Videogame soundscapes

This paper proposes a methodological framework to analyze the sonic output of computer games by investigating and adapting available soundscape studies, as discussed primarily by R. Murray Schafer and Barry Truax. While the current academic research about sound in games highlighted the problematic nature of the application of film sound theory to videogames (Jørgensen 2007, 2009, 2011; Collins 2007), this paper considers studies concerning videogame audio, soundscapes and acoustic ecology (Grimshaw 2007; Grimshaw and Schott 2007; O' Keefe 2011; Droumeva 2011) by re-focusing the attention on existing soundscape methodologies, analyzing their theoretical validity and the productiveness of such an approach. By critically considering Truax (2001) analysis of an arcade game room soundscape, videogames will be repositioned by considering them objects for meaningful acoustic communication. An analysis of the sonic environment actualized by the videogame player during a play session is performed, identifying the key features (keynote sounds, sound signals and soundmarks) and the level of definition of a videogame soundscape (high or low definition). Examples are based on modern games such as Street Fighter IV (Capcom 2009) and Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games 2008), as well as classic titles like Pac-Man (Namco 1980) and Bomberman (Hudson Soft 1983).peer-reviewe

Moving Image Preservation in Libraries

published or submitted for publicatio

Moving Image Preservation and Cultural Capital

This article examines the changing landscape of moving image archiving in the wake of recent developments in online video sharing services such as YouTube and Google Video. The most crucial change to moving image archives may not be in regard to the collections themselves, but rather the social order that sustains cultural institutions in their role as the creators and sustainers of objectified cultural capital. In the future, moving image stewardship may no longer be the exclusive province of institutions such as archives and libraries, and may soon be accomplished in part through the work of other interested individuals and organizations as they contribute to and define collections. The technologies being built and tested in the current Internet environment offer a new model for the reimagined moving image archive, which foregrounds the user in the process of creating the archive and strongly encourages the appropriation of moving images for new works. This new archetype, which in theory functions on democratic principles, considers moving images???along with most other types of cultural heritage material???to be building blocks of creative acts or public speech acts. One might argue that the latter represents a new model for creating an archive; this new democratic archive documents and facilitates social discourse.published or submitted for publicatio

BOX: One Minute Volume 3

BOX is a digital short originally developed in 2004 documented on a 1920’s box camera. This early moving image work formed the basis of a practice which interrogates our experience of moving image through the remediation of analogue technology with new media. In 2009 it was included in One Minute Volume 3; a programme of artists moving image curated by Kerry Baldry including work by: Tony Hill, Tina Keane, Katherine Meynell, Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore, Dave Griffiths, Marty St James Alex Pearl and Nick Jordan.</p

Sparsity-driven image formation and space-variant focusing for SAR

In synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, the presence of moving targets in the scene causes phase errors in the SAR data and subsequently defocusing in the formed image. The defocusing caused by the moving targets exhibits space-variant characteristics, i.e., the defocusing arises only in the parts of the image containing the moving targets, whereas the stationary background is not defocused. Considering that the reflectivity field to be imaged usually admits sparse representation, we propose a sparsity-driven method for joint SAR imaging and removing the defocus caused by moving targets. The method is performed in a nonquadratic regular-ization based framework by solving an optimization problem, in which prior information about both the scene and phase errors are incorporated as constraints

Moving-edge detection via heat flow analogy

In this paper, a new and automatic moving-edge detection algorithm is proposed, based on using the heat flow analogy. This algorithm starts with anisotropic heat diffusion in the spatial domain, to remove noise and sharpen region boundaries for the purpose of obtaining high quality edge data. Then, isotropic and linear heat diffusion is applied in the temporal domain to calculate the total amount of heat flow. The moving-edges are represented as the total amount of heat flow out from the reference frame. The overall process is completed by non-maxima suppression and hysteresis thresholding to obtain binary moving edges. Evaluation, on a variety of data, indicates that this approach can handle noise in the temporal domain because of the averaging inherent of isotropic heat flow. Results also show that this technique can detect moving-edges in image sequences, without background image subtraction

Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature by Adrian J Ivakhiv

Review of Adrian J. Ivankhiv\u27s Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature

16th century Persian tiles in dialogue with 21st century digital tiles in the Sadrian universe

This article brings together tiles of 16th century Persian architecture and 21st century digital tiles of moving image to explore new potentials beyond the perceived image. As minimal parts of a bigger image, they both appear still and motionless. However, Persian Islamic philosopher, Mulla Sadrā Shirazi’s (1571-1640) theory of ‘substantial motion’ (al-harakat al-jawhariyya) argues that, at the level of substance, an invisible internal motion and change takes place. Due to this internal change, aspects of the Divine Being constantly manifest in the existence of entities. Sadrā’s unique view on existence suggests that all living and non-living entities, as manifestations of the Divine Being, have certain experiences of the universe. To think that an image, a tile, or a pixel, as an existing entity, has certain experiences can unfold new avenues for creative thinking/making in digital moving image that can reveal what is hidden from human perception