidós, 2007. Manovich, Lev. “Data Visualization as New Abstraction and Anti-Sublime.” Manovich.net Aug. 2002. 30 April 2010 ‹http://www.manovich.net/DOCS/data_art_2.doc›. Paul, Christiane. Digital Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Whitelaw, Mitchell. “Landscape, Slow Data and Self-Revelation.” Kerb 17 (May 2009). 30 April 2010 ‹http://teemingvoid.blogspot.com/2009/05/landscape-slow-data-and-self-revelation.html›. ———. “Art against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice.” Fibreculture 11 (Jan. 2008). 30 April 2010 ‹http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue11/issue11_whitelaw.html›. Wunderling, Jens. "Default to Public." Cyberarts 2009. International Compendium – Prix Ars Electronica 2004. Ed. Hannes Leopoldseder, Christine Schöpf and Gerfried Stocker. Ostfildern: Hate Cantz, 2009. 154-55.
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26

Lovink, Geert. "Fragments on New Media Arts and Science." M/C Journal 6, no. 4 (2003). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2242.

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Of Motivational Art “Live to be outstanding.” What is new media in the age of the ‘rock ‘n’ roll life coach’ Anthony Robbins? There is no need to be ‘spectacular’ anymore. The Situationist critique of the ‘spectacle’ has worn out. That would be my assessment of the Robbins Age we now live in. Audiences are no longer looking for empty entertainment; they need help. Art has to motivate, not question but assist. Today’s aesthetic experience ought to awaken the spiritual side of life. Aesthetics are not there for contemplation only. Art has to become (inter)active and take on the role of ‘coaching.’ In terms of the ‘self mastery’ discourse, the 21st Century artist helps to ‘unleash the power from within.’ No doubt this is going to be achieved with ‘positive energy.’ What is needed is “perverse optimism” (Tibor Kalman). Art has to create, not destroy. A visit to the museum or gallery has to fit into one’s personal development program. Art should consult, not criticize. In order to be a true Experience, the artwork has to initiate through a bodily experience, comparable to the fire walk. It has to be passionate, and should shed its disdain for the viewer, along with its postmodern strategies of irony, reversal and indifference. In short: artists have to take responsibility and stop their silly plays. The performance artist’s perfect day-job: the corporate seminar, ‘trust-building’ and distilling the firm’s ‘core values’ from its ‘human resources’. Self-management ideology builds on the 80s wave of political correctness, liberated from a critical negativism that only questioned existing power structures without giving guidance. As Tony says: “Live with passion!” Emotions have to flow. People want to be fired up and ‘move out of their comfort zone.’ Complex references to intellectual currents within art history are a waste of time. The art experience has to fit in and add to the ‘personal growth’ agenda. Art has to ‘leverage fears’ and promise ‘guaranteed success.’ Part therapist, part consultant, art no longer compensates for a colourless life. Instead it makes the most of valuable resources and is aware of the ‘attention economy’ it operates in. In order to reach such higher plains of awareness it seems unavoidable to admit and celebrate one’s own perverse Existenz. Everyone is a pile of shit and has got dirty hands. Or as Tibor Kalman said: “No one gets to work under ethically pure conditions.” (see Rick Poynor’s <http://www.undesign.org/tiborocity/>). It is at that Zizekian point that art as a counseling practice comes into being. Mapping the Limits of New Media To what extent has the ‘tech wreck’ and following scandals affected our understanding of new media? No doubt there will also be cultural fall-out. Critical new media practices have been slow to respond to both the rise and the fall of dotcommania. The world of IT firms and their volatile valuations on the world’s stock markets seemed light years away from the new media arts galaxy. The speculative hey-day of new media culture was the early-mid 90s, before the rise of the World Wide Web. Theorists and artists jumped eagerly at not-yet-existing and inaccessible technologies such as virtual reality. Cyberspace generated a rich collection of mythologies. Issues of embodiment and identity were fiercely debated. Only five years later, with Internet stocks going through the roof, not much was left of the initial excitement in intellectual and artistic circles. Experimental technoculture missed out on the funny money. Over the last few years there has been a steady stagnation of new media culture, its concepts and its funding. With hundreds of millions of new users flocking onto the Net, the arts could no longer keep up and withdrew to their own little world of festivals, mailing lists and workshops. Whereas new media arts institutions, begging for goodwill, still portray artists as working at the forefront of technological developments, collaborating with state of the art scientists, the reality is a different one. Multi-disciplinary goodwill is at an all time low. At best, the artist’s new media products are ‘demo design’ as described by Peter Lunenfeld in Snap to Grid. Often it does not even reach that level. New media art, as defined by its few institutions, rarely reaches audiences outside of its own subculture. What in positive terms could be described as the heroic fight for the establishment of a self-referential ‘new media arts system’ through a frantic differentiation of works, concepts and traditions, may as well be classified as a dead-end street. The acceptance of new media by leading museums and collectors will simply not happen. Why wait a few decades anyway? The majority of the new media art works on display at ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Linz Ars Electronica Center, ICC in Tokyo or the newly opened Australian Centre for the Moving Image are hopeless in their innocence, being neither critical nor radically utopian in approach. It is for that reason that the new media arts sector, despite its steady growth, is getting increasingly isolated, incapable of addressing the issues of today’s globalized world. It is therefore understandable that the contemporary (visual) arts world is continuing the decades old silent boycott of interactive new media works in galleries, biennales and shows such as Documenta. A critical reassessment of the role of arts and culture within today’s network society seems necessary. Let’s go beyond the ‘tactical’ intentions of the players involved. This is not a blame game. The artist-engineer, tinkering away on alternative human-machine interfaces, social software, or digital aesthetics has effectively been operating in a self-imposed vacuum. Over the last few decades both science and business have successfully ignored the creative community. Even worse, artists have actively been sidelined in the name of ‘usability’. The backlash movement against web design, led by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, is a good example of this trend. Other contributing factors may have been fear of corporate dominance by companies such as AOL/Time Warner and Microsoft. Lawrence Lessig argues that innovation of the Internet itself is in danger. In the meanwhile the younger generation is turning its back from new media arts questions and operates as anti-corporate activists, if at all engaged. Since the crash the Internet has rapidly lost its imaginative attraction. File swapping and cell phones can only temporarily fill the vacuum. It would be foolish to ignore this. New media have lost their magic spell; the once so glamorous gadgets are becoming part of everyday life. This long-term tendency, now in a phase of acceleration, seriously undermines the future claim of new media altogether. Another ‘taboo’ issue in new media is generationalism. With video and expensive interactive installations being the domain of the ‘68 baby boomers, the generation of ‘89 has embraced the free Internet. But the Net turned out to be a trap for them. Whereas real assets, positions and power remains in the hands of the ageing baby boomers, the gamble of its predecessors on the rise of new media did not materialize. After venture capital has melted away, there is still no sustainable revenue system in place for the Internet. The slow working education bureaucracies have not yet grasped the new media malaise. Universities are still in the process of establishing new media departments. But that will come to a halt at some point. The fifty-something tenured chairs and vice-chancellors must feel good about their persistent sabotage. ‘What’s so new about new media anyway? Technology was hype after all, promoted by the criminals of Enron and WorldCom. It’s enough for students to do a bit of email and web surfing, safeguarded within a filtered and controlled intranet…’ It is to counter this cynical reasoning that we urgently need to analyze the ideology of the greedy 90s and its techno-libertarianism. If we don’t disassociate new media quickly from that decade, if we continue with the same rhetoric, the isolation of the new media sector will sooner or later result in its death. Let’s transform the new media buzz into something more interesting altogether – before others do it for us.The Will to Subordinate to Science The dominant wing of Western ‘new media arts’ lacks a sense of superiority, sovereignty, determination and direction. One can witness a tendency towards ‘digital inferiority’ at virtually every cyber-event. Artists, critics and curators have made themselves subservient to technology – and ‘life science’ in particular. This ideological stand has grown out of an ignorance that cannot be explained easily. We’re talking here about a subtle mentality, almost a taboo. The cult practice between ‘domina’ science and its slaves the new media artists is taking place in backrooms of universities and art institutions, warmly supported by genuinely interested corporate bourgeois elements – board members, professors, science writers and journalists – that set the technocultural agenda. Here we’re not talking about some form of ‘techno celebration.’ New media art is not merely a servant to corporate interests. If only it was that simple. The reproach of new media arts ‘celebrating’ technology is a banality, only stated by outsiders; and the interest in life sciences can easily be sold as a (hidden) longing to take part in science’s supra-human ‘triumph of logos,’ but I won’t do that here. Scientists, for their part, are disdainfully looking down at the vaudeville interfaces and well-meant weirdness of biotech art. Not that they will say anything. But the weak smiles on their faces bespeak a cultural gap light years wide. An exquisite non-communication is at hand here. Performance artist Coco Fusco recently wrote a critique of biotech art on the Nettime mailinglist (January 26, 2003). “Biotech artists have claimed that they are redefining art practice and therefore the old rules don't apply to them.” For Fusco bioart’s “heroic stance and imperviousness to criticism sounds a bit hollow and self-serving after a while, especially when the demand for inclusion in mainstream art institutions, art departments in universities, art curricula, art world money and art press is so strong.” From this marginal position, its post-human dreams of transcending the body could better be read as desires to transcend its own marginality, being neither recognized as ‘visual arts’ nor as ‘science.’ Coco Fusco: “I find the attempts by many biotech art endorsers to celebrate their endeavor as if it were just about a scientific or aesthetic pursuit to be disingenuous. Its very rhetoric of transcendence of the human is itself a violent act of erasure, a master discourse that entails the creation of ‘slaves’ as others that must be dominated.” OK, but what if all this remains but a dream, prototypes of human-machine interfaces that, like demo-design, are going nowhere? The isolated social position of the new media arts in this type of criticism is not taken into consideration. Biotech art has to be almighty in order for the Fusco rhetoric to function. Coco Fusco rightly points at artists that “attend meetings with ‘real’ scientists, but in that context they become advisors on how to popularize science, which is hardly what I would call a critical intervention in scientific institutions.” Artists are not ‘better scientists’ and the scientific process is not a better way of making art than any other, Fusco writes. She concludes: “Losing respect for human life is certainly the underbelly of any militaristic adventure, and lies at the root of the racist and classist ideas that have justified the violent use of science for centuries. I don't think there is any reason to believe that suddenly, that kind of science will disappear because some artists find beauty in biotech.” It remains an open question where radical criticism of (life) science has gone and why the new media (arts) canon is still in such a primitive, regressive stage. Links http://www.undesign.org/tiborocity/ Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Lovink, Geert. "Fragments on New Media Arts and Science" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/10-fragments.php>. APA Style Lovink, G. (2003, Aug 26). Fragments on New Media Arts and Science. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/10-fragments.php>
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27

Tacchi, Jo, and Lawrence English. "Jam." M/C Journal 9, no. 6 (2006). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2676.

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 ‘Jam’ enjoys a varied set of associations. It’s a responsive term that reflects shifts in technologies of all sorts – from the kitchen to the web and just about everything in between. Over the past century, associations of jam, jamming and being jammed have collided with and guided popular culture in innumerable ways. An example being Mel Brooks’ humorous problematisation of the word via his ‘jamming’ skit in Spaceballs, where the use of a particular flavour of jam (hurled in a giant space jam jar shatter on the radar of Dark Helmet’s flagship) signified a particular enemy of the empire – Lonestar. In this issue the papers present us with considerations of jam and of jamming that explore some of the more familiar uses of the terms with some of the more surprising. Firstly, and as one might have expected, we have papers looking at musical improvisation using digital technologies; at mash-ups and bootlegging of ‘old’ content to create ‘new’; at live coding as a cultural practice to create digital content involving the remixing of cultural ideas and materials; and, at the potential of software to create environments for ‘networked jamming’. Less expected, and more literally, two papers take as their point of departure the ‘jam factory’. On the one hand we learn that a repurposed jam factory presents us with an historically important Australian cinema complex aimed at providing an entertainment experience with a focus on stimulating all five senses, while on the other hand we learn that the mass production of jam in such spaces made the practice of making jam at home more of a cultural and resistance activity than a practical one. We go on to think about a French feminist making jam – well – using jamming as a term to disrupt the theoretical machinery of a patriarchal academy, before returning to new technologies, in this case weblogs, and their role in jamming or disrupting linear histories. Finally, theory-jamming is proposed as an antidote to the downward spiral of communication theory into an ontological black hole. According to David Toop, who kicks off this issue with an invited feature article, “jamming is associated predominantly with a known form, the participants play in order to exercise their skill, even to the point of competitiveness, but also for the pleasure of interaction without the need for perfection”. UK based writer, sound artist and curator Toop questions the notions of what contemporary improvisation may share with the ideas traditionally associated with ‘Jam’ in the musical setting. How does technology shape the interactions of concurrent layers of sound in space? Does the flexibility of the interface bring with it inherent qualities and furthermore how might those be resolved as a means of creating meaningful interaction? Possibly no longer does the idea of jamming rely on the interaction of multiple players in one space, as was traditionally the case with musicians, DJs, cultural appropriators or VJs. Increasingly performance possibilities online and via other virtual spaces mean that the gesture and visual languages of ‘Jam’ are being rethought, reshaped and in many cases removed as a means of inviting new possibility to the interactions of jammers. This removal of certain stimulus potentially heightens other states of awareness in these Jam spaces. “Mash-ups” are put forward by Em McAvan as a form of jamming that is about producing new works from old. This draws upong the idea of jamming as the remixing or reuse of content and its presentation in a new form. Sometimes called bootlegs (not to be confused with illegal copying), mash-ups ‘mash’ together already released songs, often bringing together unusual or unlikely musical collaborations. McAvan problematises the idea that mash-up is a wholly anti capitalist activity, pointing to the mash-up artists who have “made the leap from bootlegger to major-label sanctioned artist”. Andrew R. Brown’s piece on the potentials of ‘live coding’ as an improvisatory jam environment suggests new ways in which the computer can be utilised in the creation of realtime creative content. Acknowledging the two main uses of the term ‘jamming’ as digital manipulation and reuse of materials (by musicians and other performers) and improvisation, especially in collaborative situations, Brown draws our attention to live coding which he argues is a “practice that gets to the heart of both these meanings… where digital content (music and/or visuals predominantly) is created through computer programming as a performance”. In live coding it is the code that is the medium of expression, and it is the processes involved in the creation of musical output that are of interest. Next up, and touching again on the use of software in musical jamming, is Steve Dillon’s piece on the software Jam2Jam in which the application allows for controlled but varied interactions between a variety of users in both actual and virtual spaces. The paper describes the research and processes involved in the creation of the software, initially based on research into the musical tastes of a group of 8-14 year old children in the US. Through analysis of the styles identified by the children, numerical values and algorithms were created that form the structure for the software. The software is used to allow for and study ‘networked jamming’. Moving away from music and new technologies, to a more literal understanding of the term ‘jam’, in Leanne Downing’s paper we learn that an old Jam Factory building has been repurposed to present a cinema complex that appeals to vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Within the complex the overpriced confectionary counter, colloquial known as ‘Lollywood’ somehow fittingly makes the link between current and past use of the space. Downing presents us with a compelling account of the creation and manipulation of a ‘cinema anchored’ destination that jams together a variety of leisure and entertainment experiences, in which the sugar based lineage of the ‘Jam Factory’ is preserved (sic). Before the mass production of jam in jam factories, the ‘putting up’ of seasonal fruit – as jam making used to be called – was a practical activity aimed at the preservation and storage of valuable foodstuffs. While contemplating the romantic notions she holds of jam making, Lynn Houston shows how the practice has changed over the years to form various resistance practices, such as, at times and by some, resisting consumption of distrusted factory-produced jam. Houston presents jam making in the home as a means of thwarting capitalism, and a cultural practice whose ultimate pleasure lies perhaps in the community building, gift giving practice of offering friends and neighbours a pot of homemade jam. And just as Houston likes to imagine herself a baker and jam maker as symbol of her preference of domestic identity, Alison Bartlett imagines the jamming of machinery in quite literal form, jam on the machinery of the printing press, clogging it and making it ineffective – the domestic overcoming the industrial. As a doctoral student in the early 1990s Bartlett found the writing of French philosopher Luce Irigaray appealing. Irigaray had described a female writing or écriture féminine as disruptive, akin to female sexuality itself. In an interview in the mid 1970s Irigaray had said that women’s discourse needed consideration outside of the hermeneutic grids that were ‘excessively univocal’, she claimed that a ‘jamming of the theoretical machinery’ and its pretence to truth was needed. ‘Jamming’ in this paper then is used as a means of overcoming established and partial truths – jamming the machinery. This brings us nicely out of a literal discussion of jam as a sticky sweet substance, to ideas around jamming as disruption. Weblogs (blogs) are presented by Yasmin Ibrahim as ‘disrupting the linearity that the history of a nation proposes’. Just as Bartlett writes about female writing as a style different to the dominant, Ibrahim is presenting blogging as a writing style that is both personal and disruptive – in this case of the linearity of dominant discourses, somewhat alike the non linear female writing that Irigaray describes. Ibrahim explores the relationship between individual narrative, personal stories told on blogs, and their disruptive potential in the construction of national identities and histories. In so doing she is examining the potential of blogging to re-cast historicity and renegotiate national identity. Jam is evoked in this paper as the way that personal narratives are ‘jamming’ or flooding electronic spaces with competing narratives, and we move from the previous paper’s focus on French feminist philosopher’s thoughts on locating the self in writing to Russian philosopher Bakhtin’s thoughts on self and authorship. Weblogs, jamming electronic spaces, provide ‘new public spaces of private commentary, public commemoration and global communion’. In the last paper in this issue, Stephen Stockwell draws on German-born philosopher Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin (among others) to propose theory-jamming ‘as an antidote for the confusion and disarray that typifies communication theory’. Stockwell observes a downward spiral with competing and entrenched divisions across a range of paradigms. He suggests a solution may lie in a communication practice and its theoretical underpinnings, that if we look at ‘the jam’, (‘the improvised reorganization of traditional themes into new and striking patterns’) we might confront the downward spiral. There is too much contention and not enough connection between schools that practice communication theories, dating back to Lazarsfeld’s split with Adorno and the Frankfurt School whereby the competing disciplines of mass communication studies and cultural/media studies began, and according to Stockwell marks the foundation of the ‘ontological black hole in communication theory’. Drawing on the practice of the musical jam, Stockwell draws us back nicely to Toop’s observations on the necessity of understanding the importance of taking part in a jam session sensitively, and by carefully listening. For Stockwell theory-jamming provides a means to think new thoughts. In this issue then, a variety of flavours of ‘Jam’, incorporating the literal and figurative are explored, deconstructed, boiled and bottled. We consider not just the food stuff jam, or the creative or resistant act of jamming, but rather the writers in this issue ask where Jam is headed, and in some cases is ‘Jam’ still ‘Jam’ or a new sticky substance that glues together our proverbial pieces of cultural bread or prevents the machinery from moving. Our writers ask can the mannerisms of particular musicians, cultural plunderers and other creatives uniformly become recognised through their approaches to ‘Jam’. They propose that while the shapeless form of ‘Jam’ suggests a particular aesthetic sensibility both in terms of the eatable object and the form of interaction at a creative level – perhaps it is possible to envisage unfamiliar ‘jars’ in which the concepts of ‘Jam’ might be formed and shaped? 
 
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 Tacchi, Jo, and Lawrence English. "Jam." M/C Journal 9.6 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/00-editorial.php>. APA Style
 Tacchi, J., and L. English. (Dec. 2006) "Jam," M/C Journal, 9(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/00-editorial.php>. 
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28

Chau, Christina. "Remediating Destroyed Human Bodies: Contemporaneity and Habits of Online Visual Culture." M/C Journal 20, no. 5 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1308.

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IntroductionThomas Hirschhorn’s video artwork Touching Reality has received much critical acclaim since it was first exhibited in 2012. First shown at the Palais de Tokyo in 2012, the artwork has since exhibited at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane (2013), and a recording of the piece installed can be currently found on Vimeo. The floor to ceiling video installation presents a woman’s hand scrolling through images on a touchscreen, which contains violent scenes of war where corpses that have been maimed, blown apart, destroyed, and mangled by war. Hirschhorn has explained that Touching Reality is a response to mainstream tabloid media presented in newspapers and magazines (1), and consequently Rex Butler has criticised the work for being “strangely out of date” (quoted in Johnston 9). However, the artwork resonates strongly with habits of online culture. Specifically, the remediation of images from the internet in this artwork presents, as I argue, a regard for contemporaneity that renders temporal and spatial providence of media texts as ambiguous. A key effect of this artwork then functions to historicise and monumentalise a particular approach to contemporaneity in digital culture today. RemediationThe term “remediation”, argued by Bolter and Grusin as a key “defining characteristic of the new digital media” (“Remediation”, 339), was consciously and popularly used during the late 1990s and early 2000s. While remediation for Bolter and Grusin was used as a fluid term that covers a myriad of practices including repurposing, remixing, and mashing. A core underlying feature of remediation involves taking content and expressing it through another medium, which has continued to be a key aspect of online digital culture. Despite the connection between remediation and early web 2.0, the practices of remediation have become embedded in contemporary logic of digital culture, particularly through the recent production of memes taken from news media that provide political commentary and parody.It is important to remember that remediation is not something new or unique to digital culture, but rather it is a practice and approach to creating and distributing digital media that had flourished since the domestication of the internet in Western culture. Western cultural memory is familiar with remediation in other contexts such as Andy Warhol’s Car Crash Series and Serial Disasters where Warhol took images from newspapers of fatal car crashes and re-presented the images as screen prints in repetitious compositions on the canvas. Warhol’s series performed a conscious interaction between media formats, mass media, popular culture, and art, and mimicked the mechanical reproduction of mass media through the production of artworks from his Factory. In effect, Warhol emphasised the ongoing unsatiated desire for disaster in tabloid media, and diminishing gap between the everyday and high art in modern society.Remediation also has temporal implications between the past and present. Bolter and Grusin highlight that remediation can be reformative because it often involves “repurposing earlier media into digital forms” (“Remediation”, 350). However, contemporary digital culture is less concerned with the remediation of older content expressed through digital media platforms. Instead the remediation of contemporary digital content is commonly expressed through another online format or platform. The emphasis here becomes less about the differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, and instead focused on the repurposing of texts known to an exclusive online community, or wider public online discourses. In these contexts meaning is transformed when texts are remediated onto other online platforms. For example, the regular cycle of President Trump’s speeches and footage from public ceremonies are often remediated into parodies. Aside from being an effective method for expressing public commentary online, remediation also creates a temporal shrinking between the original and remediated text. No matter how old or recent the original text is, remediation propels it into the public eye and contemporary viral culture. The distinction between old and new is less important than what is known, or remembered by present communities in any given time. Art curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has echoed a similar sentiment when being asked about the current approach to history in the contemporary globalised society. According to Christov-Bakargiev, “everything that exists in the world is of my time, whether it is an old 1950s Bakelite telephone, or an artwork made two years ago or today” (33). Christov-Bakargiev is interested in thinking of the present that contains images the past within it (Chau 26). For example, material and immaterial images of the past such as one’s memory, mediated documentations, or even fetishes of vintage products exist in the present and are therefore contemporary. Remediation acts as a reminder of this expansion of the contemporary to be more than just what is happening now, but recalling, refashioning and reinterpreting what has happened before. Remediation then is an indicator for expressions of contemporaneity: one that recalls and reinterprets texts from the past to the point that it is neither here nor there if the texts drawn from are from the latest news cycle, or archival footage from decades ago. ContemporaneityThis flattening of temporal distinctions is similar to how Terry Smith has described our sense of “contemporaneity”. For Smith, as with Christov-Bakargiev, to be contemporary is to persist with multiple perceptions of time playing out simultaneously. As Smith describes, the present: is characterised more by the insistent presentness of multiple, often incompatible temporalities accompanied by the failure of all candidates that seek to provide the overriding temporal framework – be it modern, historical, spiritual, evolutionary, geological, scientific, globalizing, planetary...Everything about time these days – and therefore about place, subjectivity, and sociality – is at once intensely here, is slipping, or has become artifactual. (What Is Contemporary Art? 196)Such a dizzying perspective of the present is amplified in digital culture where information is produced and consumed so rapidly. If we were to follow Smith’s approach to the present day, what then does this look like, or how might this contemporaneity be expressed visually in digital culture and art? More importantly, how might this regard for contemporaneity be memorialised and historicised in the future? Touching Reality is useful for unravelling these questions in order to understand how the remediation of news, documentary, and online media. The artwork itself is not only an artefact of contemporary society but also indicates how contemporary digital culture expresses its contemporaneity, which will be historicised in the future. Touching Reality by Thomas HirschhornWhile the still images shown in the video are undoubtedly horrific, what is perhaps more disturbing about this artwork is the way in which the viewer in the video is unaffected by these images: The woman’s hand leisurely swipes through the images with ambivalence and little attention. There are times when the woman viewing the images zooms in to inspect areas such as a body part, the face of an onlooker, or an accessory of carnage but rarely on the focal point of an image and without enough time for contemplation to arise before swiping to the next image. The gesture of each ‘view’ by the woman is casual and unaffected, much like scrolling through social media feeds or news media headlines. The woman’s hand is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, its incorporation is crucial for creating a meta-frame for viewing the artwork. As viewers, we are watching a video of another viewer scrolling through photographs. Hirschhorn’s incorporation of the woman’s hand steers our focus away from the images themselves and towards her viewing of the images with political ambivalence and apathy. Additionally, by framing the hand viewing the photographs, the process of remediation is highlighted to signify the collective unconscious building in contemporary visual culture. The images that appear on the touchscreen are not images that were originally taken by Hirschhorn himself, but were allegedly sources from a variety of sites on the internet. Similarly to Warhol’s series mentioned earlier, Touching Reality is a remediation of images found online, which are re-presented in a video to be experienced in the physical setting of the white cube. The providence of these images is unknown to us but give the appearance of being taken to document and give witness to extreme situations of violence. This aspect of the process of remediation produces a significant amount of ambiguity around how one should read, absorb, contextualise and understand these images. We are not aware of who took them, why, or how, and yet they’ve been thrust into the viewer’s field of perception. If for Roland Barthes in his “Shock-Photo” essay, “the literal photograph introduces us to the scandal of horror, not to the horror itself” (73), Touching Reality articulates how war imagery is consumed and distributed online with technological ease and with little affect. The contemporary scandal of horror is then the disconnection from the reality of war that mediation provides. Such a visual economy persuades viewers to forget that such images represent the destruction of human lives as valuable as our own. What alarms Hirschhorn is how images of destroyed human bodies have been rendered redundant by the spectacle of media. In “Why Is It Important—Today—To Show and Look at Images of Destroyed Human Bodies?” Hirschhorn explains that his work is “not about images—it’s about human bodies, about the human, of which the image is only a testimony.” Hirschhorn continues:I want to take it as something important, and I want to see this redundancy as a form. We do not want to accept the redundancy of such images because we don’t want to accept the redundancy of cruelty toward the human being. This is why it is important to look at images of destroyed human bodies in their very redundancy. The incorporation of the woman’s hand monumentalises the redundancy of shocking images of corpses in war, to which their cultural weight bears as much significance as the next image. As Hirschhorn reminds us, the images contain human bodies – and he does so because being so unaffected means that we need reminding. When viewing Touching Reality in the context of online visual culture, and viewing the work online, the work implicates us, the viewers, by mimicking the contemporary habits of online slacktivism and apathy by framing our gaze to be synonymous, or performed by the woman scanning through the image. We are positioned to let her scan, magnify, scroll and be apathetic for us. Suffice to say that there is ample conversation around the affects that documentary photographs produce: Feelings of shock, removal, and distance have been widely discussed by seminal figures Judith Butler, Susan Sontag. Hirschhorn’s use of remediation in Touching Reality further contributes to the mechanisms of removal, not only because there is an ambiguity around where the images came from, but also through the use of meta-framing where we are watching her view the images. As viewers of the artwork we are removed from the scenes that take place from the interface of the video, the touchscreen, and the camera. What is produced is a commentary, not on documentary, or framing, however, but of the contemporary gestures that signify ambivalence through the woman’s caress and scroll of the touchscreen.Feelings of removal are common to discussions around the documentation of violence. As Strauss identifies in Between the Eyes, “there has always been something about ‘real pictures’ of real violence that undercuts their political effect, and separates them from experience” (81). Documenting an experience will always create a shortfall between the representation and the real. Following Barthes, Strauss stresses that signifying violence only confirms that viewers have not had to experience that violence themselves, “because, as we look at them, we are in each case dispossessed of our judgment: someone has shuddered for us, reflected for us, judged for us; the photographer has left us nothing – except a single right of intellectual acquiescence” (81). Consequently for Strauss, “such images do not compel us to action, but to acceptance” (81). According to Strauss, violent images lack a shocking affect because “the action has already been taken” and consequently “we are not implicated.” However, in Touching Reality, our reaction to shocking images online is implicated by the woman’s behaviour in the video. There is an amplification of this shortfall because we are made to view a video of a woman scrolling through images of war, and we are also compelled to a similar kind of acceptance. Consequently for some, Touching Reality leaves viewers feeling cold rather than shocked. As Ryan Johnston commented, “I was bothered by not being bothered by it” (7). (Similarly, my undergraduate students studying Contemporary Art never wonder why these images are taken and are easily accessible in the first place. Instead they question their very boredom and own political ambivalence without being propelled into emotion.) Perhaps part of this reaction is due to the fact that the work requires us to move beyond the question “can we look at these images,” and come to the realisation that we already do and that they have become a part of the digital visual vernacular. Much more could be noted about the affects produced by Hirschhorn through Touching Reality in regards to images of war, documentation, violence and the abject that relates specifically to digital culture. However, when focusing on how digital culture historicises our contemporaneity online, remediation produces ambiguity and ambivalence around time, place, locality, and context, and images fall into and are perpetuated within the continuous here and now online present. Despite Hirschhorn’s intention of creating an artwork that critiques mass media outlets such as tabloid newspapers and magazines, Touching Reality also acutely presents a relationship to digital media texts that is common to contemporary culture; one that might historicise the nature and characteristic of contemporaneity today. The use of remediation by Hirschhorn in Touching Reality historicises digital culture and characterises it by a spatial and temporal shrinking that produces ambivalence around the providence of media texts, such as documentary photographs. As I have identified, Touching Reality performs a contemporaneity similar to the approaches of Terry Smith and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. The collapsing of temporal distinctions show ‘everything that exists in the world is of my time’ to the point that there is an indiscernibility around where and when the images in Touching Reality occurred. My approach to remediation through Touching Reality is a departure from Bolter and Grusin who have argued that remediation reforms and reignites older texts and media formats. While Bolter and Grusin’s approach might be the case in some situations, remediation also has the ability to produce other affects such as ambivalence for the providence and context of singular texts such as images of war. In Touching Reality, there isn’t a nuanced reception of the images performed by the view in the video. For us, the images are decontextualised, repetitious, and there is an ambiguity about the specificity of the time and place in which they were taken. They are seen but not registered and indicate a larger historical present that is perpetuated in online culture. Some might cautiously note, Touching Reality can be regarded as an artwork intended to produce affects in the viewers and even be manipulative in intent. The work is undoubtedly disturbing, not only because of what is depicted in the images, but because Hirschhorn uses them to amplify and intensify contemporary online habits around the aestheticisation of disaster. As Colman has observed, via Deleuze, the online mediation of war means, “we are called, perhaps more than ever, into the site of the intolerable” (156). If the ongoing experience with screen that “suspends the intolerable, rendering it an ordinary experience of daily life” (Deleuze, 168-9), then Touching Reality indicates that the site of intolerability is destroyed bodies from war. The artwork resonates much more strongly with an online visual culture that is thrust in front of media containing unspeakable violence to the point that it becomes a part of the habitual daily narrative. The woman’s hand leisurely swiping across these images is indicative that the mediation of intolerable war imagery is what Colman terms as having ‘passed into the vernacular of essential conditions of living’ (156).ConclusionWhile much could be written about how Touching Reality taps into the history of documenting war, affect, and the aestheticisiation of disaster, the artwork is also useful for unpacking current approaches to contemporaneity, and how online digital culture might be historicised in the future. If according to Christov-Bakargiev everything that we remember is of our time, then there is a collapse in temporal distinctions, and spatial contexts through the practice of remediation online. Images of bodies of war are easily accessible, shared and distributed immediately and are easily consumed. In a post-Baudrillard world, we Google “gross images of dead people” and find images of atrocity mingled in with images of makeup tutorials of zombies, and stills from The Walking Dead, and hence origin and context might be traceable, but temporal and spatial nuances are folded into the temporal present, and are indicative of our expressions of contemporaneity today. ReferencesBarthes, Roland. “Shock-Photo.” The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies. Trans. R. Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. "Remediation." Configurations 4.3 (1996): 311-358. Chau, Christina. Movement, Time, Technology, and Art. Singapore: Springer, 2017.Colman, Felicity. “Affective Imagery: Screen Militarism.” Gilles Deleuze: Image and Text. Eds. Eugene Holland, Daniel W. Smith, and Charles Stivale. London: Continuum, 2009. 143-159.Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. London: Continuum, 2005.Hirschhorn, Thomas. “Why Is It Important—Today—to Show and Look at Images of Destroyed Human Bodies?” Thomas Hirschhorn: Touching Reality. Institute of Modern Art. 2013. <http://www.ima.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/thomas_hirschhorn_touching_reality.pdf>.Johnston, Ryan. “Thomas Hirschhorn’s ‘Touching Reality.’” Photofile 94 (2014): 5-12.Patchouli, Anouli, “Touching Reality, Thomas Hirschhorn.” Vimeo, 2013. <https://vimeo.com/55482318>.Smith, Terry. “Introduction: The Contemporaneity Question.” Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity and Contemporaneity. Eds. Terry Smith, Okwui Enwezor, and Nancy Condee. Durnham: Duke University Press, 2008. Smith, Terry. What Is Contemporary Art?. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
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29

Wasser, Frederick. "Media Is Driving Work." M/C Journal 4, no. 5 (2001). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1935.

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My thesis is that new media, starting with analog broadcast and going through digital convergence, blur the line between work time and free time. The technology that we are adopting has transformed free time into potential and actual labour time. At the dawn of the modern age, work shifted from tasked time to measured time. Previously, tasked time intermingled work and leisure according to the vagaries of nature. All this was banished when industrial capitalism instituted the work clock (Mumford 12-8). But now, many have noticed how post-industrial capitalism features a new intermingling captured in such expressions as "24/7" and "multi-tasking." Yet, we are only beginning to understand that media are driving a return to the pre-modern where the hour and the space are both ambiguous, available for either work or leisure. This may be the unfortunate side effect of the much vaunted "interactivity." Do you remember the old American TV show Dobie Gillis (1959-63) which featured the character Maynard G. Krebs? He always shuddered at the mention of the four-letter word "work." Now, American television shows makes it a point that everyone works (even if just barely). Seinfeld was a bold exception in featuring the work-free Kramer; a deliberate homage to the 1940s team of Abbott and Costello. Today, as welfare is turned into workfare, The New York Times scolds even the idle rich to adopt the work ethic (Yazigi). The Forms of Broadcast and Digital Media Are Driving the Merger of Work and Leisure More than the Content It is not just the content of television and other media that is undermining the leisured life; it is the social structure within which we use the media. Broadcast advertisements were the first mode/media combinations that began to recolonise free time for the new consumer economy. There had been a previous buildup in the volume and the ubiquity of advertising particularly in billboards and print. However, the attention of the reader to the printed commercial message could not be controlled and measured. Radio was the first to appropriate and measure its audience's time for the purposes of advertising. Nineteenth century media had promoted a middle class lifestyle based on spending money on home to create a refuge from work. Twentieth century broadcasting was now planting commercial messages within that refuge in the sacred moments of repose. Subsequent to broadcast, home video and cable facilitated flexible work by offering entertainment on a 24 hour basis. Finally, the computer, which juxtaposes image/sound/text within a single machine, offers the user the same proto-interactive blend of entertainment and commercial messages that broadcasting pioneered. It also fulfills the earlier promise of interactive TV by allowing us to work and to shop, in all parts of the day and night. We need to theorise this movement. The theory of media as work needs an institutional perspective. Therefore, I begin with Dallas Smythe's blindspot argument, which gave scholarly gravitas to the structural relationship of work and media (263-299). Horkheimer and Adorno had already noticed that capitalism was extending work into free time (137). Dallas Smythe went on to dissect the precise means by which late capitalism was extending work. Smythe restates the Marxist definition of capitalist labour as that human activity which creates exchange value. Then he considered the advertising industry, which currently approaches200 billion in the USA and realised that a great deal of exchange value has been created. The audience is one element of the labour that creates this exchange value. The appropriation of people's time creates advertising value. The time we spend listening to commercials on radio or viewing them on TV can be measured and is the unit of production for the value of advertising. Our viewing time ipso facto has been changed into work time. We may not experience it subjectively as work time although pundits such as Marie Winn and Jerry Mander suggest that TV viewing contributes to the same physical stresses as actual work. Nonetheless, Smythe sees commercial broadcasting as expanding the realm of capitalism into time that was otherwise set aside for private uses. Smythe's essay created a certain degree of excitement among political economists of media. Sut Jhally used Smythe to explain aspects of US broadcast history such as the innovations of William Paley in creating the CBS network (Jhally 70-9). In 1927, as Paley contemplated winning market share from his rival NBC, he realised that selling audience time was far more profitable than selling programs. Therefore, he paid affiliated stations to air his network's programs while NBC was still charging them for the privilege. It was more lucrative to Paley to turn around and sell the stations' guaranteed time to advertisers, than to collect direct payments for supplying programs. NBC switched to his business model within a year. Smythe/Jhally's model explains the superiority of Paley's model and is a historical proof of Smythe's thesis. Nonetheless, many economists and media theorists have responded with a "so what?" to Smythe's thesis that watching TV as work. Everyone knows that the basis of network television is the sale of "eyeballs" to the advertisers. However, Smythe's thesis remains suggestive. Perhaps he arrived at it after working at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from 1943 to 1948 (Smythe 2). He was part of a team that made one last futile attempt to force radio to embrace public interest programming. This effort failed because the tide of consumerism was too strong. Radio and television were the leading edge of recapturing the home for work, setting the stage for the Internet and a postmodern replication of the cottage industries of pre and proto-industrial worlds. The consequences have been immense. The Depression and the crisis of over-production Cultural studies recognises that social values have shifted from production to consumption (Lash and Urry). The shift has a crystallising moment in the Great Depression of 1929 through 1940. One proposal at the time was to reduce individual work hours in order to create more jobs (see Hunnicut). This proposal of "share the work" was not adopted. From the point of view of the producer, sharing the work would make little difference to productivity. However, from the retailer's perspective each individual worker would accumulate less money to buy products. Overall sales would stagnate or decline. Prominent American economists at the time argued that sharing the work would mean sharing the unemployment. They warned the US government this was a fundamental threat to an economy based on consumption. Only a fully employed laborer could have enough money to buy down the national inventory. In 1932, N. A. Weston told the American Economic Association that: " ...[the labourers'] function in society as a consumer is of equal importance as the part he plays as a producer." (Weston 11). If the defeat of the share the work movement is the negative manifestation of consumerism, then the invasion by broadcast of our leisure time is its positive materialisation. We can trace this understanding by looking at Herbert Hoover. When he was the Secretary of Commerce in 1924 he warned station executives that: "I have never believed that it was possible to advertise through broadcasting without ruining the [radio] industry" (Radio's Big Issue). He had not recognised that broadcast advertising would be qualitatively more powerful for the economy than print advertising. By 1929, Hoover, now President Hoover, approved an economics committee recommendation in the traumatic year of 1929 that leisure time be made "consumable " (Committee on Recent Economic Changes xvi). His administration supported the growth of commercial radio because broadcasting was a new efficient answer to the economists' question of how to motivate consumption. Not so coincidentally network radio became a profitable industry during the great Depression. The economic power that pre-war radio hinted at flourished in the proliferation of post-war television. Advertisers switched their dollars from magazines to TV, causing the demise of such general interest magazines as Life, The Saturday Evening Postet al. Western Europe quickly followed the American broadcasting model. Great Britain was the first, allowing television to advertise the consumer revolution in 1955. Japan and many others started to permit advertising on television. During the era of television, the nature of work changed from manufacturing to servicing (Preston 148-9). Two working parents also became the norm as a greater percentage of the population took salaried employment, mostly women (International Labour Office). Many of the service jobs are to monitor the new global division of labour that allows industrialised nations to consume while emerging nations produce. (Chapter seven of Preston is the most current discussion of the shift of jobs within information economies and between industrialised and emerging nations.) Flexible Time/ Flexible Media Film and television has responded by depicting these shifts. The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted in September of 1970 (see http://www.transparencynow.com/mary.htm). In this show nurturing and emotional attachments were centered in the work place, not in an actual biological family. It started a trend that continues to this day. However, media representations of the changing nature of work are merely symptomatic of the relationship between media and work. Broadcast advertising has a more causal relationship. As people worked more to buy more, they found that they wanted time-saving media. It is in this time period that the Internet started (1968), that the video cassette recorder was introduced (1975) and that the cable industry grew. Each of these ultimately enhanced the flexibility of work time. The VCR allowed time shifting programs. This is the media answer to the work concept of flexible time. The tired worker can now see her/his favourite TV show according to his/her own flex schedule (Wasser 2001). Cable programming, with its repeats and staggered starting times, also accommodates the new 24/7 work day. These machines, offering greater choice of programming and scheduling, are the first prototypes of interactivity. The Internet goes further in expanding flexible time by adding actual shopping to the vicarious enjoyment of consumerist products on television. The Internet user continues to perform the labour of watching advertising and, in addition, now has the opportunity to do actual work tasks at any time of the day or night. The computer enters the home as an all-purpose machine. Its purchase is motivated by several simultaneous factors. The rhetoric often stresses the recreational and work aspects of the computer in the same breath (Reed 173, Friedrich 16-7). Games drove the early computer programmers to find more "user-friendly" interfaces in order to entice young consumers. Entertainment continues to be the main driving force behind visual and audio improvements. This has been true ever since the introduction of the Apple II, Radio Shack's TRS 80 and Atari 400 personal computers in the 1977-1978 time frame (see http://www.atari-history.com/computers/8bits/400.html). The current ubiquity of colour monitors, and the standard package of speakers with PC computers are strong indications that entertainment and leisure pursuits continue to drive the marketing of computers. However, once the computer is in place in the study or bedroom, its uses fully integrates the user with world of work in both the sense of consuming and creating value. This is a specific instance of what Philip Graham calls the analytical convergence of production, consumption and circulation in hypercapitalism. The streaming video and audio not only captures the action of the game, they lend sensual appeal to the banner advertising and the power point downloads from work. In one regard, the advent of Internet advertising is a regression to the pre-broadcast era. The passive web site ad runs the same risk of being ignored as does print advertising. The measure of a successful web ad is interactivity that most often necessitates a click through on the part of the viewer. Ads often show up on separate windows that necessitate a click from the viewer if only to close down the program. In the words of Bolter and Grusin, click-through advertising is a hypermediation of television. In other words, it makes apparent the transparent relationship television forged between work and leisure. We do not sit passively through Internet advertising, we click to either eliminate them or to go on and buy the advertised products. Just as broadcasting facilitated consumable leisure, new media combines consumable leisure with flexible portable work. The new media landscape has had consequences, although the price of consumable leisure took awhile to become visible. The average work week declined from 1945 to 1982. After that point in the US, it has been edging up, continuously (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics). There is some question whether the computer has improved productivity (Kim), there is little question that the computer is colonising leisure time for multi-tasking. In a population that goes online from home almost twice as much as those who go online from work, almost half use their online time for work based activities other than email. Undoubtedly, email activity would account for even more work time (Horrigan). On the other side of the blur between work and leisure, the Pew Institute estimates that fifty percent use work Internet time for personal pleasure ("Wired Workers"). Media theory has to reengage the problem that Horkheimer/Adorno/Smythe raised. The contemporary problem of leisure is not so much the lack of leisure, but its fractured, non-contemplative, unfulfilling nature. A media critique will demonstrate the contribution of the TV and the Internet to this erosion of free time. References Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. Committee on Recent Economic Changes. Recent Economic Changes. Vol. 1. New York: no publisher listed, 1929. Friedrich, Otto. "The Computer Moves In." Time 3 Jan. 1983: 14-24. Graham, Philip. Hypercapitalism: A Political Economy of Informational Idealism. In press for New Media and Society2.2 (2000). Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1944/1987. Horrigan, John B. "New Internet Users: What They Do Online, What They Don't and Implications for the 'Net's Future." Pew Internet and American Life Project. 25 Sep. 2000. 24 Oct. 2001 <http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=22>. Hunnicutt, Benjamin Kline. Work without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1988. International Labour Office. Economically Active Populations: Estimates and Projections 1950-2025. Geneva: ILO, 1995. Jhally, Sut. The Codes of Advertising. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. Kim, Jane. "Computers and the Digital Economy." Digital Economy 1999. 8 June 1999. October 24, 2001 <http://www.digitaleconomy.gov/powerpoint/triplett/index.htm>. Lash, Scott, and John Urry. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage Publications, 1994. Mander, Jerry. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York: Morrow Press, 1978. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934. Preston, Paschal. Reshaping Communication: Technology, Information and Social Change. London: Sage, 2001. "Radio's Big Issue Who Is to Pay the Artist?" The New York Times 18 May 1924: Section 8, 3. Reed, Lori. "Domesticating the Personal Computer." Critical Studies in Media Communication17 (2000): 159-85. Smythe, Dallas. Counterclockwise: Perspectives on Communication. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unpublished Data from the Current Population Survey. 2001. Wasser, Frederick A. Veni, Vidi, Video: The Hollywood Empire and the VCR. Austin, TX: U of Texas P, 2001. Weston, N.A., T.N. Carver, J.P. Frey, E.H. Johnson, T.R. Snavely and F.D. Tyson. "Shorter Working Time and Unemployment." American Economic Review Supplement 22.1 (March 1932): 8-15. <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28193203%2922%3C8%3ASWTAU%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3>. Winn, Marie. The Plug-in Drug. New York: Viking Press, 1977. "Wired Workers: Who They Are, What They're Doing Online." Pew Internet Life Report 3 Sep. 2000. 24 Oct. 2000 <http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=20>. Yazigi, Monique P. "Shocking Visits to the Real World." The New York Times 21 Feb. 1990. Page unknown. Links http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=20 http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=22 http://www.atari-history.com/computers/8bits/400.html http://www.transparencynow.com/mary.htm http://www.digitaleconomy.gov/powerpoint/triplett/index.htm http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28193203%2922%3C8%3ASWTAU%3 E2.0.CO%3B2-3 Citation reference for this article MLA Style Wasser, Frederick. "Media Is Driving Work" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4.5 (2001). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Wasser.xml >. Chicago Style Wasser, Frederick, "Media Is Driving Work" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4, no. 5 (2001), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Wasser.xml > ([your date of access]). APA Style Wasser, Frederick. (2001) Media Is Driving Work. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Wasser.xml > ([your date of access]).
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30

Flynn, Bernadette. "Towards an Aesthetics of Navigation." M/C Journal 3, no. 5 (2000). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1875.

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Introduction Explorations of the multimedia game format within cultural studies have been broadly approached from two perspectives: one -- the impact of technologies on user interaction particularly with regard to social implications, and the other -- human computer interactions within the framework of cybercultures. Another approach to understanding or speaking about games within cultural studies is to focus on the game experience as cultural practice -- as an activity or an event. In this article I wish to initiate an exploration of the aesthetics of player space as a distinctive element of the gameplay experience. In doing so I propose that an understanding of aesthetic spatial issues as an element of player interactivity and engagement is important for understanding the cultural practice of adventure gameplay. In approaching these questions, I am focussing on the single-player exploration adventure game in particular Myst and The Crystal Key. In describing these games as adventures I am drawing on Chris Crawford's The Art of Computer Game Design, which although a little dated, focusses on game design as a distinct activity. He brings together a theoretical approach with extensive experience as a game designer himself (Excalibur, Legionnaire, Gossip). Whilst at Atari he also worked with Brenda Laurel, a key theorist in the area of computer design and dramatic structure. Adventure games such as Myst and The Crystal Key might form a sub-genre in Chris Crawford's taxonomy of computer game design. Although they use the main conventions of the adventure game -- essentially a puzzle to be solved with characters within a story context -- the main focus and source of pleasure for the player is exploration, particularly the exploration of worlds or cosmologies. The main gameplay of both games is to travel through worlds solving clues, picking up objects, and interacting with other characters. In Myst the player has to solve the riddle of the world they have entered -- as the CD-ROM insert states "Now you're here, wherever here is, with no option but to explore." The goal, as the player must work out, is to release the father Atrus from prison by bringing magic pages of a book to different locations in the worlds. Hints are offered by broken-up, disrupted video clips shown throughout the game. In The Crystal Key, the player as test pilot has to save a civilisation by finding clues, picking up objects, mending ships and defeating an opponent. The questions foregrounded by a focus on the aesthetics of navigation are: What types of representational context are being set up? What choices have designers made about representational context? How are the players positioned within these spaces? What are the implications for the player's sense of orientation and navigation? Architectural Fabrication For the ancient Greeks, painting was divided into two categories: magalography (the painting of great things) and rhyparography (the painting of small things). Magalography covered mythological and historical scenes, which emphasised architectural settings, the human figure and grand landscapes. Rhyparography referred to still lifes and objects. In adventure games, particularly those that attempt to construct a cosmology such as Myst and The Crystal Key, magalography and rhyparography collide in a mix of architectural monumentality and obsessive detailing of objects. For the ancient Greeks, painting was divided into two categories: magalography (the painting of great things) and rhyparography (the painting of small things). Magalography covered mythological and historical scenes, which emphasised architectural settings, the human figure and grand landscapes. Rhyparography referred to still lifes and objects. In adventure games, particularly those that attempt to construct a cosmology such as Myst and The Crystal Key, magalography and rhyparography collide in a mix of architectural monumentality and obsessive detailing of objects. The creation of a digital architecture in adventure games mimics the Pompeii wall paintings with their interplay of extruded and painted features. In visualising the space of a cosmology, the environment starts to be coded like the urban or built environment with underlying geometry and textured surface or dressing. In The Making of Myst (packaged with the CD-ROM) Chuck Carter, the artist on Myst, outlines the process of creating Myst Island through painting the terrain in grey scale then extruding the features and adding textural render -- a methodology that lends itself to a hybrid of architectural and painted geometry. Examples of external architecture and of internal room design can be viewed online. In the spatial organisation of the murals of Pompeii and later Rome, orthogonals converged towards several vertical axes showing multiple points of view simultaneously. During the high Renaissance, notions of perspective developed into a more formal system known as the construzione legittima or legitimate construction. This assumed a singular position of the on-looker standing in the same place as that occupied by the artist when the painting was constructed. In Myst there is an exaggeration of the underlying structuring technique of the construzione legittima with its emphasis on geometry and mathematics. The player looks down at a slight angle onto the screen from a fixed vantage point and is signified as being within the cosmological expanse, either in off-screen space or as the cursor. Within the cosmology, the island as built environment appears as though viewed through an enlarging lens, creating the precision and coldness of a Piero della Francesca painting. Myst mixes flat and three-dimensional forms of imagery on the same screen -- the flat, sketchy portrayal of the trees of Myst Island exists side-by-side with the monumental architectural buildings and landscape design structures created in Macromodel. This image shows the flat, almost expressionistic trees of Myst Island juxtaposed with a fountain rendered in high detail. This recalls the work of Giotto in the Arena chapel. In Joachim's Dream, objects and buildings have depth, but trees, plants and sky -- the space in-between objects -- is flat. Myst Island conjures up the realm of a magic, realist space with obsolete artefacts, classic architectural styles (the Albert Hall as the domed launch pad, the British Museum as the library, the vernacular cottage in the wood), mechanical wonders, miniature ships, fountains, wells, macabre torture instruments, ziggurat-like towers, symbols and odd numerological codes. Adam Mates describes it as "that beautiful piece of brain-deadening sticky-sweet eye-candy" but more than mere eye-candy or graphic verisimilitude, it is the mix of cultural ingredients and signs that makes Myst an intriguing place to play. The buildings in The Crystal Key, an exploratory adventure game in a similar genre to Myst, celebrate the machine aesthetic and modernism with Buckminster Fuller style geodesic structures, the bombe shape, exposed ducting, glass and steel, interiors with movable room partitions and abstract expressionist decorations. An image of one of these modernist structures is available online. The Crystal Key uses QuickTime VR panoramas to construct the exterior and interior spaces. Different from the sharp detail of Myst's structures, the focus changes from sharp in wide shot to soft focus in close up, with hot-spot objects rendered in trompe l'oeil detail. The Tactility of Objects "The aim of trompe l'oeil -- using the term in its widest sense and applying it to both painting and objects -- is primarily to puzzle and to mystify" (Battersby 19). In the 15th century, Brunelleschi invented a screen with central apparatus in order to obtain exact perspective -- the monocular vision of the camera obscura. During the 17th century, there was a renewed interest in optics by the Dutch artists of the Rembrandt school (inspired by instruments developed for Dutch seafaring ventures), in particular Vermeer, Hoogstraten, de Hooch and Dou. Gerard Dou's painting of a woman chopping onions shows this. These artists were experimenting with interior perspective and trompe l'oeil in order to depict the minutia of the middle-class, domestic interior. Within these luminous interiors, with their receding tiles and domestic furniture, is an elevation of the significance of rhyparography. In the Girl Chopping Onions of 1646 by Gerard Dou the small things are emphasised -- the group of onions, candlestick holder, dead fowl, metal pitcher, and bird cage. Trompe l'oeil as an illusionist strategy is taken up in the worlds of Myst, The Crystal Key and others in the adventure game genre. Traditionally, the fascination of trompe l'oeil rests upon the tension between the actual painting and the scam; the physical structures and the faux painted structures call for the viewer to step closer to wave at a fly or test if the glass had actually broken in the frame. Mirian Milman describes trompe l'oeil painting in the following manner: "the repertory of trompe-l'oeil painting is made up of obsessive elements, it represents a reality immobilised by nails, held in the grip of death, corroded by time, glimpsed through half-open doors or curtains, containing messages that are sometimes unreadable, allusions that are often misunderstood, and a disorder of seemingly familiar and yet remote objects" (105). Her description could be a scene from Myst with in its suggestion of theatricality, rich texture and illusionistic play of riddle or puzzle. In the trompe l'oeil painterly device known as cartellino, niches and recesses in the wall are represented with projecting elements and mock bas-relief. This architectural trickery is simulated in the digital imaging of extruded and painting elements to give depth to an interior or an object. Other techniques common to trompe l'oeil -- doors, shadowy depths and staircases, half opened cupboard, and paintings often with drapes and curtains to suggest a layering of planes -- are used throughout Myst as transition points. In the trompe l'oeil paintings, these transition points were often framed with curtains or drapes that appeared to be from the spectator space -- creating a painting of a painting effect. Myst is rich in this suggestion of worlds within worlds through the framing gesture afforded by windows, doors, picture frames, bookcases and fireplaces. Views from a window -- a distant landscape or a domestic view, a common device for trompe l'oeil -- are used in Myst to represent passageways and transitions onto different levels. Vertical space is critical for extending navigation beyond the horizontal through the terraced landscape -- the tower, antechamber, dungeon, cellars and lifts of the fictional world. Screen shots show the use of the curve, light diffusion and terracing to invite the player. In The Crystal Key vertical space is limited to the extent of the QTVR tilt making navigation more of a horizontal experience. Out-Stilling the Still Dutch and Flemish miniatures of the 17th century give the impression of being viewed from above and through a focussing lens. As Mastai notes: "trompe l'oeil, therefore is not merely a certain kind of still life painting, it should in fact 'out-still' the stillest of still lifes" (156). The intricate detailing of objects rendered in higher resolution than the background elements creates a type of hyper-reality that is used in Myst to emphasise the physicality and actuality of objects. This ultimately enlarges the sense of space between objects and codes them as elements of significance within the gameplay. The obsessive, almost fetishistic, detailed displays of material artefacts recall the curiosity cabinets of Fabritius and Hoogstraten. The mechanical world of Myst replicates the Dutch 17th century fascination with the optical devices of the telescope, the convex mirror and the prism, by coding them as key signifiers/icons in the frame. In his peepshow of 1660, Hoogstraten plays with an enigma and optical illusion of a Dutch domestic interior seen as though through the wrong end of a telescope. Using the anamorphic effect, the image only makes sense from one vantage point -- an effect which has a contemporary counterpart in the digital morphing widely used in adventure games. The use of crumbled or folded paper standing out from the plane surface of the canvas was a recurring motif of the Vanitas trompe l'oeil paintings. The highly detailed representation and organisation of objects in the Vanitas pictures contained the narrative or symbology of a religious or moral tale. (As in this example by Hoogstraten.) In the cosmology of Myst and The Crystal Key, paper contains the narrative of the back-story lovingly represented in scrolls, books and curled paper messages. The entry into Myst is through the pages of an open book, and throughout the game, books occupy a privileged position as holders of stories and secrets that are used to unlock the puzzles of the game. Myst can be read as a Dantesque, labyrinthine journey with its rich tapestry of images, its multi-level historical associations and battle of good and evil. Indeed the developers, brothers Robyn and Rand Miller, had a fertile background to draw on, from a childhood spent travelling to Bible churches with their nondenominational preacher father. The Diorama as System Event The diorama (story in the round) or mechanical exhibit invented by Daguerre in the 19th century created a mini-cosmology with player anticipation, action and narrative. It functioned as a mini-theatre (with the spectator forming the fourth wall), offering a peek into mini-episodes from foreign worlds of experience. The Musée Mechanique in San Francisco has dioramas of the Chinese opium den, party on the captain's boat, French execution scenes and ghostly graveyard episodes amongst its many offerings, including a still showing an upper class dancing party called A Message from the Sea. These function in tandem with other forbidden pleasures of the late 19th century -- public displays of the dead, waxwork museums and kinetescope flip cards with their voyeuristic "What the Butler Saw", and "What the Maid Did on Her Day Off" tropes. Myst, along with The 7th Guest, Doom and Tomb Raider show a similar taste for verisimilitude and the macabre. However, the pre-rendered scenes of Myst and The Crystal Key allow for more diorama like elaborate and embellished details compared to the emphasis on speed in the real-time-rendered graphics of the shoot-'em-ups. In the gameplay of adventure games, animated moments function as rewards or responsive system events: allowing the player to navigate through the seemingly solid wall; enabling curtains to be swung back, passageways to appear, doors to open, bookcases to disappear. These short sequences resemble the techniques used in mechanical dioramas where a coin placed in the slot enables a curtain or doorway to open revealing a miniature narrative or tableau -- the closure of the narrative resulting in the doorway shutting or the curtain being pulled over again. These repeating cycles of contemplation-action-closure offer the player one of the rewards of the puzzle solution. The sense of verisimilitude and immersion in these scenes is underscored by the addition of sound effects (doors slamming, lifts creaking, room atmosphere) and music. Geographic Locomotion Static imagery is the standard backdrop of the navigable space of the cosmology game landscape. Myst used a virtual camera around a virtual set to create a sequence of still camera shots for each point of view. The use of the still image lends itself to a sense of the tableauesque -- the moment frozen in time. These tableauesque moments tend towards the clean and anaesthetic, lacking any evidence of the player's visceral presence or of other human habitation. The player's navigation from one tableau screen to the next takes the form of a 'cyber-leap' or visual jump cut. These jumps -- forward, backwards, up, down, west, east -- follow on from the geographic orientation of the early text-based adventure games. In their graphic form, they reveal a new framing angle or point of view on the scene whilst ignoring the rules of classical continuity editing. Games such as The Crystal Key show the player's movement through space (from one QTVR node to another) by employing a disorientating fast zoom, as though from the perspective of a supercharged wheelchair. Rather than reconciling the player to the state of movement, this technique tends to draw attention to the technologies of the programming apparatus. The Crystal Key sets up a meticulous screen language similar to filmic dramatic conventions then breaks its own conventions by allowing the player to jump out of the crashed spaceship through the still intact window. The landscape in adventure games is always partial, cropped and fragmented. The player has to try and map the geographical relationship of the environment in order to understand where they are and how to proceed (or go back). Examples include selecting the number of marker switches on the island to receive Atrus's message and the orientation of Myst's tower in the library map to obtain key clues. A screenshot shows the arrival point in Myst from the dock. In comprehending the landscape, which has no centre, the player has to create a mental map of the environment by sorting significant connecting elements into chunks of spatial elements similar to a Guy Debord Situationist map. Playing the Flaneur The player in Myst can afford to saunter through the landscape, meandering at a more leisurely pace that would be possible in a competitive shoot-'em-up, behaving as a type of flaneur. The image of the flaneur as described by Baudelaire motions towards fin de siècle decadence, the image of the socially marginal, the dispossessed aristocrat wandering the urban landscape ready for adventure and unusual exploits. This develops into the idea of the artist as observer meandering through city spaces and using the power of memory in evoking what is observed for translation into paintings, writing or poetry. In Myst, the player as flaneur, rather than creating paintings or writing, is scanning the landscape for clues, witnessing objects, possible hints and pick-ups. The numbers in the keypad in the antechamber, the notes from Atrus, the handles on the island marker, the tower in the forest and the miniature ship in the fountain all form part of a mnemomic trompe l'oeil. A screenshot shows the path to the library with one of the island markers and the note from Atrus. In the world of Myst, the player has no avatar presence and wanders around a seemingly unpeopled landscape -- strolling as a tourist venturing into the unknown -- creating and storing a mental map of objects and places. In places these become items for collection -- cultural icons with an emphasised materiality. In The Crystal Key iconography they appear at the bottom of the screen pulsing with relevance when active. A screenshot shows a view to a distant forest with the "pick-ups" at the bottom of the screen. This process of accumulation and synthesis suggests a Surrealist version of Joseph Cornell's strolls around Manhattan -- collecting, shifting and organising objects into significance. In his 1982 taxonomy of game design, Chris Crawford argues that without competition these worlds are not really games at all. That was before the existence of the Myst adventure sub-genre where the pleasures of the flaneur are a particular aspect of the gameplay pleasures outside of the rules of win/loose, combat and dominance. By turning the landscape itself into a pathway of significance signs and symbols, Myst, The Crystal Key and other games in the sub-genre offer different types of pleasures from combat or sport -- the pleasures of the stroll -- the player as observer and cultural explorer. References Battersby, M. Trompe L'Oeil: The Eye Deceived. New York: St. Martin's, 1974. Crawford, C. The Art of Computer Game Design. Original publication 1982, book out of print. 15 Oct. 2000 <http://members.nbci.com/kalid/art/art.php>. Darley Andrew. Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. London: Routledge, 2000. Lunenfeld, P. Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P 1999. Mates, A. Effective Illusory Worlds: A Comparative Analysis of Interfaces in Contemporary Interactive Fiction. 1998. 15 Oct. 2000 <http://www.wwa.com/~mathes/stuff/writings>. Mastai, M. L. d'Orange. Illusion in Art, Trompe L'Oeil: A History of Pictorial Illusion. New York: Abaris, 1975. Miller, Robyn and Rand. "The Making of Myst." Myst. Cyan and Broderbund, 1993. Milman, M. Trompe-L'Oeil: The Illusion of Reality. New York: Skira Rizzoli, 1982. Murray, J. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Wertheim, M. The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Cyberspace from Dante to the Internet. Sydney: Doubleday, 1999. Game References 7th Guest. Trilobyte, Inc., distributed by Virgin Games, 1993. Doom. Id Software, 1992. Excalibur. Chris Crawford, 1982. Myst. Cyan and Broderbund, 1993. Tomb Raider. Core Design and Eidos Interactive, 1996. The Crystal Key. Dreamcatcher Interactive, 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Bernadette Flynn. "Towards an Aesthetics of Navigation -- Spatial Organisation in the Cosmology of the Adventure Game." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/navigation.php>. Chicago style: Bernadette Flynn, "Towards an Aesthetics of Navigation -- Spatial Organisation in the Cosmology of the Adventure Game," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/navigation.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Bernadette Flynn. (2000) Towards an aesthetics of navigation -- spatial organisation in the cosmology of the adventure game. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/navigation.php> ([your date of access]).
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31

Hall, Karen, and Patrick Sutczak. "Boots on the Ground: Site-Based Regionality and Creative Practice in the Tasmanian Midlands." M/C Journal 22, no. 3 (2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1537.

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IntroductionRegional identity is a constant construction, in which landscape, human activity and cultural imaginary build a narrative of place. For the Tasmanian Midlands, the interactions between history, ecology and agriculture both define place and present problems in how to recognise, communicate and balance these interactions. In this sense, regionality is defined not so much as a relation of margin to centre, but as a specific accretion of environmental and cultural histories. According weight to more-than-human perspectives, a region can be seen as a constellation of plant, animal and human interactions and demands, where creative art and design can make space and give voice to the dynamics of exchange between the landscape and its inhabitants. Consideration of three recent art and design projects based in the Midlands reveal the potential for cross-disciplinary research, embedded in both environment and community, to create distinctive and specific forms of connectivity that articulate a regional identify.The Tasmanian Midlands have been identified as a biodiversity hotspot (Australian Government), with a long history of Aboriginal cultural management disrupted by colonial invasion. Recent archaeological work in the Midlands, including the Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project, has focused on the use of convict labour during the nineteenth century in opening up the Midlands for settler agriculture and transport. Now, the Midlands are placed under increasing pressure by changing agricultural practices such as large-scale irrigation. At the same time as this intensification of agricultural activity, significant progress has been made in protecting, preserving and restoring endemic ecologies. This progress has come through non-government conservation organisations, especially Greening Australia and their program Tasmanian Island Ark, and private landowners placing land under conservation covenants. These pressures and conservation activities give rise to research opportunities in the biological sciences, but also pose challenges in communicating the value of conservation and research outcomes to a wider public. The Species Hotel project, beginning in 2016, engaged with the aims of restoration ecology through speculative design while The Marathon Project, a multi-year curatorial art project based on a single property that contains both conservation and commercially farmed zones.This article questions the role of regionality in these three interconnected projects—Kerry Lodge, Species Hotel, and Marathon—sited in the Tasmanian Midlands: the three projects share a concern with the specificities of the region through engagement with specifics sites and their histories and ecologies, while also acknowledging the forces that shape these sites as far more mobile and global in scope. It also considers the interdisciplinary nature of these projects, in the crossover of art and design with ecological, archaeological and agricultural practices of measuring and intervening in the land, where communication and interpretation may be in tension with functionality. These projects suggest ways of working that connect the ecological and the cultural spheres; importantly, they see rural locations as sites of knowledge production; they test the value of small-scale and ephemeral interventions to explore the place of art and design as intervention within colonised landscape.Regions are also defined by overlapping circles of control, interest, and authority. We test the claim that these projects, which operate through cross-disciplinary collaboration and network with a range of stakeholders and community groups, successfully benefit the region in which they are placed. We are particularly interested in the challenges of working across institutions which both claim and enact connections to the region without being centred there. These projects are initiatives resulting from, or in collaboration with, University of Tasmania, an institution that has taken a recent turn towards explicitly identifying as place-based yet the placement of the Midlands as the gap between campuses risks attenuating the institution’s claim to be of this place. Paul Carter, in his discussion of a regional, site-specific collaboration in Alice Springs, flags how processes of creative place-making—operating through mythopoetic and story-based strategies—requires a concrete rather than imagined community that actively engages a plurality of voices on the ground. We identify similar concerns in these art and design projects and argue that iterative and long-term creative projects enable a deeper grappling with the complexities of shared regional place-making. The Midlands is aptly named: as a region, it is defined by its geographical constraints and relationships to urban centres. Heading south from the northern city of Launceston, travellers on the Midland Highway see scores of farming properties networking continuously for around 175 kilometres south to the outskirts of Brighton, the last major township before the Tasmanian capital city of Hobart. The town of Ross straddles latitude 42 degrees south—a line that has historically divided Tasmania into the divisions of North and South. The region is characterised by extensive agricultural usage and small remnant patches of relatively open dry sclerophyll forest and lowland grassland enabled by its lower attitude and relatively flatter terrain. The Midlands sit between the mountainous central highlands of the Great Western Tiers and the Eastern Tiers, a continuous range of dolerite hills lying south of Ben Lomond that slope coastward to the Tasman Sea. This area stretches far beyond the view of the main highway, reaching east in the Deddington and Fingal valleys. Campbell Town is the primary stopping point for travellers, superseding the bypassed towns, which have faced problems with lowering population and resulting loss of facilities.Image 1: Southern Midland Landscape, Ross, Tasmania, 2018. Image Credit: Patrick Sutczak.Predominantly under private ownership, the Tasmanian Midlands are a contested and fractured landscape existing in a state of ecological tension that has occurred with the dominance of western agriculture. For over 200 years, farmers have continually shaped the land and carved it up into small fragments for different agricultural agendas, and this has resulted in significant endemic species decline (Mitchell et al.). The open vegetation was the product of cultural management of land by Tasmanian Aboriginal communities (Gammage), attractive to settlers during their distribution of land grants prior to the 1830s and a focus for settler violence. As documented cartographically in the Centre for 21st Century Humanities’ Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788–1930, the period 1820–1835, and particularly during the Black War, saw the Midlands as central to the violent dispossession of Aboriginal landowners. Clements argues that the culture of violence during this period also reflected the brutalisation that the penal system imposed upon its subjects. The cultivation of agricultural land throughout the Midlands was enabled by the provision of unfree convict labour (Dillon). Many of the properties granted and established during the colonial period have been held in multi-generational family ownership through to the present.Within this patchwork of private ownership, the tension between visibility and privacy of the Midlands pastures and farmlands challenges the capacity for people to understand what role the Midlands plays in the greater Tasmanian ecology. Although half of Tasmania’s land areas are protected as national parks and reserves, the Midlands remains largely unprotected due to private ownership. When measured against Tasmania’s wilderness values and reputation, the dry pasturelands of the Midland region fail to capture an equivalent level of visual and experiential imagination. Jamie Kirkpatrick describes misconceptions of the Midlands when he writes of “[f]latness, dead and dying eucalypts, gorse, brown pastures, salt—environmental devastation […]—these are the common impression of those who first travel between Spring Hill and Launceston on the Midland Highway” (45). However, Kirkpatrick also emphasises the unique intimate and intricate qualities of this landscape, and its underlying resilience. In the face of the loss of paddock trees and remnants to irrigation, change in species due to pasture enrichment and introduction of new plant species, conservation initiatives that not only protect but also restore habitat are vital. The Tasmanian Midlands, then, are pastoral landscapes whose seeming monotonous continuity glosses over the radical changes experienced in the processes of colonisation and intensification of agriculture.Underlying the Present: Archaeology and Landscape in the Kerry Lodge ProjectThe major marker of the Midlands is the highway that bisects it. Running from Hobart to Launceston, the construction of a “great macadamised highway” (Department of Main Roads 10) between 1820–1850, and its ongoing maintenance, was a significant colonial project. The macadam technique, a nineteenth century innovation in road building which involved the laying of small pieces of stone to create a surface that was relatively water and frost resistant, required considerable but unskilled labour. The construction of the bridge at Kerry Lodge, in 1834–35, was simultaneous with significant bridge buildings at other major water crossings on the highway, (Department of Main Roads 16) and, as the first water crossing south of Launceston, was a pinch-point through which travel of prisoners could be monitored and controlled. Following the completion of the bridge, the site was used to house up to 60 male convicts in a road gang undergoing secondary punishment (1835–44) and then in a labour camp and hiring depot until 1847. At the time of the La Trobe report (1847), the buildings were noted as being in bad condition (Brand 142–43). After the station was disbanded, the use of the buildings reverted to the landowners for use in accommodation and agricultural storage.Archaeological research at Kerry Lodge, directed by Eleanor Casella, investigated the spatial and disciplinary structures of smaller probation and hiring depots and the living and working conditions of supervisory staff. Across three seasons (2015, 2016, 2018), the emerging themes of discipline and control and as well as labour were borne out by excavations across the site, focusing on remnants of buildings close to the bridge. This first season also piloted the co-presence of a curatorial art project, which grew across the season to include eleven practitioners in visual art, theatre and poetry, and three exhibition outcomes. As a crucial process for the curatorial art project, creative practitioners spent time on site as participants and observers, which enabled the development of responses that interrogated the research processes of archaeological fieldwork as well as making connections to the wider historical and cultural context of the site. Immersed in the mundane tasks of archaeological fieldwork, the practitioners involved became simultaneously focused on repetitive actions while contemplating the deep time contained within earth. This experience then informed the development of creative works interrogating embodied processes as a language of site.The outcome from the first fieldwork season was earthspoke, an exhibition shown at Sawtooth, an artist-run initiative in Launceston in 2015, and later re-installed in Franklin House, a National Trust property in the southern suburbs of Launceston.Images 2 and 3: earthspoke, 2015, Installation View at Sawtooth ARI (top) and Franklin House (bottom). Image Credits: Melanie de Ruyter.This recontextualisation of the work, from contemporary ARI (artist run initiative) gallery to National Trust property enabled the project to reach different audiences but also raised questions about the emphases that these exhibition contexts placed on the work. Within the white cube space of the contemporary gallery, connections to site became more abstracted while the educational and heritage functions of the National Trust property added further context and unintended connotations to the art works.Image 4: Strata, 2017, Installation View. Image Credit: Karen Hall.The two subsequent exhibitions, Lines of Site (2016) and Strata (2017), continued to test the relationship between site and gallery, through works that rematerialised the absences on site and connected embodied experiences of convict and archaeological labour. The most recent iteration of the project, Strata, part of the Ten Days on the Island art festival in 2017, involved installing works at the site, marking with their presence the traces, fragments and voids that had been reburied when the landscape returned to agricultural use following the excavations. Here, the interpretive function of the works directly addressed the layered histories of the landscape and underscored the scope of the human interventions and changes over time within the pastoral landscape. The interpretative role of the artworks formed part of a wider, multidisciplinary approach to research and communication within the project. University of Manchester archaeology staff and postgraduate students directed the excavations, using volunteers from the Launceston Historical Society. Staff from Launceston’s Queen Victorian Museum and Art Gallery brought their archival and collection-based expertise to the site rather than simply receiving stored finds as a repository, supporting immediate interpretation and contextualisation of objects. In 2018, participation from the University of Tasmania School of Education enabled a larger number of on-site educational activities than afforded by previous open days. These multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational networks, drawn together provisionally in a shared time and place, provided rich opportunities for dialogue. However, the challenges of sustaining these exchanges have meant ongoing collaborations have become more sporadic, reflecting different institutional priorities and competing demands on participants. Even within long-term projects, continued engagement with stakeholders can be a challenge: while enabling an emerging and concrete sense of community, the time span gives greater vulnerability to external pressures. Making Home: Ecological Restoration and Community Engagement in the Species Hotel ProjectImages 5 and 6: Selected Species Hotels, Ross, Tasmania, 2018. Image Credits: Patrick Sutczak. The Species Hotels stand sentinel over a river of saplings, providing shelter for animal communities within close range of a small town. At the township of Ross in the Southern Midlands, work was initiated by restoration ecologists to address the lack of substantial animal shelter belts on a number of major properties in the area. The Tasmania Island Ark is a major Greening Australia restoration ecology initiative, connecting 6000 hectares of habitat across the Midlands. Linking larger forest areas in the Eastern Tiers and Central Highlands as well as isolated patches of remnant native vegetation, the Ark project is vital to the ongoing survival of local plant and animal species under pressure from human interventions and climate change. With fragmentation of bush and native grasslands in the Midland landscape resulting in vast open plains, the ability for animals to adapt to pasturelands without shelter has resulted in significant decline as animals such as the critically endangered Eastern Barred Bandicoot struggle to feed, move, and avoid predators (Cranney). In 2014 mass plantings of native vegetation were undertaken along 16km of the serpentine Macquarie River as part of two habitat corridors designed to bring connectivity back to the region. While the plantings were being established a public art project was conceived that would merge design with practical application to assist animals in the area, and draw community and public attention to the work that was being done in re-establishing native forests. The Species Hotel project, which began in 2016, emerged from a collaboration between Greening Australia and the University of Tasmania’s School of Architecture and Design, the School of Land and Food, the Tasmanian College of the Arts and the ARC Centre for Forest Value, with funding from the Ian Potter Foundation. The initial focus of the project was the development of interventions in the landscape that could address the specific habitat needs of the insect, small mammal, and bird species that are under threat. First-year Architecture students were invited to design a series of structures with the brief that they would act as ‘Species Hotels’, and once created would be installed among the plantings as structures that could be inhabited or act as protection. After installation, the privately-owned land would be reconfigured so to allow public access and observation of the hotels, by residents and visitors alike. Early in the project’s development, a concern was raised during a Ross community communication and consultation event that the surrounding landscape and its vistas would be dramatically altered with the re-introduced forest. While momentary and resolved, a subtle yet obvious tension surfaced that questioned the re-writing of an established community’s visual landscape literacy by non-residents. Compact and picturesque, the architectural, historical and cultural qualities of Ross and its location were not only admired by residents, but established a regional identity. During the six-week intensive project, the community reach was expanded beyond the institution and involved over 100 people including landowners, artists, scientists and school children from the region (Wright), attempting to address and channel the concerns of residents about the changing landscape. The multiple timescales of this iterative project—from intensive moments of collaboration between stakeholders to the more-than-human time of tree growth—open spaces for regional identity to shift as both as place and community. Part of the design brief was the use of fully biodegradable materials: the Species Hotels are not expected to last forever. The actual installation of the Species Hotelson site took longer than planned due to weather conditions, but once on site they were weathering in, showing signs of insect and bird habitation. This animal activity created an opportunity for ongoing engagement. Further activities generated from the initial iteration of Species Hotel were the Species Hotel Day in 2017, held at the Ross Community Hall where presentations by scientists and designers provided feedback to the local community and presented opportunities for further design engagement in the production of ephemeral ‘species seed pies’ placed out in and around Ross. Architecture and Design students have gone on to develop more examples of ‘ecological furniture’ with a current focus on insect housing as well as extrapolating from the installation of the Species Hotels to generate a VR visualisation of the surrounding landscape, game design and participatory movement work that was presented as part of the Junction Arts Festival program in Launceston, 2017. The intersections of technologies and activities amplified the lived in and living qualities of the Species Hotels, not only adding to the connectivity of social and environmental actions on site and beyond, but also making a statement about the shared ownership this project enabled.Working Property: Collaboration and Dialogues in The Marathon Project The potential of iterative projects that engage with environmental concerns amid questions of access, stewardship and dialogue is also demonstrated in The Marathon Project, a collaborative art project that took place between 2015 and 2017. Situated in the Northern Midland region of Deddington alongside the banks of the Nile River the property of Marathon became the focal point for a small group of artists, ecologists and theorists to converge and engage with a pastoral landscape over time that was unfamiliar to many of them. Through a series of weekend camps and day trips, the participants were able to explore and follow their own creative and investigative agendas. The project was conceived by the landowners who share a passion for the history of the area, their land, and ideas of custodianship and ecological responsibility. The intentions of the project initially were to inspire creative work alongside access, engagement and dialogue about land, agriculture and Deddington itself. As a very small town on the Northern Midland fringe, Deddington is located toward the Eastern Tiers at the foothills of the Ben Lomond mountain ranges. Historically, Deddington is best known as the location of renowned 19th century landscape painter John Glover’s residence, Patterdale. After Glover’s death in 1849, the property steadily fell into disrepair and a recent private restoration effort of the home, studio and grounds has seen renewed interest in the cultural significance of the region. With that in mind, and with Marathon a neighbouring property, participants in the project were able to experience the area and research its past and present as a part of a network of working properties, but also encouraging conversation around the region as a contested and documented place of settlement and subsequent violence toward the Aboriginal people. Marathon is a working property, yet also a vital and fragile ecosystem. Marathon consists of 1430 hectares, of which around 300 lowland hectares are currently used for sheep grazing. The paddocks retain their productivity, function and potential to return to native grassland, while thickets of gorse are plentiful, an example of an invasive species difficult to control. The rest of the property comprises eucalypt woodlands and native grasslands that have been protected under a conservation covenant by the landowners since 2003. The Marathon creek and the Nile River mark the boundary between the functional paddocks and the uncultivated hills and are actively managed in the interface between native and introduced species of flora and fauna. This covenant aimed to preserve these landscapes, linking in with a wider pattern of organisations and landowners attempting to address significant ecological degradation and isolation of remnant bushland patches through restoration ecology. Measured against the visibility of Tasmania’s wilderness identity on the national and global stage, many of the ecological concerns affecting the Midlands go largely unnoticed. The Marathon Project was as much a project about visibility and communication as it was about art and landscape. Over the three years and with its 17 participants, The Marathon Project yielded three major exhibitions along with numerous public presentations and research outputs. The length of the project and the autonomy and perspectives of its participants allowed for connections to be formed, conversations initiated, and greater exposure to the productivity and sustainability complexities playing out on rural Midland properties. Like Kerry Lodge, the 2015 first year exhibition took place at Sawtooth ARI. The exhibition was a testing ground for artists, and a platform for audiences, to witness the cross-disciplinary outputs of work inspired by a single sheep grazing farm. The interest generated led to the rethinking of the 2016 exhibition and the need to broaden the scope of what the landowners and participants were trying to achieve. Image 7: Panel Discussion at Open Weekend, 2016. Image Credit: Ron Malor.In November 2016, The Marathon Project hosted an Open Weekend on the property encouraging audiences to visit, meet the artists, the landowners, and other invited guests from a number of restoration, conservation, and rehabilitation organisations. Titled Encounter, the event and accompanying exhibition displayed in the shearing shed, provided an opportunity for a rhizomatic effect with the public which was designed to inform and disseminate historical and contemporary perspectives of land and agriculture, access, ownership, visitation and interpretation. Concluding with a final exhibition in 2017 at the University of Tasmania’s Academy Gallery, The Marathon Project had built enough momentum to shape and inform the practice of its participants, the knowledge and imagination of the public who engaged with it, and make visible the precarity of the cultural and rural Midland identity.Image 8. Installation View of The Marathon Project Exhibition, 2017. Image Credit: Patrick Sutczak.ConclusionThe Marathon Project, Species Hotel and the Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project all demonstrate the potential of site-based projects to articulate and address concerns that arise from the environmental and cultural conditions and histories of a region. Beyond the Midland fence line is a complex environment that needed to be experienced to be understood. Returning creative work to site, and opening up these intensified experiences of place to a public forms a key stage in all these projects. Beyond a commitment to site-specific practice and valuing the affective and didactic potential of on-site installation, these returns grapple with issues of access, visibility and absence that characterise the Midlands. Paul Carter describes his role in the convening of a “concretely self-realising creative community” in an initiative to construct a meeting-place in Alice Springs, a community defined and united in “its capacity to imagine change as a negotiation between past, present and future” (17). Within that regional context, storytelling, as an encounter between histories and cultures, became crucial in assembling a community that could in turn materialise story into place. In these Midlands projects, a looser assembly of participants with shared interests seek to engage with the intersections of plant, human and animal activities that constitute and negotiate the changing environment. The projects enabled moments of connection, of access, and of intervention: always informed by the complexities of belonging within regional locations.These projects also suggest the need to recognise the granularity of regionalism: the need to be attentive to the relations of site to bioregion, of private land to small town to regional centre. The numerous partnerships that allow such interconnect projects to flourish can be seen as a strength of regional areas, where proximity and scale can draw together sets of related institutions, organisations and individuals. However, the tensions and gaps within these projects reveal differing priorities, senses of ownership and even regional belonging. Questions of who will live with these project outcomes, who will access them, and on what terms, reveal inequalities of power. Negotiations of this uneven and uneasy terrain require a more nuanced account of projects that do not rely on the geographical labelling of regions to paper over the complexities and fractures within the social environment.These projects also share a commitment to the intersection of the social and natural environment. They recognise the inextricable entanglement of human and more than human agencies in shaping the landscape, and material consequences of colonialism and agricultural intensification. Through iteration and duration, the projects mobilise processes that are responsive and reflective while being anchored to the materiality of site. Warwick Mules suggests that “regions are a mixture of data and earth, historically made through the accumulation and condensation of material and informational configurations”. Cross-disciplinary exchanges enable all three projects to actively participate in data production, not interpretation or illustration afterwards. Mules’ call for ‘accumulation’ and ‘configuration’ as productive regional modes speaks directly to the practice-led methodologies employed by these projects. The Kerry Lodge and Marathon projects collect, arrange and transform material taken from each site to provisionally construct a regional material language, extended further in the dual presentation of the projects as off-site exhibitions and as interventions returning to site. The Species Hotel project shares that dual identity, where materials are chosen for their ability over time, habitation and decay to become incorporated into the site yet, through other iterations of the project, become digital presences that nonetheless invite an embodied engagement.These projects centre the Midlands as fertile ground for the production of knowledge and experiences that are distinctive and place-based, arising from the unique qualities of this place, its history and its ongoing challenges. Art and design practice enables connectivity to plant, animal and human communities, utilising cross-disciplinary collaborations to bring together further accumulations of the region’s intertwined cultural and ecological landscape.ReferencesAustralian Government Department of the Environment and Energy. Biodiversity Conservation. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2018. 1 Apr. 2019 <http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/conservation>.Brand, Ian. The Convict Probation System: Van Diemen’s Land 1839–1854. Sandy Bay: Blubber Head Press, 1990.Carter, Paul. “Common Patterns: Narratives of ‘Mere Coincidence’ and the Production of Regions.” Creative Communities: Regional Inclusion & the Arts. Eds. Janet McDonald and Robert Mason. Bristol: Intellect, 2015. 13–30.Centre for 21st Century Humanities. Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788–1930. Newcastle: Centre for 21st Century Humanitie, n.d. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/>.Clements, Nicholas. The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2014. Cranney, Kate. Ecological Science in the Tasmanian Midlands. Melbourne: Bush Heritage Australia, 2016. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://www.bushheritage.org.au/blog/ecological-science-in-the-tasmanian-midlands>.Davidson N. “Tasmanian Northern Midlands Restoration Project.” EMR Summaries, Journal of Ecological Management & Restoration, 2016. 10 Apr. 2019 <https://site.emrprojectsummaries.org/2016/03/07/tasmanian-northern-midlands-restoration-project/>.Department of Main Roads, Tasmania. Convicts & Carriageways: Tasmanian Road Development until 1880. Hobart: Tasmanian Government Printer, 1988.Dillon, Margaret. “Convict Labour and Colonial Society in the Campbell Town Police District: 1820–1839.” PhD Thesis. U of Tasmania, 2008. <https://eprints.utas.edu.au/7777/>.Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2012.Greening Australia. Building Species Hotels, 2016. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/projects/building-species-hotels/>.Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project. Kerry Lodge Convict Site. 10 Mar. 2019 <http://kerrylodge.squarespace.com/>.Kirkpatrick, James. “Natural History.” Midlands Bushweb, The Nature of the Midlands. Ed. Jo Dean. Longford: Midlands Bushweb, 2003. 45–57.Mitchell, Michael, Michael Lockwood, Susan Moore, and Sarah Clement. “Building Systems-Based Scenario Narratives for Novel Biodiversity Futures in an Agricultural Landscape.” Landscape and Urban Planning 145 (2016): 45–56.Mules, Warwick. “The Edges of the Earth: Critical Regionalism as an Aesthetics of the Singular.” Transformations 12 (2005). 1 Mar. 2019 <http://transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_12/article_03.shtml>.The Marathon Project. <http://themarathonproject.virb.com/home>.University of Tasmania. Strategic Directions, Nov. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.utas.edu.au/vc/strategic-direction>.Wright L. “University of Tasmania Students Design ‘Species Hotels’ for Tasmania’s Wildlife.” Architecture AU 24 Oct. 2016. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://architectureau.com/articles/university-of-tasmania-students-design-species-hotels-for-tasmanias-wildlife/>.
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