Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Objets quasi-plans"

The 21st century is the knowledge economic era decided by brains. Reading is the sole tactic to rapidly accumulate knowledge and effectively absorb others’ research results. The level of reading ability is closely related to individual future learning and employment and even economic development. A competitive nation nowadays would invest large amount of resources and plans in reading. Students could broadly absorb distinct knowledge through reading to make up inadequate teaching hours of teachers, i.e. entering the time, space, and culture in books through reading, without which people could merely live in personal time and space. With experimental design model to precede the quasi-experimental study, total 216 elementary school students in Jiangsu, as the research objects, are preceded the 16-week (3 hours per week for total 48 hours) digital media integrated reciprocal teaching. The research results show that digital media integrated reciprocal teaching would affect reading ability, digital media integrated reciprocal teaching would affect reading motivation, and reading ability reveals significantly positive effects on reading motivation. According to the results, suggestions are proposed, expecting to apply previously mentioned reciprocal teaching principles to readers’ animation design, to cultivate students’ learning strategy through “man”-“machine” interaction, and to enhance reading comprehension.

Abstract For optimal water resources management of the Angara reservoirs cascade (a complex “Lake Baikal – Irkutsk, Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk and Boguchansk reservoirs”) and water users provision in the MIKE 11 software a quasi-two-dimensional simulation hydrodynamic model of the Angara hydroelectric power stations (HPS) cascade from Lake Baikal to the Boguchansk HPS downstream, which is a tool for reproducing the features of the water flow hydrodynamic structure, was developed. A hydrodynamic computer model using the built-in module “Regulating structures” module makes it possible to form reasonable operating modes of the Angarsk cascade of reservoirs that meet the most significant requirements of water users: ecology, fisheries and utilities, transport and energy. Hydrodynamic calculations and the flood zones obtained in the GIS project of the territory showed that catastrophic phenomena in the floodplain and coastal zone of Irkutsk occur even when releases into the lower pool of the Irkutsk reservoir exceed 3200 m3/s. The developed hydrodynamic model of the Angarsk cascade of reservoirs makes it possible to determine the objects and floodplain areas most susceptible to flooding in the downstream of the Irkutsk HPS for further development of scientifically based measures to protect them, prevent flooding and develop evacuation plans in an emergency.

Lying in ditches, tromping through mud, wedged in urns, trash bins, buried in earth, bodies in Beckett appear anything but capable of acting meaningfully on their environments. Bodies in Beckett seem, rather, synonymous with abjection, brokenness, and passivity—as if the human were overcome by its materiality: odours, pain, foot sores, decreased mobility. To the extent that Beckett's personae act, they act vaguely (wandering) or engage in quasi-obsessive, repetitive tasks: maniacal rocking, rotating sucking stones and biscuits, uttering words evacuated of sense, ceaseless pacing. Perhaps the most vivid dramatization of bodies compelled to meaningless, repetitive movement is Quad (1981), Beckett's ‘ballet’ for television, in which four bodies in hooded robes repeat their series ad infinitum. By 1981, has all possibility for intentional action in Beckett been foreclosed? Are we doomed, as Hamm puts it, to an eternal repetition of the same? (‘Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended.’)This article proposes an alternative reading of bodily abjection, passivity and compulsivity in Beckett, a reading that implies a version of agency more capacious than voluntarism. Focusing on Quad as an illustrative case, I show how, if we shift our focus from the body's diminished possibilities for movement to the imbrication of Beckett's personae in environments (a mound of earth), things, and objects, a different story emerges: rather than dramatizing the impossibility of action, Beckett's work may sketch plans for a more ecological, post-human version of agency, a more collaborative mode of ‘acting’ that eases the divide between the human, the world of inanimate objects, and the earth.Movements such as new materialism and object-oriented ontology challenge hierarchies among subjects, objects and environments, questioning the rigid distinction between animate and inanimate, and the notion of the Anthropocene emphasizes the influence of human activity on social and geological space. A major theoretical challenge that arises from such discourses (including 20th-century challenges to the idea of an autonomous, willing, subject) is to arrive at an account of agency robust enough to survive if not the ‘death of the subject’ then its imbrication in the material and social environment it acts upon. Beckett's treatment of the human body suggests a version of agency that draws strength from a body's interaction with its environment, such that meaning is formed in the nexus between body and world. Using the example of Quad, I show how representations of the body in Beckett disturb the opposition between compulsivity (when a body is driven to move or speak in the absence of intention) and creative invention. In Quad, serial repetition works to create an interface between body and world that is receptive to meanings outside the control of a human will. Paradoxically, compulsive repetition in Beckett, despite its uncomfortable closeness to addiction, harnesses a loss of individual control that proposes a more versatile and ecologically mindful understanding of human action.

Formata dal movimento dei ghiacciai quaternari, la Valle di Susa è una valle alpina nel Nord Ovest italiano. Luminoso esempio di “materia narrante”, è anche terreno di scontro tra iniziative conservazionistiche e progetti infrastrutturali transnazionali. Il progetto dell’alta velocità-capacità ferroviaria, o TAV, è stato oggetto di dure critiche. Dagli anni Novanta, grandi mobilitazioni riunite sotto il vessillo No TAV dalla valle si sono estese all’intero territorio nazionale. Parallelamente, il TAV gode l’appoggio bipartisan delle forze politiche. Diversi progetti preliminari sono stati stracciati nel tentativo di sedare un conflitto quasi trentennale con le comunità locali, un conflitto che buona parte della popolazione descrive come “resistenza”, riallacciandosi all’epopea partigiana contro la piaga nazista. Il 28 luglio 2017, il Movimento No TAV ha annunciato il rinvenimento della sgargiante Zerynthia polyxena presso il torrente Clarea. Questa farfalla è inserita nella Direttiva Habitat, adottata dall’Unione europea nel 1992 per promuovere la tutela della biodiversità. Tuttavia, l’area è stata scelta come nuovo sito di cantiere da TELT, Promotore Pubblico responsabile della realizzazione e gestione della sezione transfrontaliera della futura linea Torino-Lyon. La notizia offre una lettura inedita del rapporto fra umano, tecnologia e ambiente in un contesto di altissima tensione economica e sociale quale è la Val di Susa. Nell'Ecuba, Euripide racconta che Polissena, principessa troiana, preferì farsi uccidere piuttosto che diventare schiava. La vicenda di Polissena è il cavallo di legno che introduce nel dibattito sul progetto del TAV l’assunto per cui “la liberazione della natura così ardentemente desiderata dagli ambientalisti non potrà mai essere pienamente ottenuta senza la liberazione della donna” (Gaard). Una nuova possibilità per il Movimento No TAV di far sentire la propria voce sarà illuminando la verità che il corpo della Terra e i corpi delle donne sono un unico corpo soggiogato e subordinato all’uomo, vittime dello stesso pregiudizio, quello di essere predisposti a uno scopo: compiacere, nutrire, servire. Ho ripercorso una china che va da La Dea Bianca di Robert Graves alla stregoneria al fascismo, guidato da alcune eroine letterarie. Coniugando idealmente l’ecofemminismo alla teoria designata da Edward Lorenz, battendo le ali Polissena può davvero scatenare un uragano. Abstract Formed by the movement of large ice sheets during the Quaternary glaciations, the Susa Valley is an alpine site in northwestern Italy. It is a luminous example of “storied matter,” but it is also a battlefield between visions of wild nature and the plans of “crossnational” infrastructures. The planned TAV (Treno Alta Velocità, or high-speed train) line has been the source of heavy criticism: since the 1990s, an intense mobilization has spread from the valley all across Italy under the banner of the “No TAV” movement. The TAV project has since enjoyed unwavering political support from the members of parliament, right-wing and left-wing alike. Several preliminary drafts have been overturned in the attempt to quell a three-decades–long clash with the communities, a clash that most of the local people depict as “resistance,” latching on to the partisans’ epic stories of endurance against the Nazi scourge that took place in the valley. On July 28, 2017, the No TAV movement announced the discovery of the rare and striking butterfly Zerynthia polyxena, among the rare, threatened, or endemic species in the European Union listed in the Habitat Directive adopted in 1992. Yet, the area has been chosen as the new construction site by the company entrusted with the management of the cross-border section of the high-speed railway line between Turin and Lyon (a.k.a. TELT). This piece of news provides an original point of view to address the relationship between human and non-human agencies in a context of economic and social tension such as the Susa Valley. In this paper, I compare contemporary circumstances in the valley to the ancient Greek myth of Polyxena. In the tragedy Hecuba, the dramatist Euripides describes Polyxena as the Trojan princess who prefers to kill herself rather than become a slave. Hence, the butterfly that carries her name might become a Trojan horse enshrining the idea that “the liberation of nature so ardently desired by environmentalists will not be fully effected without the liberation of women” (G. Gaard). Combining various critical strains within the Environmental Humanities–from ecofeminism and biosemiotics to environmental history and new materialism–I suggest that richer, more encompassing narratives will be generated only when the similar fate of subjugation experienced by non-human bodies and the bodies of women will be more widely recognized. I carve a meandering spatio-temporal narrative path that goes from Robert Graves’ The White Goddess to witch trials and fascism, attempting to follow an erratic fluttering pattern amongst the voices of literature. It is the very slanted figure eight pattern that Polyxena makes with its wings, and by which, according to the theory designated by Edward Lorenz, a hurricane could grow, bringing alternative world visions.Resumen Formado por el movimiento de grandes capas de hielo durante las glaciaciones cuaternarias, el valle de Susa es un enclave alpino en el noroeste de Italia. Es un ejemplo luminoso de “materia narrada”, pero también es un campo de batalla entre las visiones de la naturaleza salvaje y los planes de las infraestructuras “transnacionales”. La línea TAV (“Treno Alta Velocità” o tren de alta velocidad) ha sido objeto de fuertes críticas: desde la década de 1990 se ha extendido en toda Italia una intensa movilización bajo el lema del movimiento “No TAV”. Desde entonces, el proyecto TAV ha gozado de un apoyo político inquebrantable por parte de los miembros del parlamento, tanto de derecha como de izquierda. Varios proyectos preliminares han sido revocados en un intento de sofocar un enfrentamiento de tres décadas con las comunidades, un choque que la mayoría de la población local concibe como “resistencia”, con referencia a las épicas historias de resistencia de los partisanos contra el flagelo nazi que tuvo lugar en el valle. El 28 de julio de 2017, el movimiento No TAV anunció el descubrimiento de la sorprendente mariposa Zerynthia polyxena, entre las especies raras, amenazadas o endémicas de la Unión Europea, enumeradas en la Directiva Hábitat adoptada en 1992. Sin embargo, el lugar ha sido elegido como el nuevo sitio de construcción por la empresa encargada de la gestión del tramo transfronterizo de la línea ferroviaria de alta velocidad entre Turín y Lyon (también conocido como TELT). Esta noticia proporciona un punto de vista original para abordar la relación entre los seres humanos y el medio ambiente en un contexto de tensión económica y social como el Valle de Susa. En este artículo, comparo las circunstancias contemporáneas en el valle con el antiguo mito griego de Políxena. En la tragedia Hécuba, el dramaturgo Eurípides describe a Políxena como la princesa troyana que prefiere suicidarse antes que ser una esclava. Por lo tanto, la mariposa que lleva su nombre podría convertirse en un caballo de Troya que consagre la idea de que “la liberación de la naturaleza tan ardientemente deseada por los ecologistas no se realizará completamente sin la liberación de las mujeres” (G. Gaard). Combinando varias tendencias críticas dentro de las ciencias humanas ambientales—desde el ecofeminismo y la biosemiótica hasta la historia ambiental y los nuevos materialismos—sugiero que se generarán narrativas más ricas e incluyentes sólo cuando el destino similar de subyugación experimentado por cuerpos no humanos y cuerpos de mujeres sea más ampliamente reconocido. Trazo una ruta narrativa espacio-temporal serpenteante que va desde La Diosa Blanca de Robert Graves hasta los juicios de brujas y el fascismo, tratando de seguir un patrón de aleteo errático entre las voces de la literatura. Es el patrón inclinado de la figura de ocho que hace Políxena con sus alas, y por obra del cual, de acuerdo con la teoría designada por Edward Lorenz, un huracán podría crecer, trayendo visiones alternativas del mundo.

This paper proposes a novel type of grasping strategy that draws inspiration from the role of touch and the importance of wrist motions in human grasping. The proposed algorithm, which we call Sequential Contact-based Adaptive Grasping, can be used to reactively modify a given grasp plan according to contacts arising between the hand and the object. This technique, based on a systematic constraint categorization and an iterative task inversion procedure, is shown to lead to synchronized motions of the fingers and the wrist, as it can be observed in humans, and to increase grasp success rate by substantially mitigating the relevant problems of object slippage during hand closure and of uncertainties caused by the environment and by the perception system. After describing the grasping problem in its quasi-static aspects, the algorithm is derived and discussed with some simple simulations. The proposed method is general as it can be applied to different kinds of robotic hands. It refines a priori defined grasp plans and significantly reduces their accuracy requirements by relying only on a forward kinematic model and elementary contact information. The efficacy of our approach is confirmed by experimental results of tests performed on a collaborative robot manipulator equipped with a state-of-the-art underactuated soft hand.

Introduction This essay is very much an anxious response to an earlier article, "Controlling Gameplay", that I wrote for M/C about gameplay: the immersive, visceral experience of playing computer and video games. I argued that gameplay concerns the event status of playing computer and video games, and that as such it exceeds the symbolic content of games. Now, I continue to be troubled by the implications of this assertion -- does it not give up too much ground gained by the understanding that social practices such as gaming are socially constructed? Does it not return us to all of the problems associated with claims of access to an essential, authentic experience? In short, it becomes very difficult to contest or question such claims. The term gameplay may well function to depoliticise computer gaming; at least if the domain of the properly sociopolitical is understood as the symbolic field! -- and perhaps we shouldn't concede this point too quickly. In the previous article did I almost against myself end up fetishising the technological through the postulation of this sublime experience? The Fetish & Desire You may well be wondering what any of this has got to do with desire. Well, first let me fill you in on the research context out of which these essays emerge. For the past three years I have been undertaking ethnographic research on computer gaming: first, by participating in online gamer fan activities; and second, in an enterprise ethnographic study of Auran, a computer game development company situated in Brisbane, Australia. "Controlling Gameplay" is clearly marked by my immersion and entanglement in an ethnographic relationship with online gamers. The material on which it is based came from spending up to 25 hours a week online playing and discussing games. The point of these comments is not simply to establish my credentials as a gamer, nor to embarrassingly distance myself from 'going native' by making the appropriate gestures about reflexivity. Rather, I insist on these moments of fetishistic disavowal and illusion as a necessary condition of doing ethnographies. This shifts us from the domain of desire to what Slavoj Zizek, following Lacan, theorises as enjoyment. In the introduction to "Controlling Gameplay" I made the banal point that computer game software is a commodity. Computer games offer an example of the informational commodity circulating through the networks of informational capitalism. This is basically the bottom line of gaming: big business. Zizek carefully outlines that central to the Marxist understanding of commodity fetishism -- the displacement of relations among people onto relations among things -- is a fascination for some kind of mysterious 'content' that is presumed to be hidden by the form of commodities (Sublime Object 16-22). An example of this is the cultural studies academic doing ethnographic research, and believing that his work offers "something more", a potential critical edge, than just the commodification and corporatisation of academic work. It would appear, at least initially, that this is precisely how gameplay is working: the hidden technological sublime behind the empty form of the informational commodity. The problem for critical analysis then becomes that of insisting on asking the question of why this 'content' of gameplay is affirmed in the game's particular status of the commodity form. We are not interested in disclosing "the secret behind the form but the secret of this form itself" (Sublime Object 15). In discussions many gamers would insist on the fact that gameplay is simply the fun factor of playing computer games: nothing more and nothing less. Others would insist on refusing to finally fill in this secret content. After describing gameplay as having something to do with an immersive experience of escapism a gamer would invariably move on to suggest that it perhaps involved the design of a good interface that allows the player to seamlessly participate in the game; or it is to do with quality game-design, a careful balancing of various features that define a particular genre. Or it is a skill developed and honed by many hours of gaming; intense gameplay is an insider's experience that is used to define your belonging as a 'hard-core gamer with cred' -- if it has to be explained and described to you, well, you just won't get it, will you? In the movement of these discussions and exchanges desire is not so much to be found or discovered in the hidden content of an essential, authentic experience that is gameplay, but rather it is right there on the surface, in the work of these displacements. If anything then, unconscious desire is not a deep interior experience of gameplay but in the very form of this movement, in the work that is done to elaborate and produce the effect of a hidden content. And the question arises: what is being avoided or obfuscated in this movement that perhaps has nothing at all to do with an experience of gameplay or even desire for that matter? I will return to this question in a moment. The important step here is not to become overly dazzled by this 'content' of gameplay, but instead to ask the question of why it assumes the form of a commodity. But why this focus on the commodity-form, and the process of fetishistic inversion. After all there is a lot more at stake here than simply the commodity-form or some kind of economic reductionism, essentialism or substantialism. There is also the fascinating power of attraction that this "something more" can exert on academic work. This has to do with the status of a sublime materiality that persists beyond the physical materiality of an object in the networks of business, or even that of an object-cause for intersubjective desire played out in the game of ethnographic research. It is precisely this persistence that is so troubling. But is this interest in fetishistic disavowal, the insistence on "something more", simply a more refined type of traditional ideology critique? That is, is it once more a matter of the illusory knowledge or beliefs of misguided naive gamers which the critical intellectual will come along and tear down, to reveal the true state of affairs -- that there is really nothing there except perhaps a complex, overdetermined effect of socioeconomic processes, a social construction if you like? Is all of this concern with the fetish simply an epistemological and monstrous game played out in the interiority of the thinking subject that has in fact very little, if anything, to do with the effective materiality of the complex assemblage that is computer gaming. Perhaps a shift to the materiality of the processes and objects involved in the production of computer gaming would help us to leave behind the problem of the fetish as some tired epistemological quandary about illusory belief. After all, is not the very idea of commodity fetishism based on a rather tired and limiting opposition between people and things? The Factish In his recent Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, Bruno Latour attacks the notion of the fetish and the modern critical subject that he believes is behind it. Latour's actor-network theory (nicely explained in Sean Aylward Smith's recent article for M/C, "Where Does the Body End?") works to displace the assumed divide between subjects and objects, particularly humans and nonhumans. This is often theorised through richly detailed ethnographic studies that follow the associations between humans and nonhumans that make up the assemblages and collectivities of scientific practice and technological projects. In Pandora's Hope Latour takes aim at the critical gesture of the iconoclast, the modern critic, who seeks to expose the fetish as "something that is nothing in itself, but simply the blank screen onto which we have projected, erroneously, our fancies, our labor, our hopes and passions". A problem for the anti-fetishist is the assumption that people naively believe in the inherent, mysterious qualities of the object in the first place. Anti-fetishism is not so much about the qualities or status of the object and our relations to it, but more a mode of argument: "it is always an accusation. Some person, or some people, are accused of being taken in -- or worse, of cynically manipulating credulous believers -- by someone who is sure of escaping from this illusion and wants to free the others as well: either from naive belief or from being manipulative. But if anti-fetishism is clearly an accusation, it is not a description of what happens with those who believe or are manipulated" (270). Latour argues that the problem of fetishism is all in the mind of the critical thinker. Believing himself disconnected from the realm of things and objects, this monstrous "mind in the vat" "invents the notion of belief and manipulation and projects this notion upon a situation in which the fetish plays an entirely different role" (270). Latour proposes that we shift our attention to the status of the fetish as a quasi-object or factish. The factish has to be fabricated, made, and invented; as such it has a complex and variable ontology in which it is entangled within collective practice. The status of the factish is all about the associations between humans and nonhumans and refuses the disabling opposition between subject and object, epistemology and ontology, internal belief and external world. The modern critic's belief that others believe functions to render invisible the complicated practice through which the categories are mixed and factishes are constructed. To replace all of this Latour suggests that we adopt a heterogeneous ontology in which we externalise belief "among the multiplicity of nonhumans" (284) -- in short that we recognise the ontological content of beliefs, and grant ontology back to nonhuman entities (273-88). By taking up the approach of actor-network theory I could now follow the diverse actors, both human and nonhuman, that make up the network and practices of computer gaming. When the gamers assert that gameplay is this and that and so on, I can take them at their word. They are not telling me, in some hysterical cycle, 'no it's not that, no, not that'. But instead 'yes it is that, and that as well'. They are affirming the multiple and heterogeneous ontology of humans and nonhumans. So I took this toolbox of concepts with me into my fieldwork encounters and interventions at Auran. And not surprisingly it worked really well. I could now quite easily and comfortably follow the entangled materiality of humans and nonhumans; the multiple shifting ontologies of objects such as game engines that function as representations in design reports; key elements in long term corporate business plans; links in relations with other corporations; development tools for game designers; the focus of licensing agreements; and programming problems and challenges for programmers. Game designers, programmers, CEOs, and public relations officers were more than happy to describe and show me the complex entanglements of humans and nonhumans involved in producing computer games. Now, throughout the period of my fieldwork I have been quite anxious and worried about negotiating the conditions of access, about the control exercised by senior Auran management. But at each stage or period of my research I have been amazed by the level of cooperation and access that has been given to me. Nor has Auran management shown much concern about my access to 'problem areas' of the company as it went through various periods of restructuring. I have had open and what I believe to be frank discussions with disgruntled employees who were very uncomfortable and openly critical of various aspects of Auran. And there has been very little effort to control or restrict my use of this material. My impression is that Auran has been more than pleased to put on display for the dazzled gaze of the ethnographer the corporate processes and mechanisms involved in producing computer game software. Initially I was rubbing my hands with glee at this research opportunity. I can see publication potential and career opportunities emerging from this ethnographic entanglement with Auran. The Fetish and Enjoyment But I have become increasingly anxious and worried about how well the fieldwork at Auran has gone, and how well actor-network theory works in explaining the multiple and heterogeneous ontologies of the humans and nonhumans that I have been mixing with for the past two years. And this worry brings me back to the fetish. I think Latour is correct: belief is not something internal, but more a matter of practice, externalised in the relations among humans and nonhumans. But is this not precisely the more useful and correct definition of the fetish, at least under the conditions of informational capitalism? Far from moving us out of the domain of the fetish into the ontological materiality of the factish, Latour is perhaps describing the fetishistic inversion perfectly. It is not at the level of some kind of internal knowledge, belief or deep mysterious unconscious that the misrecognition of the fetishistic inversion takes place. Rather, it is at the properly social level of our acts, what we do, that we overlook the fetishistic 'repressed' social dimension (Sublime Object 20). This nonknowledge of reality is part of the very effectivity of our social acts, "a kind of reality which is possible only on condition that the individuals partaking in it are not aware of its proper logic; that is, a kind of reality whose very ontological consistency implies a certain non-knowledge of its participants" (Sublime Object 21). The further point to recognise, as Zizek points out, is that commodity fetishism is not just the replacement of people with things, or our overlooking the properly social relations between humans behind things. More importantly, it is that this misrecognition occurs precisely at the level of the network of relations among things -- what is a structural effect of this network of relations starts to appear as the immediate property of one of the elements (Sublime Object 23-4). So from all of this the important point for my purposes is that fetishism is not really about what people know. Of course gamers know very well that their software is a commodity, and that capitalist business interests are basically running the show: they talk about the business of gaming all the time. The point is rather the fact that the fetishistic inversion occurs in the very activity of playing. This misrecognition, or illusion if you will, is not about false knowledge: the illusion is structuring reality, our real social activity: "they know very well how things really are, but still they are doing it as if they did not know" (Sublime Object 32). So Latour is quite insightful, belief is radically exterior and as Zizek points out one of the uptakes of this is that things, commodities, end up believing for us -- "it is belief which is radically exterior, embodied in the practical, effective procedure of people" (34). But does not Latour's focus on the complex ontology of objects, and our entanglement with them, at least in some way work to challenge this fetishistic inversion? Is not this obfuscation of the process of production, even if we shift that misrecognition to the relations among things, questioned by the process of exposing or opening the black box of the production mechanism? After all, isn't this precisely what we are trying to do with ethnographies? The difficulty, as Zizek writes in "Fetishism and Its Vicissitudes", is that "far from destroying the 'fetishist' illusion, the insight into the production mechanism in fact even strengthens it". It is the disclosure of the production process itself that "serves as the fetish which fascinates with its presence". And what is being concealed, and persists through all this display of disclosure is "the social mode of production" (102). Zizek warns us "the transparency of the process of production is false in so far as it obfuscates the immaterial virtual order which effectively runs the show ... . Capital functions as the sublime irrepresentable Thing, present only in its effects, in contrast to a commodity, a particular material object which miraculously 'comes to life', starts to move as if endowed with an invisible spirit" (103). Time for me to get back to the question of desire. One of the more fascinating and disturbing uptakes of this approach to the fetish is that the fetishistic misrecognition persists and insists beyond any interpretative intervention. This is the necessary conclusion of the fact that fetishism is not about what we know, but what we do: 'I know all too well that computer games are informational commodities generating profits for capitalist enterprises, but damn, they are fun to play.' The problem with gameplay is not one of explaining it, symbolising it, or even finding the appropriate theoretical vocabulary in which to talk about it. Gamers have come up with a range of different and flexible ways of discussing (dare I say, quite reflexively) the experience of gameplay. The problem is that I can never quite get rid of this problem of gameplay, it insists on sticking and attaching itself to my ethnography. Bruno Latour picks up on this dilemma with the observation that despite all the best efforts of the anti-fetishist critic "somehow the fetish gains in strength ... . The more you want it to be nothing, the more action springs back from it" (270). Even the attempt to generate a kind of critical distance through the process of 'writing up' the dissertation is smeared with the rather disgusting, perverted Enjoyment taken in disclosing and robbing the other of their Enjoyment. It is as if we are compelled, interpellated, by an anonymous superegoic injunction to 'Enjoy our gaming'. As Slavoj Zizek argues in his recent work (including the magnificent The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology) the order of capital no longer functions according to the matrix of desire, a prohibitive injunction that sets in motion the impossibility of satisfying desire that is "reflexively inverted into the desire for nonsatisfaction" (345). Instead we get a corporate "little brother" commanding us to Enjoy ourselves! (The Ticklish Subject 347) Perhaps the only response open to us in these circumstances is in the act of insisting on a bottom line: $. References Banks, John. "Controlling Gameplay." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.5 (1998). 22 July 1999 <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/game.php>. Latour, Bruno. Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999. Smith, Sean Aylward. "Where Does the Body End?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.3 (1999). 22 July 1999 <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9905/end.php>. Zizek, Slavoj. "Fetishism and Its Vicissitudes." The Plague of Fantasies. London: Verso, 1997. 86-126. ---. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso, 1989. ---. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA style: John Banks. "From Fetish to Factish and Back Again." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.5 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9907/games.php>. Chicago style: John Banks, "From Fetish to Factish and Back Again," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 5 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9907/games.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: John Banks. (1999) From fetish to factish and back again. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(5). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9907/games.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionIn 1802 George Howe (1769-1821), the recently appointed Government Printer, published Australia’s first book. The following year he established Australia’s first newspaper; an enterprise that ran counter to all the environmental factors of the day, including: 1) issues of logistics and a lack of appropriate equipment and basic materials to produce a regularly issued newspaper; 2) issues resulting from the very close supervision of production and the routine censorship by the Governor; and 3) issues associated with the colony’s primary purposes as a military outpost and as a penal settlement, creating conflicts between very different readerships. The Sydney Gazette was, critically for Howe, the only newspaper in the infant city for over two decades. Alternative voices would not enter the field of printed media until the 1820s and 1830s. This article briefly explores the birth of an Australian industry and looks at how a very modest newspaper overcame a range of serious challenges to ignite imaginations and lay a foundation for media empires.Government Printer The first book published in Australia was the New South Wales General Standing Orders and General Orders (1802), authorised by Governor Philip Gidley King for the purposes of providing a convenient, single-volume compilation of all Government Orders, issued in New South Wales, between 1791 and 1802. (As the Australian character has been described as “egalitarian, anti-authoritarian and irreverent” [D. Jones 690], it is fascinating that the nation’s first published book was a set of rules.) Prescribing law, order and regulation for the colony the index reveals the desires of those charged with the colony’s care and development, to contain various types of activities. The rules for convicts were, predictably, many. There were also multiple orders surrounding administration, animal husbandry as well as food stuffs and other stores. Some of the most striking headings in the index relate to crime. For example, in addition to headings pertaining to courts there are also headings for a broad range of offences from: “BAD Characters” to “OFFENSIVE Weapons – Again[s]t concealing” (i-xii). The young colony, still in its teenage years, was, for the short-term, very much working on survival and for the long-term developing ambitious plans for expansion and trade. It was clear though, through this volume, that there was no forgetting the colony of New South Wales was first, and foremost, a penal settlement which also served as a military outpost. Clear, too, was the fact that not all of those who were shipped out to the new colony were prepared to abandon their criminal careers which “did not necessarily stop with transportation” (Foyster 10). Containment and recidivism were matters of constant concern for the colony’s authorities. Colonial priorities could be seen in the fact that, when “Governor Arthur Phillip brought the first convicts (548 males and 188 females) to Port Jackson on 26 January 1788, he also brought a small press for printing orders, rules, and regulations” (Goff 103). The device lay dormant on arrival, a result of more immediate concerns to feed and house all those who made up the First Fleet. It would be several years before the press was pushed into sporadic service by the convict George Hughes for printing miscellaneous items including broadsides and playbills as well as for Government Orders (“Hughes, George” online). It was another convict (another man named George), convicted at the Warwick Assizes on March 1799 (Ferguson vi) then imprisoned and ultimately transported for shoplifting (Robb 15), who would transform the small hand press into an industry. Once under the hand of George Howe, who had served as a printer with several London newspapers including The Times (Sydney Gazette, “Never” 2) – the printing press was put to much more regular use. In these very humble circumstances, Australia’s great media tradition was born. Howe, as the Government Printer, transformed the press from a device dedicated to ephemera as well as various administrative matters into a crucial piece of equipment that produced the new colony’s first newspaper. Logistical Challenges Governor King, in the year following the appearance of the Standing Orders, authorised the publishing of Australia’s first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. The publication history of The Sydney Gazette, in a reflection of some of the challenges faced by the printer, is erratic. First published on a Saturday from 5 March 1803, it quickly changed to a Sunday paper from 10 April 1803. Interestingly, Sunday “was not an approved day for the publication of newspapers, and although some English publishers had been doing so since about 1789, Sunday papers were generally frowned upon” (Robb 58). Yet, as argued by Howe a Sunday print run allowed for the inclusion of “the whole of the Ship News, and other Incidental Matter, for the preceeding week” (Sydney Gazette, “To the Public” 1).The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser Vol. 1, No. 1, 5 March 1803 (Front Page)Call Number DL F8/50, Digital ID a345001, State Library of New South WalesPublished weekly until 1825, then bi-weekly until 1827 before coming out tri-weekly until 20 October 1842 (Holden 14) there were some notable pauses in production. These included one in 1807 (Issue 214, 19 April-Issue 215, 7 June) and one in 1808-1809 (Issue 227, 30 August-Issue 228, 15 May) due to a lack of paper, with the latter pause coinciding with the Rum Rebellion and the end of William Bligh’s term as Governor of New South Wales (see: Karskens 186-88; Mundle 323-37). There was, too, a brief attempt at publishing as a daily from 1 January 1827 which lasted only until 10 February of that year when the title began to appear tri-weekly (Kirkpatrick online; Holden 14). There would be other pauses, including one of two weeks, shortly before the final issue was produced on 20 October 1842. There were many problems that beset The Sydney Gazette with paper shortages being especially challenging. Howe regularly advertised for: “any quantity” of Spanish paper (e.g.: Sydney Gazette, “Wanted to Purchase” 4) and needing to be satisfied “with a variety of size and colour” (P.M. Jones 39). In addition, the procurement of ink was so difficult in the colony, that Howe often resorted to making his own out of “charcoal, gum and shark oil” (P.M. Jones 39).The work itself was physically demanding and papers printed during this period, by hand, required a great deal of effort with approximately “250 sheets per hour … [the maximum] produced by a printer and his assistant” (Robb 8). The printing press itself was inadequate and the subject of occasional repairs (Sydney Gazette, “We Have” 2). Type was also a difficulty. As Gwenda Robb explains, traditionally six sets of an alphabet were supplied to a printer with extras for ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘r’ and ‘t’ as well as ‘s’. Without ample type Howe was required to improvise as can be seen in using a double ‘v’ to create a ‘w’ and an inverted ‘V’ to represent a capital ‘A’ (50, 106). These quirky work arounds, combined with the use of the long-form ‘s’ (‘∫’) for almost a full decade, can make The Sydney Gazette a difficult publication for modern readers to consume. Howe also “carried the financial burden” of the paper, dependent, as were London papers of the late eighteenth century, on advertising (Robb 68, 8). Howe also relied upon subscriptions for survival, with the collection of payments often difficult as seen in some subscribers being two years, or more, in arrears (e.g.: Sydney Gazette, “Sydney Gazette” 1; Ferguson viii; P.M. Jones 38). Governor Lachlan Macquarie granted Howe an annual salary, in 1811, of £60 (Byrnes 557-559) offering some relief, and stability, for the beleaguered printer.Gubernatorial Supervision Governor King wrote to Lord Hobart (then Secretary of State for War and the Colonies), on 9 May 1803: it being desirable that the settlers and inhabitants at large should be benefitted by useful information being dispersed among them, I considered that a weekly publication would greatly facilitate that design, for which purpose I gave permission to an ingenious man, who manages the Government printing press, to collect materials weekly, which, being inspected by an officer, is published in the form of a weekly newspaper, copies of which, as far as they have been published, I have the honor to enclose. (85)In the same letter, King wrote: “to the list of wants I have added a new fount of letters which may be procured for eight or ten pounds, sufficient for our purpose, if approved of” (85). King’s motivations were not purely altruistic. The population of the colony was growing in Sydney Cove and in the outlying districts, thus: “there was an increasing administrative need for information to be disseminated in a more accessible form than the printed handbills of government orders” (Robb 49). There was, however, a need for the administration to maintain control and the words “Published By Authority”, appearing on the paper’s masthead, were a constant reminder to the printer that The Sydney Gazette was “under the censorship of the Secretary to the Governor, who examined all proofs” (Ferguson viii). The high level of supervision, worked in concert with the logistical difficulties described above, ensured the newspaper was a source of great strain and stress. All for the meagre reward of “6d per copy” (Ferguson viii). This does not diminish Howe’s achievement in establishing a newspaper, an accomplishment outlined, with some pride, in an address printed on the first page of the first issue:innumerable as the Obstacles were which threatened to oppose our Undertaking, yet we are happy to affirm that they were not insurmountable, however difficult the task before us.The utility of a PAPER in the COLONY, as it must open a source of solid information, will, we hope, be universally felt and acknowledged. (Sydney Gazette, “Address” 1)Howe carefully kept his word and he “wrote nothing like a signature editorial column, nor did he venture his personal opinions, conscious always of the powers of colonial officials” (Robb 72). An approach to reportage he passed to his eldest son and long-term assistant, Robert (1795-1829), who later claimed The Sydney Gazette “reconciled in one sheet the merits of the London Gazette in upholding the Government and the London Times in defending the people” (Walker 10). The censorship imposed on The Sydney Gazette, by the Governor, was lifted in 1824 (P.M. Jones 40), when the Australian was first published without permission: Governor Thomas Brisbane did not intervene in the new enterprise. The appearance of unauthorised competition allowed Robert Howe to lobby for the removal of all censorship restrictions on The Sydney Gazette, though he was careful to cite “greater dispatch and earlier publication, not greater freedom of expression, as the expected benefit” (Walker 6). The sudden freedom was celebrated, and still appreciated many years after it was given:the Freedom of the Press has now been in existence amongst us on the verge of four years. In October 1824, we addressed a letter to the Colonial Government, fervently entreating that those shackles, under which the Press had long laboured, might be removed. Our prayer was attended to, and the Sydney Gazette, feeling itself suddenly introduced to a new state of existence, demonstrated to the Colonists the capabilities that ever must flow from the spontaneous exertions of Constitutional Liberty. (Sydney Gazette, “Freedom” 2)Early Readerships From the outset, George Howe presented a professional publication. The Sydney Gazette was formatted into three columns with the front page displaying a formal masthead featuring a scene of Sydney and the motto “Thus We Hope to Prosper”. Gwenda Robb argues the woodcut, the first produced in the colony, was carved by John W. Lewin who “had plenty of engraving skills” and had “returned to Sydney [from a voyage to Tahiti] in December 1802” (51) while Roger Butler has suggested that “circumstances point to John Austin who arrived in Sydney in 1800” as being the engraver (91). The printed text was as vital as the visual supports and every effort was made to present full accounts of colonial activities. “As well as shipping and court news, there were agricultural reports, religious homilies, literary extracts and even original poetry written by Howe himself” (Blair 450). These items, of course, sitting alongside key Government communications including General Orders and Proclamations.Howe’s language has been referred to as “florid” (Robb 52), “authoritative and yet filled with deference for all authority, pompous in a stiff, affected eighteenth century fashion” (Green 10) and so “some of Howe’s readers found the Sydney Gazette rather dull” (Blair 450). Regardless of any feelings towards authorial style, circulation – without an alternative – steadily increased with the first print run in 1802 being around 100 copies but by “the early 1820s, the newspaper’s production had grown to 300 or 400 copies” (Blair 450).In a reflection of the increasing sophistication of the Sydney-based reader, George Howe, and Robert Howe, would also publish some significant, stand-alone, texts. These included several firsts: the first natural history book printed in the colony, Birds of New South Wales with their Natural History (1813) by John W. Lewin (praised as a text “printed with an elegant and classical simplicity which makes it the highest typographical achievement of George Howe” [Wantrup 278]); the first collection of poetry published in the colony First Fruits of Australian Poetry (1819) by Barron Field; the first collection of poetry written by a Australian-born author, Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel (1826) by Charles Tompson; and the first children’s book A Mother’s Offering to Her Children: By a Lady, Long Resident in New South Wales (1841) by Charlotte Barton. The small concern also published mundane items such as almanacs and receipt books for the Bank of New South Wales (Robb 63, 72). All against the backdrop of printing a newspaper.New Voices The Sydney Gazette was Australia’s first newspaper and, critically for Howe, the only newspaper for over two decades. (A second paper appeared in 1810 but the Derwent Star and Van Diemen’s Land Intelligencer, which only managed twelve issues, presented no threat to The Sydney Gazette.) No genuine, local rival entered the field until 1824, when the Australian was founded by barristers William Charles Wentworth and Robert Wardell. The Monitor debuted in 1826, followed the Sydney Herald in 1831 and the Colonist in 1835 (P.M. Jones 38). It was the second title, the Australian, with a policy that asserted articles to be: “Independent, yet consistent – free, yet not licentious – equally unmoved by favours and by fear” (Walker 6), radically changed the newspaper landscape. The new paper made “a strong point of its independence from government control” triggering a period in which colonial newspapers “became enmeshed with local politics” (Blair 451). This new age of opinion reflected how fast the colony was evolving from an antipodean gaol into a complex society. Also, two papers, without censorship restrictions, without registration, stamp duties or advertisement duties meant, as pointed out by R.B. Walker, that “in point of law the Press in the remote gaol of exile was now freer than in the country of origin” (6). An outcome George Howe could not have predicted as he made the long journey, as a convict, to New South Wales. Of the early competitors, the only one that survives is the Sydney Herald (The Sydney Morning Herald from 1842), which – founded by immigrants Alfred Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie – claims the title of Australia’s oldest continuously published newspaper (Isaacs and Kirkpatrick 4-5). That such a small population, with so many pressing issues, factions and political machinations, could support a first newspaper, then competitors, is a testament to the high regard, with which newspaper reportage was held. Another intruder would be The Government Gazette. Containing only orders and notices in the style of the London Gazette (McLeay 1), lacking any news items or private advertisements (Walker 19), it was first issued on 7 March 1832 (and continues, in an online format, today). Of course, Government orders and other notices had news value and newspaper proprietors could bid for exclusive rights to produce these notices until a new Government Printer was appointed in 1841 (Walker 20).Conclusion George Howe, an advocate of “reason and common sense” died in 1821 placing The Sydney Gazette in the hands of his son who “fostered religion” (Byrnes 557-559). Robert Howe, served as editor, experiencing firsthand the perils and stresses of publishing, until he drowned in a boating accident in Sydney Harbour, in 1829 leaving the paper to his widow Ann Howe (Blair 450-51). The newspaper would become increasingly political leading to controversy and financial instability; after more changes in ownership and in editorial responsibility, The Sydney Gazette, after almost four decades of delivering the news – as a sole voice and then as one of several alternative voices – ceased publication in 1842. During a life littered with personal tragedy, George Howe laid the foundation stone for Australia’s media empires. His efforts, in extraordinary circumstances and against all environmental indicators, serve as inspiration to newspapers editors, proprietors and readers across the country. He established the Australian press, an institution that has been described asa profession, an art, a craft, a business, a quasi-public, privately owned institution. It is full of grandeurs and faults, sublimities and pettinesses. It is courageous and timid. It is fallible. It is indispensable to the successful on-going of a free people. (Holden 15)George Howe also created an artefact of great beauty. The attributes of The Sydney Gazette are listed, in a perfunctory manner, in most discussions of the newspaper’s history. The size of the paper. The number of columns. The masthead. The changes seen across 4,503 issues. Yet, consistently overlooked, is how, as an object, the newspaper is an exquisite example of the printed word. There is a physicality to the paper that is in sharp contrast to contemporary examples of broadsides, tabloids and online publications. Concurrently fragile and robust: its translucent sheets and mottled print revealing, starkly, the problems with paper and ink; yet it survives, in several collections, over two centuries since the first issue was produced. The elegant layout, the glow of the paper, the subtle crackling sound as the pages are turned. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser is an astonishing example of innovation and perseverance. It provides essential insights into Australia’s colonial era. It is a metonym for making words matter. AcknowledgementsThe author offers her sincere thanks to Geoff Barker, Simon Dwyer and Peter Kirkpatrick for their comments on an early draft of this paper. The author is also grateful to Bridget Griffen-Foley for engaging in many conversations about Australian newspapers. ReferencesBlair, S.J. “Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser.” A Companion to the Australian Media. Ed. Bridget Griffen-Foley. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014.Butler, Roger. Printed Images in Colonial Australia 1801-1901. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2007.Byrnes, J.V. “Howe, George (1769–1821).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography: 1788–1850, A–H. Canberra: Australian National University, 1966. 557-559. Ferguson, J.A. “Introduction.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser: A Facsimile Reproduction of Volume One, March 5, 1803 to February 26, 1804. Sydney: The Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales in Association with Angus & Robertson, 1963. v-x. Foyster, Elizabeth. “Introduction: Newspaper Reporting of Crime and Justice.” Continuity and Change 22.1 (2007): 9-12.Goff, Victoria. “Convicts and Clerics: Their Roles in the Infancy of the Press in Sydney, 1803-1840.” Media History 4.2 (1998): 101-120.Green, H.M. “Australia’s First Newspaper.” Sydney Morning Herald, 11 Apr. 1935: 10.Holden, W. Sprague. Australia Goes to Press. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1961. “Hughes, George (?–?).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography: 1788–1850, A–H. Canberra: Australian National University, 1966. 562. Isaacs, Victor, and Rod Kirkpatrick. Two Hundred Years of Sydney Newspapers. Richmond: Rural Press, 2003. Jones, Dorothy. “Humour and Satire (Australia).” Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. 2nd ed. Eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. London: Routledge, 2005. 690-692.Jones, Phyllis Mander. “Australia’s First Newspaper.” Meanjin 12.1 (1953): 35-46. Karskens, Grace. The Colony: A History of Early Sydney. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2010. King, Philip Gidley. “Letter to Lord Hobart, 9 May 1803.” Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Volume IV, 1803-1804. Ed. Frederick Watson. Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1915.Kirkpatrick, Rod. Press Timeline: 1802 – 1850. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2011. 6 Jan. 2017 <https://www.nla.gov.au/content/press-timeline-1802-1850>. McLeay, Alexander. “Government Notice.” The New South Wales Government Gazette 1 (1832): 1. Mundle, R. Bligh: Master Mariner. Sydney: Hachette, 2016.New South Wales General Standing Orders and General Orders: Selected from the General Orders Issued by Former Governors, from the 16th of February, 1791, to the 6th of September, 1800. Also, General Orders Issued by Governor King, from the 28th of September, 1800, to the 30th of September, 1802. Sydney: Government Press, 1802. Robb, Gwenda. George Howe: Australia’s First Publisher. Kew: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2003.Spalding, D.A. Collecting Australian Books: Notes for Beginners. 1981. Mawson: D.A. Spalding, 1982. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. “Address.” 5 Mar. 1803: 1.———. “To the Public.” 2 Apr. 1803: 1.———. “Wanted to Purchase.” 26 June 1803: 4.———. “We Have the Satisfaction to Inform Our Readers.” 3 Nov. 1810: 2. ———. “Sydney Gazette.” 25 Dec. 1819: 1. ———. “The Freedom of the Press.” 29 Feb. 1828: 2.———. “Never Did a More Painful Task Devolve upon a Public Writer.” 3 Feb. 1829: 2. Walker, R.B. The Newspaper Press in New South Wales, 1803-1920. Sydney: Sydney UP, 1976.Wantrup, Johnathan. Australian Rare Books: 1788-1900. Sydney: Hordern House, 1987.

Les objets quasi-plans sont obtenus à partir d’une matrice qui définit des caractéristiques spécifiques observables dans leur gravure. Les exemples de ce type d’objets incluent les timbres à sec, les timbres amphoriques ou encore les pièces de monnaies anciennes. Les objetsquasi-plans sont par conséquent des formes très plates sur lesquelles un relief caractéristique est inscrit. Reconnaître de tels objets est une tâche compliquée car de nombreux verrous entrent en jeu. Le relief d’objets quasi-plans est sujet à des déformations non rigides et les conditions lumineuses influencent la façon dont ils sont perçus. De plus, ces objets ont pu subir diverses détériorations menant à l’occlusion de certaines parties de leur relief. Dans cette dissertation, nous adressons le problème de la reconnaissance d’objets quasi-plans. Cette thèse est articulée autour de trois grands axes. Le premier axe vise à créer un modèle adapté pour représenter l’objet en exposant ces caractéristiques et en prenant en compte les divers verrous précités. Dans ce but, le concept de carte d’énergie lumineuse est introduit. Les deuxième et troisième axes introduisent des stratégies de reconnaissance. D’un côté, nous proposons l’utilisation de contours de l’objet en tant que données caractéristiques. Ceux-ci sont représentés via un modèle de signature à partir duquel sont calculés des descripteurs. Afin de stocker, retrouver et comparer ces descripteurs, une structure de donnée basée sur des tableaux associatifs, les LACS, est présentée ; elle permet une reconnaissance rapide de contours similaires. D’un autre côté, l’utilisation de textures comme descripteurs de l’objet est envisagée. Dans cette partie, l’étude est centrée sur l’emploi de régions 2D et leur description comme moyen de reconnaissance. Un angle similaire est adopté pour stocker et retrouver l’information ; une structure de donnée proche de celle précédemment décrite, mais plus complexe, est introduite
Quasi-flat objects are obtained from a matrix which defines specific features observable in their engraving. Some examples of these are dry stamps, amphora stamps or ancient coins. Quasi-flat objects are subsequently understood as very flat shapes onto which a characteristic relief is inscribed. Recognizing such objects is not an easy feat as many barriers come into play. The relief of quasi-flat objects is prone to non-rigid deformations and the illumination conditions influence the perception of the object’s relief. Furthermore, these items may have undergone various deteriorations, leading to the occlusion of some parts of their relief. In this thesis, we tackle the issue of recognizing quasi-flat objects. This work is articulated around three major axes. The first one aims at creating a model to represent the objects both by highlighting their main characteristics and taking into account the afore mentioned barriers. To this aim, the concept of multi-light energy map is introduced. The second and third axes introduce strategies for the recognition. On the one hand, we propose the use of contours as main features. Contours are described via a signature model from which specific descriptors are calculated. In order to store, retrieve and match those features, a data structure based on associative arrays, the LACS system, is introduced, which enables a fast retrieval of similar contours. On the other hand, the use of textures is investigated. The scope here is centered on the use of specific 2D regions and their description in order to perform the recognition. A similar angle is taken to store and retrieve the information as a similar, yet a more complex data structure is introduced