Post-Cinematic Bodies

How is human embodiment transformed in an age of algorithms? How do post-cinematic media technologies such as AI, VR, and robotics target and re-shape our bodies? 'Post-Cinematic Bodies' grapples with these questions by attending both to mundane devices - such as smartphones, networked exercise machines, and smart watches and other wearables equipped with heartrate sensors - as well as to new media artworks that rework such equipment to reveal to us the ways that our fleshly existences are increasingly up for grabs. Through an equally philosophical and interpretive analysis, the book aims to develop a new aesthetics of embodied experience that is attuned to a new age of predictive technology and metabolic capitalism

Women in Artificial intelligence (AI)

This Special Issue, entitled "Women in Artificial Intelligence" includes 17 papers from leading women scientists. The papers cover a broad scope of research areas within Artificial Intelligence, including machine learning, perception, reasoning or planning, among others. The papers have applications to relevant fields, such as human health, finance, or education. It is worth noting that the Issue includes three papers that deal with different aspects of gender bias in Artificial Intelligence. All the papers have a woman as the first author. We can proudly say that these women are from countries worldwide, such as France, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Australia, Bangladesh, Yemen, Romania, India, Cuba, Bangladesh and Spain. In conclusion, apart from its intrinsic scientific value as a Special Issue, combining interesting research works, this Special Issue intends to increase the invisibility of women in AI, showing where they are, what they do, and how they contribute to developments in Artificial Intelligence from their different places, positions, research branches and application fields. We planned to issue this book on the on Ada Lovelace Day (11/10/2022), a date internationally dedicated to the first computer programmer, a woman who had to fight the gender difficulties of her times, in the XIX century. We also thank the publisher for making this possible, thus allowing for this book to become a part of the international activities dedicated to celebrating the value of women in ICT all over the world. With this book, we want to pay homage to all the women that contributed over the years to the field of AI

Music Cultures: SEMPRE Conference Proceedings

To celebrate Hull as the UK's City of Culture in 2017, the School of Drama, Music and Screen hosted a 3-day International Interdisciplinary Conference based on the overarching theme of ‘Musical Cultures’. The conference featured keynote addresses by Professor David Huron (Ohio State University, USA), Professor Patricia Shehan-Campbell (University of Washington, USA), Professors Mine Dogantan-Dack (University of Oxford, UK) and Daniel Leech Wilkinson (King’s College, London, UK). The event included spoken presentations, poster sessions, performance sessions, composition workshops, and concerts by local and international ensembles, including the University of Hull’s Associate Artists, The Berkeley Ensemble. SEMPRE’s 2017 Aubrey Hickman Award was given at this conference in recognition of a paper that offers a significant and previously unpublished contribution to the knowledge and understanding of music education or music psychology

Cyborg Talentification: YouTube as a Hotspot for Child Pop Stars, their Fans, and Critics

© Friederike Merkelbach (2022). This material is protected by copyright law. Without explicit authorization, reproduction is only allowed in so far it is permitted by law or by agreement with a collecting society.Denne kvalitative, netnografiske kasus-studien undersøker om musikalsk talent kan være samskapt, et fenomen jeg har beskrevet som talentifisering. Hotspot i denne undersøkelsen er YouTube, hvor fans og kritikere deler sine musikalske opplevelser og talentoppfatninger i møte med utvalgte norske barne-popstjerners fremføringer. Kyborgteori ble introdusert for å beskrive sammenfiltringen av menneske og maskin på plattformen. YouTube ble dermed forstått som et kyborgsystem, og talentifisering ble i min studie omdefinert til kyborg talentifisering, eller cyborg talentification, som er betegnelsen brukt i avhandlingen. Kulturkosmopolitisk teori og maktstrukturer komplementerer det teoretiske rammeverket. YouTube kommentarfelt, musikkvideo og intervjuutdrag med popstjernene delt på YouTube, utgjør det empiriske materialet. Basert på generelle etiske retningslinjer, og ved å betrakte internettet som en tekst og ikke et rom, ble denne studien utført uten samtykke og kun basert på offentlig tilgjengelige data. Siden offline erfaringer viste seg å påvirke mine online forståelseshorisonter, inkluderte jeg en live-konsertopplevelse. Denne autoetnografiske studien ble brukt til å belyse kjennetegn ved cyborg talentification på YouTube, men også til å problematisere online/offline dualismen, som ble videre undersøkt og dekonstruert av kyborgteori. Analysen av YouTube-data avdekket motivasjonsbaserte, diskursive, narrative og kulturkosmopolitiske perspektiver ved cyborg talentification. I diskusjon med eksisterende talentforskning og annen relevant litteratur ble det avdekket ulike synspunkter på talent og vidunderbarn-image hos YouTube-brukerne, media og barnestjernene selv. Barnestjernene viste seg å være fanget mellom divergerende forventninger om barnlig uskyld, autentisitet, ekstraordinær modenhet og originalitet. Disse motsetningene, som ble forsterket av YouTubes arkivfunksjoner, problematiserte barnestjernenes nåværende status og overgangen fra barnestjerne til voksen artist. Samtidig både bekreftet og utfordret barnestjernenes fortolkende reproduksjon av popmusikk den generelle infantiliseringen og foryngelsestrenden (youthification) av popkultur. Jeg har gjennomgående diskutert denne studiens relevans for det musikkpedagogiske forskningsfeltet. Dette innebar å belyse YouTube som en uformell læringsplattform og tilrettelegger for digital Bildung, samt å vurdere bidraget av cyborg talentification til eksisterende diskurser om musikalsk talent i formelle musikkpedagogiske rammer og læreplaner. Videre ble funnene fra YouTube om medieindustriens innvirkning og syn på barnestjerner satt i et musikkpedagogisk forskningsperspektiv.Abstract: This qualitative, netnographic case study anticipates the cocreation of musical talent, a phenomenon I conceptualized as talentification. The hotspot of this investigation is the YouTube platform, on which fans and critics alike share their musical experiences and perceptions of talent related to selected Norwegian child pop stars’ performances. Cyborg theory was introduced to elucidate the entanglement of human and machine. Thus, YouTube was conceptualized as a cyborg system, and talentification was subsequently reconceptualized as cyborg talentification. Cultural cosmopolitan theory and power structures complemented my theoretical framework. The empirical materials comprised YouTube comment rooms, their adjoining YouTube music videos, and YouTube interview footage starring the young celebrities. Regarding the internet as text rather than space, and based on ethical standards for online research, this investigation was solely conducted with publicly accessible material that obviated the need to seek consent. As offline experiences were found to inform my online understandings, I included a live concert visit. This autoethnographic experience proved valuable not only in pinpointing the characteristics of cyborg talentification on YouTube but also in shedding light on the online–offline binary, which was further investigated and deconstructed by cyborg subjectivity. The analysis of YouTube materials identified motivational, discursive, narrative, and cultural cosmopolitan levels in the cyborg talentification processes. In close discussion with existing scholarship on talent and adherent research, divergent views on talent and prodigiousness in commenters’, the media’s, and in child stars’ own voices were unpacked. The child stars were found to be caught between contrasting expectations of innocence, authenticity, mature extraordinariness, and originality, which, supported by YouTube’s archival functions, problematized both their present status and their transition from child pop star to adult artist. At the same time, the young celebrities’ interpretive reproduction of pop performance confirmed, but also challenged, the general proclivity of infantilization and youthification of popular culture. Throughout, I have discussed the topic’s impact on the field of music education research. This included a consideration of YouTube as an informal learning platform and facilitator of online Bildung, and of the conceptual and practical contributions of cyborg talentification to discourses on musical talent, formal music education practices, and curricula. Furthermore, the findings gleaned from YouTube on the media industries’ view of and influence on child stars were situated in a music education research perspective.publishedVersio

The Austin music scene in the 1970s : songs and songwriters

textIn the early 1970s a collection of singer-songwriters, musicians, and music business operatives captured the imagination of a national audience and launched Austin's reputation as a powerful and prolific international music scene. At the beginning of this seminal decade, the songs, the sounds, and the identities that took shape in Austin's music venues, studios, and back rooms gained traction in the national marketplace by cultivating a cross-cultural, cross-generational musical hybrid that came to be known as "progressive country." This dissertation tells the story of this music scene and explains why it's a story worth recounting in the course of American popular culture. The story begins by focusing on the meaning and utility of a music scene. To this end, I review a series of scholarly scene studies in an attempt to identify common currents of "sceneness" that I contrast with my findings as a participant observer in the Austin musical scene from 1967 to the present. The study then surveys the extant sources on Austin's music history, a commonly accepted history that I'm calling the "creation myth." This "myth" is expanded by introducing new voices, new interpretations, and new developments that have been under emphasized or overlooked in previous accounts. This analysis establishes the foundation for the unifying theme of this study, a theme based on the seminal significance, power, and durability of the song in the Austin music scene. The song was the driving force behind Austin's remarkable climate of musical creativity. The study then focuses on the local scene of the late 1960s as a precursor to the decade of the singer-songwriters. This was a highly productive era in Austin's creative history and although overshadowed by the popular splash of the 1970s, this period provided the underpinnings for music making in Austin for years to come. In the next section, the song is revisited by examining its history and its role in Western culture. Stated simply, songs are important—songs matter. They may mean different things to different people and play different roles in different societies, but they are an essential component of civilization. The discussion then expands from the efficacy of the popular song to the essence of their creators by examining the early professional careers of three prominent Austin-based songwriters—Steven Fromholz, Michael Martin Murphey and Jerry Jeff Walker. Weighing the differences in their respective styles and considering their commonalities help illuminate the process by which the song permeated the creative fabric of the period. The dissertation then explores the creative output of the Austin music scene by focusing on what I'm calling "cultural products." Certainly the songs of the era are prime examples of cultural products and are addressed throughout the dissertation. In this final segment however, I single out four examples of cultural products that are rooted in the 1970s that have either played a notable role in the historical current of Austin music or that continue to contribute to American popular culture in the 21st century.American Studie

Creative and cultural spillovers : an e-Compendium of project publications (2015-2018)

This e-Compendium is a compilation of the European Research Partnership on Cultural and Creative Spillovers project research publications, which were all made publicly-available as PDF downloads from the website for the duration of the project. This e-Compendium ensures the continued access and ease of distribution of these documents: each individual document maintains its stated authorship and copyright designations