Scene analysis in the natural environment

The problem of scene analysis has been studied in a number of different fields over the past decades. These studies have led to a number of important insights into problems of scene analysis, but not all of these insights are widely appreciated. Despite this progress, there are also critical shortcomings in current approaches that hinder further progress. Here we take the view that scene analysis is a universal problem solved by all animals, and that we can gain new insight by studying the problems that animals face in complex natural environments. In particular, the jumping spider, songbird, echolocating bat, and electric fish, all exhibit behaviors that require robust solutions to scene analysis problems encountered in the natural environment. By examining the behaviors of these seemingly disparate animals, we emerge with a framework for studying analysis comprising four essential properties: 1) the ability to solve ill-posed problems, 2) the ability to integrate and store information across time and modality, 3) efficient recovery and representation of 3D scene structure, and 4) the use of optimal motor actions for acquiring information to progress towards behavioral goals

Echoes in Plato's cave:ontology of sound objects in computer music and analysis

The sonic aspects of Plato's analogy of the cave is taken as a starting point for thought experiments to investigate the objective nature of sound, and the idea of quasi-Platonic forms in music. Sounds are found to be objects in a way that sights or appearances are not, and it is only in the presence of technology that they become artificial. When recognition, control and communication about sound come into play, abstract concepts emerge, but there is no reason to give these the priority status Plato affords to forms. Similar issues arise in discussion of the ontology of musical works, where the ideas of extension and intension prove useful for clarity about the nature of musical objects. They are also useful for strategies in the development of music software. Musical concepts are not fixed but arise from complex cultural interactions with sound. Music software should aim to use abstract concepts with are useful rather than correct

Acoustic Space

Starting from McLuhan’s concept of acoustic space, the author discusses how the World Soundscape which he undertook at Simon Fraser University in 1970 set out to put this notion into practice by studying how the soundscape influences all aspects of people’s lives. In the extract published here, the author finds that the sphere is the geometric shape which best describes acoustic space, and discusses the sybolism of the sphere – and of sound – in the cultures of the world.Partant du concept d’espace acoustique chez McLuhan, l’auteur explique comment le « World Soundscape Project » qu’il a mené à la Simon Fraser University en 1970 a mis en pratique cette idée en vérifiant que des changements dans le paysage sonore influent sur tous les aspects de la vie des gens. Dans l’extrait reproduit ici, l’auteur choisit la sphère comme étant la forme géometrique qui décrit le mieux l’espace acoustique, et commente la symbolique de la sphère – et du son – dans les cultures du monde

Perceptual Organization

Perceiving the world of real objects seems so easy that it is difficult to grasp just how complicated it is. Not only do we need to construct the objects quickly, the objects keep changing even though we think of them as having a consistent, independent existence (Feldman, 2003). Yet, we usually get it right, there are few failures. We can perceive a tree in a blinding snowstorm, a deer bounding across a tree line, dodge a snowball, catch a baseball, detect the crack of a branch breaking in a strong windstorm amidst the rustling of trees, predict the sounds of a dripping faucet, or track a street musician strolling down the road

Donald Griffin, 1975

Donald R. Griffin. The sensory physiology of animal orientation Lecture delivered February 19, 1975 Posted with permissionhttps://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/harvey-lectures/1048/thumbnail.jp

Conceptualization of Space within the Tang Landscape Quatrain

The thesis explores the poet’s creation of conceptualized space within the Tang landscape quatrain in the Tang dynasty (618-907) by usage of literary techniques, the focal point being that of temporal and spatial progression to create dynamic and static space. “Space” within the thesis is defined as the “matrix of which forms emerge, medium in which they are related,” a mentalization and visualization of breadth, depth, and width created within the artistic medium. I argue that the concision of Classical Chinese allows the poet to transcend the linguistic limitations imposed by rules of verse to create boundless, semantic space by constructing vivid tableaus of scene and emotion. In Classical Chinese, there are no verb tenses, no indication of plurality in nouns, and no gender or cases for pronouns. The poet must use language to mold intangible form into tangible existence. The deliberate application of ambiguity is a vital component in the creation of multi-layered dimensions of space within Classical Chinese poetry. The Tang dynasty is often known as the golden age of Chinese poetry, dominated by the emergence of new innovations and form as poetry writing became more ubiquitous. The breaking from traditional rules of verse allowed the poet to uniquely utilize space to further their reflections in their poetry. The thesis examines the poet’s creation of spatiality through two lenses of spatiality: creation of external space through landscape, and secondly, the creation of internal space through mental reflection upon that very landscape. The Tang poet approaches the landscape not only as a place setting, but also as an entire subliminal entity in which he aims to capture with his senses and perceptions to create space in which the reader can visualize. The descriptive poetry of the landscape quatrain is simply not a limitation as a medium of visual communication as Tang poets infuse layers of meaning with the economy of a few characters. The significance of framing this study within traditional poetic concerns is to understand the intersections of nature, landscape, literary technique, and aesthetic experience. There has been much academic scholarship on the poetry of the High Tang by scholars such as James J. Y. Liu, Stephen Owen, Burton Watson, just to name a few. However, the objective of this thesis is to offer a new perspective through the lens of spatial creation. Quatrains written by famous Tang poets, Li Bai (701-762), Wang Wei (701-761), and Meng Haoran (689-740) are selected to illustrate how the technique of progression is uniquely utilized to create depth and perspective of space.Asian Studie

“And Carthage souls be glutted with our bloods” : Marlowe’s Lucanian Dido in The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage

textDespite most scholars agreeing that Christopher Marlowe's The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage was composed fairly contemporaneously with his adaptation of Pharsalia 1, Lucans First Booke Translated Line for Line, few have recognized the intertextuality between the two works. This paper will consider Marlowe's relationship with Lucan's 1st century epic poem--both through his own posthumously published translation as well as selections he might have encountered during his petty school and graduate school study--and argue for the presence of distinctly Lucanian conventions in his drama, particularly in the portrayal of his protagonist, Dido. By revealing the Lucanian features of his play, in narrative structure as well as verbal echoes with the Pharsalia's Cornelia, The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage exposes Marlowe's "republican imagination" and allows us to discern a political commentary in the seeming playfulness of his Virgilian parody. His employment of Lucanian devices is his attempt to imitate and outdo the self-proclaimed plus quam(ness) of Lucan's Pharsalia. In doing so, he introduces his own political subtext to the stage and interrogates, through the unassuming guise of child actors, the Elizabethan monarch's appropriation of a Trojan ancestry.Comparative Literatur

Finding words: a collection of poems with a critical preface

Finding Words: A Collection of Poems with a Critical Preface is a collection of fifty-five poems preceded by an introductory essay. The poems were all written in the period 2005 – 2011. The critical preface is in four chapters. The first is in the form of a recollection of the circumstances of poetry in my early life. The second engages with the critical thinking of Geoffrey Hill. The third responds to an exemplary poem of John Clare’s The Midsummer Cushion period. The fourth introduces and places in context the poems of the collection, and experience of reading poetry aloud. Chapter One is a form of autobiography. It retrieves half-submerged fragments of the story of a British Colonial child in the 1950s, seeking out the texture and feel of various discontinuities including the move to the UK from Mauritius, the long-term illness and early death of my father, different languages in early childhood, Catholicism with a southern-hemisphere emphasis, and the growth of an intense dedication to poetry from the age of eleven. Chapter Two engages at length with the dilemma of an individual poetics which expresses itself in the form, ‘How do I understand the conversion of my experiencing into the experiencing of words?’ My practice of poetry is uncovered as both unconscious and sui generis. The root experience of finding words and forming poems is illuminated by engagement with the ideas of Geoffrey Hill, particularly the moral imagination as the formal creative faculty, words regarded as pledges and not signs, language that both redeems and betrays the intentions of the poet, and the analysis of grammar to reveal ethical processes. The ideas of phenomenologist, David Abram, are used to illuminate my consistent experience of wonder-in-nature, and processes of sensation and perception as part of the writing of poetry. The discussion returns to Hill at the point of a divergence from Abram on the nature of the imagination, and explores the implications of Hill’s rigorous criteria on solipsism, the ambivalent power of words, and the frailty of human attempts at communication. It ends with a brief discussion on therapeutic writing, and acknowledgement of Hill’s proposition of a theology of language as a means of grace. Chapter Three describes a poet, John Clare, with whom I have always had a powerful relationship, even though he is not a direct influence on the style of my poems. The chapter looks briefly at John Clare’s unusual literary status, to illuminate aspects of his standing as a poet. It enlists the help of an essay by the philologist, Professor Barbara M. H. Strang, who examines the linguistic characteristics of Clare’s poetry. It is argued that Clare’s poetry does not need punctuation or other editorial improvements. The semantic insights of Geoffrey Hill on poetry are applied to one of the major poems of the Midsummer Cushion, namely Shadows of Taste. Hill’s observations on ‘temper’ and ‘taste’ are linked to Clare via the hymns of the Wesleyan Methodists; and the elements of Clare’s linguistic mimesis of nature are elucidated, particularly his repeated use of the word ‘joy’. Chapter Four introduces the fifty-five poems, and discusses the processes of writing, revising, selecting and grouping. Major poetic influences are briefly examined, from the Gawain-poet to Basil Bunting, as well as the main features of the poems themselves, in particular the use of an alliterative pulse modelled on the poets of the fourteenth century. The chapter includes a brief reference to reading poetry aloud in small community groups, and the experience of reading John Clare’s poems outdoors in forests and fields. The thesis is an attempt to define a practice of writing poetry which has been largely instinctive and consciously personal. An attempt is made to sketch the fine boundary between a solipsistic self-expression, and the technical demands of a craft which has its roots in a poetic and cultural tradition of at least eight centuries