Manga Vision

Manga Vision examines cultural and communicative aspects of Japanese comics, drawing together scholars from Japan, Australia and Europe working in areas as diverse as cultural studies, linguistics, education, music, art, anthropology, and translation, to explore the influence of manga in Japan and worldwide via translation, OEL manga and fan engagement. This volume includes a mix of theoretical, methodological, empirical and professional practice-based chapters, examining manga from both academic and artistic perspectives. Manga Vision also provides the reader with a multimedia experience, featuring original artwork by Australian manga artist Queenie Chan, cosplay photographs, and an online supplement offering musical compositions inspired by manga, and downloadable manga-related teaching resources

Issues in Review: New Developments in Commedia Research: The Commedia dell'Arte: New Perspectives and New Documents

Introduction to "Issues in Review: New developments in commedia research", 141-240, guest editor M A Katritzky. The first of six articles in this section, it introduces the five further articles, by Maria Ines Aliverti (158-180), Rosalind Kerr (181-197), Erith Jaffe-Berg (198-211), Stefano Mengarelli (156-7 & 212-226) and Robert Henke (227-240) and reviews recent significant developments and publications in the field of commedia dell'arte studies

Media do not exist : performativity and mediating conjunctures

Collection : Theory on demand ; 31Media Do Not Exist: Performativity and Mediating Conjunctures by Jean-Marc Larrue and Marcello Vitali-Rosati offers a radically new approach to the phenomenon of mediation, proposing a new understanding that challenges the very notion of medium. It begins with a historical overview of recent developments in Western thought on mediation, especially since the mid 80s and the emergence of the disciplines of media archaeology and intermediality. While these developments are inseparable from the advent of digital technology, they have a long history. The authors trace the roots of this thought back to the dawn of philosophy. Humans interact with their environment – which includes other humans – not through media, but rather through a series of continually evolving mediations, which Larrue and Vitali-Rosati call ‘mediating conjunctures’. This observation leads them to the paradoxical argument that ‘media do not exist’. Existing theories of mediation processes remain largely influenced by a traditional understanding of media as relatively stable entities. Media Do Not Exist demonstrates the limits of this conception. The dynamics relating to mediation are the product not of a single medium, but rather of a series of mediating conjunctures. They are created by ceaselessly shifting events and interactions, blending the human and the non-human, energy, and matter

Staging and Citing Gendered Meanings: A practice-based study of representational strategies in live and mediated performance

My argument is that gender visibility in live and mediated performance can be enhanced by the use of the dramaturgical toolkit. The thesis as a whole offers a body of work and a method for recontextualising that work, and for reframing it in multimedia format. The visual and written texts on the DVD-Rom give equal weight to the performance and written research comprising this submission. Building upon that set of materials and meanings, but leaving deliberate gaps and spaces for debate and interpretation between them as well, I have attempted to offer a useful but also a flexible toolkit for use by future practitioners and scholars. Method: Taking as my case study Di's Midsummer Night Party, a site-based devised performance (this collaboration in 2000 was created with a scenographer, five professional actors and 20 extras, performed over five nights in an 18th-century house), I design and theorise a dramaturgical toolkit. The theoretical base is developed from established theoretical concerns, feminist performance theory and social semiotics to analyse an original contemporary performance work. Original contribution: The dramaturgical toolkit is designed to be used by artists, students and academics. My analytical tool is being used in teaching and is valuable to others who want to teach/research gender representation in live and mediated performance. Tests during development and subsequently have taken place with performance design and fashion students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where the kit encouraged the articulation and analysis of student work. The dramaturgical toolkit helps the facilitator to push students towards articulation and analysis of "bite-sized" bits that are distilled enough to be clear, and therefore useful for making and analysing performance. This process of distillation helps artists and students to focus down and to reach new levels of understanding

Manga Vision

Manga Vision examines cultural and communicative aspects of Japanese comics, drawing together scholars from Japan, Australia and Europe working in areas as diverse as cultural studies, linguistics, education, music, art, anthropology, and translation, to explore the influence of manga in Japan and worldwide via translation, OEL manga and fan engagement. This volume includes a mix of theoretical, methodological, empirical and professional practice-based chapters, examining manga from both academic and artistic perspectives. Manga Vision also provides the reader with a multimedia experience, featuring original artwork by Australian manga artist Queenie Chan, cosplay photographs, and an online supplement offering musical compositions inspired by manga, and downloadable manga-related teaching resources

With The Commodity In The Hand : A Practical Investigation of the Intersection of Material Culture with Performance Theory

This thesis examines the intersection of performance theory and material culture through the practices of garment reconstruction. In chapter 1, I examine key theorists in the fields of material culture and performance studies and articulate the connections between the two fields. In chapter 2, Using practice as research, I recount the experience of building reproduction garments from the eighteenth century using historically appropriate tools and methods, as well as the experience of wearing those garments. Finally, in Chapter 3, I walk through a possible historical examination of my encounter with these reconstructed garments, and consider the way in which feminine clothing in this period signified maternity -- a conclusion drawn as a result of the embodied research practices here employed. The construction of an entire period outfit acts as an embodiment of my research of the interconnected theory and the way history performs for/with modern bodies, and offers an exciting way forward for two disciplines to inform and enhance one another

READING THE MUSEUM ANGKUT: CULTURAL SPACE PRODUCTION AND EXHIBITION NARRATIVE

This article is a museum study from an anthropological perspective. Generally, the museum is an institution that stores and preserves particular material cultures. On the other side, a museum can also be critically seen as a space for the production of cultural discourse that narrates a particular ideology through exhibition strategies and display systems. This study wants to explore the discourse of cultural ideology that is represented by the museum through the design and exhibition. The museum is no longer only monopolized by the state but also developed by the private sector which offers a fusion model between the museum, edutainment, and amusement park. Thus, this article proposes a case study of the Museum Angkut in Batu, East Java, one of the most popular private museums in Indonesia that exhibits transportation system and world civilization themes assembled by implementing amusement park concepts.  This article would like to address the issue of the production of cultural discourse. The research questions are what kind of cultural discourse production is narrated in the Museum Angkut, and how has it been materialized through the display strategy? Additionally, this article explores the relationship of the visitor with material objects in the museum. This paper uses a hermeneutic approach, and Michael Foucault’s heterotopia to examine how cultural imagination with its ideology is represented in museum bodies. As a result, we argue that the Museum Angkut can reflect the character of society, as a post-colonial nation in the sense of seeing self and other cultures

Interdisciplinary Studies in Cultural and Environmental Heritage: History, Protection, Valorization, Management

An overview of the various and numerous themes relating to cultural and environ­mental heritage gathered together in one article represents, at an international level, a rare peculiarity. As a result of the research and teaching activities carried out over the decades at the Universities of Rome, Tuscia (Viterbo) and Bologna, integrated with the fundamental relationship and involvement of the Cultural and Productive Units scattered throughout the territory, I was led to synthetically describing, insofar as was possible, the different problems that involve the various scientific areas of a historical, technical, economic, managerial nature, within the context of interdisciplinarity and in respect of the holistic value of cultural heritage.Una panoramica delle varie e numerose tematiche che si riferiscono al Patrimonio Culturale e Ambientale raccolte in uno stesso articolo rappresenta, a livello interna­zionale, una particolarità più unica che rara. Quale risultato dell’attività di ricerca e di insegnamento svolta nel corso di alcuni decenni presso le Università di Roma, Tuscia (Viterbo) e Bologna, integrata dal fondamentale rapporto e coinvolgimento delle Unità Culturali e Produttive presenti nel territorio, sono state trattate sinteticamente, per quanto possibile, le differenti problematiche che coinvolgono le varie aree scientifiche di carattere storico, tecnico, economico, manageriale nell’ambito della interdisciplinar­ità e nel rispetto del valore olistico del bene culturale

Acquisitions for creativity: 'Produsage' in the metaverse

In this text I will attempt to delineate my thoughts on how virtual economies impact creative output in online virtual builder’s worlds, particularly by examining their relationship to the principles of ‘produsage’, a term coined by Axel Bruns to describe creative, collaborative, and ad hoc engagement with content in user-led electronic online spaces. While this process can be observed in all types of artistic metaverse output, I am particularly focused upon how it may come into effect whilst creating novel representations of ‘self’ and identity through the avatar. After a survey of the context and the terms related to my inquiry, I will present an example of it by recounting my observations on how the output of my virtual fashion store alpha.tribe is utilized and transformed by my customers whilst pursuing their own creative endeavors