In retrospect: do we have to choose between art and research practice

How do artists experience and address beauty at present? Has the notion of beauty vanished completely from artistic discourse? Are ornaments still allowed? What does a contemporary ornament look like? In the exhibition Ornament & Beauty, mounted at Titanik Gallery (5–29 May 2016) in connection with the conference Art Approaching Science and Religion, 12–13 May 2016, the artists intended to comment on questions such as those in the texts published here and through the art works presented

Mobile Platform for livestock monitoring and inspection.

Livestock keepers acquire and manage information (e.g. identification numbers, images, etc.) about livestock to identify and keep track of livestock using systems with capabilities to extract such information. Examples of such systems are Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems which are used to collect and transmit livestock's information to host devices. Sophisticated RFID readers are very expensive, and more functional than the cheap ones whose use are mostly limited to reading and transmission of tag IDs. Cross-platform mobile applications will allow monitoring of livestock irrespective of the platform on which mobile devices are being operated. Farmers' secured access to records via web services is not limited to a device as they can login on any mobile device with the installed application. In this work, a mobile platform which consists of a cross-platform mobile application, webservice and database is developed to cost-effectively manage and exploit records of livestock acquired using a cheap RFID reader. The mobile application was developed using a Xamarin form framework. The programming language and development environment used are C# and Visual studio respectively. Records of livestock were acquired, posted, updated, deleted and retrieved from the database via a web service. Additional advantages offer by the solution implemented include, exporting of animals’ records via email and SMS, viewing of animal's record by scanning their tags or QR code of animals' passports, and login system to sign users in and out of the application. Development of RFID readers with sensors to acquire health-related parameters for health monitoring is recommended

Códigos QR personalizados y creación de marca: un estudio etnográfico pospandemia

QR codes, originally seen as an ephemeral fad with a certain aura of modernity, have undergone a remarkable transformation in their function, becoming a popular marketing and advertising tool, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The visual appearance of these codes and the ability to establish a meaningful connection with the brand being promoted are important factors that directly influence the public's willingness to scan. In order to shed light on the nature of this trend, this ethnographic study has revealed a limited degree of personalisation in QR codes. This limitation results in a missed opportunity to incorporate distinctive brand elements into the design of the codes, which would allow for more persuasive visual communication and a more harmonious and appealing aesthetic presentation.Los códigos QR, originalmente considerados como una moda efímera y con una cierta aura de modernidad, han experimentado una notable transformación en su función, convirtiéndose en una apreciada herramienta de marketing y publicidad, especialmente a raíz de la pandemia de COVID-19. La apariencia visual de estos códigos y la capacidad de establecer una conexión significativa con la marca que se promociona constituyen factores de relevancia que inciden directamente en la disposición del público a realizar el escaneo. En aras de arrojar luz sobre la naturaleza de esta tendencia, se ha llevado a cabo este estudio de carácter etnográfico, que ha puesto de manifiesto un grado limitado de personalización en los códigos QR. Esta limitación resulta en un desaprovechamiento de la oportunidad de incorporar elementos distintivos de la marca en el diseño de los códigos, que permitiría una comunicación visual más persuasiva y una presentación estética más armoniosa y atractiva

Rewritable and sustainable 2D barcode for traceability application in smart IoT based fault-tolerant mechanism.

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, two-dimensional (2D) barcodes are widely used in smart IoT applications as a perception portal. In industries with many circulations and testing links like traceability, since the existing 2D barcode cannot be changed once it is printed, it can only be replaced with more expensive radio frequency identification (RFID) labels or new 2D barcodes, causing a waste of human resources and costs. For better circulation efficiency and resource utilization, we propose a new design of the rewritable and sustainable 2D barcode based on the fault-tolerance mechanism. The ability to add new information in the 2D barcode can be achieved through data encryption and the insertion of a rewritable layer. It means the message of 2D barcodes could be changed, and increases the flexibility and liquidity of the 2D barcode application. Besides, the encoding and decoding method of the proposed 2D barcode is presented. Experimental results have illustrated the superiority of rewritable and sustainable 2D barcodes in the traceability of herbal medicine compared with the conventional 2D barcodes, and demonstrated the feasibility of the design. The findings show the potential for significant application in the field of traceability in smart IoT, as well as in the manufacturing industry and logistics

Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry

Machine vision is one of the main applications of artificial intelligence. In China, the machine vision industry makes up more than a third of the national AI market, and technologies like face recognition, object tracking and automated driving play a central role in surveillance systems and social governance projects relying on the large-scale collection and processing of sensor data. Like other novel articulations of technology and society, machine vision is defined, developed and explained by different actors through the work of imagination. In this article, we draw on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to understand how Chinese companies represent machine vision. Through a qualitative multimodal analysis of the corporate websites of leading industry players, we identify a cohesive sociotechnical imaginary of machine vision, and explain how four distinct visual registers contribute to its articulation. These four registers, which we call computational abstraction, human–machine coordination, smooth everyday, and dashboard realism, allow Chinese tech companies to articulate their global ambitions and competitiveness through narrow and opaque representations of machine vision technologies.publishedVersio

Handling the creative process of 'Olha pra Ti!'

This paper delves into the creative process of project ‘Olha pra Ti!’ (‘Look at You!’), a book/journal for teens to reflect about their relationship with their bodies through drawing/writing, developed in the context of the Masters in Design. A project with peculiar origins – a graphic style looking for a purpose – went through a goal oriented visual reformulation, which, in turn, led to a complete project restructuring. We identified the importance of creating a comfortable, private, supported and flexible experience, and how these could be accomplished through the book’s physical and graphic features. We analyzed a reference project and various plastic languages and techniques liable to be ‘dissected’. By putting the contents of the book to the test, the personal experiences of the author served as a starting point for the illustrations. By anchoring the definition of the remaining content levels, illustration conquered an essential role in the project and opened it up to a bigger audience (from just girls to any teen). The diversity of visuals our book achieves is only possible, because design and audience-centered choices were combined to create an experience that takes full advantage of its format and expands it in space and time. As a future development, a usability test is intended to be done.publishe