484 research outputs found

    Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia:Objects, Appropriation and Cultural Change

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    Plundering and taking home precious objects from a defeated enemy was a widespread activity in the Greek and Hellenistic-Roman world. In this volume literary critics, historians and archaeologists join forces in investigating this phenomenon in terms of appropriation and cultural change. In-depth interpretations of famous ancient spoliations, like that of the Greeks after Plataea or the Romans after the capture of Jerusalem, reveal a fascinating paradox: while the material record shows an eager incorporation of new objects, the texts display abhorrence of the negative effects they were thought to bring along. As this volume demonstrates, both reactions testify to the crucial innovative impact objects from abroad may have

    WHAT HAPPENED WITHIN THE POLICE SERVICE WHEN THE GOVERNMENT CREATED THE OFFENCE OF “CORRUPT OR IMPROPER PRACTICE” IN SECTION 26 OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COURTS ACT 2015?

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    Title. What happened within the police service when the government created the offence of “Corrupt or Improper Practice” in section 26 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015? Author Brendan P. Brookshaw Purpose. This PhD thesis offers explanations for the way in which the offence of Corrupt or Improper Practice by police officers was implemented within the service and is analysed through a framework of the psychology, ethics, and management of implementation. Using autoethnographic data as policing parables, it explores stories of police misconduct and suggests theoretical underpinnings for the drivers of corruption and how the police may react to it. Design/methodology/approach. This research is an autoethnographic examination of the author’s last two years as a serving police officer leading the Professional Standards Department of a large rural UK police force. The data consists of reflections on the emotional and philosophical impact on the author created by day-to-day interactions with police officers recorded in personal journals. Findings. The paper offers the new concepts of The Honest Cop Belief, the Ethical Trihedral, and Hyper-Procedural Pseudo-Compliance which are presented through an encompassing model of policing implementation named the Triangle of Kakistocracy. This model is offered as an original theoretical lens for other researchers to consider when examining the workings of the police. It discusses organisational and personal arrogance arising from the psychological impact on officers of ingrained cultural icons such as the Blue Wall of Silence. The Ethical Trihedral is presented as a model for analysing ethical incompetence in the police which is the suggested outcome of tension arising from conflicting philosophical paradigms. The impact of neoliberal managerialism in liquid modernity is examined to offer explanations for perceived moral cowardice in police managerial decision making which takes the form of hyper-procedural pseudo-compliance. Originality/value. Autoethnographic insider-research on police corruption is rare in the literature. Public trust and consent are vital to the British policing model, so divining esoteric police attitudes towards the harms perpetrated by abuses of their power is increasingly valuable in understanding police/public relationships. Keywords. Autoethnography, corruption, police, implementation, culture, ethics, management Paper type. PhD Thesi

    Animate Being: Extending a Practice of the Image to New Mediums via Speculative Game Design

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    This post-disciplinary practice as research thesis examines the potential of Carl Jung's therapeutic method of active imagination as a strategy for engaging with an increasingly complex and interconnected technological reality. Embracing a non-clinical, practice-driven approach, I harness James Hillman’s notion of the image and the imaginal to investigate the interdisciplinary capacity and ethical dimensions of an expansive mode of image-work. My approach to practice theoretically and practically intertwines analytical psychology, feminist worlding and design speculation. Building upon Susan Rowland’s work, I study image-work as an ecological alchemical craft that seeks to matter the immaterial. Through the cyclic iterative design of a video game, I mobilise and respond to image-work as a mode of myth-making that may facilitate dialogue between human and non-human intelligences. Departing from the essentialism of the hero's journey, I adopt Le Guin's Carrier Bag (1986/2019) as a feminist video game form and by utilising the framework of a video game (Bogost, 2007; Flannigan, 2013), the alchemical processes of image-work are transformed into novel interactive game mechanics. The game I design is both a vessel and a portal to an imaginal ecological realm, an open-world, procedurally generated ‘living world’ sandbox exploration game. This game integrates real-time, real-world data streams to invite the non-human to enter into play as player two, facilitating experimentation with possible new forms of cross-species dialogue, collaboration, and healing

    Fictional Practices of Spirituality I: Interactive Media

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    "Fictional Practices of Spirituality" provides critical insight into the implementation of belief, mysticism, religion, and spirituality into worlds of fiction, be it interactive or non-interactive. This first volume focuses on interactive, virtual worlds - may that be the digital realms of video games and VR applications or the imaginary spaces of life action role-playing and soul-searching practices. It features analyses of spirituality as gameplay facilitator, sacred spaces and architecture in video game geography, religion in video games and spiritual acts and their dramaturgic function in video games, tabletop, or LARP, among other topics. The contributors offer a first-time ever comprehensive overview of play-rites as spiritual incentives and playful spirituality in various medial incarnations

    Offene-Welt-Strukturen: Architektur, Stadt- und Naturlandschaft im Computerspiel

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    Welche Rolle spielen Algorithmen fĂŒr den Bildbau und die Darstellung von Welt und Wetter in Computerspielen? Wie beeinflusst die Gestaltung der RĂ€ume, Level und Topografien die Entscheidungen und das Verhalten der Spieler_innen? Ist der Brutalismus der erste genuine Architekturstil der Computerspiele? Welche Bedeutung haben LandschaftsgĂ€rten und Nationalparks im Strukturieren von Spielwelten? Wie wird Natur in Zeiten des Klimawandels dargestellt? Insbesondere in den letzten 20 Jahren adaptieren digitale Spielwelten akribischer denn je Merkmale der physisch-realen Welt. Durch aufwĂ€ndige Produktionsverfahren und komplexe Visualisierungsstrategien wird die Angleichung an unsere ĂŒbrige Alltagswelt stets in AbhĂ€ngigkeit von Spielmechanik und Weltlichkeit erzeugt. Wie sich spĂ€testens am Beispiel der Open-World-Spiele zeigt, fĂŒhrt die Übernahme bestimmter Weltbilder und Bildtraditionen zu ideologischen Implikationen, die weit ĂŒber die bisher im Fokus der Forschung stehenden, aus anderen Medienformaten transferierten ErzĂ€hlkonventionen hinausgehen. Mit seiner Theorie der Architektur als medialem Scharnier legt der Autor offen, dass digitale Spielwelten medienspezifische Eigenschaften aufweisen, die bisher nicht zu greifen waren und der Erforschung harrten. Durch VerschrĂ€nken von Konzepten aus u.a. Medienwissenschaft, Game Studies, Philosophie, Architekturtheorie, Humangeografie, Landschaftstheorie und Kunstgeschichte erarbeitet Bonner ein transdisziplinĂ€res Theoriemodell und ermöglicht anhand der daraus entwickelten analytischen Methoden erstmals, die komplexe Struktur heutiger Computerspiele - vom Indie Game bis zur AAA Open World - zu verstehen und zu benennen. Mit "Offene-Welt-Strukturen" wird die Architektonik digitaler Spielwelten umfassend zugĂ€nglich

    Reconstruction of machine-made shapes from bitmap sketches

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    We propose a method of reconstructing 3D machine-made shapes from bitmap sketches by separating an input image into individual patches and jointly optimizing their geometry. We rely on two main observations: (1) human observers interpret sketches of man-made shapes as a collection of simple geometric primitives, and (2) sketch strokes often indicate occlusion contours or sharp ridges between those primitives. Using these main observations we design a system that takes a single bitmap image of a shape, estimates image depth and segmentation into primitives with neural networks, then fits primitives to the predicted depth while determining occlusion contours and aligning intersections with the input drawing via optimization. Unlike previous work, our approach does not require additional input, annotation, or templates, and does not require retraining for a new category of man-made shapes. Our method produces triangular meshes that display sharp geometric features and are suitable for downstream applications, such as editing, rendering, and shading

    Efficient image-based rendering

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    Recent advancements in real-time ray tracing and deep learning have significantly enhanced the realism of computer-generated images. However, conventional 3D computer graphics (CG) can still be time-consuming and resource-intensive, particularly when creating photo-realistic simulations of complex or animated scenes. Image-based rendering (IBR) has emerged as an alternative approach that utilizes pre-captured images from the real world to generate realistic images in real-time, eliminating the need for extensive modeling. Although IBR has its advantages, it faces challenges in providing the same level of control over scene attributes as traditional CG pipelines and accurately reproducing complex scenes and objects with different materials, such as transparent objects. This thesis endeavors to address these issues by harnessing the power of deep learning and incorporating the fundamental principles of graphics and physical-based rendering. It offers an efficient solution that enables interactive manipulation of real-world dynamic scenes captured from sparse views, lighting positions, and times, as well as a physically-based approach that facilitates accurate reproduction of the view dependency effect resulting from the interaction between transparent objects and their surrounding environment. Additionally, this thesis develops a visibility metric that can identify artifacts in the reconstructed IBR images without observing the reference image, thereby contributing to the design of an effective IBR acquisition pipeline. Lastly, a perception-driven rendering technique is developed to provide high-fidelity visual content in virtual reality displays while retaining computational efficiency.JĂŒngste Fortschritte im Bereich Echtzeit-Raytracing und Deep Learning haben den Realismus computergenerierter Bilder erheblich verbessert. Konventionelle 3DComputergrafik (CG) kann jedoch nach wie vor zeit- und ressourcenintensiv sein, insbesondere bei der Erstellung fotorealistischer Simulationen von komplexen oder animierten Szenen. Das bildbasierte Rendering (IBR) hat sich als alternativer Ansatz herauskristallisiert, bei dem vorab aufgenommene Bilder aus der realen Welt verwendet werden, um realistische Bilder in Echtzeit zu erzeugen, so dass keine umfangreiche Modellierung erforderlich ist. Obwohl IBR seine Vorteile hat, ist es eine Herausforderung, das gleiche Maß an Kontrolle ĂŒber Szenenattribute zu bieten wie traditionelle CG-Pipelines und komplexe Szenen und Objekte mit unterschiedlichen Materialien, wie z.B. transparente Objekte, akkurat wiederzugeben. In dieser Arbeit wird versucht, diese Probleme zu lösen, indem die Möglichkeiten des Deep Learning genutzt und die grundlegenden Prinzipien der Grafik und des physikalisch basierten Renderings einbezogen werden. Sie bietet eine effiziente Lösung, die eine interaktive Manipulation von dynamischen Szenen aus der realen Welt ermöglicht, die aus spĂ€rlichen Ansichten, Beleuchtungspositionen und Zeiten erfasst wurden, sowie einen physikalisch basierten Ansatz, der eine genaue Reproduktion des Effekts der SichtabhĂ€ngigkeit ermöglicht, der sich aus der Interaktion zwischen transparenten Objekten und ihrer Umgebung ergibt. DarĂŒber hinaus wird in dieser Arbeit eine Sichtbarkeitsmetrik entwickelt, mit der Artefakte in den rekonstruierten IBR-Bildern identifiziert werden können, ohne das Referenzbild zu betrachten, und die somit zur Entwicklung einer effektiven IBR-Erfassungspipeline beitrĂ€gt. Schließlich wird ein wahrnehmungsgesteuertes Rendering-Verfahren entwickelt, um visuelle Inhalte in Virtual-Reality-Displays mit hoherWiedergabetreue zu liefern und gleichzeitig die Rechenleistung zu erhalten
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