Enhancing [Spatial] Creativity – Enhancing creativity of architects by applying unconventional virtual environments (UVEs)

Potentials of virtual environment for enhancing creativity of architects have shaped this research. There is no singular definition of creativity. In fact, there are more than 100 different definitions for creativity according to different contexts and disciplines. Nevertheless, it is possible to confine the boundaries of definitions and address creativity within a confined framework. The first practical step was thus to perform an in-depth literature survey to define a boundary condition for the widespread topic of “creativity” and identify vital research questions pertaining to creativity. In this regard, personality and behavior of creative people; mood, state, temper, intelligence vs. creativity, motivation and so forth were ignored. Instead, cognitive aspects of creativity such as thinking patterns, conceptual blending, idea expansion and tolerance of ambiguity have been focused upon.The second step was to test whether starting a design procedure with a 2 or a 3-dimensional mode of thinking has any correlation with creativity. An experiment pertaining to this test was designed in which participants were asked to perform the same design task once with 2D tools and environments (e.g. traditional pen and paper) and the next time by applying 3D tools and environments (e.g. 3D software). A jury of experts in the field of design subjectively compared the results and arrived at a conclusion that participates generated more creative ideas by implementing 3D environments/tools. The third step, involved the introduction of unconventional virtual environments (UVEs), which subsequently lead to the creation of a hypothesis. This hypothesis tries to connect navigation in UVEs with the enhancement of creativity.  Characteristics of UVEs and theoretical arguments around the hypothesis were also discussed. The fourth step, involved a discussion on two effective parameters of creativity: 1- Tolerance of ambiguity2- Conceptual blendingAttempts to verify these parameters, lead to the formulation of two separate experiments. The conclusions of these experiments were as follows:1-  Tolerance of ambiguity has a direct relationship with creativity. Architects deal with multiple parameters during a typical design process. The ability to meaningfully process the relationships between such a multitude of parameters has also trained architects to possess a higher level of tolerance of ambiguity aiding them in postponing making hasty judgements.2-  By combining different ideas, one can formulate newer and much novel ideas. Ideas tend to become creative when more remote ideas are combined and synthesized. In order to prevent repetitive and self-similar ideas, the unconscious mind needs to be fed with more ideas, which the mind has not been exposed to. These new ideas/experiences can be generated by exposing one’s self to UVEs, since UVEs can expose one to situations and experiences which the brain cannot experience in the physical world.The fifth step, aims at understanding how the brain perceives different environments. Three different environments were chosen for an experimental study pertaining to the same: 1- Abstract environment 2- Semi-designed environment and 3- Fully designed environment. Participants were asked to provide a feedback by answering a questionnaire after navigating each of these environments. Simultaneously, their brain activity patterns were recorded via a professional neuropsychology apparatus. After analyzing the brain activities, in conjunction with the questionnaire, it became clear that perception of an abstract environment is completely different from the perception of a Semi-designed or Fully designed environment.  This experiment consolidated the hypothesis that UVEs as abstract designed environments activate parts of the brain that are correlate with creativity.The sixth step, involved putting the hypothesis to a final test. A conclusive experiment was thus designed. The experiment won the Visionair fund of FP7 and was conducted in Italy. A UVE was designed using the software 3D max and was converted to 3D stereoscopic mode using a specific software: GIOVE; developed in ITIA-CNR, Italy. Using a 3D goggle and 6 axis mouse, a group of 20 participants were asked to navigate the UVE. They were asked to provide a written feedback pertaining to their feelings, expectations, strategy of navigation and in general, their experience. Their responses were collected and analyzed.The final step, involved answering the formulated research questions and discussing the final results

Enhancing [Spatial] Creativity: Enhancing creativity of architects by applying unconventional virtual environments

Potentials of a virtual environment for enhancing the creativity of architects have shaped this research. There is no singular definition of creativity. In fact, there are more than 100 different definitions of creativity according to different contexts and disciplines. Nevertheless, it is possible to confine the boundaries of definitions and address creativity within a confined framework.  The first practical step was thus to perform an in-depth literature survey to define a boundary condition for the widespread topic of “creativity†and identify vital research questions pertaining to creativity. In this regard, personality and behaviour of creative people; mood, state, temper, intelligence vs. creativity, motivation and so forth were ignored. Instead, cognitive aspects of creativity such as thinking patterns, conceptual blending, idea expansion and tolerance of ambiguity have been focused upon. The second step was to test whether starting a design procedure with a 2 or a 3-dimensional mode of thinking has any correlation with creativity. An experiment pertaining to this test was designed in which participants were asked to perform the same design task once with 2D tools and environments (e.g. traditional pen and paper) and the next time by applying 3D tools and environments (e.g. 3D software). A jury of experts in the field of design subjectively compared the results and arrived at a conclusion that participates generated more creative ideas by implementing 3D environments/tools.  The third step involved the introduction of unconventional virtual environments (UVEs), which subsequently lead to the creation of a hypothesis. This hypothesis tries to connect navigation in UVEs with the enhancement of creativity.  Characteristics of UVEs and theoretical arguments around the hypothesis were also discussed.  The fourth step involved a discussion on two effective parameters of creativity: Tolerance of ambiguity Conceptual blending Attempts to verify these parameters, lead to the formulation of two separate experiments. The conclusions of these experiments were as follows: Tolerance of ambiguity has a direct relationship with creativity. Architects deal with multiple parameters during a typical design process. The ability to meaningfully process the relationships between such a multitude of parameters has also trained architects to possess a higher level of tolerance of ambiguity aiding them in postponing making hasty judgements. By combining different ideas, one can formulate newer and much novel ideas. Ideas tend to become creative when more remote ideas are combined and synthesised. In order to prevent repetitive and self-similar ideas, the unconscious mind needs to be fed with more ideas, which the mind has not been exposed to. These new ideas/experiences can be generated by exposing one’s self to UVEs since UVEs can expose one to situations and experiences which the brain cannot experience in the physical world. The fifth step aims at understanding how the brain perceives different environments. Three different environments were chosen for an experimental study pertaining to the same: 1- Abstract environment 2- Semi-designed environment and 3- Fully designed environment. Participants were asked to provide a feedback by answering a questionnaire after navigating each of these environments. Simultaneously, their brain activity patterns were recorded via a professional neuropsychology apparatus. After analysing the brain activities, in conjunction with the questionnaire, it became clear that perception of an abstract environment is completely different from the perception of a Semi-designed or Fully designed environment.  This experiment consolidated the hypothesis that UVEs as abstract designed environments activate parts of the brain that are correlated with creativity. The sixth step involved putting the hypothesis to a final test. A conclusive experiment was thus designed. The experiment won the Visionair fund of FP7 and was conducted in Italy. A UVE was designed using the software 3D max and was converted to the 3D stereoscopic mode using a specific software: GIOVE; developed in ITIA-CNR, Italy. Using a 3D goggle and 6 axis mouse, a group of 20 participants were asked to navigate the UVE. They were asked to provide a written feedback pertaining to their feelings, expectations, the strategy of navigation and in general, their experience. Their responses were collected and analysed. The final step involved answering the formulated research questions and discussing the final results

Agency is molecular: moved by being moved to moving or co-constitution in intra-active knowledge production

This practice-based PhD aims to intertwine theoretical research and artistic practice on the basis of knowledge production by conceptually thinking through motion, with movement informing the methodological counterpart in performative research settings. I argue that movement and the concept of motion, in their immanent potential for in/determinancy, transport possibilities of transversality that have been neglected in western Modernity. Both offer the means of moving beyond the bifurcated exceptionalism of Modernity's epistemology. The project interrogates its own positioning from within by affirming embodied ways of knowing, which are marginalised within the rationalised epistemes in European Universalisms (Wallerstein). In doing so it also takes a stand against appropriation. From a feminist position, new materialism's situatedness (Haraway) and relational objectivity (Barad) are particularly suitable tools for a shift from within. The apparatus definitions of Agential Realism gather insights through agential cuts that provide a transient exteriority-within, allowing modifying the bounds of knowing from within. The primary chapters examine the impact of practicing through theory and coalesce into a final experiment that reverses the process. Applied to the path of thoughts, movement's induction of changes to matter initiates an essential process of creating space for delinking (Mignolo/Walsh) and unlearning (Singh). The foundation of both practice- and theory-based approaches is Barad's notion of intra-active doing-being, which provides an understanding of agential intertwinement by approaching matter through and with interferences. In experiments, electronic devices were set to receive techno-sound-reverberations as diffractional concerns (noise), that transposed mattering (meaning) from co-constitutional forms. These 'voices', enacted in material-discursive experiments of various entangled engagements in different molecular matterings (body-mind, nature-culture, non-human-human, other-self) are typically ignored, denied, or misunderstood by the notorious bifurcation of the western metaphysical matrix (Jackson). Listening to matter’s iterative performativity (Barad) disclosed uneven levels of capacity (Wilderson) within such non-interrogated generalisations as the flattening to 'we' of the Anthropocene discourse. This awareness of interferential reverberations demands a multidirectional pluriverse of capabilities, which compromises any one-world (Law) exceptionality

Voices on the Border : Comedy and Immigration in the Scandinavian Public Spheres

The aim of this dissertation is to advance the understanding of the relationship between comedy and politics, as well as the relationship between the cultural and the political parts of the public sphere. Its main research question is How can TV comedy thematising immigration contribute to public opinion formation on immigration in the larger public sphere? This is investigated through a text-focused, case based historical study of comedy shows, actors and events in the three Scandinavian countries – Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The concept immigration comedy is used to refer to the special kind of comedy in question, in order to refer not only to ethnic humour, but also to satire about immigration policy or xenophobia. Two of the case sets in the dissertation focus on comedy shows, while the two other case sets focus on comedy reception in the mass media. Drawing on insights from public sphere theory and humour theory, and with a broad orientation towards the Scandinavian immigration debates, it is argued that the cases analysed in this dissertation can be considered as manifestations of boundary struggles in various ways. Scandinavian immigration comedy, and the debates around it, have worked to preserve boundaries as moral guards against anti-immigrant positions in the public sphere; and to challenge boundaries by being means of access for immigrants. Furthermore, as attempts of politicisation of the issues of symbolic racism and the limits of humour, debates about immigration comedy have worked to both challenge and maintain boundaries. Finally, immigration comedy shows made by and for immigrants themselves, diaspora humour, have through their playful recognition of ethnic difference worked as alternative spaces beyond the borders of the more problem-oriented serious public sphere. The main theoretical contribution of the dissertation lies in pointing out how different forms of boundary work were all done through the special characteristics of the humorous mode, characteristics conceptualised as unsolvable and productive tensions. These tensions are between humour’s unseriousness and its use for serious means, between humour as conventional, conservative and suppressive and creative, radical and subversive, and finally between humour as a facilitator of both emotional investment and emotional detachment – which also includes a tension between positive and negative emotions. The most central argument is that humour is not inherently conservative nor inherently radical, but works politically through balancing these two aspects. The dissertation also makes a methodological contribution by advancing a textual-historical view of opinion formation. Departing from public sphere theory, it is argued that the bast way to understand how public opinion is shaped is by textual analysis, where texts should be read as interventions in specific, historically located debates. Furthermore, it is especially useful to investigate historical ruptures, moments when the relationship between different kinds of discourses in the public sphere, for example comedy and immigration debate, intersect and interact in new ways, in order to detect ways that texts who not explicitly are part of the day-to-day political debate nevertheless can contribute to it.Doktorgradsavhandlin

Archaeology Education in Ontario: A Relational Inquiry of Indigenous Museums and Artifacts

Many sectors of society, such as justice, health care, and education, are moving towards a relationship of Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Ontario’s secondary school History curriculum, however, especially that which concerns the deep history of Turtle Island, is still almost exclusively based on the findings of Western scientific archaeology and methods of artifact interpretation generated by colonially-trained archaeologists. Writers of this curriculum have traditionally not included Indigenous worldviews, ways of knowing, and relationships with artifacts in course content, even as professional archaeologists, historians, and curators are moving to more collaborative research frameworks with Indigenous communities. This research project investigates what Indigenous archaeologies entail, and how Indigenous approaches to understanding archaeological artifacts in museum contexts (re)centre, (re)member, (re)cognize, and (re)present Indigenous ways of knowing to decolonize my teaching of the history curriculum. Since I am not an Indigenous person, the research method and paradigm of my research is a Western qualitative approach based on critical and decolonizing methodologies that is affected by and respectful of Indigenous methodologies. Specifically, I conduct fieldwork in a selection of museums organized by Indigenous archaeologists/educators to learn how Indigenous experts are using artifacts to narrate history. One goal of the fieldwork is to identify themes, concepts, and approaches that Indigenous educators have selected to represent Indigenous histories to diverse public audiences. My dissertation applies that learning to consider what it means to change how I teach the history curriculum that spans the time before colonization. Drawing on concepts of multivocality, storytelling, fencing, and Métissage, the study interprets museum galleries as research data and recommends new directions in teaching the history curriculum of the time before colonization that align with the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Calls to Action

Animating observed emotional behaviour: a practice-based investigation comparing three approaches to self-figurative animation

This research explores different animation approaches to rendering observed emotional behaviour, through the creation of an animated artefact. It opens with an introduction to the research and the methodology chosen before progressing to a review of academic and practitioner-based literature associated with observed emotional behaviour. Building upon this foundation of literature, the thesis outlines how the artifact was created with a practice based approach drawn from Haseman’s cycle of creation, feedback, reflection and then creation. The main research question is augmented by a series of contributory questions that explore the research through iterations of animation drawn from a base of live action footage of observed emotional behaviour. These exploratory iterations progress though motion capture, rotoscopy and finally freeform animation. The completed artifact and its findings are explored first though a perception study and then a production study. This thesis is based on the investigation and discourse of observed emotional behaviour surrounding the use of animation, specifically, the direct study of the observation of emotional behaviour through the application of animation as a tool of research. It aims to provide a basis of discussion and contribution to knowledge for animation practitioners, theorists and practitioner-researchers seeking to use less performative and exaggerated forms

Settler Modernism: Alfred Stieglitz's The Steerage and the Vicissitudes of Whiteness, 1890-1930

Settler Modernism traces how Stieglitz’s iconic photograph, The Steerage (1907) came to be known as the first modernist American photograph and how, at each stage of its trajectory into the modernist canon, it was interpreted through settler colonial narratives that served to naturalize whites’ ongoing presence on occupied territories in the twentieth century. Though studies of settler visual cultures typically concentrate on events surrounding acts of colonization, I demonstrate that American modernist photography was continuous with the nineteenth-century history of photography for which settler colonialism was a structural and discursive force that framed photographic vision. I bring The Steerage into conversation with Stieglitz’s photographs of working-class people, Manhattan, and clouds, as well as with artworks by Cézanne, Anne Brigman, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, and others. By interrogating how the camera’s capacity to distort perceptions of time and land clinched whites’ amnesia regarding the nation’s founding violence, I show how photographs encouraged settlers to imagine themselves as the ancient inhabitants of the continent. I also thread Indigenous histories, philosophies, and visual cultures throughout the text, undermining settler logic with perspectives that make apparent its impracticability. Through concentrated examination of The Steerage’s history, I shed light on how settler colonialism was not only central to the emergence of American modernism, but also to emergent conceptions of white racial identity that followed the closing of the frontier