Inclusion in Virtual Reality Technology: A Scoping Review

Despite the significant growth in virtual reality applications and research, the notion of inclusion in virtual reality is not well studied. Inclusion refers to the active involvement of different groups of people in the adoption, use, design, and development of VR technology and applications. In this review, we provide a scoping analysis of existing virtual reality research literature about inclusion. We categorize the literature based on target group into ability, gender, and age, followed by those that study community-based design of VR experiences. In the latter group, we focus mainly on Indigenous Peoples as a clearer and more important example. We also briefly review the approaches to model and consider the role of users in technology adoption and design as a background for inclusion studies. We identify a series of generic barriers and research gaps and some specific ones for each group, resulting in suggested directions for future research

The Surreal Realist Cinema of Jia Zhangke

Through a close investigation of three recent films by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (1970- ), namely The World (2004), Still Life (2006) and A Touch of Sin (2013), the thesis argues that a new form of cinema that can be described as ‘surreal realism’ has emerged in the director’s attempt to capture the ultra-rapid transformations (zhuanxing) taking place in post-socialist China, specifically in the 21st century. Jia’s films historicise the present by visualising the varying modes of circulation in contemporary China, including the movement of bodies, the abstract circulation of value and the movements of desire. I suggest that Jia’s historicisation of the present not only captures historical transformation but also uses such transformation as an impetus for cinematic invention. I further argue that the success of his work, including its international reception, is due to this commitment to the formal evolution of the medium of cinema. That in turn is premised on an engagement with a wide variety of other aesthetic forms that impacts upon the way Jia’s films are conceived, shot and structured, most significantly architecture, painting and the internet. This process of incorporation involves working against these other mediums while simultaneously drawing on them to generate a new cinematic method. The result is what I call a surreal realism that is able to reveal the present as a complex interaction of historically laden political and aesthetic forces. The first chapter is a case study of The World which focuses on its relationship to architecture, showing how the film engages with the tourist architecture of the theme park and the metropolis and how this architecture is navigated by those working inside of it. The second chapter, a case study of Still Life, draws out the film’s engagement with painting, arguing that the film investigates the legacy of Socialist Realist painting as an earlier means of historicising the present, tapping into those paintings’ utopian promise of an unrealised future. The third and final case study explores A Touch of Sin in relation to the internet and the social network news feed, showing how the film interrogates the circulation of narratives of violence online, linking this violence to economic circulation more generally to create a revised conception of the violence of history. Jia’s work has often been understood through a narrowly sociological paradigm, in which his films are used as a means of making statements about social transformation in China. These approaches rarely engage in a sustained investigation of the formal characteristics of Jia’s work, focusing chiefly on their subject matter. While not denying the sociological implications of Jia’s work, I seek to develop an alternative approach to the relationship between aesthetics and politics and to deepen the understanding of Jia’s films as works of art. I contextualise Jia’s work in relation to world cinema and position him within a wider network of directors and cinematic methods, arguing for his significance at the forefront of the evolution of cinema today.Thesis (MPhil.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 201

Re-presenting China in Digital Immersive Art: Virtual Reality, Imaginaries, and Cultural Presence

The thesis explores how digital technology, in particular virtual reality and augmented reality, is playing a role in China’s rejuvenation, especially in relation to cultural displays, performances, and art exhibitions. This project examines how audiences, both in China and globally, respond to ‘Digital China’, a concept describing how people’s everyday lives in China are becoming superconnected by digital technology. Qualitative methodology with a multi-perspectival approach is applied to advance the aim of the project

Reoriented Illustration: Towards the Networked Image

In recent years there has emerged an increasing theoretical and contextual impetus from within the discipline of illustration that would seek to define the practice by authorial approaches to the production and distribution of illustrated content. The priority of this investigation is the attempt to imagine a theoretical landscape or environment in which an ‘authorial turn’ within the discipline might emerge and anchor itself to strategies outside of persisting colloquial or industrial notions of illustration practice. Specifically, this paper aims to tie such thinking to existing practices and concepts relevant to the contemporary construction, distribution and exchange of networked images

Mapping Global Theatre Histories

Tanks to all at Palgrave Macmillan who encouraged and shaped this project, especially Nicola Cattini, Tomas Rene, Vicky Bates, and the anonymous readers of the proposal. Tanks to the colleagues who gave me insights, including Dean Adams, Allison Amidei, Bruce Auerbach, Hala Baki, Tomas Burch, Carlos Cruz, Kaja Dunn, David Fillmore, Andrew Hartley, Jorge Huerta, Rick Kemp, Chuyun Oh, Kaustavi Sarkar, Dylan Savage, Joanne Tompkins, Robin Witt, Amanda Zhou, and members of the “Pedagogy of Extraordinary Bodies” working group at the American Society for Teatre Research conference in fall 2017. Tanks also to Chuyun Oh and Kaustavi Sarkar for help with illustrations here. And thanks to the authors and editors of Wikipedia, who have made many details of theatre history quickly accessible online, with further references given as well. Tanks to the colleagues who responded to my e-mail query in summer 2017 about a potential theatre history textbook, especially Sarah Bay-Cheng, Cheryl Black, Sara Ellen Brady, David Carlyon, Teresa DurbinAmes, Susan Kattwinkel, Maiya Murphy, John O’Connor, Felicia Ruf, Shannon Blake Skelton, and Nathan Tomas. Tanks to the artists I have met, who gave me insights about their work. Tese included Kazimierz Braun (who directed me in Te Card Index at the University of Notre Dame in 1982, welcomed my visit to his theatre in Poland, and co-wrote a play with me that he staged at Swarthmore College in 1986), Herbert Blau (my dissertation mentor, 1988–1992), Ola Rotimi (who lectured in one of my classes), William Sun (who discussed playwriting with me and introduced me to others), Richard Schechne

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

The Art of Movies

Movie is considered to be an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten and inspire audiences. Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as — in metonymy — the field in general. The origin of the name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures (or just pictures or “picture”), the silver screen, photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks — and commonly movies

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction