Traditionally Contemporary? Understanding Urban Fijian Masi

This research investigates how the contemporary use and significance of Fijian barkcloth (masi) in Suva, the capital of Fiji, has been adapted from its traditional use and practices and how this urban environment has created new ways of distributing, displaying and presenting it. I aim to explore the notion that contemporary masi practices, while superficially divergent from those historically, still reflect and pay homage to the traditional customs and codes that made masi culturally significant in the past. Masi is made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera). A laborious process, the bark is beaten to produce sheets of cloth of varying thicknesses and sizes and then decorated using one (or a combination of three) technique, depending on the type of masi being made. Historically one of the most pervasive exchange objects in Fiji, masi is a female iyau (valuable) and still plays an integral role in Fijian cultural practice. In particular, this research looks to the dynamic and fast-moving urban scene in Fiji and its many global diasporas, especially in terms of urban contemporary Fijian fashion and the presence of ‘masi couture’, and examines masi’s increasingly modified modes of display. The term ‘Urban-Fiji’ will be introduced and speaks to masi’s twenty-first century creative adaptability. Perhaps the first study in which urban Fijian masi is understood in terms of its adaptation and transformation, specific ‘Urban-Fiji’ (diasporic) case studies assist in exploring ‘non-traditional’ uses and resulting artistic practices

Digital life stories: Semi-automatic (auto)biographies within lifelog collections

Our life stories enable us to reflect upon and share our personal histories. Through emerging digital technologies the possibility of collecting life experiences digitally is increasingly feasible; consequently so is the potential to create a digital counterpart to our personal narratives. In this work, lifelogging tools are used to collect digital artifacts continuously and passively throughout our day. These include images, documents, emails and webpages accessed; texts messages and mobile activity. This range of data when brought together is known as a lifelog. Given the complexity, volume and multimodal nature of such collections, it is clear that there are significant challenges to be addressed in order to achieve coherent and meaningful digital narratives of our events from our life histories. This work investigates the construction of personal digital narratives from lifelog collections. It examines the underlying questions, issues and challenges relating to construction of personal digital narratives from lifelogs. Fundamentally, it addresses how to organize and transform data sampled from an individual’s day-to-day activities into a coherent narrative account. This enquiry is enabled by three 20-month long-term lifelogs collected by participants and produces a narrative system which enables the semi-automatic construction of digital stories from lifelog content. Inspired by probative studies conducted into current practices of curation, from which a set of fundamental requirements are established, this solution employs a 2-dimensional spatial framework for storytelling. It delivers integrated support for the structuring of lifelog content and its distillation into storyform through information retrieval approaches. We describe and contribute flexible algorithmic approaches to achieve both. Finally, this research inquiry yields qualitative and quantitative insights into such digital narratives and their generation, composition and construction. The opportunities for such personal narrative accounts to enable recollection, reminiscence and reflection with the collection owners are established and its benefit in sharing past personal experience experiences is outlined. Finally, in a novel investigation with motivated third parties we demonstrate the opportunities such narrative accounts may have beyond the scope of the collection owner in: personal, societal and cultural explorations, artistic endeavours and as a generational heirloom

7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)

Information and communication technologies together with new teaching paradigms are reshaping the learning environment.The International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd) aims to become a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences,opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students and the organization of educational systems.Doménech I De Soria, J.; Merello Giménez, P.; Poza Plaza, EDL. (2021). 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD21.2021.13621EDITORIA