Post-rock composition and performance practice: authenticity, liveness, creativity & technology

This thesis seeks to recontextualise journalist Simon Reynolds’ 1995 definition of post rock from the perspective of a practitioner and guitarist, focusing on popular music production and recording practices. The research applies a practice-as-research (PAR) methodology combining practice, interviews (with contemporary practitioners in the field) and contextual theory (musicology of popular music, cultural theory, and technology studies).The rise of cheaper music technology and the influence of electronic dance music (EDM) aesthetics and cultures in the 1980s and 1990s in genres such as techno, house, and jungle, have influenced an increase in the integration of recording studio devices into live performance set-ups for stage. I argue that the amalgamation of studio and stage (DAWs, samplers, sequencers and loopers) redefines the ‘rock band’ model. This has created new collaborations, as the technology and production become a physical extension of the band members’ instruments (Emmerson, 2011) and expands their creative processes. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead comments on a new way of composing, recording and performing: a ‘third’ way between playing and programming (Greenwood, in Rose, 2019:201). The ‘rock band’ model is shifting between studio and stage, live and recorded, and experimental and accessible, challenging the themes of liveness (Auslander, 2002). The thesis proposes that the ‘I’ of the band identity or the individual ‘rock’ performer has therefore dissolved or has been displaced by the more complex ‘I’ of the human and machine. Through producing Series of Studio Experiments (2019) and the album Enid – Yes! (2021) the research practice is concerned with the space between live performance and creative studio production— the post-digital performance. Post-rock thus presents a paradigm shift in authenticity, in which the origins and authors of sound are dislocated, and the creative acts of the manipulation of sound becomes the emerging virtuosic act, or act of timbral virtuosity (Solis, 2015). Practice research at the links below

Demystification and actualisation of data saturation in qualitative research through thematic analysis

The concept of saturation in qualitative research is a widely debated topic. Saturation refers to the point at which no new data or themes are emerging from the data set, which indicates that the data have been fully explored. It is considered an important concept as it helps to ensure that the findings are robust and that the data are being used to their full potential to achieve the research aim. Saturation, or the point at which further observation of data will not lead to the discovery of more information related to the research questions, is an important aspect of qualitative research. However, there is some mystification and semantic debate surrounding the term saturation, and it is not always clear how many rounds of research are needed to reach saturation or what criteria are used to make that determination during the thematic analysis process. This paper focuses on the actualisation of saturation in the context of thematic analysis and develops a systematic approach to using data to justify the contribution of research. Consequently, we introduce a distinct model to help researchers reach saturation through refining or expanding existing quotations, codes, themes and concepts as necessary

Huawei aligns with SDGs to achieve differentiation and competitive advantage in the smartphone industry

Recent years have witnessed a growing intensity of competition in business. Aligning an organisations’ differentiation strategy with the SDGs not only contributes to a sustainable future but also brings tangible benefits such as market growth and competitive advantage. The case study focuses on Huawei and SDG initiatives. Founded in 1987, Huawei has emerged as one of the leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smartphone devices. With 194,000 employees operating in over 170 countries. By incorporating specific sustainable development goals (SDGs) relevant to the smartphone industry, Huawei has differentiated itself in line with Porter’s generic strategies for growth, with particular emphasis on differentiation as a strategy for growth to create a unique identity in the smartphone industry. The case study explains Porter’s generic strategies for growth, with particular emphasis on differentiation as a strategy for growth. The case then goes on to explore how Huawei’s differentiation strategy aligns with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through the SDGs adopted in 2015, to drive sustainable competitive advantage in the smartphone industry. In addition, the case study explores how Huawei contributes to specific SDGs to drive innovation in the telecommunications sector as well as strengthened their market position as industry innovators and achieved sustainable competitive advantage in the smartphone industry both in China and globally. The case study suggests that businesses should consider aligning the SDGs in their strategic planning to inspire change, create a positive impact on the environment and most importantly achieve market growth and drive sustainable competitive advantage. Finally, the case study provides questions that encourages students to engage in critical thinking to demonstrate how the Porter’s generic strategies model is applied in real life situations in the context of Huawei and its SDG initiatives to achieve competitive advantage in the smartphone industry

Wearable tech, virtual fashion, and immersive technologies

Since the turn of the 21st century, humanity has witnessed many technological innovations in fashion, apparel, and textiles which have created entirely new product categories and brought new developments to all stages of the product life cycle. Wearable technology and virtual fashion represent two new product categories in the physical and digital realms of fashion. In this chapter, new opportunities and challenges for environmental sustainability emerging from the introduction of these new product categories in the marketplace are discussed. Focus is placed on textile-based wearable technologies, such as electronic textiles, smart clothing, virtual apparel, and textiles in digital social interactions and retailing; covering their implications for sustainability at all levels: from materials, production, and distribution to use and disposal

Unframing

This essay examines the film/video frame variously as a technical, aesthetic, perceptual and ideological object/function via an analysis of some relevant examples of artists' film and video. Several technical functions in film and video are either overlooked or taken for granted. One of the most important of these is the frame, especially in the cinema context where it functions as an image container, a subsistent, invisible barrier or cut-off between the screen space and its surrounding darkness. Several filmmakers have tested the givenness of the framing edges - it’s called the frame but it’s really a mask - either by incorporating them into the work or by making them disappear. The strategy of incorporation, in the form of frames within frames, can generate a partial mise en abyme (Droste Effect), or gesture towards it. In William Raban’s 2’ 45”, for example, there is a pattern of frames and forms within forms, but at the same time there are variations within each framing. These variations distinguish the work from the exact replications of the Droste Effect, where a fractal-like, exact mise en abyme generates a sense of vertigo, of an endless dead-endedness, because it precludes any possibility of deviation and hence uncertainty, on which films depend for their interest. The frame is crucial to the stability that images require and the proliferation of mobile and other platforms in the internet age has done nothing to disperse it, on the contrary, so it is perhaps surprising that only a small number of filmmakers have sought to question and dissolve it. The dissolution of the frame threatens the dissolution of the image: in the works considered in this essay, forms of cinematic framing and hence of off-screen space are challenged on their own terms. The frame ceases to be a window, with the illusionistic implications of that, and its dissolution leads to it becoming more akin to the frame of a material medium like painting, where it is determined by the artist in response to the formal requirement of the picture. For although digital video technology allows aspect ratios to be freely created, the edges still function in the same way as an analogue film frame

Digital labour is 'emotional labour'

This chapter considers the 'emotional labour' involved in digital work and reflects on the emotionality inherent within everyday digital practices and behaviours in museums and heritage organisations. It argues that only by better articulating the affective dimensions of working with technology can we build a more nuanced understanding of the future of work in such environments. ‘Emotional Labour’ has been an object of sociological study in the workplace since the 1980s, but rarely has it been considered in the context of museum digital work. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the frequently hidden ‘emotional labour’ involved in museum work has become difficult to ignore, with those advocating for digital innovation being some of the most affected. First, drawing on Arlie Russell Hochschild’s seminal study, The Managed Heart (1983), the author will consider applications to date of ‘emotional labour’ in the study of cultural and knowledge work, and how it might be usefully theorised for our contemporary moment in museum technology. Second, sharing the author’s fieldwork, observational analysis, and institution-based action research in this area, the chapter will propose that a greater and more formal acknowledgement of ‘emotional labour’ in museum technology can revolutionise museum work more generally – an acknowledgement overtly feminist in its approach. It concludes by suggesting that, through a more robust valuation of the emotional labour inherent within digital work, we can build fairer, more equitable working practices across all aspects of the museum workplace

The conceptualization of enablers and constraints of in-store buying as part of the affordances flow funnel process through scan and go apps

This study explores the affordances of “scan and go” apps and their influence on the flow experience of retail customers to provide a unique insight into user–technology interaction. Through a constructivist ethnographic approach, the research examines how users' socially constructed perceptions and interpretations shape these interactions, and it emphasizes the role of the material and social environment. The research innovatively conceptualizes affordances as a flow process; it introduces an affordances flow funnel that encompasses three distinct stages: perceived affordances, actualized affordances, and affordance dichotomy. By following this process, the study improves understanding of user emotions and behaviors that range from apathy to excitement, from gratification to provocation, and from abandonment to absorption. Findings underline the importance of equipping users with support to navigate technological and environmental constraints, thereby ensuring successful affordance actualization. The research contributes to the literature by revealing a new affordance type, namely affordance dichotomy, and offers valuable insights for marketers and developers to enhance user experiences and absorption behavior. Recognizing its focus on scan and go apps within supermarket contexts, the study invites future research to extend this understanding to different contexts and technologies

Queer and trans theory

In this chapter, we follow Donna Haraway’s assertion that ‘science fiction is political theory’ to read Rivers Solomon’s SF novel The Deep (2019) as and alongside contemporary queer and trans theory. We argue that queer science fiction is not simple escapism, but a tool for refashioning the self and the present. Queer and trans writers and artists are not fleeing from the world as much as they are reshaping it by crafting science-fictional worlds which defy the stultifying norms of hetero- and cis-normativity. These re-imaginings of the self and communities are intertwined with the embodied reality of queer experience, and Solomon’s novel exemplifies sf’s ability to grapple with the various facts and fictions used to police queer and trans lives, such as the purported primacy of biological sex and kinship. Articulated in three interconnected sections, our chapter first uses Elizabeth Freeman’s concept of ‘temporal drag’ to find a purposeful re-writing and mythmaking in Solomon’s work that counters the violence of white supremacy. We then turn, via the work of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, to examine Solomon’s rejection of the natural world as an implicitly heteronormative realm. Instead, faer embraces the many parthenogenetic, intersex, polymaternal and decidedly non-normative creatures of the deep. Lastly we find in Solomon’s rejection of heteronormative kinship an imagining of collective being and reproduction that resonates with Sophie Lewis’s concept of amniotechnics and José Esteban Munoz’s vision of queer utopia. Finally, we turn outward to suggest that Solomon’s The Deep is not a static text, but one that constantly invites its reader to transform the story – and possibly, the world

Exploring the relationship between chatbots, service failure recovery and customer loyalty: a frustration–aggression perspective

An increasing number of companies are introducing chatbot-led contexts in service failure recovery. Existing studies are inconclusive on whether humanlike chatbot-driven service failure recovery enhances customer loyalty. Grounding our work in phenomenological hermeneutics and utilizing frustration–aggression theory, we concentrate on the historical circumstance and the participatory nature of understanding customers' chatbot-driven interactions and loyalty. We conducted 47 in-depth interviews with millennials from four countries (United States, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom). By analyzing interview data through thematic analysis, our study offers two significant contributions. First, through thematic analysis, we define the dynamics occurring between customers and chatbots in a service recovery journey, such as customers' priorities and expectations. Second, we present a chatbot-led service failure recovery typology framework that identifies four types of customers based on their interactions with a chatbot and their emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, and the effects of the interactions on their brand loyalty and intention to use chatbots. The identification of four customer types can help managers shape strategies to effectively turn negative customer experiences into opportunities to strengthen their loyalty, such as making more than one touchpoint available (human and chatbot). Our study shows that customers' emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, affect not only customer loyalty but also technology adoption. The concluding section suggests future avenues for research in the service recovery literature

Anti-Blackness as disavowal and condition: rethinking Foucault’s “Carceral Society”

Recent calls to “defund the police” have seen a plethora of movements decry state funds allocated to the police and ask that those funds be placed elsewhere. In this article, we return to Michel Foucault to analyze how calls for rebalancing budgets away from the police force and towards social projects both rely on political categories established in Foucault's work and encapsulates an aporia that emerges through them. Locating shifts towards the carceral in the context of European modernity, Foucault suggests that policing moves away from the spectacular torture and punishment of sovereign and state and towards technologies of power that proliferate across the social body. Here, we suggest that in this movement between sovereignty and power emerges a central tension that Foucault is incapable of resolving—between an exteriorized sovereignty (death) that necessarily appears at the extreme limits of power (life)—which threatens to destabilize the domain of power altogether. Race—as it appears in the European frame and reaching a zenith in Nazi Germany—encapsulates Foucault’s attempted mitigation. If anything, this exacerbates the problem by rendering the terms of inclusion in the domain of power (of making life live) incoherent. To see why, we go on to show how freedom from racial slavery—as space of incapacity—is the conduit through which entry is possible into the differentiated power that supposedly limits the social. But as such, the slave precisely indexes the aporia for Foucault that cannot be sutured. The implications of this can be seen in the calls to defund the police insofar as it implicitly repeats Foucault’s shift from police to social power