78,451 research outputs found
Displaying Lives: the Narrative of Objects in Biographical Exhibitions
Biographical exhibitions are a museum practice that asks for critical consideration. Grounding the argument in critical theory, social studies and museum theory, the article explores the narrative function of objects in biographical exhibitions by addressing the social significance of objects in relation to biography and their relevance when presented into an exhibition display. Central is the concept of objects as âbiographical relicsâ that are culturally fetishized in biographical narratives. This raises questions about biographical reliability and the cultural role that such objects plays in exhibition narratives as bearers of reality and as metonymical icons of the biographical subject. The article considers examples of biographical exhibitions of diverse figures such as Gregor Mendel, Madame de Pompadour and Roland Barthes, and the role that personal items, but also portraits and photographs, play in them
Disciples of a crazy saint: The Buchen of Spiti
The Buchen are specialist religious performers from Spiti, a culturally Tibetan valley in North India. They are widely known for performing an elaborate exorcism ritual that culminates in a slab of stone, marked with images of demons, being smashed on a manâs belly. In winter groups of Buchen perform their religious theatre, a localised form of Ache Lhamo, the Tibetan Opera. This book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford is the result of a research project and substantial fieldtrip funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with project partnership from the Pitt Rivers Museum.
Patrick Sutherland has been photographing in Spiti for nearly two decades and working with the Buchen for several years.
The book consists of a self-reflexive essay by Patrick Sutherland illustrated with historical photographs and his own photographs, followed by four sections of photographs and captions by Patrick Sutherland. It concludes with a substantial essay, placing the Buchen into a wider cultural and historical context, by Tashi Tsering, founding Director of the Amnye Machen Institute (Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies) in Dharamsala. This essay is also illustrated with historical photographs
HeadOn: Real-time Reenactment of Human Portrait Videos
We propose HeadOn, the first real-time source-to-target reenactment approach
for complete human portrait videos that enables transfer of torso and head
motion, face expression, and eye gaze. Given a short RGB-D video of the target
actor, we automatically construct a personalized geometry proxy that embeds a
parametric head, eye, and kinematic torso model. A novel real-time reenactment
algorithm employs this proxy to photo-realistically map the captured motion
from the source actor to the target actor. On top of the coarse geometric
proxy, we propose a video-based rendering technique that composites the
modified target portrait video via view- and pose-dependent texturing, and
creates photo-realistic imagery of the target actor under novel torso and head
poses, facial expressions, and gaze directions. To this end, we propose a
robust tracking of the face and torso of the source actor. We extensively
evaluate our approach and show significant improvements in enabling much
greater flexibility in creating realistic reenacted output videos.Comment: Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dg49wv2c_g Presented at
Siggraph'1
Beauty as Pride: A Function of Agency
This is basically a paper
about artistic evaluation and
how multiple interpretations
can give rise to inconsistent
and conflicting meanings.
Images like Joel-Peter Witkinâs
First
Casting for Milo
(2004)
challenge the viewer to
look closely, understand
the formal properties at
work, and then extract a
meaning that ultimately asks,
Is the model exploited or
empowered? Is Karen Duffy,
pictured here, vulnerable
and âenfreakedâ or is she
potentially subversive,
transgressive, and perhaps
self-empowered?
I will offer an argument in agreement with artist/author/
performer Ann Millett-Gallant that favors the latter interpretation,
but will augment and complicate the issue by also introducing a
pointed question or two taken from a recent analysis by Cynthia
Freeland on objectification. I judge the works by photographer
Joel-Peter Witkin to be representations of disabled persons
who are empowered through agency and pride, but I also
worry about the risk of multiple, conflicting interpretations
on the part of viewers who do not, or cannot, entertain such
enlightened readings. Like second wave feminist views about
pornography that depicted women in demeaning ways, or
feminist critiques of Judy Chicagoâs
The Dinner Party
, Witkinâs
photos can be judged as potentially offensive. But they are
also objects of beautyâboth in terms of aesthetic properties
(they are magnificent studies in black and white, shadows, the
human body, with many classical references) and because of
the feeling of beauty and pride felt by the posers, who become
performers of their own beauty and pride. I argue that beauty
trumps offensiveness. Pride wins. But Iâm not sure that everyone
will agree
Schools That Work: What We Can Learn From Good Jewish Supplementary Schools
Based on a study of ten effective schools, examines the characteristics in leadership, teaching staff, curriculum, experiential programs, and educational offerings for families that contribute to effectiveness. Outlines challenges and recommendations
Dropping Question Marks: War Art, Leadership, the Canadian Forces and Afghanistan
As a contemporary war artist, Gertrude Kearns presents interpretive challenges to the commemoration and contextualization of controversial aspects of Canadian military history, both from her personal perspective and in terms of the institutional responsibilities associated with meaningful public presentations of war art. In the context of her decade-long Afghan War senior leadership series, and with reference to earlier Somalian and Balkan works, in this article she discusses the appropriateness of her selected subject matter as well as her own responsibility as a war artist in dealing with everything from disturbing and regular subjects to mission concept. Kearns reviews accountability, her work both officially and unofficially with Canadian personnel, and offers diverse military and civilian perspectives on her independent research approach and decisions as a civilian war artist working with specific Canadian Forces military topics and events
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