Wearable performance

This is the post-print version of the article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & FrancisWearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment. Wearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment

A review of technology-enhanced Chinese character teaching and learning in a digital context

The acquisition of Chinese characters has been widely acknowledged as challenging for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) due to their unique logographic nature and the time and effort involved. However, recent advancements in instructional technologies demonstrate a promising role in facilitating the teaching and learning of Chinese characters. This paper examines studies exploring technology-enhanced character teaching and learning (TECTL) through a systematic literature review of relevant publications produced between 2010 and 2021. The synthesized findings shed insights on the research undertaken in the TECTL field, identifying a focus on characters’ component disassembling, re-assembling, and associations among orthography, semantics, and phonology. In addition, learners’ perceptions toward the use of technology and the benefits of various types of technological tools are also discussed in detail. Implications for TECTL are also put forward for future pedagogical practice and exploration

Made in Italy as a collective belief.A model of investment in stereotypes

This paper interprets for the fist time the phenomenon of the made in Italy as a collective belief. First, a conceptual framework is proposed for analysing the formation and evolution of collective beliefs, by characterizing precisely the way individuals are expected to behave in this respect. Then, we argue that different paths may end up provoking the emergence of a collective belief, and maintain that the made in Italy can be though of as the case of a collective belief about the inventive and creative Italian way of producing a specific set of goods. Afterwards, we point to the investment in public rituals as the way to actively foster this collective belief, and then interpret such process as an economic problem of providing a public good. We highlight the main collective action implications of such analysis, by modelling individuals’ behaviour in different settings. The analysis is focused on those characteristics that make the made in Italy a special public good, such as joint private benefits, asymmetries between agents, accession costs, and transaction costs. Finally, policy and institutional implications are explored, in terms of redistribution, proactive subsidization, and contract design.collective beliefs, public rituals, impure public goods

Not a Prediction of the Future: Believable Sci-fi Character Design Based on Present Day Technology

In recent years, many character designs made for movies and video games have been carried out using complex computer-based processes. User-friendly software has made it easier to produce high computation artwork and multiple texture maps. With higher graphic performance provided by rapidly improving hardware, the continuing demand for innovation poses new requirements for the entertainment industry. Science fiction (sci-fi) in video games and movies has limitless capabilities, and can be created to achieve a wide variety of visual goals. One important argument presented in this thesis is that science fiction stories, unlike the related genre of fantasy, have historically intended to have at least a faint grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created. However, this connection has become tenuous, or even non-existent, in much of today’s science fiction. The author of this paper studied character design, and analyzed examples from the fields of robotics and prosthetics, as well as innovations in military technology, followed by experiments with different approaches to construct better detail and character elements in 3D. This research aims to explore the combining of the need for innovation in character design, with the possibilities derived from 3D art and other substantive technologies

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 38 (02) 1984

published or submitted for publicatio

Anthropometry of Love - Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages

Both in the UK and in the US, we observe puzzling gender asymmetries in the propensity to outmarry: Black men are more likely to have white spouses than Black women, but the opposite is true for Chinese: Chinese men are half less likely to be married to a White person than Chinese women. We argue that differences in height distributions, combined with a simple preference for a taller husband, can partly explain these ethnic-specific gender asymmetries. Blacks are taller than Asians, and we argue that this significantly affects their marriage prospects with whites. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis using data from the Millenium Cohort Study, which contains valuable and unique information on heights of married couples.intermarriage, gender, height

Performing walking Sims:from <i>Dear Esther </i>to <i>Inchcolm Project</i>

In 2012 The Chinese Room launched Dear Esther, a video game which would go on to shape video game history and define a new genre: the walking simulator. Walking simulators renounce traditional game tropes and foreground walking as an aesthetic and as a dramaturgical practice which engages the walker/player in critical acts of reading, challenging and/or performing a landscape. In October 2016, Dear Esther was adapted as a site-responsive, promenade performance set on the Scottish island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. The resulting performance, Dear Rachel, was then experienced alongside the game under the umbrella name Inchcolm Project. This hybrid event - multi-media (promenade performance, gameplay, musical performance) and mixed-reality (with physical, augmented and virtual components) - required the development and implementation of complex processes of remediation and adaptation. Drawing from theoretical landscape and practitioner reflection, this paper puts forward a design framework – storywalking - which reconciled the two adaptation challenges: responding to the site, and to the game