8,146 research outputs found

    The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram

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    This thesis identifies and analyses the key creative protocols in translocal performance practice, and ends with suggestions for new forms of transversal live and mediated performance practice, informed by theory. It argues that ontologies of emergence in dynamic systems nourish contemporary practice in the digital arts. Feedback in self-organised, recursive systems and organisms elicit change, and change transforms. The arguments trace concepts from chaos and complexity theory to virtual multiplicity, relationality, intuition and individuation (in the work of Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon, Massumi, and other process theorists). It then examines the intersection of methodologies in philosophy, science and art and the radical contingencies implicit in the technicity of real-time, collaborative composition. Simultaneous forces or tendencies such as perception/memory, content/ expression and instinct/intellect produce composites (experience, meaning, and intuition- respectively) that affect the sensation of interplay. The translocal event is itself a diagram - an interstice between the forces of the local and the global, between the tendencies of the individual and the collective. The translocal is a point of reference for exploring the distribution of affect, parameters of control and emergent aesthetics. Translocal interplay, enabled by digital technologies and network protocols, is ontogenetic and autopoietic; diagrammatic and synaesthetic; intuitive and transductive. KeyWorx is a software application developed for realtime, distributed, multimodal media processing. As a technological tool created by artists, KeyWorx supports this intuitive type of creative experience: a real-time, translocal “jamming” that transduces the lived experience of a “biogram,” a synaesthetic hinge-dimension. The emerging aesthetics are processual – intuitive, diagrammatic and transversal

    Always in control? Sovereign states in cyberspace

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    For well over twenty years, we have witnessed an intriguing debate about the nature of cyberspace. Used for everything from communication to commerce, it has transformed the way individuals and societies live. But how has it impacted the sovereignty of states? An initial wave of scholars argued that it had dramatically diminished centralised control by states, helped by a tidal wave of globalisation and freedom. These libertarian claims were considerable. More recently, a new wave of writing has argued that states have begun to recover control in cyberspace, focusing on either the police work of authoritarian regimes or the revelations of Edward Snowden. Both claims were wide of the mark. By contrast, this article argues that we have often misunderstood the materiality of cyberspace and its consequences for control. It not only challenges the libertarian narrative of freedom, it suggests that the anarchic imaginary of the Internet as a ‘Wild West’ was deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality. The Internet, like previous forms of electronic connectivity, consists mostly of a physical infrastructure located in specific geographies and jurisdictions. Rather than circumscribing sovereignty, it has offered centralised authority new ways of conducting statecraft. Indeed, the Internet, high-speed computing, and voice recognition were all the result of security research by a single information hegemon and therefore it has always been in control

    An outdoor spatially-aware audio playback platform exemplified by a virtual zoo

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    Outlined in this short paper is a framework for the construction of outdoor location-and direction-aware audio applications along with an example application to showcase the strengths of the framework and to demonstrate how it works. Although there has been previous work in this area which has concentrated on the spatial presentation of sound through wireless headphones, typically such sounds are presented as though originating from specific, defined spatial locations within a 3D environment. Allowing a user to move freely within this space and adjusting the sound dynamically as we do here, further enhances the perceived reality of the virtual environment. Techniques to realise this are implemented by the real-time adjustment of the presented 2 channels of audio to the headphones, using readings of the user's head orientation and location which in turn are made possible by sensors mounted upon the headphones. Aside from proof of concept indoor applications, more user-responsive applications of spatial audio delivery have not been prototyped or explored. In this paper we present an audio-spatial presentation platform along with a primary demonstration application for an outdoor environment which we call a {\em virtual audio zoo}. This application explores our techniques to further improve the realism of the audio-spatial environments we can create, and to assess what types of future application are possible

    Embodiment and embodied design

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    Picture this. A preverbal infant straddles the center of a seesaw. She gently tilts her weight back and forth from one side to the other, sensing as each side tips downward and then back up again. This child cannot articulate her observations in simple words, let alone in scientific jargon. Can she learn anything from this experience? If so, what is she learning, and what role might such learning play in her future interactions in the world? Of course, this is a nonverbal bodily experience, and any learning that occurs must be bodily, physical learning. But does this nonverbal bodily experience have anything to do with the sort of learning that takes place in schools - learning verbal and abstract concepts? In this chapter, we argue that the body has everything to do with learning, even learning of abstract concepts. Take mathematics, for example. Mathematical practice is thought to be about producing and manipulating arbitrary symbolic inscriptions that bear abstract, universal truisms untainted by human corporeality. Mathematics is thought to epitomize our species’ collective historical achievement of transcending and, perhaps, escaping the mundane, material condition of having a body governed by haphazard terrestrial circumstance. Surely mathematics is disembodied

    The Influence of Culture Characteristics upon the Implementation of Business Intelligence Management

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    In the present paper upon the Business Intelligence framed in the Romanian national culture peculiarity we will appeal to a gradual approach to the subject, from theoretical – to experimental – to applicative. At an empirical level of these approach we will try to interface a theoretical frame of the actual specialty knowledge in the area with the realities encountered in the Romanian enterprises ( e.g. the adopted enterprises’ positions towards BI, the relation managers – employees – enterprises’ performances through BI’s implementation, the role of cultural peculiarity or the position taken towards the norms of the BI’s adopted strategies, etc.).cultural characteristics; Business Intelligence; competitive advantage; strategic management; information.

    T is for Territory: A Literature Review of Human Experience in Dramatic and Virtual Spaces

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    Abstract A theoretical investigation of the spaces where dramatic realities and virtual realities reside is researched and examined. How and for what purpose these locations exist is considered. Is technological space actual, virtual, or somewhere in between and where do our bodies intersect in that dimensional landscape? Can we as practitioners of drama therapy, specifically Developmental Transformations (DvT), be in conversation with the growing dominance of virtual technologies, and where do the boundaries of human territory fit in relation to both? Possible implications for future practice/research are considered. An appendix is included with examples of my art-based response to the research

    Public Theology in the face of pain and suffering: A proletarian perspective

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    A basic understanding of theology is the quest for knowledge of the Divine—the study of God. But why, one may ask, undertake such an endeavour, and to what end? My simple response would be, to know God is to enhance and enrich my life and service. To know God is to understand His creation – humanity and, the created context. I practice theology to learn more about God and His creation. In the process, that knowledge serves to improve my professional practice as a spiritual care provider in a public health institution. Thus, originates the burden of this task – the implication of doing theology in a public domain. My hope is to reflect on the implications of my professional practice as a spiritual care provider engaging in theological discourse in a public health institution. I’ll attempt a discussion of the implications of public theology in a specific context – public health institution, employing a specific approach. By its nature, public theology may serve as a medium through which all the other branches of theology interact with the other disciplines and seek to promote the idea of individuals living out their spiritual values and beliefs for the good of the general public. This can be applied in any field including, educational, social, health, political, and/or religious institutions, whether public or private. Public theology may vary depending on the context and practitioners at any given time and place, but have similar goals. Before getting to how I practice theology publicly, I’ll first discuss my understanding of the term public theology
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