Besides Looking: Patrimony, Perfomativity and Visual Cultures

David Dibosa’s paper, 'Besides Looking: Patrimony, Performativity and Visual Cultures in National Art Museums', is an exploration and a further elaboration of the relations between the development of visual media practices within the research – what we have previously indicated as stemming from practice-based research approaches – and transmigrational visual cultures. David asks how perspectives derived from the study and articulation of Visual Cultures, (Hall, Mirzoeff, Evans, Rogoff) might usefully frame our understanding of transmigrational ‘viewing strategies’ and more specifically the practices of Tate Encounters’ participants. He introduces an important counter to the idea that either the art museum or the research framing can address the transmigrational viewer other than in an engagement at the point of viewing. This stresses the dynamic, rather than settled, historical sense of migrant experience that has become contained in notions of ‘heritage’, and ethnic categorisations. He looks to performativity to offer a way out of the impasse of categorisation and his focus upon transmigrational experience as fluid leads him to the idea that a corresponding art museum viewing strategy might be that “which has not yet been seen” or “a kind of seeing on the move”

Digital Image

This paper considers the ontological significance of invisibility in relation to the question ‘what is a digital image?’ Its argument in a nutshell is that the emphasis on visibility comes at the expense of latency and is symptomatic of the style of thinking that dominated Western philosophy since Plato. This privileging of visible content necessarily binds images to linguistic (semiotic and structuralist) paradigms of interpretation which promote representation, subjectivity, identity and negation over multiplicity, indeterminacy and affect. Photography is the case in point because until recently critical approaches to photography had one thing in common: they all shared in the implicit and incontrovertible understanding that photographs are a medium that must be approached visually; they took it as a given that photographs are there to be looked at and they all agreed that it is only through the practices of spectatorship that the secrets of the image can be unlocked. Whatever subsequent interpretations followed, the priori- ty of vision in relation to the image remained unperturbed. This undisputed belief in the visibility of the image has such a strong grasp on theory that it imperceptibly bonded together otherwise dissimilar and sometimes contradictory methodol- ogies, preventing them from noticing that which is the most unexplained about images: the precedence of looking itself. This self-evident truth of visibility casts a long shadow on im- age theory because it blocks the possibility of inquiring after everything that is invisible, latent and hidden

Fashioning identities : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University

This research addresses the way in which individual and collective identities are constructed through fashions in the contemporary western world. The reciprocal and interdependent relationship of processually emergent identities, and fashion as a system of cultural representation, is initially established. The argument maintains that certain theoretical explanations of fashion have marginalised this component of the fashion process, and the aim of the thesis is to place the often contradictory junctures of fashions and identities in positions of central importance in the consideration of fashion dynamics. The argument critically reviews different feminist explanations of fashion, and the implications these have for feminist debates around gender and gender identity. The thesis further examines the sociological debates around modernism and postmodernism, and evaluates the contributions of this debate for both the study of fashion, and feminist understandings of identities. The research concludes that contemporary theoretical shifts in the investigation of fashions and identities are the fruition of a 'long revolution' in sociological theory and practice, which indicate important developments for the future resolution of critical problems in the theory of style and politics

Insomnia : the affordance of hybrid media in visualising a sleep disorder

The integration of visual and numerical abstraction in contemporary audio-visual communication has become increasingly prevalent. This increase reflects the evolution of computational machines from simple data processors. Computation and interface have augmented our senses and converged algorithmic logic with cultural techniques to form hybrid channels of communication. These channels are fluid and mutable, allowing creatives to explore and disseminate knowledge through iterative media practice. Insomnia is an auto-ethnographic case study that examines the affordance of merging Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and node- based programming software (TouchDesigner), as a hybrid media system (McMullan, 2020). As a system, Insomnia compiles my archived brain activity data and processes it through a custom designed generative visualisation interface. Documenting and ‘processing’ a sleep disorder is filtered through key concepts of media archaeology, cultural techniques, and practice-led research allowing Insomnia to inform discussion of the affordance of hybrid media. Insomnia is presented as a virtual exhibition with a supporting exegesis. The methodology and outcomes of the project form a framework that bridges science communication and creative practice and points to continued development for interactive installation design

Future scenarios to inspire innovation

In recent years and accelerated by the economic and financial crisis, complex global issues have moved to the forefront of policy making. These grand challenges require policy makers to address a variety of interrelated issues, which are built upon yet uncoordinated and dispersed bodies of knowledge. Due to the social dynamics of innovation, new socio-technical subsystems are emerging, however there is lack of exploitation of innovative solutions. In this paper we argue that issues of how knowledge is represented can have a part in this lack of exploitation. For example, when drivers of change are not only multiple but also mutable, it is not sensible to extrapolate the future from data and relationships of the past. This paper investigates ways in which futures thinking can be used as a tool for inspiring actions and structures that address the grand challenges. By analysing several scenario cases, elements of good practice and principles on how to strengthen innovation systems through future scenarios are identified. This is needed because innovation itself needs to be oriented along more sustainable pathways enabling transformations of socio-technical systems

The Glow of Unwork? Issues of Portrayal in Networked Learning Research

In this paper, we suggest that portrayal of research is often undervalued and seen as ‘unwork’ (Galloway, 2012). Portrayal is often seen as an issue that is relatively straight forward by qualitative researchers, and invariably refers to putting the findings of the study together with excerpts from participants and usually, but not always, some interpretation. It tends to be seen as the means by which the researcher has chosen to position people and their perspectives, and it is imbued with a sense of not only positioning but also a contextual painting of a person in a particular way. Yet there are an array of issues and challenges about what portrayal can or might mean in digital spaces. In this paper we argue that researching education in a digital age provides greater or different opportunities to represent and portray data differently and suggest that these ways are underutilised. For example, for many researchers legitimacy comes through the use of participants’ voices in the form of quotations. However, we argue that this stance towards plausibility and legitimacy is problematic and needs to be reconsidered in terms of understanding differences in types of portrayal, recognizing how researchers position themselves in relation to portrayal, and understanding decision-making in relation to portrayal. We suggest that there need to be new perspectives about portrayal and concept, and ideas are provided that offer a different view. Three key recommendations are made: Portrayal should be reconceptualised as four overlapping concepts: mustering, folding, cartography, and portrayal. Adopting such an approach will enable audiences, researchers and other stakeholders to critique the assumptions that researchers on tour bring to portrayal and encourage reflexivity. Researchers on tour should highlight the temporal, mutable and shifting nature of portrayed research findings, emphasising the need for continued and varied research to inform understanding. There is a significant need for greater insight into the influence of portrayal, as well as the difference between representation and portrayal. Future studies should prioritise this, and ensure that portrayal is considered and critiqued from the outset

The effect of wine tourism experiences on wine brands

Wine tourism takes on a clear hedonic dimension, being especially prone to the design of experiences. The characteristics of wine tourism make this product quite compatible with the rural areas and with an evident capacity of sustainable development. Most of the studies that characterize the wine tourism experiences have a clear focus on the demand side. This paper aims at obtaining a greater insight into the leverage of the wine brands through positive experiences associated with wine tourism. Sustained on the Grounded Theory, a deep analysis of the perception that the cellars/farms have about the effect of their touristic offer on their wine brands was carried out. While there is no use of concrete measures on the supply-side, we found that there is the conviction of a reciprocal leverage effect between wine tourism experiences and wine brands. Despite the exploratory nature of this paper we conclude that wine experiences and brand value and awareness reinforce which other in an interactive and dynamic way.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio