Photography as a tool of alienation: aura (Chapter 7)

Regular photographic imaging records volumetric planes with smooth surfaces. The reason is the camera’s defi ciency in perceiving and documenting the visual richness of “persuasive” details in life. HDR imaging methods used in creating the artwork series titled Aura helped invisible textures to emerge through different exposures and layering multiple surfaces in an image. A major objective in this series was to facilitate the experiential visual complexity between the animate and inanimate to emerge that cannot otherwise be recorded. The intention was to achieve a new symbiotic painterly visual relationship between biological (humans) and non- biological (space) through the rich textures achieved after high-dynamic-range- imaging (HDRI) procedures. The chapter will focus on photography as a tool of personal world making, instead of photography as witnessing. In unfolding this practice notions of superimposition, palimpsest, painting vs. photography, truth and photography as an apparatus to provoke de-familiarisation will be covered. The aim is to confi rm photography as a visual language that enriches and transforms human perception

Haptics for the development of fundamental rhythm skills, including multi-limb coordination

This chapter considers the use of haptics for learning fundamental rhythm skills, including skills that depend on multi-limb coordination. Different sensory modalities have different strengths and weaknesses for the development of skills related to rhythm. For example, vision has low temporal resolution and performs poorly for tracking rhythms in real-time, whereas hearing is highly accurate. However, in the case of multi-limbed rhythms, neither hearing nor sight are particularly well suited to communicating exactly which limb does what and when, or how the limbs coordinate. By contrast, haptics can work especially well in this area, by applying haptic signals independently to each limb. We review relevant theories, including embodied interaction and biological entrainment. We present a range of applications of the Haptic Bracelets, which are computer-controlled wireless vibrotactile devices, one attached to each wrist and ankle. Haptic pulses are used to guide users in playing rhythmic patterns that require multi-limb coordination. One immediate aim of the system is to support the development of practical rhythm skills and multi-limb coordination. A longer-term goal is to aid the development of a wider range of fundamental rhythm skills including recognising, identifying, memorising, retaining, analysing, reproducing, coordinating, modifying and creating rhythms – particularly multi-stream (i.e. polyphonic) rhythmic sequences. Empirical results are presented. We reflect on related work, and discuss design issues for using haptics to support rhythm skills. Skills of this kind are essential not just to drummers and percussionists but also to keyboards players, and more generally to all musicians who need a firm grasp of rhythm

Using Data Visualisation to tell Stories about Collections

The paper explores visualisation of “big data” from digitised museum collections and archives, focusing on the relationship between data, visualisation and narrative. A contrast is presented between visualisations that show “just the data” and those that present the information in such a way as to tell a story using visual rhetorical devices; such devices have historically included trees, streams, chains, geometric shapes and other forms. The contrast is explored through historical examples and a survey of current practice. A discussion centred on visualising datasets from the British Library, Science Museum and Wellcome Library is used to outline key research questions

A Personal View of EVA London: Past, Present, Future

I first encountered EVA London in 1995 through my establishment of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library. In 2003, I was invited back as a keynote speaker on the subject of website accessibility for cultural heritage resources. Since then I have been involved with every EVA London conference either as an author or since 2007 as a proceedings editor. This paper summarises the developments of the EVA London conference over the past 25 years from a personal viewpoint and celebrates the 30th anniversary of EVA London and the whole family of international EVA conferences. The development of the community around EVA (Electronic Visualisation and the Arts) is evaluated in the context of a Community of Practice. The paper also considers possible future directions for EVA

Curating Digital Life and Culture: Art and information.

Our increasingly digital world affects all aspects of people’s lives, including the arts, culture and heritage. The visual medium of art and the more informational medium of literature and writing have both been significantly changed in the ways in which they can reach their viewers and readers. Here we record overviews of four presentations by experts in their various fields, setting out their views and experience of topics relating to this issue

Text Visualisation Tool for Exploring Digitised Historical Documents

This paper describes a prototype timeline tool designed for humanities researchers exploring digitised historical documents. The tool visualises keyword instances in context mapped by date, and can be used to explore commentary around themes through time. Through designing the tool and evaluating it with humanities scholars, the role of the designer in the digital humanities is explored. Interview evaluation with historians provides evidence for the tool's capacity to support historical research, but also raises design issues by pointing to the value of simple, minimal design in this domain for interpretability

Real Fictions. Collage, fotomanipulación e imagen arquitectónica en la era digital

Since the earliest daguerreotypes appeared in the second half of the 19th century, the manipulation of photographic image has been an inseparable companion of the development of the medium. Firstly introduced as a way to make up for the limitations of technique, soon they started being used as privileged imagery generators that allowed to produce fantasies imbued with the aura of reality. Throughout the 20th century, photography, collage and photo-manipulation have accompanied the evolution of both the modern city and architecture, both portraying them and playing with their photographic image, creating fictions conceived in the canvas of the photographic paper. With the advent of the digital era, the possibilities to manipulate images have grown exponentially, taking photography further away from its alleged built-in objectivity, but also multiplying its ability to engender novel, captivating images. ‘Real Fictions’ presents an overview of the architectural imagery that the digital processing of images is producing, from the work of authors with a close relationship with disciplinary architecture such as Philipp Schaerer or Filip Dujardin to the architectural fictions generated by a heterogeneous multitude of artists and professionals, in order to discuss their potential contributions both to the discipline and to the claim for the role of photography in the age of digital image production.Desde la aparición de los primeros daguerrotipos en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, la manipulación de la imagen fotográfica ha sido una compañera inalienable del desarrollo del medio. Introducidos para suplir las carencias de la técnica, la fotomanipulación, el collage, o los trucajes visuales pronto comenzaron a ser explotados como privilegiados generadores de imagen que permitían crear fantasías imbuidas del aura de lo real. A lo largo del siglo XX, fotografía, collage y manipulación han acompañado la evolución de ciudad y arquitectura, tanto para retratarlas como para jugar con su imagen fotografiada, creando ficciones alumbradas en el lienzo del papel fotográfico. Con la llegada de la era digital, las posibilidades de tratamiento de la imagen han crecido exponencialmente, alejando aún más a la imagen fotográfica de su supuesta objetividad innata, pero multiplicando también su poder para engendrar nueva y subyugante imaginería. ‘Real Fictions’ ofrece una visión del imaginario arquitectónico al que el procesamiento digital de la imagen está dando lugar, desde los trabajos de autores en contacto directo con lo disciplinar como Philipp Schaerer o Filip Dujardin a las ficciones arquitectónicas generadas por una heterogénea multitud de artistas y profesionales, planteando sus posibles aportes a la disciplina y su contribución a reivindicar el papel de la fotografía en un mundo de construcción digital. &nbsp

EVA London 2021: Keynote summaries

This paper records summaries of invited keynote talks and backgrounds of the keynote speakers at the EVA London 2021 Conference (Weinel et al. 2021). EVA London takes place annually, originally starting in 1990 (Bowen 2020; Hemsley 2013). As for the previous year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, EVA London 2021 is a completely online conference. The conference is broadly based on digital culture (Giannini&Bowen2019b; Bowen & Giannini 2021) with a special emphasis on digital art (Bowen 2013).The conference also includes a symposium panel with three invited panellists presenting position statements (Bowen et al. 2021)