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

Raising public awareness of mathematics

This book arose from the presentations given at the international workshop held in Óbidos, 26–29 September 2010, as a result of a joint initiative of the Centro Internacional de Matemática and the Raising Public Awareness (RPA) committee of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). The objective was to provide a forum for general reflection with an international mix of experts on building the image of mathematics, ten years after the World Mathematical Year 2000 (WMY 2000). Óbidos, a charming town situated one hour by car to the north of Lisbon, Portugal, was also the site of the re-creation in the year 2000 of the international mathematics exhibition “Beyond the Third Dimension” (http://alem3d.obidos.org/en/) and a meeting of the EMS WMY2000 Committee. The opening of the workshop was also a public “mathematical afternoon” organised by the Portuguese Mathematical Society (SPM) in cooperation with the town of Óbidos. At this event mathematical films and lectures to the general public were presented. The first lecture was given by H. Leitão, from the University of Lisbon, on mathematics in the “Age of Discoveries”, and the second one by G.-M. Greuel, the current president of ERCOM (the EMS committee of the European Research Centres on Mathematics), on the topic “Mathematics between Research, Application and Communication”, which text is included in this book.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Paradoxes of interactivity: perspectives for media theory, human-computer interaction, and artistic investigations

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. "Paradoxes of Interactivity" brings together reflections on "interactivity" from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

In Pursuit of Social Justice at the Postmodern Turn: Intersectional Activism through the Lens of the Ecosexual Movement

In this study, I examine the development of the ecosexual movement, a social movement that begins at the intersection of environmental and sexual struggles, from its inception in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Previous research suggests intersectionality in social movements often ends up being divisive because it emphasizes difference. Using a mixed qualitative methods design including ethnographic field work, interviews, and content analysis of related web and print materials, I analyze how the ecosexual movement negotiates intersectionality. I found the ecosexual movement links processual notions of environmental justice and sexual justice through a dominant collective action frame of queer, erotic, “irreverent environmentalism” (Seymour 2012; 2018) and “eco-camp” (Whitworth 2019) that resonates in a time of mainstream apocalyptic narratives. The use of disruptive strategies incorporating a celebratory style of collaborative experimental art, radical performance, and other absurd, creative, sensual, emotive, visceral tactics facilitates moving away from modern binary or dichotomous “either/or” ideology starting with the human/nature division. The ecosexual movement not only challenges modern hierarchical dualisms that frame issues as a struggle between two opposing sides, it opens participatory space for creating potential alternative models that demonstrate an embodied example of the postmodern alternative cultural discourse and social organization that situates all humans in “humanity” and humans in nature, the dialectic of humanity-in-nature (Moore 2015)

Paradoxes of Interactivity

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. »Paradoxes of Interactivity« brings together reflections on »interactivity« from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

East Lancashire Research 2008

East Lancashire Research 200