Journal articles on the topic 'New York Ledger'

E.D.E.N. Southworth's originally massively popular novel, The Hidden Hand (1859), was not published as a book until it had undergone serialization three separate times, over the course of a quarter century, in a weekly story-paper called the New York Ledger. This bare fact about the material form in which it circulated and gained its large and admiring audience has consequences for interpreting the novel that have gone entirely unexamined by scholars. Thus, Southworth's novel offers a good test case for the claim that the material form of publication (in this case, periodical serialization) is a substantively important aspect of the work's meaning: the readers who responded to it so enthusiastically had all read it under the conditions of seriality. In this essay I attempt to take account of the interpretive implications of seriality for understanding Southworth's novel, exploring some of the ways in which it was ideologically embedded in the Ledger and describing the active and canny role it played in that periodical's strident apoliticism. The Hidden Hand embodied the magazine's declared nonpartisanship in, among other things, various forms of generic melding and imaginary scenarios of sectional uni�cation. Critical accounts that have sought to characterize this novel as proslavery or antislavery have all missed the point that Southworth's tale actively ignored such political issues and thus sought to transcend the dire sectional controversies that were unmistakably impending at the time of its publication.

In The Larkin's Technologies of Trust, Zeynep Çelik Alexander uses the card ledger invented by Darwin D. Martin, corporate secretary for the Larkin Company, as a starting point for a new history of a well-known modernist building: the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Founded in 1875 as a soap manufacturer, the Larkin Company had grown dramatically by the beginning of the twentieth century, in large part because of innovative marketing strategies made possible by ingenious information-processing techniques. But it was also thanks to Wright's designs for office equipment—informed by principles of modularity and interchangeability—that armies of “human computers” were able to maintain this information regime. Çelik Alexander argues that the bureaucracy made possible by the Larkin Administration Building's architecture has been a blind spot in historiography; she aims to offer an architecturally oriented account of the history of data as epistemic unit, contending that the Larkin's protodatabase was, first and foremost, a moral technology predicated on managing networks of trust.

In 1929 the American Antiquarian Society published an eighty-three-page manuscript that describes commercial transactions for slaves, ivory, and gold on the Gold and Slave Coasts from 1789 to 1792. George Plimpton owned this manuscript. As it includes a slave-trading ledger of the schooner Swallow, Plimpton entitled the manuscript “The Journal of an African Slaver.” The “journal” is one of the few published documents in the English language that specifies financial transactions for slaves between European and African traders on the coast of Africa during the late eighteenth century.In his four-page introduction to the journal Plimpton stated that:The name of the ship engaged in the traffic was the schooner ‘Swallow,’ Capt. John Johnston, 1790-1792. There is a reference to a previous voyage when ‘Captain Peacock had her,’ also some abstracts of accounts kept by Capt. David McEleheran in 1789 of trade in gold, slaves and ivory on the Gold Coast. None of these names can be identified as to locality, and there is, of course, the possibility, especially taking into consideration the English nature of the cargo bartered, that the vessel was an English slaver.The journal was included with some mid-nineteenth century South Carolina plantation accounts when it was purchased at an auction in New York, thus suggesting to Plimpton that the journal's author was perhaps a “South Carolinian who made this trip to Africa.”In this research note I will identify the various vessels and traders mentioned in this manuscript by referring to the data-set I have assembled from other sources concerning the slave trade during this period. We will seethat Plimpton's “journal” is a set of account books owned by the Gold Coast agents of London and Havre merchant William Collow. I then will discuss the importance of Collow as a merchant and shipowner in the late eighteenth-century British slave trade.

The terrorist attack and collapse of two towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City on September 11, 2001 generated tremendous clouds of dust that settled over a wide area. Concern over the potential health effects of breathing this dust made it imperative that the WTC dust be characterized as completely as possible. As part of this characterization, a microscopical examination using several types of microscopes provided key data on the components of the dust. The WTC dust sample that is the primary focus of this report was collected by F.C. Ewing from an outdoor window ledge at 33 Maiden Lane, New York City, NY on October 7, 2001.

YORK BOWEN: Viola Concerto in C minor, op.25. CECIL FORSYTH: Viola Concerto in G minor. Lawrence Power (vla), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra c. Martyn Brabbins. Hyperion CDA67546.BOWEN: Viola Concerto; Viola Sonata No.2 in F major; Melody for the C string, op.51 no.2. Doris Lederer (vla), with Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra c. Paul Polivnick, Bruce Murray (pno). Centaur CRC 2786.BOWEN: Viola Concerto. WALTON: Viola Concerto in A minor. HOWELLS: Elegy for viola, string quartet and string orchestra. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Suite for viola and orchestra (Group I). Helen Callus (vla), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra c. Marc Taddei. ASV CD DCA 1181.

Abstract Evidence for rejuvenation of cirque glaciers following wastage of continental ice remains elusive for the Presidential Range and Mount Moosilauke of New Hampshire, Mount Katahdin and the Longfellow Mountains of Maine, and the Adirondack Mountains of New York. At Ritterbush Pond in the northern Green Mountains of Vermont, radiocarbon ages from lake sediment cores suggest that a low-altitude valley head, located up- valley of a series of cross-valley moraines, was ice-free by 11,940 14 C yrs BP (Bierman et al. , 1997). Although some workers argue that these moraines in Vermont are evidence for cirque glaciation, the moraines could have been formed by a tongue of continental ice during deglaciation. At Johnson Hollow Brook valley in the Catskill Mountains of New York, a radiocarbon age from basal sediments in a pond dammed by a moraine suggests that glacier ice may have persisted until 10,860 14 C yrs BP (Lederer and Rodbell, 1998). Because this moraine appears to have been deposited by a cirque glacier, the radiocarbon age provides the best evidence in the northeastern United States for cirque glaciation post-dating recession of continental ice. Cirque morphometric data, compiled from newly available topographic maps, add to the conundrum that these two sites in the Green and Catskill Mountains should not be nearly as favorable for maintaining local glaciers post- dating icesheet recession as higher-altitude and better-developed cirques in the Presidential Range and Mount Katahdin, where evidence for post-icesheet cirque glaciers is lacking.

Abstract For decades, historians portrayed the immigrants who arrived in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century fleeing the great Irish Famine as a permanent proletariat, doomed to live out their lives in America in poverty due to illiteracy, nativism, and a lack of vocational skills. Recent research, however, primarily by economic historians, has demonstrated that large numbers of Famine refugees actually fared rather well in the United States, saving surprising sums in bank accounts and making strides up the American socioeconomic ladder. These scholars, however, have never attempted to explain why some Famine immigrants thrived in the U.S. while others struggled merely to scrape by. Utilizing the unusually detailed records of New York’s Emigrant Savings Bank in conjunction with the methods of the digital humanities, this article seeks to understand what characteristics separated those Irish Famine immigrants who fared well financially from those who did not. Analysis of a database of more than 15,000 depositors suggests that networking was the key to economic advancement for the Famine immigrants. Those who lived in residential enclaves with other immigrants born in the same Irish parish saved significantly more than other immigrants, and those who created employment niches based on an Irish birthplace also amassed more wealth than those who did not. The electronic version of the article provides easy access to the database and interactive maps, allowing readers to ask their own questions of the data. The article also fleshes out the life stories of many of the immigrants found in the database, using documents found on genealogy websites such as Ancestry.com. These handwritten census records, ship manifests, and bank ledgers are hyperlinked to the electronic version of the article. That makes this essay ideal for classroom use—students can move effortlessly to the documents that underpin each paragraph and see clearly how historians use archival evidence to formulate arguments and shape historical narratives.

ABSTRACT:George A. Savoy was born in Cohoes, New York, in 1873. He left the U.S.A. in 1921 to manage the Canadian branch of a large manufacturer of ledgers and looseleaf registers. This company was asked to supply Professor Jasper’s laboratory with rolls of plain unlined paper and it was George Savoy who later developed fanfolded and lined EEG paper, which was first used at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He also had personal contacts with Wilder Penfield concerning their mutual interest in the needs of patients with epilepsy. He was a successful industrialist involved with several charitable organizations funding programmes for people with epilepsy. He was opposed to the sectarianism then prevalent in Quebec, which was unfamiliar to him, and in reaction built his own institution, Dieppe House, a home for people with epilepsy, later renamed «Foyer Savoy». It was to operate without regard to race, language or religion. In 1971, his son Harold and other generous donors decided to create a foundation to support research in epilepsy. The Foyer Savoy was sold in 1988 and the proceeds used to increase the endowment of the foundation. His grandson George M. Savoy is the current president. The fourth generation is also represented by Caroline Savoy, daughter of the president, who joined the board of directors in 1992. The foundation will distribute from $300,000 to $400,000 yearly to researchers from many different countries working in the field of epilepsy in universities and hospitals throughout Canada.

The Eurasian grass, Calamagrostis epigejos (L.) Roth, has been both deliberately and accidentally introduced to North America. Deliberate introductions have usually been destroyed because the plants were weedy and difficult to confine. Introductions at approximately 50 sites, most of them accidental, are documented. While the grass sometimes is the dominant species over several square metres and can out-compete some other weedy species, only at two sites is it known to have spread more than 10 km in a 30-year period. One site is Ontario, Canada, along the road between Espanola and Whitefish Falls, and the other is Liberty State Park in New Jersey, U.S.A. There have been major earth moving projects at both sites so that spread of rhizomes as well as seed dispersal may have been involved. Data analyses of 16 characters used, or possibly useful, in recognizing intraspecific taxa are presented. Taxonomic recognition of C. epigejos as an amphimictic, polyploid complex is discussed. Application of the treatment given by Tzvelev to our data suggests that (i) ssp. extremiorentalis Tzvelev and ssp. macrolepis (Litv.) Tzvelev have each been introduced once into North America; (ii) most specimens in North America belong to ssp. epigejos, ssp. glomerata (Boiss. and Buhse) Tzvelev, or ssp. meinshausenii Tzvelev, but it is not always possible to distinguish among these subspecies with confidence; and (iii) C. epigejos var. georgica (C. Koch) Ledeb., as recognized by Fernald, is probably synonymous with ssp. glomerata. Plants collected from five sites in Ontario had chromosome counts of 2n = 28 + 4B. Plants of C. epigejos ssp. macrolepis from New York were 2n = 42.

When Oil is the Lesser of Two Evils: Comparative Risk of the Shipwreck EMPIRE KNIGHT Cornell J. Rosiu, First Coast Guard District - Incident Management, 408 Atlantic Ave, Boston MA 02110Stephen M. Lehmann, NOAA - Office of Response and Restoration, 10 George St, #220, Lowell, MA 01852David M. Sherry, Center for Law and Military Operations, Charlottesville, VA 22903Wyman W. Briggs, USCG - Sector Northern New England, 259 High St, South Portland, ME 04106Peter J. Blanchard, Maine DEP – Div. of Response Services, #17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333At the height of WWII in February of 1944, the 428-ft British ship EMPIRE KNIGHT ran aground on Boon Island Ledge off York, Maine during a storm. It broke in two and sank with the stern section in 243-ft of water where it remains today. Her hull contained 10,000-bbls of diesel fuel oil, military tank and locomotive parts, 5-in cannon shells and 16,000-lbs of elemental mercury stored in 221 glass and steel carboys. This poster summarizes the wreck disposition and its environmental assessment and ongoing monitoring. In 1993, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) oversaw an emergency removal of 1,200-lbs elemental mercury through a hole cut in stern cargo hold #5 representing <10% of the cargo of elemental mercury. Much of the mercury is assumed to have migrated to the lower portion of the shipwreck beneath a cargo of military hardware and live ammunition. Since much of the mercury is believed to remain on-site, a permanent safety zone was established in 1995 within a 1000-yd radius prohibiting activities such as commercial salvage that could spread contamination. Mercury is a priority pollutant that accumulates in marine life and can bio-magnify in the environment. Results of bio-monitoring in 1998, 2004 and 2012 using blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) supported previous findings and indicated mercury does not pose unacceptable risk to human health or the environment. Moreover, average concentrations of mercury across the three years are less than averages in mussels sampled from 2007 to 2009 in areas of the Gulf of Maine coast that have no known point source of mercury contamination. NOAA ranked EMPIRE KNIGHT 12th among 13 RULET shipwrecks in USCG District 1 with “medium” risk of oil discharge. Disturbing the wreck to recover oil onboard has the potential to spread contamination and make the mercury more bioavailable.

BackgroundImmune checkpoint inhibitors have improved clinical responses and overall survival for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the response is not equal and known NSCLC biomarkers are not sufficient in predicting therapy outcome. Deep proteomic analysis of NSCLC patient‘s plasma treated with anti-PD-1-blockade using a state-of-the-art data independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) is a powerful and unbiased way of identifying protein signatures associated with disease stage or response to treatment. However, to unravel these associations large-scale omics data should be analyzed with respect to available clinical information. To achieve this goal, we have used an approach previously applied by Uhlen et al., 20171 for transcriptomic datasets. In this approach survival data is used to set the most optimal thresholds for candidate biomarkers.Methods125 plasma samples were analyzed by capillary flow liquid chromatography coupled to DIA-MS. Data were extracted with latest SpectronautTM and proteins were quantified. Each recorded protein intensity was used as a threshold for two groups of samples for which Kaplan-Meier estimates were generated using ‘survival’2 package in R. Benjamini-Hochberg correction was applied and p-values with corresponding intensity cut-offs were extracted to generate panels of potential biomarkers.Results125 plasma samples (in total 75 baseline and 50 after 8-weeks treatment) from advanced NSCLC patients treated with an anti-PD-1 inhibitor following at least 1 prior line of treatment were analyzed. 727 unique proteins were quantified across all samples. Data analysis was performed separately for each line of treatment and treatment status resulting in more than 100’000 p-values. For each group, panels of proteins with best performance in separating progression free survivals were defined at FDR of 0.10, giving 64 unique proteins which were mapped to acute phase response, platelet degranulation and complement activation. Several of these proteins were listed in the Early Detection Research Network database of the National Cancer Institute, and one of them – LYPD3, was a potential therapeutic target in a preclinical study for NSCL treatment.3 Selected proteins were then used to cluster patients into cohorts that showed association with the response to therapy.ConclusionsDeep proteomic profiling of plasma samples using DIA-MS in conjunction with clinical outcome enables a holistic and stringent analysis of potential circulating biomarkers. Such analysis generates functional insights into the plasma proteome that enable deeper understanding and comprehensive integration of clinical data with proteomics markers at different disease stages and treatment phases.ReferencesUhlen M, Zhang C, Lee S, Sjöstedt E, Fagerberg L, Bidkhori G, Benfeitas R, Arif M, Liu Z, Edfors F, Sanli K, von Feilitzen K, Oksvold P, Lundberg E, Hober S, Nilsson P, Mattsson J, Schwenk J.Therneau TM, Grambsch PM. Modeling Survival Data: Extending the Cox Model. Springer. 2000, New York, ISBN 0-387-98784-3.Willuda J, Linden L, Lerchen H, Kopitz C, Stelte-Ludwig B, Pena C, Lange C, Golfier S, Kneip C, Carrigan P E, Mclean K, Schuhmacher J, von Ahsen O, Müller J, Dittmer F, Beier R, El Sheikh S, Tebbe J, Leder G, Apeler H, Jautelat R, Ziegelbauer K, Kreft B, Preclinical Antitumor Efficacy of BAY 1129980-a Novel Auristatin-Based Anti-C4.4A (LYPD3) Antibody-Drug Conjugate for the Treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Mol Caner Ther 2017;16(5):893–904

¿Cuáles son las condiciones que activan la argumentación del profesor de Matemáticas durante la discusión de tareas en clase? En este artículo se presentan posibles respuestas a esta pregunta, en el marco de un estudio que pretende comprender la argumentación del profesor de Matemáticas en un ambiente habitual de clase. Para ello se presenta una fundamentación teórica sobre la argumentación en la clase de Matemáticas. Los datos forman parte de un estudio más amplio, los cuales se tomaron durante lecciones de clase de décimo grado (estudiantes de 15 a 16 años), mientras la profesora y sus estudiantes discutían tareas sobre trigonometría. Se discuten fragmentos de episodios de clase, donde se describen indicadores de las condiciones que podrían activar la argumentación del profesor. Referencias Boero, P. (2011). Argumentation and proof: Discussing a “successful” classroom discussion. En M. Pytlak, T. Rowland, y E. Swoboda (Eds.), Actas del 7th Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 120-130). Rzeszów, Polonia: ERME. Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Recuperado desde http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_Math%20Standards.pdf Conner, A., Singletary, L., Smith, R., Wagner, P., y Francisco, R. (2014). Teacher support for collective argumentation: A framework for examining how teachers support students’ engagement in mathematical activities. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 86(3), 401-429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-014-9532-8 van Eemeren, F., Grassen, B., Krabbe, E., Snoeck Henkemans, F., Verheij, B., y Wagemans, J. (2014). Handbook of Argumentation Theory. Dordrecht, Países Bajos: Springer. van Eemeren, F. y Grootendorst, R. (2011). Una Tteoría Sistemática de la Argumentación. La Perspectiva Pragmadialéctica. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos. Knipping, C., y Reid, D. (2015). Reconstructing argumentation structures: A perspective on proving processes in secondary mathematics classroom interactions. En A. Bikner-Ahsbahs, C. Knipping, y N. Presmeg (Eds.), Approaches to qualitative research in mathematics education (pp. 75-101). New York: Springer. Krummheuer, G. (2011). Representation of the notion ‘‘learning-as-participation’’ in everyday situations of mathematics classes. ZDM Mathematics Education, 43(1), 81-90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-010-0294-1 Metaxas, N. (2015). Mathematical argumentation of students participating in a mathematics–information technology project. International Research in Education, 3(1), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.5296/ire.v3i1.6767 Metaxas, N., Potari, D., y Zachariades, T. (2016). Analysis of a teacher’s pedagogical arguments using Toulmin’s model and argumentation schemes. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 93(3), 383-397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-016-9701-z Pino-Fan, L., Assis, A., y Castro, W. (2015). Towards a methodology for the characterization of teachers' didactic-mathematical knowledge. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 11(6), 1429-1456. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2015.1403a Prusak, N., Hershkowitz, R., y Schwarz, B. (2012). From visual reasoning to logical necessity through argumentative design. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 79(1), 19-40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-011-9335-0 Santibáñez, C. (2015). Función, funcionalismo y funcionalización en la teoría pragma-dialéctica de la argumentación. Universum, 30(1), 233-252. https://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-23762015000100014 Schoen, R. C., LaVenia, M., y Ozsoy, G. (2019). Teacher beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning: Identifying and clarifying three constructs. Cogent Education, 6(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2019.1599488 Selling, S., Garcia, N., y Ball, D. (2016). What does it take to Develop Assessments of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching?: Unpacking the Mathematical Work of Teaching. The Mathematics Enthusiast, 13(1), 35-51. Sfard, A. (2008). Thinking as communicating. Human development, the growth of discourses, and mathematizing. Cambridge, Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press. Solar, H. (2018). Implicaciones de la argumentación en el aula de matemáticas. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 74, 155-176. https://doi.org/10.17227/rce.num74-6902 Solar, H., y Deulofeu, J. (2016). Condiciones para promover el desarrollo de la competencia de argumentación en el aula de matemáticas. Bolema, 30(56), 1092-1112. http://dx.doi.org//10.1590/1980-4415v30n56a13 Staples, M., y Newton, J. (2016). Teachers' Contextualization of Argumentation in the Mathematics Classroom. Theory into Practice, 55(4), 294-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1208070 Stylianides, A., Bieda, K., y Morselli, F. (2016). Proof and Argumentation in Mathematics Education Research. En Á. Gutiérrez, G. Leder, y P. Boero (Eds.), The Second Handbook of Research on the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 315-351). Rotterdam, Países Bajos: Sense Publishers. Toro, J. y Castro, W. (2019a). Features of mathematics’ teacher argumentation in classroom. En U. T. Jankvist, M. van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, y M. Veldhuis (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eleventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 336-337). Utrecht, the Netherlands: Freudenthal Group & Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University and ERME. Toro, J., y Castro, W. (2019b). Purposes of mathematics teacher argumentation during the discussion of tasks in the classroom. En M. Graven, H. Venkat, A. Essien, y P. Valero (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 4, pp. 458-477). Pretoria, Sudáfrica: PME. Toulmin, S. (2007). Los usos de la argumentación. Barcelona, España: Ediciones Península.

Who can be represented in art? How can we make it? How can we experience it? [...] It has provided an open space of possibility for many to test their sense of self and how they might communicate this to a wider world. (Gormley)On Friday 17 July 2009, from 12.00 am to 1.00 am, I was on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, as part of British sculptor Antony Gormley’s One & Other project. Over a period of 100 days, 2,400 people were randomly selected (from 34,000 applicants) to occupy this site for sixty minutes each. Gormley’s sculptures have mostly focused on explorations of the human form in relation to memory, environment and community and the questions they raise about existence, mortality and metaphysics resonate with my own personal concerns and performance work (see: Gormley). One & Other (2009), a participatory incarnation of his work, was, he claimed “about the democratisation of art.” It was also video-streamed live over the Internet and it became, particularly due to Sky Arts’s involvement as a project partner, a media event (Antony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’). Ever since I can remember, I have had a fear of heights. Without a sturdy barrier I either retreat rapidly to a safe distance, freeze or drop to the ground. The relationship between my private sense of self, myself as performer, an iconic public space, an unpredictable (and partly unseen) audience, the critical gaze of the media, and, not least, the artist’s intention, quickly became a complex web to negotiate. How much was I prepared to risk, reveal, or mask in desiring to serve another’s artistic purpose? This article explores the invitation to disclose/expose set against this set of circumstances, focusing on the tensions between the desire to perform, my deep personal fear of heights (acrophobia), the media’s greedy commodification of disclosure and the complicity of the participant. Also considered is the unstable notion of communicating authentic disclosure(s) within a performative framework, and, finally, the transformational possibilities of such disclosure. While recognising that claims to truth and authenticity—and to some degree transformation—within solo (autobiographical) performance are problematic (Heddon 26), I do not see my phobia as culturally-produced here; I use these terms to signify the actuality of a significant shift in levels of personal fear experienced whilst on the plinth. As a performer with a background in devising, acting, biographical theatre and site-specific performance, the framework for discussion centres on writing from these fields, and also draws on performance art, particularly Eelka Lampe’s examination of the work of Rachel Rosenthal (291), an interdisciplinary performance artist whose work has drawn significantly on autobiographical elements and on both Western and Asian performance trainings and vocabularies. Media sources directly relevant to Gormley’s project are also considered. Congratulations!Participation in One & Other was a matter of luck, offering a unique opportunity to become part of Gormley’s oeuvre. I placed myself in the draw and was thrilled when, on 6 June 2009, the congratulatory e-mail arrived. However, the reality of what I was to participate in soon began to dawn upon me. An hour, at midnight, on a plinth 4.4m x 1.7m at a height of 8m. Although there would be a safety net, there would be no barrier. Every move or sound that I made would also be watched by Webcams and transmitted live to unknowable individuals. The peculiarity of this event was bewildering, but I put my misgivings aside and focused on the question everybody asked me, “So what are you going to do?” (see fig. 1). Figure 1. Image: Adam J. Ledger. Performer: Jill Dowse. One & Other. 2009.Resorting to habit, I immediately regarded the opportunity as an artistic endeavour and started to create a performance piece, layering site- and time-specific discoveries with personal associations, memories and jokes about acrophobia. The use of autobiographical material as an aid to both understanding and devising biographical theatre is not foreign to me, but using it as a primary source was new, and I was wary of the potential for appearing self-indulgent, for the performance to be, to use Howell’s terminology, “ego show” rather than revelation (158). My first two ideas, which were subsequently abandoned, appear to me now as attempts to deflect the content of my performance away from myself, thereby resisting disclosure. Others planned a plinth-as-soapbox approach, drawing attention to various charitable and socio-political causes (“Participants, Oliver”; “Participants, Bushewacker”; “Participants, RachelW”). These seemed worthy and worthwhile, and forced me to re-consider my approach and examine my own ideals and concerns, but I was reluctant to advocate for a single cause. This reluctance was compounded by several further factors—the live coverage threatened a post hoc call to account for anything I might say or do, leaving me open to misinterpretation and criticism from the public or media. The experience of TV’s Big Brother participants, to which Gormley’s project has often been compared and criticised as a cheapening of cultural values (Brooker), is called to mind. Despite its limitations, however, one of the attractions of the soapbox performance is that it does at least refract attention away from the individual and onto the cause. The consideration of my acrophobia was renewed, leading me to consider withdrawing from the project. Gormley’s desire to “make a portrait of the UK now” is a complex proposition (qtd. in Antony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’). How might it be possible to be myself on an illuminated plinth, for a full hour, in public? Gormley, while acknowledging the performative nature of the project as “a combination of the stocks and the stage” also asserts that “whether acted or real…the inner condition of the individual will be revealed” (Gormley). While his point is debatable in a general sense, for me it was not the possible disclosure of this inner condition (via words) that was traumatic but the prospective public personal humiliation of both my private self (via irrational conduct in a public arena) as well as professional humiliation (an inability to perform) as a result of unforeseeable and potentially debilitating behavioural responses. This conflict—I “bottle out” if I withdraw, I face difficult challenges if I continue—led directly to the first consideration of tactics for survival. My notebook records, “I’d like to do something that allows me space to respond, to contemplate being up there. And something which allows me to be hidden” (Workbook 118). The paradoxical desire to be “hidden” on a raised plinth exposes the key tension within which tactics were discovered and structured. As I re-worked my first idea, I realized that I was straying once again from the theatre world I usually inhabit, which involves creating performances in which a role(s) or character is adopted, to the field of performance art, where autobiographical material and personal disclosure are often expressed and negotiated as central concerns. If acting is, as Joseph Chaikin proposes, “a demonstration of self with or without a disguise”, then my usual “disguise” of role/character would be (at least partially) shed, leaving my “demonstration of self” more exposed (2) (see fig. 2). Figure 2. Image: Adam J. Ledger. Performer: Jill Dowse. One & Other. 2009.Controlling the PerformanceNotions of “self” within acting and performance have been explored by many performance theorists (Schechner, Phelan and Lane, Auslander, Zarrilli, Carlson), but, here I draw on Lampe’s discussion of the work of Rachel Rosenthal, since her performances move beyond mimesis. Rosenthal often performs several “fragments” of herself (which she also identifies as differentiable personae) within a single performance (Lampe 296). These personae are at different distances from her “daily” self. Lampe’s “Model of Performing/Non-Performing” is an illustration of a matrix of performance modes which moves from the “not performing” Self which is self-contained, “feeling unobserved”, through to the “Self in Ritual”, which is also self-contained and may be observed/unobserved (Lampe 291). Lampe identifies the “not performing” self as having “least control over performative display” and the Self in Ritual as having the “most control over performative display” (300). The question of control, both of my fear and of the revelation and communication of that fear, and within an environment over which I had very limited control, was paramount. This model offers a way of understanding how and why I shifted through various modes of disclosure, creating, for example an “Aesthetic Persona,” (“performing a part of oneself”), as in the playing out of a “fantasy” of myself as a winged creature, and moving towards “Techniques of Virtuosity,” (which includes “transforming the self”) seen, for example, in my use of adornment, mask and ritualistic elements. In exploring the elements of martyrdom in the artist Orlan’s work (an artist who has described her work as “carnal art” and who sought to reinvent herself and ideas of beauty via often unusual plastic surgery), Tanya Augsburg (298) suggests thatto be a martyr […] involves self-sacrifice and loss of social status; one undergoes humiliation, pain, even death for the sake of a higher purpose. Martyrdom as a self-conscious loss of self is nevertheless the result of free choice – even if that choice stems from a sense of obligation or duty.Whilst I recognise all these ingredients in my process, I now identify my struggle as the struggle against martyrdom, the assembling of the tactics necessary to resist and minimize the possibility and impact of any quasi-martyrdom.PerspectivesEkow Eshun, Artistic Director of London’s Institute for Contemporary Art and Chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, also acknowledged the project’s “performativity” and the media fuelled the pressure to “do” or perform (qtd. in Antony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’). Yet when the project began on 6 July and I viewed the live streaming, it became clear that this was not an easily manageable context for any kind of presentation. I realised that I could not organise my performance in any way that I am used to and that in regarding the site as some kind of stage I had earlier made several false assumptions. The spatial dynamic gives the on-site onlooker, as Patricia Bickers points out, “a depressingly foreshortened view from above or below which diminishes, in every sense, both audience and participant”, whereas the live feed offers a “privileged view” (12). In this spectatorial confusion, how would I know where to direct myself? Secondly, it would be impossible to speak to onlookers in Trafalgar Square with a conversational or natural tone—amplification would be necessary. Thirdly, I also noticed that most onlookers stayed for a short time and then left, probably at least partly as a result of these factors. Was it likely that on-line viewers would watch for a whole hour? What, therefore, was the point of creating a dramaturgically sound piece for an audience whose presence would be so unpredictable?Gormley’s partner in the project was Sky Arts, with the event produced by Artichoke. The weekly Sky Arts programme dedicated to presenting the week’s “highlights from the plinth” was unashamedly concerned with the level of “entertainment” offered, hosted by a condescending presenter (Antony Gormley’s ‘One & Other’). Celebrities and media pundits got their spot on the sofa to make their sound bites and choose their “Top 5 plinthers”. It was cheap TV, with participants routinely objectified, commodified and codified, labelled alternately crazy, funny, boring, and so on. This programme, as well as much of the media surrounding the project, failed to understand and respond in any meaningful way to what each individual brought to it.Given the unconducive performance arena, I made a radical shift of emphasis from word to image, from sound to silence, from script to improvisation. Many of the personal memories and associations I had explored in my first idea were subsumed into representative (but also personally associated) objects, symbols, adornments and actual signs. Although my clothing would be my own and I would look like “myself,” I would wear a pair of wings and a sign stating, “SCARED OF HEIGHTS.” I assembled a suitcase of objects for use in possible improvisations that would be unrehearsed and responsive to the given moment. Plan B, in case of disabling fear, was to ask to come down from the plinth. The sign drew attention to my fear, thereby diminishing, to some extent, its power to humiliate. It displayed my vulnerability and invited spectators to contextualise my behaviour and perhaps even to empathise. Wings have many symbolic cultural meanings, many of which overlap with my own interest in and fantasies of flight and “winged-ness.” Although these two elements were personally relevant, I also hoped that even a fleeting glance at this figure might engage the viewer momentarily with the irony in the juxtaposition of wings, which suggests the possibility or desire to fly, with the written message indicating a fear of heights, which would thereby limit the possibility or pleasure of flight. There are various modes of disclosure. Words, gesture and expression are three. Since a camera’s tendency is to focus on the face, and in particular the eyes, as the site of reading emotion, my instinct was to have in my arsenal some means of disguising, masking or otherwise concealing my eyes, thus partially withholding the full expression of emotion. My desire to hide, which might be interpreted as a desire for privacy, could at least be partially brought about. I took a joke “disguise” mask (spectacles, nose and moustache) and glow-in-the-dark Halloween skeleton spectacles (associated with my fear of death), both of which belong to my son. I set up the potential for other small, wry acts of resistance, including in my suitcase a pair of binoculars and a Polaroid camera, for turning the tables on those who looked upon and made images of me. Rather than using these personal objects to evoke or represent emotional memory, as performance artists such as Cristina Castrillo do (Aston 177), my personal objects acted primarily as both public sign or symbol, and as a comfort blanket of familiarity for my period of extremis—literally, props.The HourIn the “Welcome Lounge” I signed a Mephistopholean contract with Sky Arts, effectively handing over copyright of this hour of my life, agreed to an interview with an interviewer who had trouble listening, and allowed them to take photos of me, “for Antony”. The hour itself, however, proved quietly revelatory (see: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Jill.).The first few minutes were exhausting as I acclimatised to my bizarre surroundings. But this intensity subsided somewhat as I realised my fear was manageable and that it would be neither traumatic nor debilitating. Oddly, I could not even see the Webcams out in the darkness. To return to Lampe’s analysis, I identify, throughout the hour, a shifting between different registers of performance, or personae, recognising myself as performer, my private self, my masked self (transformable) and an impossible fantasy of myself (adorned). Elements of ritual—repetition, mask, heightened awareness and responses—permeated the hour. These different registers seem to indicate different levels and means of disclosure dependent on the degree of control exercised through them. The self-contained episode of dancing while wearing the child’s disguise spectacles, while possibly amusing, might, for example, suggest an attitude towards my disclosure, an ironic stance towards the situation. Furthermore, and paradoxically, the feigning, or performing of control, in that dance, led to an actual increase of confidence. Whilst dancing, I felt a distancing between my outer, communicating self, which danced happily, enjoying the repetitive action as well as a sense of the odd figure I cut, and my private self, relieved to be behind a mask able to take this time to process and recover from what had been happening up until this point (see fig. 3). Figure 3. Image: Adam J. Ledger. Performer: Jill Dowse. One & Other. 2009.A few minutes before leaving the plinth, I took out the marker pen and added the words “A BIT LESS…” to the beginning of the sign. I realised that a real transformation had taken place, and marked it for myself, while simultaneously disclosing it to the observer. Yet after the event, I was astonished to discover that the veracity of my public self-disclosure was called into question. Some people, including the security guard who was only a few feet from me, asked me if I was really scared of heights. Clearly, my “inner condition” was not revealed, or rather, perhaps, it was not trusted because “performance is not the real world” (Heddon 28). If it is true that to act means “to feign, to simulate, to represent, to impersonate,” then mine was not a predominantly “acted” performance (Kirby 40). Claire MacDonald claims that “when a performance artist stands up in front of an audience she is assumed to be performing as herself” (189), but does that also suggest that their statements are to be believed or that their gestures might not be feigned? Perhaps this simply reveals a contemporary distrust of anyone placed on a pedestal and putting on a “show,” be it plinther or politician. The relationship between the power and control I have over myself to the power and control exercised by other agencies remains ambivalent. At many points during the process, I was complicit in perpetuating the commodification of myself and the project: my small acts of resistance—deciding against uploading a photo to my “profile”, refusing the “Sky Arts” emblazoned umbrella offered on the day in favour of my own anonymous one (though this was partly an aesthetic choice), refusing the radio mike so that those on the Internet could not easily hear any voluntary or involuntary sound I may make—are hardly radical. It was dangerously easy, within this heightened period, for me to succumb to a carefully orchestrated media machine which performed interest in the individual while mitigating against the possibility of gaining deeper insights or connections. I have been surprised to discover how deeply I care what others think of me. I still recognise the desire that I remember from adolescence to be, through performance, more visible, applauded, approved of. Although it is vital to learn not to attach undue importance to judgements with questionable value, the media has a certain (albeit highly contested) authority, and it can therefore be difficult to ignore opinions, and particularly negative ones, when they are broadcasted or published for anyone to hear or read. I feel fortunate that my vulnerability (and disclosure of such) was manageable, as if one willingly steps into a public arena, one must expect to be judged and be prepared not to be given a public right of reply.Nonetheless, if one strips back the negative aspects of the media circus which surrounded it, One & Other was a meaningful event in which to have taken part. The public exposure against which I had armed myself proved unexpectedly peaceful and empowering and I experienced Gormley’s assertion that One & Other offered participants the opportunity to “test their sense of self and how they might communicate this to a wider world” (qtd. in Antony Gormley’s “One & Other”). Artistically, I discovered that my attraction to certain performance styles and methodologies is implicitly and deeply linked to aspects of my own personality and how I desire to communicate. Finally, it has forced me to re-think and re-imagine my relationship with fear and challenge, recognising, even in the core of fear, the potential for transformation. ReferencesAntony Gormley’s “One & Other”. Pres. Clive Anderson. Dir. Peter Dick. Prod. Liberty Bell Productions. British Sky Broadcasting Ltd, London. 24 July, 1 Aug., 8 Aug., 23 Aug., 28 Aug., 4 Sep., 11 Sep., 18 Sep., 26 Sep., 10 Oct., and 16 Oct. 2009. Aston, Elaine. Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. London: Routledge, 1999.Augsburg, Tanya. “Orlan’s Performative Transformations.” The Ends of Performance. Eds. Peggy Phelan and Jill Lane. New York: New York University Press, 1998. 5–314. Auslander, Philip. Performance. 2. London: Routledge, 2003. Bickers, Patricia. Editorial. 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