Art and Medicine: A Collaborative Project Between Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar

Four faculty researchers, two from Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, and two from Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar developed a one semester workshop-based course in Qatar exploring the connections between art and medicine in a contemporary context. Students (6 art / 6 medicine) were enrolled in the course. The course included presentations by clinicians, medical engineers, artists, computing engineers, an art historian, a graphic designer, a painter, and other experts from the fields of art, design, and medicine. To measure the student experience of interdisciplinarity, the faculty researchers employed a mixed methods approach involving psychometric tests and observational ethnography. Data instruments included pre- and post-course semi-structured audio interviews, pre-test / post-test psychometric instruments (Budner Scale and Torrance Tests of Creativity), observational field notes, self-reflective blogging, and videography. This book describes the course and the experience of the students. It also contains images of the interdisciplinary work they created for a culminating class exhibition. Finally, the book provides insight on how different fields in a Middle Eastern context can share critical /analytical thinking tools to refine their own professional practices

De-Colonising the Western Gaze: The Portrait as a Multi-Sensory Cultural Practice

This art practice-based thesis addresses the ocularcentric approach inherent in Western representations of ‘otherness’ with a view to expanding notions of the ‘portrait’ as a culturally specific practice. Drawing on a selection of projects conducted over two decades across diverse cultural contexts, together with written publications, the thesis explores possible ways to identify and theorise alternative methodological and analytical frameworks through which the Other can be represented. Turning the gaze upon the artist/researcher in performative acts of mutual representation as a dialogical method, cross-cultural projects addressed in the thesis include the indigenous Sámi’s yoik, the Aboriginal Australian’s track reading and female veiling in Yemen. The thesis comprises Parts I and II, together with an introduction and conclusion, in addition to four appendices. Adopting a feminist research approach and attention to indigenous methodologies as points of departure, Part I provides a critical overview of relevant and intersecting literature on theories of othering and the Western notion of the portrait; it outlines the foundation on which the studied cultural practices were interpreted as practices of relating and attributing. While acknowledging the central role of the photograph as a critical tool of Western visual representation, focus is directed to multi-sensory cultural practices prevalent in non-Western and indigenous cultures. The primary concern of Part II is the role of the mediation of the artworks in postproduction, which draws on material collated during intersubjective field encounters, exhibited across contested sites of representation. Referencing both historically situated and contemporary art and anthropological research practices, alongside their modes of dissemination, Part II critically reflects on contested questions surrounding exhibition and curation, allied to the decolonisation of the anthropological museum

Unveiling Identity: Exploring Afrofuturism in Ekow Nimako’s Contemporary African Diasporic Sculptural Art

Identity expressed within African diasporic arts has historically been connected to traditional genres such as portraiture. Over time, contemporary artists have explored identity through genres beyond portraiture and through the use of non-traditional materials. The sculptural practice of Ghanaian Canadian artist Ekow Nimako, a fine arts sculptor based in Toronto, Canada, employs the unconventional material of LEGO® to offer a multi-generational perspective into deep diasporic memory. Examining Nimako’s sculptures through the perspective of colonialism and de-colonialism, materiality, and Afrofuturism, this thesis investigates the artist’s exploration of Black historical pasts to shape identities and construct narratives of Black futures. The monumental sculpture Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE emerges as a nuanced exploration of identity intricately connected to responses to colonial legacies. Nimako utilizes speculative storytelling to challenge colonial historical records by envisioning a future where Black individuals actively shape their own narratives. Nimako’s specific use of black LEGO® material enriches his works and underscores the significance of Black identity in historical and future contexts. Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE becomes a tangible exploration of identity, challenging prevailing stereotypes about Africa and Africans of the diaspora and presenting a futuristic city where Black agency in identity formation is unshackled from colonial constraints. Engaging themes such as feminism, resistance to oppression, and the reimagining of highly technologically advanced Black individuals, Nimako’s sculptural narratives surpass mere assertions of Black presence. They vividly illustrate the forward reaching results of Black agency, resilience, and innovation, and they make a substantial contribution to the ongoing discourse on identity within Afrofuturism. This work represents a unique analysis that contributes substantially to the art historical discourse on identity, contemporary art, Afrofuturism, and the sculptural practice of Ekow Nimako

Designing for the Cooperative Use of Multi-user, Multi-device Museum Exhibits.

This work explores software-based museum exhibits that allow groups of visitors to employ their own personal mobile devices as impromptu user interfaces to the exhibits. Personal devices commandeered into service in this fashion are dubbed Opportunistic User Interfaces (O-UIs). Because visitors usually prefer to engage in shared learning experiences, emphasis is placed on how to design software interfaces to support collaborative learning. To study the issue, a Design-Based Research approach was taken to construct an externally valid exemplar of this type of exhibit, while also conducting more traditional experiments on specific features of the O-UI design. Three analyses, of – (1) museums as a context, (2) existing computer-based museum exhibits, and (3) computer support of collaborative processes in both work and classroom contexts – produced guidelines that informed the design of the software-based exhibit created as a testbed for O-UI design. The exhibit was refined via extensive formative testing on a museum floor. The experimental phase of this work examined the impact of O-UI design on (1) the visual attention and (2) collaborative learning behaviors of visitors. Specifically, an O-UI design that did not display any graphical output (the “simple” condition) was contrasted against an O-UI design that displayed multi-element, dynamically animated graphics (the “complex” condition). The “complex” O-UIs promoted poor visual attention management, an effect known as the heads-down phenomenon, wherein visitors get so enmeshed with their O-UIs that they miss out on the shared context, to the detriment of group outcomes. Despite this shortcoming, the “complex” O-UIs better promoted goal awareness, on-task interactions between visitors, and equity in participation and performance. The tight output coupling (visitors see only one shared display) of the “simple” O-UI condition promoted emergent competition, and it encouraged some visitors (especially males) to become more engaged than others. Two design recommendations emerge: (1) incorporating devices with private displays (O-UIs with output) as interfaces to a single large display better promotes collaboration (especially equity), and (2) O-UIs with “complex” displays may be used in museum exhibits, but visitors would benefit from mechanisms to encourage them to direct their attention to the shared display periodically.Ph.D.Computer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61771/1/ltoth_1.pd

To the First White Woman Here: Performance Intervention in Settler Colonial Narrative & Speculative Modes of Repair

With this paper, I map a proposal for performance as a practice of recognition and repair, specifically following an inquiry toward “performance as rematriative practice” from within settler colonial perspective. Rematriation is a term emphasized by many Indigenous communities as a set of practices that focus on long-term repair of relationships between people and places, and specifically on restoring access to stewardship roles for Indigenous people in care relationships with their ancestral territories. How might settler performance support and uphold these efforts by intervening in settler colonial narratives? I center my inquiry to follow the leadership of Indigenous thinkers and makers, placing my own performance practice in conversation with the works of Native artists who are addressing Indigenous sovereignty, cultural continuance, healing, and futurities through performance. Positioning my thesis performance work, To The First White Woman Here, as an offering in dialogue with the works of Rebecca Belmore, Ursula Johnson, and Emily Johnson, I hope to complicate the gaze of the settler artist-scholar in witnessing, and writing about, Indigenous performance art. As I consider performance-based interventions in settler story, I foreground the narrative element of cultural origins and their particular employment in the world-making myths of the colonial project in New England. I ground this consideration in Jean O’Brien’s articulations of “firsting”, in which settlers construct histories that reinforce our desires to replace Indigenous people within the places we colonize. Looking at performances of white settler womanhood as they manifest in public spaces, I investigate “pioneer mother monuments” as a site of intervention in settler colonial narrative. I seek to disrupt internalized ideas about white settler women’s identities as “brave”, “strong”, “pure and loving” “bearers of civilization”, while acknowledging the very real implications of these romanticized depictions. I close with an orientation toward futurities, again following Indigenous thinkers and makers, now into practices of speculation. Asking how the works I make might function as reparative acts requires a commitment to the idea that other worlds, and specifically decolonial worlds, are possible. Kyle Whyte reminds me that the world we currently share is a manifestation of the speculative future world dreaming of my colonial ancestors. I am called to consider the consequences of dreaming from settler perspective and my personal responsibilities in thought, action, and speech. Part of my responsibility must be to center Indigenous guidance within practices of performance intervention and speculations of futureworld visioning

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Under construction: recollecting the museum of the moving image

On February 27, 2008 the Museum of the Moving Image launched its $65 million renovation and expansion with a digital groundbreaking. Since opening its doors in Astoria, New York in 1988, the museum, originally devoted to film and television, has embraced digital media. From its “Hollywood East” Astoria Studio historic landmark site to its popular website, the Museum of the Moving Image provides a unique setting for studying the museumification of moving image culture, particularly the production and consumption of moving images. In response to the Museum of the Moving Image’s domestication of moving image culture in its core exhibition, Behind the Screen, this study recollects the museum and in doing so performs an alternative domestication. The alternative domestication modeled by this study involves critically touring and detouring the core exhibition in an effort to reframe notions such as home, family, work, and play in relation to moving image culture in a manner that extends beyond the walls of the museum and problematizes particular practices of display. In response to specific instances of domestication in Behind the Screen, the major stops on the tour are: the interactive Video Flipbook experience; the movie palace installation Tut’s Fever, a commissioned art work by Red Grooms in collaboration with Lysiane Luong; and the artifact “Martin’s First Haircut,” a home movie produced in 1947 by Irving Shaw, the father of Rochelle Slovin, the museum’s founding director. Poised at a critical point in the museum’s development, this study is attentive to the transitory nature of museums, and it demonstrates ways in which we recollect our memories and ourselves through museum-going and technologies of reproduction

Rememory

Rememory, coined in Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved, refers to the psychological action of placing forgotten or misplaced memories into a narrated context within the self. Rather than directly “remembering,” the characters in Morrison’s novel, like their author, rely on a web of socially produced or shared memories as a way to understand their past. This essay catalogs an on-going performance of rememory in my photographic work. Through an interrogation of physical archives, I remap the historic presences of Black life in New England. This research based practice takes me to the preserved homes and to the workplaces of my real ancestors and fictive kin: African, European, and Indigenous peoples who collided in the port towns of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I search for and “inhabit” house museums that claim a Black history as a way to challenge the imperatives of traditional preservation. Regionally these specific preservationist traditions shroud and stage a space to contemplate the complex forms of violence constituted in colonial America. Using still photography, sound design, and language, I transform the preserved house and the landscape of the region into zones where Blackness, and the rememory of slavery, is central to acquisition of historical knowledge. In each of these zones, I engage a practice of slow looking and listening mediated through the large format camera. In this essay, I think through my photographs as they facilitate the sensorial action of rememory. In addition to Morrison, I explore shared theoretical frames between W.E.B. Du Bois, Michel Rolph Trouillot, Hortense J. Spillers, and Saidiya Hartman to situate my work within an ongoing dialogue of how Blackness functions in and outside of historical narrative