On the Nature of Students\u27 Digital Mathematical Performances

In this study I investigate the nature of digital mathematical performances (DMPs) produced by elementary school students (Grades 4-6). A DMP is a multimodal text/narrative (e.g., a video) in which one uses the performance arts to communicate mathematical ideas. I analyze twenty-two DMPs available at the Math + Science Performance Festival in 2008. Assuming a sociocultural/postmodern perspective with emphasis on multimodality, my focus is on the role of the arts and technology in shaping students’ mathematical communication and thinking. Methodologically, I employ qualitative case studies, along with video analysis. I conduct a descriptive analysis of each DMP using Boorstin’s (1990) categories of what makes good films, focusing on surprises, sense-making, emotions, and visceral sensations. I also conduct a cross-case analysis using Boorstin’s categories and the mathematical processes and strands of the Ontario Curriculum. The multimodal nature of DMP is one of its most significant pedagogic attributes. Mathematics is traditionally communicated through print-based texts, but the production of DMPs is an alternative that engages students in conceiving multimodal narratives. The playfulness offers scenarios for students’ collaboration, creativity, and imagination. By making DMPs available online, students share their ideas in a public and social environment, beyond the classrooms. Most of the DMPs only explore Geometry and offer opportunities to experience some surprises, sense-making, emotions, and visceral sensations. The lack of focus on other strands (e.g., Algebra) may be seen as a reflection on what (and how) students are (or not) learning in their classes. The production of conceptual DMPs is a rare event, although I acknowledge that I analyzed only DMPs of the first year of the Festival, that is, students did not have examples or references to produce their DMPs. Some DMPs potentially explore conceptual mathematical surprises, but they appear to have gaps in terms of sense-making. The use of the arts and technologies does not guarantee the mathematical conceptuality of DMPs. This study contributes to mathematics education with an exploratory discussion about how mathematical ideas can be (a) communicated and represented as multimodal texts at the elementary school level and (b) seen through a performance arts lens. The study also points out directions about the pedagogic components for conceiving conceptual DMPs in terms of the performance arts and the components of the Ontario Curriculum

"Outside, it is snowing": Experience and finitude in the nonrepresentational landscapes of Alain Robbe-Grillet

Copyright © 2008 PionRomanillos J L, 2008. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26(5) 795 – 822 DOI: 10.1068/d6207This paper presents and explicates the anonymous and impersonal spatialities tentatively mapped in the novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet. Emerging from the kinds of landscapes and visualities articulated, these spatialities are at odds with the kind of anthropocentrism characteristic of phenomenological narratives of spatial experience that would start from an apparently stable human-subject position. It is argued that his body of literature dismantles the anthropocentric narratives and biographies that would produce in both the space of the world and the ‘phenomenological subject’ an unwarranted depth and naturalism. Importantly, and reflecting the theoretical turn towards the being of language, Robbe-Grillet questions the legitimacy of linguistic subjects to capture the spaces of the visible. As such, it is argued that his literature reflects an experience of the critiques of phenomenology. Importantly, this ‘critique’ goes hand in hand with the kinds of spatialities and landscapes that are rendered in the novels—the indefinite perspectives they open up, the paradoxical visualities they sustain or deny, and the disorientation they inject into the heart of spatial experience. These literary effects produce a nonanthropocentric and nonpersonal spatiality which, although contributing to an erasure of the ‘subject’, at the same time expose and open up a sociospatiality based on singularities, intensities, and finitude

Knüpftechnik: coding narrative in the music of Brahms and the experimental fiction of Robbe-Grillet

Linkage technique, or Knüpftechnik, describes a musical event where the beginning of a new phrase or formal section takes as its initial idea the conclusion of the immediately preceding one. I argue that the transformation of a concluding gesture into one of initiation offers analysts the opportunity for further research in musical narrative. Drawing from Robert Hatten's theory of musical meaning, I analyze two works by Brahms and construct an expressive interpretation around moments of linkage. In order to fully demonstrate the expressive ramifications of linkage as a transitional narrative device, I turn to an analogue in literary prose. Alain Robbe-Grillet's experimental fiction, a representative example of the nouveau roman, often features visual motifs that link disparate temporal locations in a narrative--similar to the graphic match cut technique found in the cinema. To demonstrate the unique expressive consequences of linkage technique in Robbe-Grillet's work, I provide analyses of selected passages from his 1955 novel Le Voyeur. The effects of confusion and disorientation created by Robbe-Grillet's prose add an expressive dimension to linkage events in Brahms's music that cause temporal disruption

Automatism and art practice

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2209 on 28.02.2017 by CS (TIS)The research project is to develop an understanding of the use of automatism in the practice of art derived from an interrelationship between the material process of art and critical text. As these practices converge in their vocabularies of the psychic and the somatic, they formulate a discourse of interpretation. The critical textual inquiry has identified an expanded language of interpretation for automatism within the vocabularies of three particular areas of investigation in, I. Psychoanalysis, 2. Phenomenology and certain currents of thought in Existentialism, and in 3. The theory and criticism of art. I have laid down an account of the field of research and my reading of it through six constituent writers: Freud, Ehrenzweig, Merleau-Ponty, Breton, Bataille and Rosenberg, determined from the artist-practitioner's perspective to be central contributors to an understanding of automatism. Four key terms have recurred in the material which I have identified in the research process as phenomena of automatist art practice; trauma, repetition, excess and gesture. As thinking continues in a contextualisation of art and critical theory they have provided further links to the theoretical language of current psychoanalysis and criticism by writers including: Agamben, Barthes, Foster, Krauss, Lacan and Lyotard. The focus of the practical inquiry rests upon an exploration of the communion between the unconscious mind and the body in automatism, derived from a studio practice with emphasis on a modelling and casting process. It is developed through the four key terms used as bridges in a critical exchange between the material practice and textual theory including original automatic writing. The theorising function of the art practice has been to initiate the four phases of the process of automatism as phenomena to be re-theorised through the four key terms as they are exemplified by a reflexive studio practice of automatist methodology in action. The body of art presented for examination selects works in series completed from 1996 -2006, in the following materials: bronze, paint, plaster, laser print and wax

Might Be Tragic: The Lonely Voyeur in Narrative Art

This thesis paper discusses the work displayed as it might have been seen in the exhibition, Might Be Tragic. The work is inspired by and draws from narrative fiction, blurring the distinctions between our perceptions and our creations of reality. When one observes a narrative, they are unwittingly fulfilling voyeuristic tendencies by vicariously experiencing others realities or falsehoods. The exhibition challenges how narrative can function in a space. The process of walking through the exhibition, Might Be Tragic, brings the book, Not That Tragic, to life in a three-dimensional format exploring the intimate relationship one has with a book and experiencing a world separate from theirs. By playing with scale and rhythm, through the means of installation and large-scale reproductions, the space allows the viewer to experience a sense of immersion and take on the role of voyeur

Bad Girl: Feminism, Contradiction, and Transformation

My thesis work developed out of a personal tension and insecurity surrounding the complexity and the seemingly contradictory nature of my identity. For an example, as a feminist, artist, and scholar, is it acceptable to also be a lover of popular culture tropes, makeup, and fashion? I have learned that female empowerment comes in many different forms. This paper will discuss the ways I have been visually exploring the female identity through multiplicity, contradiction, and most importantly: acceptance. I want my work to operate in a way that communicates the complexity of identity, transcends binary thinking, and promotes introspection. Third wave feminist thought provides an avenue for considering the transformative properties that can arise when tension between dominant cultural ideas and divergent peripheral philosophies collide. It is through third wave feminism that I have been able to reconcile my own contradictory ideas, experiences, feelings of guilt, etc. within myself, and realize the importance of acceptance and inclusivity on a personal/societal level

The visual representation of dual language education

Despite well documented benefits of dual language (DL) programs which deliver educational content in two languages, there are still few DL programs in the United States. As such, there is a need to understand how to effectively persuade more states/districts to adopt the programs. In addition, more critical research is needed that focuses on how the programs are represented visually, as well as how this visual representation reflects wider discourses about DL education that could impede the programs from reaching those who need them most. In this article, the author explores ideologies behind DL program discourse by looking at photojournalism (or in some cases, stock photos) from 34 local online news reports. She employed multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), including a thematic analysis of images. Findings reveal that many of the discourses (e.g. neoliberalism) seen in analyses of written text were repeated visually but, in some cases, visual data communicated different discourses that were advanced in nuanced ways. The author concludes by urging more critical work in visual communication that focuses on educational issues