THE HYBRONAUT AND THE UMWELT: WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY AS ARTISTIC STRATEGY

This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to emphasise the complexity of conjunction between techno-organic human and the techno-organic world. The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory. The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment. The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world. In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut. 4 Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public. Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment

Augmented Reality Interfaces for Procedural Tasks

Procedural tasks involve people performing established sequences of activities while interacting with objects in the physical environment to accomplish particular goals. These tasks span almost all aspects of human life and vary greatly in their complexity. For some simple tasks, little cognitive assistance is required beyond an initial learning session in which a person follows one-time compact directions, or even intuition, to master a sequence of activities. In the case of complex tasks, procedural assistance may be continually required, even for the most experienced users. Approaches for rendering this assistance employ a wide range of written, audible, and computer-based technologies. This dissertation explores an approach in which procedural task assistance is rendered using augmented reality. Augmented reality integrates virtual content with a user's natural view of the environment, combining real and virtual objects interactively, and aligning them with each other. Our thesis is that an augmented reality interface can allow individuals to perform procedural tasks more quickly while exerting less effort and making fewer errors than other forms of assistance. This thesis is supported by several significant contributions yielded during the exploration of the following research themes: What aspects of AR are applicable and beneficial to the procedural task problem? In answering this question, we developed two prototype AR interfaces that improve procedural task accomplishment. The first prototype was designed to assist mechanics carrying out maintenance procedures under field conditions. An evaluation involving professional mechanics showed our prototype reduced the time required to locate procedural tasks and resulted in fewer head movements while transitioning between tasks. Following up on this work, we constructed another prototype that focuses on providing assistance in the underexplored psychomotor phases of procedural tasks. This prototype presents dynamic and prescriptive forms of instruction and was evaluated using a demanding and realistic alignment task. This evaluation revealed that the AR prototype allowed participants to complete the alignment more quickly and accurately than when using an enhanced version of currently employed documentation systems. How does the user interact with an AR application assisting with procedural tasks? The application of AR to the procedural task problem poses unique user interaction challenges. To meet these challenges, we present and evaluate a novel class of user interfaces that leverage naturally occurring and otherwise unused affordances in the native environment to provide a tangible user interface for augmented reality applications. This class of techniques, which we call Opportunistic Controls, combines hand gestures, overlaid virtual widgets, and passive haptics to form an interface that was proven effective and intuitive during quantitative evaluation. Our evaluation of these techniques includes a qualitative exploration of various preferences and heuristics for Opportunistic Control-based designs

Investigating and Writing Achitectural History: Subjects, Methodologies and Frontiers.

The volume contains the abstracts and full texts of the 157 papers and position statements presented and discussed at the III EAHN (European Architectural History) International Meeting, Torino 19-21 June 201

Religious Individualisation

This volume brings together key findings of the research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies. Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past

Adaption of Girlhood : Norm-Confirming and Norm-Breaking in Girls’ Books Translated from English to Swedish and Finnish between 1945–1965

This interdisciplinary thesis is the first more comprehensive study of girls’ book translations in Sweden and Finland. The study examines adaptation of the image of girlhood in girls’ books translated from English to Swedish and Finnish between 1945–1965. Girls’ literature and girls’ books are children’s literary genres about girlhood, about girls’ lives and what it means to be a girl in a certain historical context. Girlhood is depicted in relation to norms for how girls are expected to behave, which means that the girl protagonists often both confirm norms by adapting to the expectations of society and rebelliously challenge these norms. Translations of girls’ books are influenced by norms of girlhood, narrative norms, and translations norms. These result in adaptation, a translations practice where translations are adapted to the norms of the target context (the target culture and the publisher) and to the target audience, in this case young girls. The frame of reference is the polysystem theory, according to which all genres and literary works belong to the literary polysystem, a network of partly overlapping systems in which tensions arise between the center with higher prestige and the periphery with lower prestige. The objective of this study has been to analyze how the peripheral position of girls’ literature within the general literary polysystem and the internal relations between the center (Bildungsromane with higher status) and the periphery (series books with lower status) within the girls’ literary polysystem influences the amount and type of adaptation in girls’ books. The ways in which this peripheral position impacts the image of girlhood in the books is also examined. A further aim has been to analyze whether the Finnish girls’ book system has been influenced by the Swedish system due to Finland’s peripheral position in the Nordic translation system. The qualitative material consists of three Bildungsromane by L. M. Montgomery, Jean Webster, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, and three series books by Helen D. Boylston, Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym), and Helen Wells, as well as their Swedish and Finnish translations. These books represent the series that, according to my initial quantitative survey, were the most prominent among the girls’ books published in both Swedish and Finnish in 1945–1965 (52 books). To contextualize the material, a paratextual analysis of publisher correspondence and the covers and cover texts of the translations has been conducted. The analysis shows that the Nordic countries were a uniform system with Sweden and Norway at its center, as books and series came to Finland via these countries, and Swedish and Norwegian translations were used as source texts for three of the Finnish translations in my study. This interdisciplinary study has three methodological starting points for the analysis of the effects of adaptation on the image of girlhood. The primary descriptive translation studies method consists of a comparative and categorizing adaptation analysis, my linguistic method involves an analysis of semantic-pragmatic features and pragmatic language functions, and my literature studies method is a narrative analysis of character indictors in relation to gender stereotype schemata for masculine and feminine narration, which represent norm-confirming and norm-breaking narration. The results demonstrate that both target-oriented abridged translations and source-oriented faithful translations appear in both the Bildungsromane and series book material. Thus, the amount of adaptation does not correlate with the polysystemic position of the translation. This indicates that the polysystem hypothesis that translations with a peripheral status are likely to be target-oriented is not supported within the girls’ book genre. Instead, adaptation occurs according to commercial, didactic, and pedagogical norms regardless of the polysytemic position. In the adapted translations, the image of girlhood is influenced by downplaying of character traits associated with norm-breaking girlhood, and by an increase of plot-oriented narration, which is the norm within children’s literature.Denna avhandling är den första mer omfattande undersökningen av flickboksöversättningar i Sverige och Finland. Flicklitteraturen och flickboken är en barnlitterär genre som handlar om och förhåller sig till att vara flicka, att göra flickskap i en viss tid och på en viss plats. Flickskap är både anpassning till och uppror mot samhällets normer eller förväntningar. Därför uttrycker gestaltningen av flickskap ofta både normbekräftande och normbrytande. Översättningar av flickböcker påverkas av normer för flickskap, normer för berättande och översättningsnormer. Dessa leder till adaption, som innebär att översättningar anpassas till målkulturens och det utgivande förlagets normer och översättningens målgrupp, som består av unga flickor. Adapterades eller anpassades gestaltningen av flickskap när flickböcker översattes från engelska till svenska och finska under perioden 1945–1965 och i så fall hur? Var översättningarna källtrogna eller målanpassade? Framhävdes normbekräftande eller normbrytande drag? Var praktikerna enhetliga i Sverige och Finland? Denna tvärvetenskapliga studie söker svar på dessa frågor genom en kombination av översättningsvetenskapens, litteraturvetenskapens, språkvetenskapens och arkivforskningens metoder. Studiens material består av tre bildningsromaner av L.M. Montgomery, Jean Webster och Laura Ingalls Wilder med högre status och tre långserieböcker av Helen D. Boylston, pseudonymen Carolyn Keene och Helen Wells med lägre status samt deras svenska och finska översättningar. Dessa böcker representerar de serier som enligt en inledande kvantitativa analys var mest framträdande bland de flickböcker som utgavs på både svenska och finska under perioden 1945–1965 (52 böcker). För att kontextualisera materialet har även dels förlagskorrespondens, dels översättningarnas omslag och omslagstexter analyserats. Analysen av förlagskorrespondensen och översättningarna visar att Norden under perioden utgjorde ett enhetligt fält med Sverige och Norge som centrum. Författarskapen kom till Finland via dessa länder, och svenska och norska översättningar användes som källtexter för tre av de finska översättningarna i materialet. Resultaten av analysen av adaptioner i materialet visar att både målkontextanpassade förkortade översättningar och källtrogna översättningar förekommer i såväl bildningsroman- som långseriematerialet. Därmed står mängden adaption inte i relation till översättningens status. I de anpassade översättningarna sker anpassningen enligt kommersiella, didaktiska och pedagogiska översättningsnormer oberoende av översättningens status. Framställningen av flickskap påverkas dels genom att karaktärsdrag som förknippas med normbrytande flickskap nedtonas, dels genom att berättandet blir mer handlingsorienterat, vilket är normen inom barnlitteratur.Helsinki: Unigrafia, 202