Stunning the Nation: Representation of Zimbabwean Urban Youth Identity in some Songs by Stunner

In this article, presented at the Hiphop Conference in Harare on February 27th, 2013, the author examines the impact local rap music has on identity construction of urban youth in Zimbabwe by analyzing songs of Stunner, a famous rap and Urban Grooves artist

Development and Demonstration of a TDOA-Based GNSS Interference Signal Localization System

Background theory, a reference design, and demonstration results are given for a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference localization system comprising a distributed radio-frequency sensor network that simultaneously locates multiple interference sources by measuring their signals’ time difference of arrival (TDOA) between pairs of nodes in the network. The end-to-end solution offered here draws from previous work in single-emitter group delay estimation, very long baseline interferometry, subspace-based estimation, radar, and passive geolocation. Synchronization and automatic localization of sensor nodes is achieved through a tightly-coupled receiver architecture that enables phase-coherent and synchronous sampling of the interference signals and so-called reference signals which carry timing and positioning information. Signal and crosscorrelation models are developed and implemented in a simulator. Multiple-emitter subspace-based TDOA estimation techniques are developed as well as emitter identification and localization algorithms. Simulator performance is compared to the CramérRao lower bound for single-emitter TDOA precision. Results are given for a test exercise in which the system accurately locates emitters broadcasting in the amateur radio band in Austin, TX.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

Avatar actors

In this text I wish to discuss, as well as illustrate through pictorial examples, how the Live Visuals of three dimensional online virtual worlds may be leading us into participatory and collaborative Play states during which we appear to become the creators as well as the actors of what may also be described as our own real-time cinematic output. One of the most compelling of these stages may be three dimensional, online virtual worlds in which avatars create and enact their own tales and conceptions, effectively bringing forth live, participatory cinema through Play

Breaching bodily boundaries: posthuman (dis)embodiment and ecstatic speech in lip-synch performances by boychild

Employing a sci-fi inspired aesthetic, queer, black, trans artist, boychild presents audiences with a future vision of human embodiment. Strobe lighting makes her appear fragmented or as if she were a hologram. An electronic light flickers behind her teeth. Her eyes are obscured by whited-out contact lenses. boychild’s is a body interfaced with technology. She is imaged as non-human, cyborgian. Whilst boychild considers her onstage persona to be female, her body reads ambiguously. Transgressing demarcations between the supposedly polarised categories of organic/machine, male/female, the queer form of embodiment she presents is posthuman. Implementing the theoretical principles of Rosi Braidotti’s anti-humanist concept of the posthuman and Donna Haraway’s cyborg politics, I argue that boychild’s engagement with the posthuman does not end with aesthetics, rather it extends to the plotting of a posthuman politics, posing a radical challenge to heteronormative body politics. Theorising boychild’s lip-synch performances, I argue for her style of performance as a technologised form of ventriloquism, as she ‘speaks’ with the voice of another or the voice of another speaks through her. Using Mladen Dolar’s and Slavoj Žižek’s psychoanalytical philosophies in conjunction with Steven Connor’s literature on ventriloquism, I unpick the intricacies of presence and power inherent to her ‘voice’ and indicate its broader political implications

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze as interpreters of Henri Bergson

In this essay I concentrate on the relation between Deleuze's philosophy and Merleau-Ponty's. I examine the question of whether their philosophical projects are as widely divergent as Deleuze wants the reader to believe. Since explicit references to Merleau-Ponty in the work of Deleuze are rather rare, I take the detour of examining their interpretations of Henri Bergson, a philosopher they both recognized as an important source of inspiration. More specifically, I study the references to Bergson in the work of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze that deal with difference and immanence. I show that Merleau-Ponty merely reads Bergson as a difference thinker, whereas Deleuze stresses Bergson's immanentism. However, these two positions do not exclude one another. First of all, there are many similarities with respect to which Bergsonian concepts both authors focus on and how they interpret them. Secondly, as Deleuze's own philosophy illustrates, a philosophy of difference is not incompatible with immanentism. However, there is one passage in Cinema I. The Movement-Image in which Deleuze states that there is a fundamental difference between the battle against dualism as it is fought by Bergson on the one hand, and phenomenology on the other. Since Deleuze's search for an immanent philosophy relies heavily on concepts introduced by Bergson, this passage can help to indicate to what degree the aforementioned similarities between Deleuze's and Merleau-Ponty's immanentism hold

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

The Interval Between... The Space Between...Concepts Of Time And Space In Asian Art And Performance

Whilst time and space are common to all human experience, our perceptions of time and space are shaped by our world views and philosophies. Definitions of time normally differentiate between abstract and concrete concepts. Space, like time, can be viewed from many perspectives. Whilst all of us experience time and space through bodily sensations, it is the art form of dance that lays claim to a particular and intense relationship between these elements. Whilst dance definitions are always hotly contested, few would argue that in its most elemental sense dance consists of the body moving through time and space. Notions of metaphysical and cosmic time and space are commonly found throughout the world, particularly in major Asian philosophical and religious traditions

Ambiguity in Knowledge Organization: Four Proposed Types

Classification and categorization order by creating or seeking certainty. Yet inevitably we encounter things that defy ready placement, which we may label other or miscellaneous, or force into another category. The literature of knowledge organization recognizes the consequences of classification and misrepresentation, but has not systematically outlined what circumstances or conditions render a thing ambiguous to those who would seek to describe it. This paper proposes four major sources or type of ambiguity in classification. While examples of these types may be found in many disciplines and settings, they have in common similar requirements for accurate or improved representation. Multiplicity is a source of ambiguity when a resource or object requires more terms to describe than the system allows. Emergence is ambiguity that arises when phenomena, from medical observation to literary genre, is at an early stage of description and thus unstable. Privacy-related ambiguity is that which stems from a gap of understanding or trust between those classifying and what is being classified, particularly in human communities. Conditional ambiguity arises when something requires narrative due to conditional contexts such as temporality or geography. This term also describes things that have dichotomous or fragmentary identities that are not easily represented by most systems. These types of ambiguity may arise in formal and informal organization systems. While observing these types of ambiguity may not offer immediate or feasible solutions, it may allow us to discuss their unique challenges and to better understand their manifestations across disciplines