Strange Assemblage

This paper contends that the power of Deleuze & Guattari’s (1988) notion of assemblage as theorised in 1000 Plateaus can be normalised and reductive with reference to its application to any social-cultural context where an open system of dynamic and fluid elements are located. Rather than determining the assemblage in this way, this paper argues for an alternative conception of ‘strange assemblage’ that must be deliberately and consciously created through rigorous and focused intellectual, creative and philosophical work around what makes assemblages singular. The paper will proceed with examples of ‘strange assemblage’ taken from a film by Peter Greenaway (A Zed and 2 Noughts); the film ‘Performance’; educational research with Sudanese families in Australia; the book, Bomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall (1970); and the band Hawkwind. Fittingly, these elements are themselves chosen to demonstrate the concept of ‘strange assemblage’, and how it can be presented. How exactly the elements of a ‘strange assemblage’ come together and work in the world is unknown until they are specifically elaborated and created ‘in the moment’. Such spontaneous methodology reminds us of the 1960s ‘Happenings’, the Situationist International and Dada/Surrealism. The difference that will be opened up by this paper is that all elements of this ‘strange assemblage’ cohere in terms of a rendering of ‘the unacceptable.'

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering: Its geometric quantification and witness

We propose a measure of quantum steerability, namely a convex steering monotone, based on the trace distance between a given assemblage and its corresponding closest assemblage admitting a local-hidden-state (LHS) model. We provide methods to estimate such a quantity, via lower and upper bounds, based on semidefinite programming. One of these upper bounds has a clear geometrical interpretation as a linear function of rescaled Euclidean distances in the Bloch sphere between the normalized quantum states of: (i) a given assemblage and (ii) an LHS assemblage. For a qubit-qubit quantum state, the above ideas also allow us to visualize various steerability properties of the state in the Bloch sphere via the so-called LHS surface. In particular, some steerability properties can be obtained by comparing such an LHS surface with a corresponding quantum steering ellipsoid. Thus, we propose a witness of steerability corresponding to the difference of the volumes enclosed by these two surfaces. This witness (which reveals the steerability of a quantum state) enables finding an optimal measurement basis, which can then be used to determine the proposed steering monotone (which describes the steerability of an assemblage) optimized over all mutually-unbiased bases

Afterberners: An Assemblage of Nouns

The English language owes a debt of gratitude of Dame Juliana Berners. She was born circa 1388 and is believed to have been the prioress of a nunnery near St. Albans, Hertforshire, England. Her major contribution to literature is The Boke of St. Albans, a treatise on hawking, hunting and heraldry first published in 1486

Benthic Foraminiferal response to sea level change in the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate system of southern Ashmore Trough (Gulf of Papua)

Ashmore Trough in the western Gulf of Papua (GoP) represents an outstanding modern example of a tropical mixed siliciclastic-carbonate depositional system where significant masses of both river-borne silicates and bank-derived neritic carbonates accumulate. In this study, we examine how benthic foraminiferal populations within Ashmore Trough vary in response to sea level–driven paleoenvironmental changes, particularly organic matter and sediment supply. Two 11.3-m-long piston cores and a trigger core were collected from the slope of Ashmore Trough and dated using radiocarbon and oxygen isotope measurements of planktic foraminifera. Relative abundances, principal component analyses, and cluster analyses of benthic foraminiferal assemblages in sediment samples identify three distinct assemblages whose proportions changed over time. Assemblage 1, with high abundances of Uvigerina peregrina and Bolivina robusta, dominated between ∼83 and 70 ka (early regression); assemblage 2, with high abundances of Globocassidulina subglobosa, dominated between ∼70 and 11 ka (late regression through lowstand and early transgression); and assemblage 3, with high abundances of neritic benthic species such as Planorbulina mediterranensis, dominated from ∼11 ka to the present (late transgression through early highstand). Assemblage 1 represents heightened organic carbon flux or lowered bottom water oxygen concentration, and corresponds to a time of maximum siliciclastic fluxes to the slope with falling sea level. Assemblage 2 reflects lowered organic carbon flux or elevated bottom water oxygen concentration, and corresponds to an interval of lowered siliciclastic fluxes to the slope due to sediment bypass during sea level lowstand. Assemblage 3 signals increased off-shelf delivery of neritic carbonates, likely when carbonate productivity on the outer shelf (Great Barrier Reef) increased significantly when it was reflooded. Benthic foraminiferal assemblages in the sediment sink (slopes of Ashmore Trough) likely respond to the amount and type of sediment supplied from the proximal source (outer GoP shelf)

Discomfort food : how a market for synthetic foods is being assembled : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Images redacted from thesis due to copyright reasonsThis research follows the discursive productions of human actors in an assemblage that is creating a market for Synthetic Foods. This assemblage, which includes human actants referred to here as The Movement, is represented in two major empirical themes. First it is demonstrated how The Movement is attempting to immaterially disassemble conventional Animal Agriculture, by discursively cleaving it from the notion that it produces natural foods. Second it is shown how The Movement is constructing a new market for natural foods, where animal products are made without animals. The non-human actors of this assemblage are said to be enrolled but this belies the multiple levels of negotiation that are yet to take place. Through collecting and analysing the media productions of The Movement, the discursive performances and relational spaces that constitute this assemblage can be traced. Through tracing these material and immaterial practices the main argument developed here is that a market for Synthetic Foods is being culturally assembled in a series of discursive productions. The Movements discursive texts show an attempt to both, requalify what natural foods are said to be and then to simultaneously create a spectacle that fixes the identities of actors that supposedly produce them. This can be understood using a Cultural Economy approach which extends the argument by demonstrating that this market assemblage recombines nature with its binary other, culture, in a new way, to form a differently constituted world

Algal Assemblage Distribution as Related to Seasonal Fluctuations of Selected Metal Concentrations

Seasonal variations of phytoplankton assemblages have been observed in a mildly eutrophic lake in northwestern Arkansas for six years. The data indicated that certain metal concentrations also varied seasonally. Sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium ion concentrations, and phytoplankton composition and abundances were examined spatially and temporally. Four major algal blooms characterized the lake: a spring, a summer and an autumnal cyanophycean assemblage and a winter diatom-chrysophyte dominated population. Each metal concentration was inversely proportional to the abundance of the cyanophytes. The presence of the winter assemblage was accompanied by decreases in sodium, calcium and magnesium and increased levels of potassium. First and second order linear regression models were developed for each assemblage

The Caddo Archaeology of the Musgano Site (41RK19) in the Sabine River Basin of East Texas

The Musgano site (41RK19) is an important ancestral Caddo habitation site on Martin Creek in Rusk County in the Sabine River basin in the East Texas Pineywoods. The site was investigated by the Texas Archeological Survey at The University of Texas at Austin in 1972 and 1973 prior to the construction of Martin Creek Lake by Texas Utilities Services, Inc., and a Caddo house structure, midden deposits, features, and a large ceramic assemblage were documented from a component speculated to date between ca. A.D. 1400-1500 (Clark and Ivey 1974:14-41; McDonald 1972:10-11). Unfortunately, however, the results of the excavations and the recovered artifact assemblage received only the most cursory investigation and analysis, and thus the significance of the site with respect to how it could contribute to a better understanding of the regional Caddo archaeological record has not been realized. I sought to remedy this by undertaking a reanalysis in 2013 of the existing excavation and feature records as well as the recovered artifact assemblage that are curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). This report is a product of this reanalysis of the records and artifact assemblage from the Musgano site

Analysis of the Ceramic Sherds from Area C at the Ware Acres Site (41GG31), Gregg County, Texas

The Ware Acres site (410031) was discovered by Buddy Calvin Jones in 1951 on an alluvial terrace of Grace Creek, a southern-flowing tributary to the Sabine River in the southwestern part of the city of Longview, Texas. The site is best known for Jones\u27 discovery and excavation of an eighteenth century Caddo burial with an abundance of European trade goods. However, Jones also investigated other parts of the site, which contained extensive Caddo habitation deposits, especially one area at the southern part of the site that had Late Caddo Titus phase midden deposits and remnants of house structures. A large assemblage of ceramic sherds were collected from this area, and although Jones indicated that a complete analysis of them will be given in a later report, this was never done. This article presents an analysis of these ceramic sherds, primarily to put the ceramic assemblage findings from this important East Texas site on record. The stylistic attributes and known ceramic types in the Ware Acres assemblage are also compared to the ceramic assemblage from the Pine Tree Mound site, as the Ware Acres site may be a component of the Pine Tree Mound Titus phase community found in the middle reaches of the Sabine River basin