The Worktown Photographs of Mass-Observation: from Anthropological Data to Digitalised Images

Mass-Observation was created in the 1930s; this was an era that began with an economic slump and concluded with a world war. The founders of Mass-Observation, the anthropologist Tom Harrisson, journalist and poet Charles Madge and documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings, aimed to record everyday life in Britain. This ‘anthropology of ourselves’ culminated in the union of two disparate projects: Harrisson’s Worktown in the north of England and Madge and Jennings’s National Panel based in London. Their methods of research were innovative and mostly relied on a system of observers. Harrisson’s anthropological research in Worktown included photography as a form of data collection. The principal photographer was the photojournalist Humphrey Spender who took around 900 photographs for Harrisson’s Worktown project. At the time of taking the photographs were largely ignored and remained in obscurity until the 1970s when Harrisson began exploiting the Mass-Observation archive. Although the Worktown photographs are predominantly understood in a documentary context, little attention has been given to the photographs as anthropological data or their place in the development of visual research. Hence, this study is part of a small body of research into their use as a form of visual anthropology. The main emphasis is on the production and contemporary use of the Worktown photographs but extends to their afterlife up to their latest trajectory as digital images. It will be argued that the methodology in Worktown was flawed, undermining the photographs as anthropological data. Moreover, that the best explanation for the photographs not being published contemporaneously was fear of litigation. Furthermore, that even if published, the evidence suggests that Harrisson would have imposed his own meaning onto the photographs

This Is Not an Atlas: A Global Collection of Counter-Cartographies

This Is Not an Atlas gathers more than 40 counter-cartographies from all over the world. This collection shows how maps are created and transformed as a part of political struggle, for critical research or in art and education: from indigenous territories in the Amazon to the anti-eviction movement in San Francisco; from defending commons in Mexico to mapping refugee camps with balloons in Lebanon; from slums in Nairobi to squats in Berlin; from supporting communities in the Philippines to reporting sexual harassment in Cairo. This Is Not an Atlas seeks to inspire, to document the underrepresented, and to be a useful companion when becoming a counter-cartographer yourself

The voice of authority : Evelyn Waugh's fiction

A large part of the extant criticism of Evelyn Waugh's fiction is orientated towards either a biographical or a literary-historical interest: there are comparatively few detailed surveys of the novels themselves. This study attempts such a survey, and in particular examines the tension which inheres in the relationship of Waugh's poised, urbane narrators to the social and moral chaos they depict. I have been interested in the source and management of that poise, the testing, as it were to destruction, of a series of narrative positions. There is a very modern equation to be observed in Waugh's fiction, between the potentially anarchic mode of fiction and what Waugh felt to be the actual anarchy of contemporary civilisation. His novels can with interest be read in terms of a comic exploitation of this equation, and subsequently, as the writer aged, of his attempts to evade its logic, to discover a 'voice of authority'. Apparently secure narrative stances are repeatedly undermined, and a succession of 'realities' compromised - Tony Last's, William Boot's, John Plant's, Guy Crouchback's. It is this awareness and exploitation of the reflexive quality of fiction, and its use in disclosing the nature of his age which lends Waugh's writing its real and enduring interest. I seek to draw out this awareness through detailed examination of the different novels' precise narrative stance, the source of their 'voice', and have been largely content to let stand other commentators' descriptions of Waugh's broader thesis. My method involves close attention to Waugh's language, from the conviction that nuances of tone and the development of marginal allusions and metaphors are the keys to many of his characteristic effects

The Counter-testimony of the Maker

The chapter begins with the question of critique, mainly how and why does one critique but more importantly why does no one critique effectively anymore. Such is a sentiment echoed by Bruno Latour in the paper Why has Critique Run out of Steam? He states: “It does not seem to me that we have been as quick, in academia, to prepare ourselves for new threats, new dangers, new tasks, new targets. Are we not like those mechanical toys that endlessly make the same gesture when everything else has changed around them?”(Latour, 2004:225). According to Latour, the absence of principles is to blame. As he puts it, critique has battered through all claims to a ground and the lack of a sure ground argument has backfired. The result is that there isn’t even a sure ground for criticism. Without a ground, it’s hard to differentiate a rigorous critical claim from a conspiracy theory. That’s why conspiracy theory books are best sellers. Latour mourns the death of critique. In its remnants lies a whole industry denying the Apollo program. My claim is that the absence of principles transforms critique into an issue around the strength of evidence and the credibility of the testimony. Effective critique is synonymous with a counter-testimony of a reliable witness. A witness is someone who is present at the time of an event, often a crime, and is able to testify before the law. They are able to give direct evidence in relation to the events. However, they often rely on foggy memories and blurred vision. It is not too difficult for the defence or prosecution to put the reliability or credibility of the witness in doubt. Here is where the role of making comes into play. More often than not, in the post-critical age, a testimony, or counter-testimony, is not simply uttered but is rather constructed. Latour is the first to admit that a critique has to be made. As such the eyewitness is no longer a person but a photograph, a video or other forms of surveillance. Juries are more decisive when they are presented with the facts, the evidence, more often submitted as objects as opposed to a fuzzy testimony of a witness. Critique, or counter-testimony, is a material process enabled by infrastructure. Is a practice-based question of physics, chemistry and the material forms of agency. Given all this this chapter explores further the role of critical making as counter-testimony. From aesthetic practices of forensics, counter-forensics to the role of labs in media archaeology and investigative practices, I will tell the story of makers that present their objects as a counter-narrative to pressing socio-political issues. More importantly, however, I will address the issue of how critical making practices can establish credibility in a world of fakes and loss of belief

HOW WOMEN MAKE - exploring female making practice through Design Anthropology.

This thesis explores the process of female making as a creative and socio-political act and how/where/why this creative labour gets ‘spent’, in terms of energy, outcomes and beneficiaries as well as how it might be situated in the context of contemporary Western Design ontology. Fieldwork took place over a period of 10 Months, with 11 female participants in two countries, during a number of repeat encounters, which included co-making, participant and ethnographic observations as well as informal interviews. The findings are presented as focused narratives based on three of the participants, through a series of ethnographic/auto-ethnographic accounts, which each conclude in a discussion based on my thematic analysis of that particular woman’s making. Drawing on the fieldwork with all 11 women, the three chapters which follow weave together data and theory into thematic discussions and analysis. The research documents and makes visible both the women’s making practices and things acting upon it, through observations of the participants making, and conversations and co-making with participants. A design anthropological approach of ‘anthropology as correspondence’ (Gatt & Ingold, 2013; Ingold 2013a) informed all data collection, with informal interviews providing the core data and focus of analysis, supported by analysis of visual data such as photography and moving image, as well as field notes and reflective auto-ethnographic writing, based on my experiences with the women and their making. As a design anthropological study, it situates and analyses female creative practices in a broader human ‘making’ context, whilst utilising a range of ethnographic, practice-led and co-creative methods, situated within a framework of a feminist inquiry and design discourse. Key theorists informing the analysis are Karen Barad (2007, 2008), Elizabeth Grozs (1999, 2010), Erin Manning (2016), Doreen Massey (2005) and Tim Ingold (2007, 2013a), whilst building on the work of Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock (1981), Cheryl Buckley (1986) and Sheila Rowbotham (1973/a, 1973/b), amongst many others. Key theories triangulated within the discussion and analysis stem from Material Feminism, Design Anthropology and Design Theory. This triangulation, woven around and into the observations and accounts of lived experiences, forms an emergent proposition which considers how female enactments of creative labour can provide us with ways to critique and un-ravel contemporary Design ontology, its modes of production and consumption. Drawing on post-capitalist scholars such as Kathy Weeks (2011), amongst others, and the writing of Raoul Vaneigem (1967/2006), the penultimate chapter ‘Implication for Design Pedagogy’ discusses why the implication my findings should be considered in relation to design pedagogy and education yet to come, and to ‘futures yet unthought’ (Grosz, 1999)

Compact Anthology of World Literature II: Volumes 4, 5, and 6

The Compact Anthology of World Literature, Parts 4, 5, and 6 is designed as an e-book to be accessible on a variety of devices: smart phone, tablet, e-reader, laptop, or desktop computer. Students have reported ease of accessibility and readability on all these devices. To access the ePub text on a laptop, desktop, or tablet, you will need to download a program through which you can read the text. We recommend Readium, an application available through Google. If you plan to read the text on an Android device, you will need to download an application called Lithium from the App Store. On an iPhone, the text will open in iBooks. Affordable Learning Georgia has also converted the .epub files to PDF. Because .epub does not easily convert to other formats, the left margin of the .pdf is very narrow. ALG recommends using the .epub version. Although the text is designed to look like an actual book, the Table of Contents is composed of hyperlinks that will take you to each introductory section and then to each text. The three parts of the text are organized into the following units: Part 4—The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Unit I: The Age of Reason Unit II: The Near East and Asia Part 5—The Long Nineteenth Century Unit I Romanticism Unit II Realism Part 6—The Twentieth Century and Contemporary Literature Unit I Modernism Unit II Postcolonial Literature Unit III Contemporary Literature Texts from a variety of genres and cultures are included in each unit. Additionally, each selection or collection includes a brief introduction about the author and text(s), and each includes 3 – 5 discussion questions. Texts in the public domain--those published or translated before 1923--are replicated here. Texts published or translated after 1923 are not yet available in the public domain. In those cases, we have provided a link to a stable site that includes the text. Thus, in Part 6, most of the texts are accessible in the form of links to outside sites. In every case, we have attempted to connect to the most stable links available. The following texts have been prepared with the assistance of the University of North Georgia Press in its role as Affordable Learning Georgia\u27s Partner Press. Affordable Learning Georgia partners with the University of North Georgia Press to assist grantees with copyright clearance, peer review, production and design, and other tasks required to produce quality Open Educational Resources (OER). The University Press is a peer-reviewed, academic press. Its mission is to produce scholarly work that contributes to the fields of innovative teaching, textbooks, and Open Educational Resources. Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation Grant funds may be used for services provided by the Press. To determine how the University Press can assist ALG grantees or anyone interested in developing OER with ALG, the University Press will provide advance free consultations. Please contact the Press at 706-864-1556 or [email protected]. “Textbook Transformation Grants” from Affordable Learning Georgia Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/1018/thumbnail.jp

Bowdoin Orient v.68, no.1-29 (1938-1939)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-1930s/1009/thumbnail.jp

Towards a Conceptual Design of an Intelligent Material Transport Based on Machine Learning and Axiomatic Design Theory

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in sheet metal industry. This paper presents a methodology for conceptual design of intelligent material transport using mobile robot, based on axiomatic design theory, graph theory and artificial intelligence. Developed control algorithm was implemented and tested on the mobile robot system Khepera II within the laboratory model of manufacturing environment. Matlab© software package was used for manufacturing process simulation, implementation of search algorithms and neural network training. Experimental results clearly show that intelligent mobile robot can learn and predict optimal material transport flows thanks to the use of artificial neural networks. Achieved positioning error of mobile robot indicates that conceptual design approach can be used for material transport and handling tasks in intelligent manufacturing systems