Putting the feel in ’look and feel‘

Haptic devices are now commercially available and thus touch has become a potentially realistic solution to a variety of interaction design challenges. We report on an investigation of the use of touch as a way of reducing visual overload in the conventional desktop. In a two-phase study, we investigated the use of the PHANToM haptic device as a means of interacting with a conventional graphical user interface. The first experiment compared the effects of four different haptic augmentations on usability in a simple targeting task. The second experiment involved a more ecologically-oriented searching and scrolling task. Results indicated that the haptic effects did not improve users performance in terms of task completion time. However, the number of errors made was significantly reduced. Subjective workload measures showed that participants perceived many aspects of workload as significantly less with haptics. The results are described and the implications for the use of haptics in user interface design are discussed

How Color Affects the Brain

Throughout this research about color theory, it has been found that when you look at different colors you feel different emotions. An example of that is fast food restaurants putting red in their food logos to use the color red to bring people in because red is found to make people hungry. For colorblind people however color can not affect them and their everyday lives, therefore they might not feel as strong emotionally

Leadership and vision

�Leadership and vision' is the subject of Chapter 3 and Rogers and Reynolds look at how managers can encourage leadership from other people, whether in their team, the organisation or in collaborative work with different agencies. They explore leadership style, and the extent to which managers can and should adapt their personal style to the differing needs of situations and people. Frontline managers may not always feel that they have much opportunity to influence the grander vision and strategy of their organisation. Rogers and Reynolds argue that they none the less play a role in the vision sequence even at the level of putting it into practice and looking for better ways of doing things. Practice-led managers relay their experience from the front line back to more senior management so that they can contribute to strategic planning

The Land Where the Good Songs Go

What makes a concert great? This is possibly one of the hardest questions we ask ourselves after every concert series concludes. Each concert evening, while speaking with our Patrons in the receiving line, one comment is repeated over and over, you guys sure look like you are having fun! We are indeed. We love putting these events together for your enjoyment. We see your faces during our performances, the smiles, the laughter and the tears. We feel strongly about our service to the community and the joy we try to bring to you, our beloved audiences.https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/bgmcprograms/1019/thumbnail.jp

Relative Scrap

I’ve foregone putting out a more formal artists’ statement in fear that anything static might self-sabotage; I’d rather not over-inform an approach to this project by applying my single interpretation and excluding however much more I’m not considering, or worse yet, instruct you in what this project and the works present mean to one person. Rather, I’d encourage you to take it as your own experience and look for what interests or sticks out to you! That said, if you would like to know a little more, through my process and godly vision, seek me out! Work Present: 8623 Faces - “Approximately” Right Snips - Literally Drawn (in) Abundance - 3 variations, scanned and stitched. Scanned Lights - Google image search turns up nothing remotely similar to the pictures this title names. I feel accomplished in having made images that I can’t find things similar to using their simplest descriptions possible. Un/seen sides - 3 pairs Sculptures (various) - Made primarily from Ilford Multigrade FB Classic photo paper, sourced from the photo building student darkroom. Spirals Squares - Also made from photo paper. Also sourced from upstairs Darkroom Detritus - Evidently

Art399 Portfolio

My two dimensional art has a lot of sharply contrasting values and a sense of humor (and dark humor) to it. My three dimensional work follows the same lines but I also incorporate as much light and shadow as I possibly can. My influences are mostly based in my childhood and pop culture. Early cyberpunk works like William Gibson and Max Headroom; lowbrow and outsider art like Frank Kozick, the artists of Heavy Metal Magazine, and independent comics; and dark surreal art such as HR Giger, Masahiro Ito, and Heronimous Bosch. I try to first find art and references that both fit the style of the project and that excite me. Even if it doesn’t quite fit the project, I’ve found that exciting work in various media can fire my imagination. Then I start to sketch, often trying to recreate the parts of my references that got me interested, before getting a rough design for my final work. At that point I just gather my materials and dive in, often like a whirlwind, trying to adjust my final work to fit my changing concepts and the progress of the work. More and more I find that the concept I started with is not the one I end on, and the one I end on is far more complex and leads to a more satisfying work. I want viewers of my art to feel something beyond just thinking it is well done. I enjoy making a viewer feel a level of discomfort or feel unsettled. My own work springs from growing up with Tourette’s Syndrome and often feeling disconnected or uncomfortable in “normal” situations and I like to try to evoke those same feelings but without being explicit. I also enjoy making a viewer laugh at the absurd, or to be transformative of their space to create an entirely different environment than the one they were just in. I want my work to express how I feel, but in a way that is applicable to the point of view of others. Instead of making work so personal that it’s impossible to relate to, I want to express my struggles, my interests, and my angers through art and make others feel the same, or at least question how they feel. Even in pieces that are more conceptual, or figurative, I want the viewer to not just know the basic emotion that spurred the piece but to instead feel it themselves. When I look at another work it interests me if it’s well crafted, but not hyper realistic. I like work that is outside the norm, strange or off-putting. Work that shows the hand of the artist is fascinating because I like being able to see the artist’s process made life, and pieces that make me feel uncomfortable draws me in. In essence, I don’t want to look at work that is just like mine, but I enjoy work that is to the other artist what I want mine to be to myself. My work has a constant thread of my pop culture obsession. Max Headroom shows up, monster movies, etc. Even when making plaster casts of condoms I viewed the final forms as if they were vintage space ships. Masks also figure prominently in my works, due to growing up with severe facial tics. My favorite heroes and costumes always had face coverings, since they would have helped hide my own personal discomfort. I’m drawn to trying to illustrate just how bad things can be for others, and my frustration at it. I want to help elevate the person stepped on, but also make the stepper feel discomforted. I want to utilize horror and fetishistic elements more in my pieces both to make viewers feel uncomfortable but also because I feel that sexuality beyond either simple pinup art and LGBT is under-represented other than when it’s the Main Focus. I want to make people feel sad, feel angry, and also make them laugh at the absurd. All at once if possible. Having been born with Tourette’s Syndrome, and not having it fade away as most do, I’ve lived a life of constantly feeling uncomfortable with daily life. As a result I’ve found that I want my art expresses how I’ve felt my entire life. I want to make viewers feel uncomfortable and like something is very “off”, either as if regular life is somehow wrong or that they’re viewing something that is very much not right. Alternately I want to use the absurd to make them laugh, or to transport them from where they were before they saw my piece. The latter comes from a search for escape, usually through pop culture. My work has a constant thread of my pop culture obsession. Max Headroom shows up, monster movies, etc. Even when making plaster casts of condoms I viewed the final forms as if they were vintage space ships. When those pop culture references fit, I almost imagine my work to be an amalgam of my days watching old TV shows and reading video game magazines, with breaks only for Nintendo. Masks also figure prominently in my works, due to growing up with severe facial tics. My favorite heroes and costumes always had face coverings, since they would have helped hide my own personal discomfort. I’m drawn to trying to illustrate just how bad things can be for others, and my frustration at it. My most admired lowbrow artists are Frank Kozick and Vaugn Bode. Both were fearless in their experimentation of form and color and created images that stick with the viewer. Kozik’s work in poster design mixes the popular with the macabre and he could turn even a simple rabbit into a form that is less character and more icon. Bode’s work is more illustrative, but distinct and in a way that mixed comic art with painterly forms. His fearlessness with making jokes about society and sexuality, and explorations of the self are inspiring to me. “The Ascension of Ernie” was an intersection of all of my interests. I created the sculpture of Ernie and the knife out of EVA foam. I then reinacted an aboriginal rite of ascension to shamanism, using Ernie and cotton candy. “Mr Anxiety Head” was a performance piece where I was tasked with creating something out of cardboard, and so I chose to create a mask to hide myself. Using the interchangeable parts, I got into people’s spaces, studying them and swapping pieces to try to “fit”. I use black and white whenever possible, and try to rely on bright contrasting colors to draw attention to specifics, such as in my print “Musicians”. I feel that the more morose subjects I tend to work in are best represented in greyscale. I try to show as much of the artist’s hand as possible since the works I most enjoy show that as well, but am working to make sure that roughness has intentionality to it rather than just poor craft. When I work in three dimensions I keep to the same styles, but incorporate light and shadow as much as possible. The feeling of neon, dark streets with bright lights, and cities draw me and I like to recreate those in three dimensions where I can, such as in the signage and projections in “Walled City”. Though I’m struggling to really express it, I also like to layer discomfort with sexuality. Despite the ever-present threat of the Male Gaze, my social circles after high school were alternative sexuality groups in the fetish community and I want to add flavors of the good and the bad into my work. HR Giger’s work in taking male and female sexuality and creating surreal and horrifying mindscapes were an early influence, and while I don’t wish to copy his style I admire the end results. Masahiro Ito’s fetishized monsters and horror is a more recent influence. Though it can stray into more character design I want to create forms that while not explicitly seeming “fetishized” still carry those subconscious tones. I am eternally fascinated with the intersection of discomfort and sexuality, and of power and powerlessness, plus the undercurrent of the absurd and the sometimes horrific, tugs at something I haven’t quite been able to define in myself but want to, and to help others perhaps feel as well. My work has an eclectic mix of images, methods, and styles, but I think all of it is definable as “me” since it’s both a way to express my own flaws as well as try to discover a part of myself that I’ve never really been able to look at squarely and see.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/1124/thumbnail.jp

Dim Study

Making art, whether it be painting or sculpture, is how I am able to escape reality for a moment. I lose feeling in my body and have my focus directed all towards my hands and what they are doing. I discovered that finding ways to include certain ideas and feelings from my reality into my work adds a layer, conceptually and physically, to the surface. I attempt to use enough reality to imply an object or scene, but not enough to dictate what it should look like or how the viewer should feel. I find art that suggests a mixture of mundane and mysterious concepts always attracts my attention. There is this sense of awkwardness and stillness that makes unreal work feel more real, while remaining a dramatized or exaggerated scene or moment. If the work has some sort of mystery about it, all the better. I admire and appreciate being presented with questions that either no one has the answers to or being left in a situation where the question is more fascinating than the answer. When making my own works of art, I am aiming to create something that raises questions that are not necessarily meant to be answered. I think of critics and art viewers, myself included, as detectives trying to solve a mystery when observing artwork. Putting in specific details into the scenes or objects is my way of leaving hints that may or may not be used in order to answer these questions. I pay close attention to the surface of my paintings, spending a lot of time working and reworking it. Layers of built up canvas, paper, paint, plaster, plastics and more shards of canvas tend to dictate or have a substantial impact on the imagery or subject matter. In my work I find myself either suppressing or indulging my own desire to associate personal narrative to the visual information that is present in the material and process. Construction, destruction and reconstruction are symbiotic elements in my creative process that allow for the image to shift back and forth from abstraction to representation, truth and illusion, and personal and the conventional

Suited for Success? : Suits, Status, and Hybrid Masculinity

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Men and Masculinities, March 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696193, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.This article analyzes the sartorial biographies of four Canadian men to explore how the suit is understood and embodied in everyday life. Each of these men varied in their subject positions—body shape, ethnicity, age, and gender identity—which allowed us to look at the influence of men’s intersectional identities on their relationship with their suits. The men in our research all understood the suit according to its most common representation in popular culture: a symbol of hegemonic masculinity. While they wore the suit to embody hegemonic masculine configurations of practice—power, status, and rationality—most of these men were simultaneously marginalized by the gender hierarchy. We explain this disjuncture by using the concept of hybrid masculinity and illustrate that changes in the style of hegemonic masculinity leave its substance intact. Our findings expand thinking about hybrid masculinity by revealing the ways subordinated masculinities appropriate and reinforce hegemonic masculinity.Peer reviewe

Validation of the FEEL-KJ: an instrument to measure emotion regulation strategies in children and adolescents

Although the field of emotion regulation in children and adolescents is growing, there is need for age-adjusted measures that assess a large variety of strategies. An interesting instrument in this respect is the FEEL-KJ because it measures 7 adaptive and 5 maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in response to three different emotions. However, the FEEL-KJ has not yet been validated extensively. Therefore, the current study aims to test the internal structure and validity of the FEEL-KJ in a large sample of Dutch-speaking Belgian children and adolescents (N = 1102, 8–18 years old). The investigation of the internal structure confirms earlier reports of a two-factor structure with Adaptive and Maladaptive Emotion Regulation as overarching categories. However, it also suggests that the two-factor model is more complex than what was previously assumed. The evaluation of the FEEL-KJ validity furthermore provides evidence for its construct and external validity. In sum, the current study confirms that the FEEL-KJ is a valuable and reliable measure of emotion regulation strategies in children and adolescents