718 research outputs found

    Tourism and beyond: Commodification of communist memoryscapes in Central and East Europe

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    The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on the phenomenon of commodification of communist memoryscapes in Europe, exploring the main strategies and forms of urban and mnemonic re-branding of post-socialist capitals. Illuminating the variety of commercial solutions for dealing with “difficult” legacies of communism in Europe, the thesis aims to enhance our understanding of actors, processes and dynamics framing the contemporary engagement with communist urban heritage. Relying on grounded theory method, triangulated through multiple case study, participatory observation and netnography, the study examines patterns of convergence in spatial, mnemonic and narrative organisations of communist urban experiences. Elaborating commodification of (1) communist landmarks (iconic buildings), (2) suburban heritage (statues, parks), (3) underground spaces (communist bunkers) (4) cultural objects (museums of communism), (5) urban discourses (guided city tours) and (6) urban hospitality (communist restaurants), the analysis thus reveals different urban and narrative “commercial interventions” in post-communist urban landscape. Through the in-depth analysis of major communist museums, tours, landmarks, bunkers, peripheries and hospitality spaces across Central and East Europe, the dissertation accentuates similarities and divergences in contemporary discursive, spatial and commercial treatment of communism. It reveals particular mechanisms and outcomes of commodification, which emerges both as a strategy to “contain” communism and “re-pack” it for tourist consumption. Ultimately, the thesis argues that commodification of communism is the essential aspect of contemporary tourist narratives, curatorial practices and urban organisation of communist memoryscapes. It identifies and interprets urban, mnemonic, discursive and experiential manifestations of commodification, arguing that commercial engagement with communism fundamentally challenges the prevailing mechanisms for “coming to terms with the past.” It demonstrates that both suppliers and consumers of communist memoryscapes (co)produce and (co)participate in commodification process, most often through the interplay of tourism and entertainment industry. Finally, the study claims that commodification is reinforced through glocalisation, disneyfication and orientalisation of difficult heritage of communism, which further contribute to (re)locating specific urban context, (re)imagining particular urban history and generally changing the ways in which contemporary society values, exhibits and sources communism in urban space.El objetivo de esta disertación es arrojar luz sobre el fenómeno de la mercantilización de los paisajes de memoria comunistas en Europa, explorando las principales estrategias y formas de cambio de marca urbana y mnemotécnica de las capitales postsocialistas. Iluminando la variedad de soluciones comerciales para lidiar con los legados “difíciles” del comunismo en Europa, la tesis tiene como objetivo mejorar nuestra comprensión de los actores, procesos y dinámicas que enmarcan el compromiso contemporáneo con el patrimonio urbano comunista. Basándose en el método de la teoría fundamentada, triangulado a través del estudio de casos múltiples, la observación participativa y la netnografía, el estudio examina los patrones de convergencia en las organizaciones espaciales, mnemotécnicas y narrativas de las experiencias urbanas comunistas. Elaborando la mercantilización de (1) hitos comunistas (edificios icónicos), (2) patrimonio suburbano (estatuas, parques), (3) espacios subterráneos (bunkers comunistas) (4) objetos culturales (museos del comunismo), (5) discursos urbanos ( visitas guiadas por la ciudad) y (6) hospitalidad urbana (restaurantes comunistas), el análisis revela así diferentes “intervenciones comerciales” urbanas y narrativas en el paisaje urbano poscomunista. A través del análisis en profundidad de los principales museos, recorridos, puntos de referencia, búnkeres, periferias y espacios de hospitalidad comunistas en Europa Central y Oriental, la disertación acentúa las similitudes y divergencias en el tratamiento discursivo, espacial y comercial contemporáneo del comunismo. Revela mecanismos y resultados particulares de la mercantilización, que surge tanto como una estrategia para “contener” el comunismo como para “reempaquetarlo” para el consumo turístico. En última instancia, la tesis argumenta que la mercantilización del comunismo es el aspecto esencial de las narrativas turísticas contemporáneas, las practicas curatoriales y la organización urbana de los paisajes de memoria comunistas. Identifica e interpreta las manifestaciones urbanas, mnemotécnicas, discursivas y experienciales de la mercantilización, argumentando que el compromiso comercial con el comunismo desafía fundamentalmente los mecanismos predominantes para “llegar a un acuerdo con el pasado”. Demuestra que tanto los proveedores como los consumidores de paisajes de memoria comunistas (co)producen y (co)participan en el proceso de mercantilización, con mayor frecuencia a través de la interacción de la industria del turismo y elentretenimiento. Finalmente, argumento que la mercantilización se refuerza a través de la glocalización, disneyficación y orientalización de la difícil herencia del comunismo, lo que contribuye aún más a (re)ubicar un contexto urbano específico, (re)imaginar una historia urbana particular y, en general, cambiar las formas en las que la Sociedad contemporánea valora, exhibe y origina comunismo en el espacio urbano.Escuela de DoctoradoDoctorado en Arquitectur

    Food - Media - Senses: Interdisciplinary Approaches

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    Food is more than just nutrition. Its preparation, presentation and consumption is a multifold communicative practice which includes the meal's design and its whole field of experience. How is food represented in cookbooks, product packaging or in paintings? How is dining semantically charged? How is the sensuality of eating treated in different cultural contexts? In order to acknowledge the material and media-related aspects of eating as a cultural praxis, experts from media studies, art history, literary studies, philosophy, experimental psychology, anthropology, food studies, cultural studies and design studies share their specific approaches

    From Houses of Worship to Worship in Houses: The Social Construction of Sacred Places in Early 21st Century China

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    While the concept of worship in houses can be traced back to the Christian house church places in Dura Europos between 233 and 256 AD during the Roman Empire, after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, this kind of church spaces began to appear all across the country. Characterized by the absence of a formal iconic church building or interior, existing types of secular architectural spaces (apartments, offices, basements, etc.) were rented by the Christian community and converted into sacred spaces. Space is susceptible to manipulations caused by human actions. Now what happens if space is manipulated to house not merely a different function but transcendence? As French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre's argument in The Production of Space (1991), space is not only a social product but also a complex social construction, based on values and the social production of meanings, which affects spatial practices and perceptions. An existing space, he says, may outlive its original purpose and the raison d'étre which initially determined its forms, functions, and structures; it may thus, in a sense, become vacant and susceptible to being diverted, re-appropriated, and utilized for a different purpose than its original intent. With my analysis of the worship places of urban house churches in early 21st-century China from the perspective of urban context and architectural space (foregrounded by the development of informal church space in the historical context of Chinese society and politics), this research shows how religious metaphors function as the productive mediators in the process of knowledge transfer between architectural and other professional discourses by bringing back social imagination to the politically neutral spaces of every day; de facto reconstructing the social through transduction of the metaphor of informal spaces

    Play/writing histories: investigating the dramaturgical potential of architectural drawing practices in exploring the hidden histories of built spaces. An architextural study of the Citizens Theatre

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    This practice research project investigates the dramaturgical potential of architectural drawing techniques and proposes ‘architexting’ as creative methodology for exploring the hidden histories of built spaces. Architexting exploits the relationship between architectural drawing and playwriting as allographic practices, identifying generative territory in their mutual preoccupation with shaping provisional spaces. I suggest that architexting can be used as a tool for a spatial approach to historiography that is organised by site rather than time. In doing so, architexting seeks to reveal and celebrate diachronic communities separated by time but created and connected by the places they share. This thesis is in three parts. In the first, ‘Project Plan and Methodology,’ I provide an overview of my interdisciplinary approach. In the second, ‘Site Analysis,’ I excavate relevant theoretical fields including architectural theory, dramaturgy, historiography and cultural geography to construct a theoretical framework for architexting. The third section, ‘Portfolio,’ forms the practical output of this project and consists of three architexts: Blueprint, Perspective and Axonometric or How to Build a Place from Memory, each with accompanying critical reflections. While architexting is a methodology that may be applied to any building, this project specifically investigates the hidden histories of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow which, in 2018, underwent the most significant redevelopment in its 144-year history. My architexts have been created using material from oral histories and workshops with over sixty adults and young people connected to the Citizens theatre, as well as archival material from relevant collections held by the Scottish Theatre Archives at the University of Glasgow

    Enlivening locality with a non-representational approach: cases of waterfront spaces along the River Rhine

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    In response to the problem of urban uniformity and loss of identity, researchers have developed fruitful analytical frameworks and design methods to strengthen locality. However, the current research mainly focuses on the transformation of information related to local history, memory, or the environment into spatial design, while socio-cultural aspects of locality such as everyday practices and immediate engagement with the place that cannot be communicated through the act of representing were rarely involved in the discussion. This study takes the initiative by applying the non-representational theory from human geography to the planning and design fields with the three research questions: (1) How can we understand and research a more-than-representational locality? (2) How does locality manifest itself in everyday life? (3) Which environmental features support personalized locality, and how can they inspire future design? The study is conducted in two phases. Firstly, I investigated promenades and parks along the Rhine in twenty towns or cities using spatial analysis and autobiographical reflections based on my on-site experiences, and developed the preliminary design guidelines. The second phase is the revisiting of six case study towns to interview their local residents. The comparison of my own experiences with the everyday life of the residents have tested the design guidelines, and the guidelines are further supplemented by the analysis of the residents’ interviews. Four types of waterfront space have been identified from the case studies, and the pattern of their distribution along the Rhine suggests that this is influenced mainly by the varying characteristics of the river and the historical development of the towns. This result permits planning to refer to spatial layout based on a region’s character. The research also reveals the dominance of representational thinking in our current design practice and its negative impact. The application of non-representational approaches reveals the importance of sensory experiences and everyday spaces for better on-site engagement, thus forming the basis for a set of design guidelines for achieving locality in river-related open spaces. According to the interview results, some spaces are not typical of the town at first glance; some of them can even appear as ‘non-space’, but is nonetheless important to the residents’ daily life. The users, especially the residents, focus more on the real-life experience of being on site at that moment, and they experience the space, including the representations, through bodily engagement. In the meantime, the study also discovered the need to leave a certain freedom and uncontrolled space, and the creation of locality should ensure that people can feel and explore the space themselves. These findings demonstrate that the non-representational theory could provide the opportunity to enliven the connection between people and places in locality research

    Islamic Tradition and Innovation in a Contemporary Kuwaiti Woman’s Painting Practice

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    The thesis maps the ‘awakening’ of the author’s artistic practice and her identity as a female Arab Muslim painter through her studio-based research into Rumi’s writings, in conjunction with study of the Qur’an and Islamic teachings, informed by feminist ideas and enhanced by knowledge of the socio-political histories and cultures of Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf. This practice-led research project considers the role of the woman and the female artist in contemporary Kuwait by exploring new contexts for, and approaches to, contemporary painting in that country and the Middle East. Kuwait has sought to find a coherent and progressive cultural identity since the two Gulf Wars (1990–91, 2003–11). This project contributes to the development of that new identity by proposing a fusion of traditional and contemporary considerations, leading to an experimental, propositional body of work developed through theoretical and contextual investigation. The theoretical research considers and reinterprets specific traditional cultural practices of the Middle East, in particular Persian painting and the Sufi poetry of Rumi, to provide grounding references relevant to a painting practice. The research considers also the impact of feminism upon female thinkers and artists, both in the West and the Middle East, in order to provide a perspective on gender politics in Kuwait. This thesis thereby outlines a pathway for a contemporary female Kuwaiti artist to enter cultural, aesthetic, religious and political dialogue with her immediate cultural environment and her artistic and academic peers in Kuwait and beyond. The paintings that emerged through studio-based practice generated a method of performative mark-making that uses a personal iconography of abstracted and symbolic imagery of Arabic calligraphy and pictorial expression. The body of work, the practice component and the written exposition, combines, in both method and subject matter, Islamic and Western traditions, to formulate a dynamic self-contained dialogue, yet one also underpinned by an understanding of key components that both traditions have to offer a global cultural arena. This thesis, therefore, creates new knowledge through charting the author’s journey of awakening and evolution of an innovative visual language within the emergent field of painting by contemporary Arab women artists, in particular those of her home country, Kuwait

    Transformative interventions. An ecological-enactive approach to art practices

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    Starting from an ecological-enactive approach to human cognition (Rietveld, Kiverstein 2014) I have articulated a series of transformative interventions whose purpose is to explore how art practices can reorganize our form of life (Noë, 2015; Rietveld, 2019). To do this, I discuss how a plethora of heterogeneous tools traceable in the performing arts, such as masks, puppets, and hybrid costumes, can help us, through what I call monstrous practices, to explore imaginative dimensions that our own bodies "cannot afford." This is the core of the transformative chain that I will define monster-monstrous-Monster: we feed imaginative “monsters” to become “monstrous”– that is, to pool and cross-fertilize our abilities – to confront the "Monsters" in our lives. My main interest is in analyzing how it is possible to create or collect new affordances so as to transfigure one's repertoire of possibilities and transform a shared practice. Each transformative intervention is not only defined through written words but is also developed through unorthodox sociomaterial invitations, usually not used in philosophical practice: storyboards, visual ethnographies, performance projects, and installations, which I will define more properly through an enriched notion of real-life thinking model (Rietveld; RAAAF)

    Voicing Kinship with Machines: Diffractive Empathetic Listening to Synthetic Voices in Performance.

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    This thesis contributes to the field of voice studies by analyzing the design and production of synthetic voices in performance. The work explores six case studies, consisting of different performative experiences of the last decade (2010- 2020) that featured synthetic voice design. It focusses on the political and social impact of synthetic voices, starting from yet challenging the concepts of voice in the machine and voice of the machine. The synthetic voices explored are often playing the role of simulated artificial intelligences, therefore this thesis expands its questions towards technology at large. The analysis of the case studies follows new materialist and posthumanist premises, yet it tries to confute the patriarchal and neoliberal approach towards technological development through feminist and de-colonial approaches, developing a taxonomy for synthetic voices in performance. Chapter 1 introduces terms and explains the taxonomy. Chapter 2 looks at familiar representations of fictional AI. Chapter 3 introduces headphone theatre exploring immersive practices. Chapters 4 and 5 engage with chatbots. Chapter 6 goes in depth exploring Human and Artificial Intelligence interaction, whereas chapter 7 moves slightly towards music production and live art. The body of the thesis includes the work of Pipeline Theatre, Rimini Protokoll, Annie Dorsen, Begüm Erciyas, and Holly Herndon. The analysis is informed by posthumanism, feminism, and performance studies, starting from my own practice as sound designer and singer, looking at aesthetics of reproduction, audience engagement, and voice composition. This thesis has been designed to inspire and provoke practitioners and scholars to explore synthetic voices further, question predominant biases of binarism and acknowledge their importance in redefining technology

    Gurus and Media: Sound, image, machine, text and the digital

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    Gurus and Media is the first book dedicated to media and mediation in domains of public guruship and devotion. Illuminating the mediatisation of guruship and the guru-isation of media, it bridges the gap between scholarship on gurus and the disciplines of media and visual culture studies. It investigates guru iconographies in and across various time periods and also the distinctive ways in which diverse gurus engage with and inhabit different forms of media: statuary, games, print publications, photographs, portraiture, films, machines, social media, bodies, words, graffiti, dolls, sound, verse, tombs and more. The book’s interdisciplinary chapters advance, both conceptually and ethnographically, our understanding of the function of media in the dramatic production of guruship, and reflect on the corporate branding of gurus and on mediated guruship as a series of aesthetic traps for the captivation of devotees and others. They show how different media can further enliven the complex plurality of guruship, for instance in instantiating notions of ‘absent-present’ guruship and demonstrating the mutual mediation of gurus, caste and Hindutva. Throughout, the book foregrounds contested visions of the guru in the development of devotional publics and pluriform guruship across time and space. Thinking through the guru’s many media entanglements in a single place, the book contributes new insights to the study of South Asian religions and to the study of mediation more broadly
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