On tangibility, contemporary reliefs and continuous dimensions

I am a relief maker, who proposes "worldmaking" as a paradigm for works of art. The relief, whether it is an art category or a geological section, is a space that extends from the surface to the volume. Such a space is as tangible as it is visible. The notion of tangibility is paramount for making and receiving artworks commonly known as relief sculptures. My thesis examines my practice by establishing the territories of my artworks. Triggered by personal encounters and perceptions, each of these is a case study forming a section in my analysis. My purpose is to contextualise and underscore my practice, in a pragmatic rather than theoretical investigation. The public art commission Ways of Worldmaking raises my main questions. These relate to the topographical interconnectivity across the surface of the earth. The use of the books as a collection and an archive is another layer developed further in my concluding artwork Ways of Worldmaking / Self-portrait, that is, my thesis bibliography turned into a sculpture. My making of reliefs responds to sculptural and material dimensions of site specificity while examining its social and political features. Relief is an overlooked category of practice. It is a metaphor for observation, with qualities of elevation and depth and a variety of thickness that highlights notions of discovery and emergence of meaning. The history of Western relief sculpture informs my study of contemporary pieces. These articulate several sets of dimensions continuously from recessed parts to more protuberant ones. There is a tension between the desire to touch and the frustration of that same desire expressed particularly clearly in relief. I observe that dialectic through the senses of tactile touch and optical touch. Artists are constantly creating and exhibiting reliefs, but they rarely make full use of the physical complexity and the epistemological potential of this form of art. Relief making seems to me an interesting way of expressing our distance from or our relationship with the landforms, either theoretically or practically. Although the idea of category remains questionable in itself, I make textured world-versions, promote the relief as a rich space, readdress and redress its position among sculpture and painting

Christ's poverty in antimendicant debate: book VIII of De Pauperie Salvatoris by Richard Fitzralph, andD William Woodford's Defensorium

This thesis comprises a study of two fourteenth-century texts, written as part of the mendicant controversy, book VIII of De pauperie Salvatoris by Richard FitzRalph, Archbishop of Armagh, (c. 1300-1360) and its response, Defensorium Fratrum Mendicantium contra Ricardum Armachanum in Octavo Libello de Pauperie Christi, by the English Franciscan friar, William Woodford (c. 1330-c. 1397). It introduces each theologian, speculating why such significant fourteenth-century thinkers are not more widely known to scholars of this period. It briefly explores how contemporary understandings of the practice of mendicancy have become obscured within a historiography which seems reluctant to turn to the works of the critics of the mendicant friars for information. Based on a close-reading of each text, the thesis examines FitzRalph's declaration that Christ did not beg, and Woodford's assertion that he did, noting how each theologian uses scripture, the writings of the Church fathers, those of mendicant theologians, and mobilizes arguments from the classical philosopher, Aristotle, to construct their opposing viewpoints. Focussing especially on discussions about poverty, and about the life and activities of Christ, it suggests that information valuable to social historians is located in these texts, where each theologian constructs their own worldview, and rationalizes their position. Of particular interest is FitzRalph's radical fashioning of Christ as a labouring carpenter, and Woodford's construction of a socio-economic and an anti-semitic argument to disprove it. Finally, the thesis probes the accepted hypothesis that followers of the late fourteenth-century Oxford theologian and heresiarch, John Wyclif, and collectively classified as 'lollards', incorporated wholesale the views of FitzRalph into their own writings. Studying a number of lollard texts, it notes rather a strategic adoption and an equally significant omission, especially concerning FitzRalph's depictions of poverty, and his framing of Christ the carpenter

Image, Text, Stone

This book explores the intermediality of image and text in Graeco-Roman sculpture. By studying a wide range of material, from grand sculpture to humble reliefs, scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds explore thematic aspects including the interplay of image and epigram, viewing and ‘reading’ sculpture in space, the issue of (re-)naming statues,and image and inscription seen from the perspective of social status or gender

Information technology and military performance

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 519-544).Militaries have long been eager to adopt the latest technology (IT) in a quest to improve knowledge of and control over the battlefield. At the same time, uncertainty and confusion have remained prominent in actual experience of war. IT usage sometimes improves knowledge, but it sometimes contributes to tactical blunders and misplaced hubris. As militaries invest intensively in IT, they also tend to develop larger headquarters staffs, depend more heavily on planning and intelligence, and employ a larger percentage of personnel in knowledge work rather than physical combat. Both optimists and pessimists about the so-called "revolution in military affairs" have tended to overlook the ways in which IT is profoundly and ambiguously embedded in everyday organizational life. Technocrats embrace IT to "lift the fog of war," but IT often becomes a source of breakdowns, misperception, and politicization. To describe the conditions under which IT usage improves or degrades organizational performance, this dissertation develops the notion of information friction, an aggregate measure of the intensity of organizational struggle to coordinate IT with the operational environment. It articulates hypotheses about how the structure of the external battlefield, internal bureaucratic politics, and patterns of human-computer interaction can either exacerbate or relieve friction, which thus degrades or improves performance. Technological determinism alone cannot account for the increasing complexity and variable performances of information phenomena. Information friction theory is empirically grounded in a participant-observation study of U.S. special operations in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. To test the external validity of insights gained through fieldwork in Iraq, an historical study of the 1940 Battle of Britain examines IT usage in a totally different structural, organizational, and technological context.(cont.) These paired cases show that high information friction, and thus degraded performance, can arise with sophisticated IT, while lower friction and impressive performance can occur with far less sophisticated networks. The social context, not just the quality of technology, makes all the difference. Many shorter examples from recent military history are included to illustrate concepts. This project should be of broad interest to students of organizational knowledge, IT, and military effectiveness.by Jon Randall Lindsay.Ph.D