Configuring the player - subversive behaviour in Project Entropia

Configuring the player –subversive behaviour in Project Entropia Peter Jakobsson, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Daniel Pargman, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden This paper presents a theoretical framework from the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) as a way of studying virtual worlds and employs the framework to study one such world, Project Entropia. In doing so, we explore the social and cultural implications of technology through the users’ reactions to what some of them may experience as an unfair or even oppressive system. Using the metaphor of the game as a text or script highlights the interpretative flexibility of technology. This gives the user a part in the co-construction of the game. The market for Massively Multiplayer online games has grown rapidly over the last years. Most games employ a subscription-based business model where players pay a monthly fee, usually between 10 and 15 US$. A Swedish company, MindArk, has however set out with a completely different business strategy. Their software is free to download and usage does not incur any monthly costs. But, you are probably better off if you load up with some local currency – PEDs – before you start to play. MindArk is not in the charity business and they aim for your wallet, only they have another way of going at it. For the average player, a visit to Project Entropia’s virtual world Calypso is bound to set them back in terms of PEDs (Project Entropia Dollars) but they can always acquire more. The price is however what MindArk charges for their very own homemade currency – currently 1 US$ for 10 PEDs. Project Entropia in a sense works the same way a lottery or a casino does – dollars are redistributed among the players but some of those dollars are skimmed off and stay with the bank (MindArk). Instead of the thrill at the casino table, a Project Entropia player can experience the thrill of a virtual world that to a certain extent (at least in terms of economic consequences) is for real. Lurking in the background is the promise (e.g. possibility) of getting rich for real. If you manage to make money in Project Entropia, you are free to transfer your surplus PEDs back into US$. This set-up is practically guaranteed to have interesting (and controversial) consequences. This far and in contrast to many other online games such as for example Everquest (Castronova 2001, Jakobsson & Taylor 2003, Delwiche 2003), not much has been written about Project Entropia beyond a Master’s thesis about the legal implications of the game (Damgaard 2002). This paper is the result of an ethnographic study conducted among the inhabitants of planet Calypso. The study has been complemented by also looking at Calypso’s surroundings, e.g. fan sites and various web forums on the Internet. Following the work of Bruno Latour (1992), Project Entropia is not viewed primarily as a game but as an open-ended setting containing both human and non-human actors. That is, the study is not limited to the players but also includes Calypso’s large population of bots (Leonard 1997) and non-human actors (at an analytical level we do here not discriminate between these types of actors). The paper is more specifically concerned with two questions; 1) what strategies do MindArk use to get the players to subscribe to their notion of what the game is and how it should be played and 2) to what degree and how do players subscribe to or resist/subvert that notion? The first question makes use of Akrich and Latour’s (1992) terminology where they categorize users’ responses to a setting as either subscription or de-inscription. The result of the process through which the designer, or the author of the setting prescribes/allows certain usages and discourages/disallows other usages is called a script. The Project Entropia script can be studied in many different ways such as looking at the games manuals, marketing material, software interface, gameplay, version updates and game world (see also Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003, Sumerton 2004, Woolgar 1991). It is crucial that the players subscribe to MindArk’s basic notions of "what the game is about" for their business model to work. As to the second question, it is through the players’ actions, and particularly through their resistance to the values expressed in the setting that the taken-for-granted inscriptions, or biases (Friedman and Nissenbaum 1997) of the setting are revealed. We will therefore describe different strategies that players deploy to negotiate the meaning, or de-inscribe the setting of the game. Some of these strategies take place within the game (e.g. exploring, exploiting and scamming) and some take place outside (e.g. on web pages, forums). These two questions can be seen as an example of O’Day et. al.’s (1996) social-technical design circle but with the added complexity of a layer of political implications (as noted by Curtis (1998) in relation to text-based worlds and by Taylor (2004) in relation to graphical online worlds). Although most players subscribe to MindArk’s notion of what the game is and how it should be played, some players clearly operate as "cultural terrorists" who through their deeds resist/subvert the harsh economic reality of this virtual reality. Within the game they have to make-do with the restricted set of tools (de Certeau 1984) that the world lends them. Outside of the game they have a larger collection of tools. Both sets are often used in ingenious ways. That is, while being a nuisance to MindArk, such players show a considerable degree of creativity as they borrow aspects of Lévi-Strauss’ bricoleur (1966) or tinkerer who "make do with ‘whatever is at hand’ " (p.16) and who engage in "reflective manipulation of a set of resources accumulated through experience" (Orr 1990, p.184). As MindArk ultimately control all in-game space, any successful in-game tactic of resistance/subversion can be successful only until MindArk changes the fundamental conditions of the game (typically through the monthly software updates but also with the help of web-pages and through alliances with different player groups). Players can however use strategies that promise to be more successful outside the game (outside of MindArk’s direct jurisdiction). These are further described in the full paper. References: Akrich, M, and Latour, B, (1992). A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies in W. E. Bijker and J. Law (eds.) Shaping technology/building society: Studies in socio-technical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Castronova, E (2001), Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. CESifo Working Paper Series No. 618. Curtis, P (1998). Not just a game, How LambdaMoo came to exist and what it did to get back at me in Haynes, C, Holmevik, J. R (eds.), High wired: on the design, use, and theory of educational MOOs. University of Michigan Press. Damgaard, I (2002). Legal Implications of the Project Entropia: Conducting Business in Virtual Worlds. Master’s thesis, Gothenburg School of economics and commercial law. Delwiche, A (2003). MMORPG’s in the College Classroom. The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds. New York Law School. de Certeau , M (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, University of California Press. Friedman, B. and Nissenbaum, H. (1997). Bias in computer systems in B. Friedman (ed), Human values and the design of computer technology, Cambridge University Press, New York. Jakobsson, M. and T. L. Taylor (2003). The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Social Networking in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Digital Arts and Culture Conference Proceedings. Melbourne, Australia. http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n08/reviews/jakobs... Latour, B (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts in W. E. Bijker and J. Law (eds.) Shaping technology/building society: Studies in socio-technical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lévi-Strauss, C (1966). The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Leonard, A (1997). Bots: the origin of new species. Penguin Books, New York. O´day, V. L, et al. (1996). The Social-Technical Design Circle. Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work ´96, Cambridge MA USA. Orr, J (1990). Sharing knowledge, celebrating identity: Community memory in a service culture. In D. Middleton and D. Edwards (eds.), Collective remembering. London: Sage. Oudshoorn, N., and T. Pinch, 2003. How users and non-users matter in N. Oudshoorn and T. Pinch (eds.) How users matter: The co-construction of users and technology, 1-29. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sumerton, J (2004). Do Electrons Have Politics? Constructing User Identities in Swedish Electricity in Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 29, No. 4, 486-511. Taylor, T.L (2004). The social design of virtual worlds: constructing the user and community through code in Consalvo, M, et. al. (eds.), Internet research annual volume 1: selected papers from the association of Internet researchers conferences 2000-2002. New York: Peter Lang. Woolgar, S (1991). Configuring the user: the case of usability trials in Law, John (ed.), A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination, Routledge, London

Playing against the grain: Rhetorics of counterplay in console based first-person shooter videogames.

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.Counterplay is a way of playing digital games that opposes the encoded algorithms that define their appropriate use and interaction. Counterplay is often manifested within the social arena as practices such as the creation of incendiary user generated content, grief-play, cheating, glitching, modding, and hacking. It is deemed damaging to normative play values, to the experience of play, and detrimental to the viability of videogames as mainstream entertainment products. Counterplay is often framed through the rhetoric of transgression as pathogen, as a hostile, infectious, threatening act. Those found conducting it are subject to a range of punishments ranging from expulsion from videogames to criminal conviction. Despite the steps taken to manage counterplay, it occurs frequently within contemporary videogames causing significant disruption to play and necessitating costly remedy. This thesis argues that counterplay should be understood as a practice with its own pleasures and justifying rhetorics that problematise the rhetoric of pathogen and attenuate the threat of penalty. Despite the social and economic significance of counterplay upon contemporary videogames, relatively little is known of the practices conducted by counterplayers, their motivations, or the rhetorics that they deploy to justify and contextualise their actions. Through the use of ethnographic approaches, including interview and participant observation, alongside the identification and application of five popular rhetorics of transgression, this study aims to expose the meanings and complexities of contemporary counterplay. It examines counterplayer testimonies that articulate the practices and rhetorics underpinning the creation of incendiary user generated content, grief play, glitching, modding, and hacking on the Xbox 360 platform in particular. This study represents a contribution to the field of game studies in an area so far underresearched, offering voice to a previously silent demographic, that of counterplayers. In focussing upon their practices, communities and motivations, this study challenges the framing of counterplay as reductively oppositional or hostile. Instead, counterplay is shown to be an act of seduction, a means of articulating identity, status and recognition, as an expression of hacker ideology, and as a re-engagement with the carnivalesque. These meanings, in addition to the rhetoric of pathogen, offer an expanded image of counterplay and the counterplayer that highlights the significance of counterplay within the context of contemporary popular and youth culture.Canterbury Christ Church University’s Staff Development programm

Videogames, interfaces, and the body: the importance of embodied phenomenon to the experience of videogame play

This thesis is concerned with setting out the importance of embodied phenomena to the experience of videogame play, and exploring the implications of those phenomena for how we understand the experience of videogame play. In particular, it argues that if we are to understand the experience of playing videogames as it is experienced by the player, we need to reorientate our approach to foreground the experience of the player. By taking this path it diverges from much, if not most, extant research on the experience of videogame play, which, it is argued, focuses more on theorising the likely effects or outcomes of particular formal qualities or design decisions, rather than how the experience of videogame play in itself emerges from the interaction between the embodied player and the videogame during the course of play. This approach opens up the phenomena of videogame play to more detailed and grounded accounts of the player’s relation to the interface used to play, the nature of the experience of engagement in the course of play, and the deep involvement of the body in the experience of play. The approach and theoretical framework employed in this thesis is influenced by Dourish’s notion of embodied interaction, which is adapted to the context of videogame play through further consideration and employment of phenomenological concepts, such as Merleau-Ponty’s work on the importance of our embodied being and of habituated bodily experience, and Heidegger’s differentiation between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand, to the articulation of the experience of videogame play. This leads to the key recurring thematic concern of this thesis, namely the role played by the interface in the experience of videogame play. Over the course of several chapters a more expansive conceptual model of the interface than the more technically based definitions usually employed is developed. This expanded conceptualisation of the interface is applied to the nature of the interface itself, the role played by its physical aspects, and how it affords the player access to, and a sense of presence within, the game-world. By understanding the embodied relation between the player and the interface used to play the importance of the phenomena of bodily experience is made visible, and opens up the phenomena of videogame play to more detailed and grounded accounts of the player’s relation to the interface used to play, the nature of the experience of engagement in the course of play, and the deep involvement of the body in the experience of play. What emerges from such an approach is not only an increased understanding of the nature of the experience of videogame play, but also of the centrality of embodiment to that experience. This centrality of embodiment to the experience of videogame play is demonstrated in the final chapter, which employs the work done over the course of the thesis to examine and articulate the phenomenological experience of movement within game-worlds

From contractual serfdom to human rights liberation : doing justice to virtual lives

Analysis of relationships between states and citizens has almost monopolised the Human Rights legal discourse. In my thesis, I start from the position that Human Rights is a philosophical and historical victory of humankind, whose application cannot be limited to dictating norms in traditional forms of governance; Human Rights primarily define the human being as an individual, as a group, as a societal entity. Therefore, when we discuss Human Rights we do not pursue what governing states 'ought' or 'ought not' to do, but how human beings 'should' endure their lives in a dignified manner; how they should be treated independently of who their acting opponent might be. The Internet, on the other hand, has evolved through the years into an uncharted virtual structure of uncounted online operations and services run by private commercial actors. Within this setting, where the online application platform performs as a land parallel and the private commercial host as the de facto ruler, online identity is mirrored into service accounts. Hence the human being‘s digital existence seems to be depending, to a large degree, on the private initiative – and will. Whilst exploring various relevant themes, the thesis revisits the issue of the application of Human Rights in private relationships through the lenses of online electronic communications and using the example of commercial online virtual worlds. According to my conclusions, a simple projection of the state/citizen model onto ISPs/users relationships does not give sufficient ground for contesting Human Rights within that context. What we need is to deconstruct predominant dogmas in modern Human Rights theory and legislation and to readjust our focus back on the human being and its universal manifestations

Second Life : representation and remediation of social space

Ao longo da última década os jogos online e as plataformas sociais têm-se tornado cada vez mais populares, tendo vindo a contribuir para o desenvolvimento da internet. Os jogos online multiplayer têm conquistado cada vez mais utilizadores. Estes têm como locus a realidade virtual e como objetivo a recriação de um novo mundo. Um exemplo deste tipo de jogos é o Second Life, um jogo social que conta com um elevado número de utilizadores – cerca de 31 milhões de utilizadores registados. Esta plataforma foi desenvolvida pela Linden Lab e reúne as características de um mundo virtual: é um cenário digital tridimensional, no qual utilizadores de todo o mundo, representados por avatares, interagem em tempo real formando diversos tipos de redes sociais. Uma das suas características distintivas é o facto de 99% do conteúdo existente dentro do espaço virtual ter sido desenvolvido pelos utilizadores. Os jogadores, denominados residentes, estão a contribuir não só na construção do espaço, mas também para o desenvolvimento social deste mundo virtual. Para além disto, existem mais quatro características que tornam o Second Life um objeto de estudo interessante: todos os avatares são controlados por seres humanos em tempo real; o reconhecimento de direitos de propriedade intelectual; a existência de uma micro-moeda – o Linden Dollar; e o facto de todos os jogadores terem acesso a ferramentas básicas de construção, e à linguagem de programação desenvolvida pela Linden Lab, a Linden Scripting Language, essenciais para criar objetos. O Second Life é um espaço colaborativo e participativo que, apesar de ser um jogo, oferece aos seus utilizadores uma experiência muito diferente da vivida nos videojogos tradicionais. Por ser um jogo do tipo caixa de areia os jogadores podem estabelecer uma relação diferente com esta plataforma, pois podem contribuir para as diversas dimensões da vida dentro do jogo. Devido às suas características, este mundo virtual tem despertado o interesse de investigadores de diferentes áreas que têm procurado perceber o seu impacto para a interação social, educação, economia, lei, e indústrias criativas. No entanto, tendo em conta que o ‘espaço’ é um elemento fulcral na investigação em Ciências Humanas e uma das áreas priveligiadas pela European Science Foundation para a investigação em Ciências Sociais e Humanas, há, ainda, a necessidade de perceber como é que este espaço digital está a ser desenvolvido, e que narrativas culturais o estão a moldar. Uma vez que o Second Life reflete a importância dos mundos virtuais para a interação online, torna-se fundamental compreender que impacto a virtualização das relações sociais pode ter para a interação interpessoal e para o desenvolvimento de um novo tipo de ‘comunidades imaginadas’. A presente investigação centra-se no Second Life e procura perceber de que forma poderá este novo espaço de interação estar a contribuir para o aparecimento de uma nova dimensão social. Uma dimensão resultante das possibilidades oferecidas por uma plataforma tecnológica apenas disponível através da internet, combinadas com o potencial criativo dos seus utilizadores. Com o intuito de contribuir para um melhor entendimento do potencial sociocultural deste mundo virtual, este estudo tem como base uma investigação empírica desenvolvida a partir de uma metodologia qualitativa específica para o estudo de comunidades online, a netnografia. Os métodos de recolha de dados adotados são: observação participante, auto-netnografia, entrevista e análise de conteúdo dos perfis dos utilizadores entrevistados. Os dados são analisados seguindo uma abordagem indutiva. A principal hipótese deste estudo centra-se na premissa que se o Second Life é um mundo virtual que está a ser coproduzido pela Linden Lab e pelos utilizadores, é provável que o envolvimento dos residentes com a realidade virtual resulte na criação de um sistema de representação re-mediado. Partindo desta hipótese, os objetivos principais desta investigação são confirmar se de facto os mundos virtuais estão a ser usados para representar e re-mediar o espaço social, e perceber que efeito isto tem nos jogadores. Uma das principais conclusões retiradas prende-se com o facto de os utilizadores estarem a tirar partido deste mundo virtual para renegociarem os modelos socioculturais que informam as suas ‘primeiras vidas’. Após a análise da relação que os utilizadores estabelecem com o espaço virtual, com os seus próprios avatares e entre si, concluiu-se que são três as principais narrativas culturais que estão a resultar das experiências vividas pelos residentes deste mundo virtual. As primeiras intrinsecamente relacionadas com a organização geográfica da vida humana – narrativas de espaço; as segundas, com a necessidade de nos compreendermos a nós mesmos, narrativas identitárias; e as terceiras, com o facto de os seres humanos serem na sua essência seres sociais, narrativas resultantes da interação social com outros residentes. A ‘re-mediação’ de narrativas culturais dentro de um ambiente online, anónimo e flexível evidencia a necessidade que os seres humanos têm de reconhecer os espaços sociais que frequentam, de modo a envolverem-se e atribuírem significado às experiências digitais vividas.Over the past decade online games and social platforms became very popular and contributed to the internet development. The massive multiplayer online games have conquered a high number of users. The locus of these games is virtual reality, and the main goal is the recreation of a new world. Second Life is one of these games, a tridimensional social platform which counts with a high number of users – around 31 million registered users. It was developed by Linden Lab and it assembles the main characteristics of a virtual worlds: it is a tridimensional digital setting where users from all over the world represented by avatars interact in real time, and develop diversified social networks. One of its main characteristics is the prevalence of prodused content – 99 per cent of the content existing in-world was created by residents. Players, designated residents, are not only contributing to the space construction, but also to the social development of this virtual world. Apart from this, there are four more characteristics that make this multiuser environment interesting as an object of study: all the avatars existent in-world are playing characters controlled by human beings in real time; the recognition of intellectual property rights; the existence of a micro-currency – the Linden Dollar; and all the players have access to simple building tools, and to the Linden Scripting Language, which are essential to create objects. Second Life is a collaborative and participative space that, despite being a game, offers its users a very different experience from that lived within traditional video games. Because it is a sandbox game players are able to establish a different kind of relationship with the platform, once they can contribute to the different dimensions of the life in-world. Due to its intrinsic characteristics, this virtual world has caught the attention of researchers from several areas that showed interest in understanding the impact this virtual world may have in social interaction, education, economy, law and creative industries. Notwithstanding, considering that ‘space’ is a key element in the Humanities, and one of the privileged areas by the European Science Foundation for the research in Social Sciences and Humanities, it is necessary to better understand how this digital space is being developed, and which cultural narratives are shaping it. Since Second Life reflects the relevance of virtual worlds to online interaction, it is essential to comprehend the impact that the ‘virtualization’ of social relationships may have for interpersonal interaction, and for the emergence of a new type of ‘imagined communities’. The present research is centered on Second Life and looks forward to understand how this new interaction space could be contributing to the emergence of a new social dimension. A dimension resulting from the possibilities offered by a technology platform only available through the internet, combined with the creative potential of its users. In order to contribute to a better understanding of the sociocultural potential of this virtual world, this study is grounded on an empirical research based on a specific qualitative methodology for studying online communities, the netnography. The methods adopted for data collection are: participant observation, auto-netnography, interview, and content analysis of the interviewees’ profiles. The data collected is analyzed through an inductive approach. The main hypothesis framing this research is the premise that if Second Life is a virtual world that is being prodused by its residents, it is probable that users’ involvement with the virtual reality would result in the creation of a remediated system of representation. Based on this hypothesis, the main goals then are to confirm if virtual worlds are indeed representing and remediating social space, and to understand the effect this has on players. One of the main conclusions reached is that the users are taking advantage of the affordances of this virtual world to renegotiate the sociocultural models that frame their first lives. Through the analysis of the relationship users are establishing with the virtual space, with their own avatars, and with each other, it is concluded that there are three main cultural narratives emerging from the in-world experience lived by the residents. The first intrinsically related with the geographical organization of human life – spatial narratives; the second, with the need to make sense of oneself – narratives of identity; and the third, with the fact that humans are social beings in essence – social interaction narratives resulting from the interaction with other residents. The remediation of cultural narratives into an online, anonymous, and flexible environment evinces the need humans have for recognizable social spaces in order to be able to get involved and attribute meaning to the lived digital experiences

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

Behind the Image, Beyond the Image

The volume includes papers presented at the III International Conference of PhD students of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the State Institute for Art Studies of Moscow (Venice, 22-24 September 2021). The word ‘image’ derives from the Latin imago, a word that has many different meanings that go from ‘portrait’ to ‘ghost’, from ‘idea’ to ‘dream’, from ‘memory’ to ‘reflection’. We most commonly associate the word ‘image’ with a picture, but its etymology keeps reminding us of its infinite conceptual potential. In his famous book Behind the Image: The Art of Reading Paintings, Federico Zeri argues that there are infinite ways to observe the work of art as an image. But since the image is something that goes beyond its mere material and physical form and refers to the categories of perception and thought, the expression “beyond the image” encourages new formulations related to this polyvalent concept. The image, the imagination and the imaginable are the transversal categories that the papers collected in this volume aim to explore, inquiring the concept of image as a metaphor, a model, a method, a representation, a tool for a new understanding of reality

Beyond Participatory Design for Service Robotics

The spread of technologies as Cloud and Distributed Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning techniques comes with highly disruptive innovation potential and consequent design imperatives. High connectivity of devices and machines is shaping not only sensing and monitoring capabilities, but also describing ever more ubiquitous and diffuse computing capabilities, affecting decision-making with a wide range of assisting tools and methods. With the scaling potential of moving beyond its contemporary application such as industrial facilities monitoring, precision farming and agriculture, healthcare and risk management scenarios, RaaS is bound to involve an increasingly fluid and diverse range of users, shaping new socio-technical systems where practices, habits and relationships will evolve in respect to its adoption. On these premises, applied research at Polytechnic Interdepartmental Centre for Service Robotics in Turin, Italy, focuses on the development of a service robotics platform able to operate on the local scale and capable of adapting to evolving scenarios

Street Furniture and the Nation State: A Global Process

In the popular imagination, street furniture has traditionally been understood as evoking a sense of national or local identity. From Paris’ metro entrances, DDR lampposts in Berlin, and London’s york stone pavements, the designed environment has been able to contribute to the unique qualities of a place. In some instances this was deliberate. In postwar Britain for instance, the Council of Industrial Design – a state-funded design organization - often appeared to measure the quality of street furniture on the basis of its national characteristics. On other occasions, the relationship between such objects and identity emerged accidentally. In Britain during the 1980s, for example, the replacement of Gilbert Scott's red telephone box with an alternative BT model provoked considerable debate. For many people, this act was not just a Conservative attack on nationalization and state-ownership, but also on the very fabric of British identity. This understanding of street furniture has retained its currency for many years, and cities across the world have used street furniture to provide a sense of visual coherency for neighbourhoods in need of new identities, strengthening their character and improving the public's relationship to them. In this way, street furniture has been employed as a cipher for the narrative of regeneration, in which - as a means of altering the identity of a space - street furniture can project a new face upon the street. Increasingly however, advertising companies are able to lever themselves into the street furniture market by offering to provide the service to the local authorities for free in return for advertising space. In offering this service, global companies like JC Decaux, Wall and Clear Channel command a huge amount of commercial power within the city. The excessive homogenization of street furniture coupled with the overwhelming presence of advertising which is increasingly sanctioned by local authorities keen to reduce costs, has resulted in the perception of poorer quality streets. Thus, the irony of regeneration is that by seeking to promote the unique identity of a city, many places often end up looking more and more alike. This paper will examine recent developments in the process by which the street is furnished and the agents responsible. It will specifically look at how these changes have affected the relationship between street furniture and identity, and equally the effect this process has had on understandings of national design histories. Clearly, evaluating contemporary street furniture through the lens of the nation-state is of very little value, since the international differences between street furniture are considerably less marked than they used to be. This extraordinary aesthetic convergence is partly linked to economies of scale - after all, just how many different kinds of bus stop can Europe afford to have? Yet it also reflects some of the challenges posed by globalization and privatization of public space. This paper will reflect upon that process, and how these bigger narratives increasingly affect the landscape of the street

The Music Sound

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music