Modified Huffman Code for Lossless Compression and Bandwidth Optimization and Applying Genetic Algorithms to Generating Paintings Based on Images

This thesis contains two projects. A modified Huffman code is presented as a lossless method to compress common traffic types. We posit the usage of compression benefits instead of just frequency of occurrence, as is common in Huffman codes, as the priority of each node when constructing the Huffman tree. We show the effectiveness of this method on common data transmission types and describe what would be needed for adoption of this algorithm. We explore genetic algorithms as a method to create paintings based on images. We find a balance between computational work required and visually pleasing results to the algorithm, prioritizing aspects of the parameter space based on their impact on the painting and how they impact computational workload

Art as a Spiritual Expression for Indigenous Well-being

abstract: Art is a form of spiritual expression that is thriving in many Indigenous cultures. It can take many forms, meanings and have a multitude of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual effects on its creator as well as its audience. Amongst American Indians, art has been a method for maintaining holistic well-being intended to heal and cope with traumatic experiences. In this thesis, I examine the western societal and cultural influences that have led to the loss of cultural identity and examine approaches and practices that aim to re-establish a resilient connection to identity and well-being using art as a spiritual catalyst. Literary research and articles were reviewed related to the issue of art as a form of spiritual expression in Indigenous cultures. An autoethnography was conducted with the intent to record and reflect on the well-being of the researcher in relation to her artistic expression. Journaling and vlogging were used as research methods and painting, sketching, and beading was used as artistic methods. Over the course of six months, over 50 videos with 30 hours of raw footage were recorded; averaging 2 hours per day. The results are reflected in the researchers free-flowing and emotionally driven reflection of experiences that have driven her artwork. This thesis supports the establishment of art as a form of spiritual expression for transforming the current western focused health care paradigm to one that recognizes, values and employs Indigenous insight, methodologies, worldviews, culture and spirituality.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis American Indian Studies 201

Social Genome – An Imperative of Human and Society Self-Organization

Generalizing the biosocial development of human population the author discovers the consequential pattern of sophistication of the inside-outside heritage in which education training and social activity are represented as structural and functional parts of establishing sociogenome The logic of social transformations covering with its explanatory power all the areas and levels of society structure formation of a single social organism is reveale

Grammars of the Immanent: or, Will the Real Catholic Žižek Please Stand Up?

The high-profile debate between John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek in The Monstrosity of Christ comprises an immensely important work in the contemporary intersection of Church dogmatics and ontology. This study consists of an indirect commentary on this debate, using Milbank and Žižek’s dispute as a foil for mobilizing an ontology favorable to Eastern Orthodox dogmatics. The starting point here is that Orthodoxy simply bypasses Neo-Platonism as the definitive philosophical expression of its dogmatic theology, and, on this score, Žižek’s powerful criticisms of theurgic Neo-Platonism can be embraced and redirected in support of an ontology of the Orthodox dogma of synergy. It will be shown that Milbank’s position that there is a “Catholic Žižek” who embraces theurgy—that is, analogical, Neo-Platonist ontology—is mistaken; the dismantling of the “suspended middle” is necessary for the Žižekian and that, therefore, a Catholic version of this figure does not exist. But it will be suggested that, instead, there is a latent Orthodox Žižek whose criticism of analogical ontology can pave the way for a more profitable dialogue between Žižek and Orthodoxy. The conclusion will provide a playful reading of an Orthodox Žižek—an entirely fictional but ontologically serviceable character—who can begin new conversations between ontology and dogmatic theology. The upshot of the study is the extension of Terry Eagleton’s claim that the historical materialist, but not the dialectical materialist, can legitimately venerate the Virgin Mary—to the surprising suggestion that even the dialectical materialist can justifiably venerate her, too

Chris Ware\u27s Jimmy Corrigan: Honing the Hybridity of the Graphic Novel

The genre of comics has had a tumultuous career throughout the twentieth century: it has careened from wildly popular to being perceived as the source of society’s ills. Despite having been relegated to the lowest rung of the artistic ladder for the better part of the twentieth century, comics has been gaining in quality and respectability over the last couple of decades. My introductory chapter provides a broad, basic introduction to the genre of comics––its historical development, its different forms, and a survey of comics criticism over the last thirty years. In chapter two I clarify the nature of comics by comparing it to literature, film, and pictorial art, thereby highlighting its hybrid nature. It has elements in common with all of these, and yet it is a distinct genre. My primary focus is on Chris Ware, whom I introduce in chapter three, a brilliant creator who has garnered widespread recognition and respect. His magnum opus is Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, the story of four generations of Corrigan men, most of whom have been negligent in raising their children. Jimmy Corrigan, as a result, is an introverted, insecure thirty–something–year–old man. Among comics creators Ware is unusual in that his story does not address socio–political issues, like most of his peers, which I discuss in chapter four. Jimmy Corrigan is an isolated tale with a very specific focus. Ware’s narrative is somewhat like those of William Faulkner, whose stories have a narrow focus, revolving around the lives of the inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha county, rather than encompassing the vast landscape of national socio–political concerns. Also, in chapter five I explore the intriguing combination of realist and Gothic elements––normally at opposite ends of the generic continuum––that Ware merges in Jimmy Corrigan. This feature is especially interesting because it is another way that his work explores aspects of hybridity. Finally, in my conclusion I examine the current state of comics in American culture and its future prospects for development and success, as well as the potential for future comics criticism

Our Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World

Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation.Our Space was co-developed by The Good Play Project and Project New Media Literacies (established at MIT and now housed at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism). The Our Space collaboration grew out of a shared interest in fostering ethical thinking and conduct among young people when exercising new media skills

Generative Art as Experiment

This thesis investigates my generative art (1) practice with mechanical drawing machines, for which the relationship between humans and technology provides the larger context. The comparison between machinic and software-based generative art systems acts as a starting point for reflections on technology in general. Producing pictures with self-made, commissioned or appropriated drawing machines, my practice aims at subverting the instrumental nature of technology, and emphasizing its anthropological dimension (2). The practice focuses on inaccuracies, errors and deviations from my attempts at control. The glitch (a short lived, unexpected disturbance) is discussed as a way of highlighting the production process of a picture. My research explores the media-specific Eigensinn (obstinacy) of drawing machines, a synergetic force colliding with the intentions of myself as a human creator. Calling up technological history, I argue that making art with technology is a paradoxical endeavour, which I embrace as a way of investigating subjectivity in my aesthetic decisions and art making. The emotion of surprise, resulting from this collision, is presented as my primary motivator for engaging with generative art. The seeming autonomy of generative art systems brings up questions about the authorship (3) of such practices. These are contextualized with other practices less based on the hand of the artist than on the manipulation of symbolic entities,(4) e.g. readymades (Duchamp), and conceptual art (LeWitt). I draw a connection from my hands-off methodology to the scientific experiment, which runs without the interference of the scientist. My machine drawings are compared to scientific graphs and the artist studio is paralleled to the science laboratory (5). (1) Galanter, Boden and Edmonds (2) Heidegger (3) Irvin (4) Roberts (5) LatourDrawingTechnologyMachine

Using the Arts for Food Research and Dialogue

This Briefing Paper is intended to share ideas and learning arising from the authors’ experiences of using arts-based methods in food research and engagement, as well as to give some insights into the issues that arose from a workshop for academics and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) developed by Brighton and Sussex Universities Food Network (BSUFN) and hosted by the Food Research Collaboration (FRC) in 2016. It examines the use of participatory and community-centred approaches to explore pressing food policy questions, as well as providing guidance on how to apply these methods in practice. It is intended to be relevant to academics, particularly those interested in using participatory action research methods, and CSOs working with community groups on food issues. The authors’ main interest is the way in which arts-based methods provide a set of tools which can reveal, and give voice to, perspectives on food issues which remain otherwise absent from research and policy debates. In the authors' experience, this happens either because community members are not asked for their views or because of the way in which much traditional/positivist/biomedical academic research is based around pre-determined research questions that do not provide adequate space for community members to explore and voice their own concerns. It could be said that to date, much food research has failed to meaningfully engage with the general public, both during the research process itself and in raising awareness and achieving changes in the food system, which the research evidence indicates needs to happen. The paper firstly outlines why food research is a necessary and important area of exploration. Following this it examines the development, lineage and underlying principles of participatory and arts-based methodologies as approaches to research. Three arts-based and participatory methods are then reviewed in greater detail: i. Photography and film ii. Drama, and iii. Collage. These three methods were the focus of the BSUFN/FRC workshop in 2016. For each of these three examples, theoretical and methodological implications and ethical issues are discussed, enabling readers to fully consider how and why they might apply these approaches. In reviewing these emerging and alternative approaches for engaging communities in research processes, this paper presents a consideration of ideas, narratives, positions and actions relating to food, research and knowledge construction. The authors believe this paper to be an important addition to debates around how arts based and participatory methods might improve the processes, impact and contribution of food research. The paper presents a collaborative effort between academics, researchers and civil society organisations (CSOs) all of whom are concerned with improving research, learning and engagement in relation to food. The paper concludes with recommendations and suggestions on how academics and CSOs might use these methods as part of their research and/or practice

Review of practice-led research in art, design & architecture

This review report sets out the outcomes of a 10 month investigation to describe the landscape of practice-led research in Art, Design and Architecture (ADA) in the UK and beyond. We were asked for a qualitative review but of course it has been important to gather some numbers to check and illustrate our observations. We have consulted widely, both face to face and in the virtual world, with experts and novices in the UK and around the world. We have tried to strike a balance between the natural desire of our colleagues to debate the more contentious aspects of this territory (they were never going to forgo that opportunity) and the equally strong wish of the AHRC that we should provide a clear description of what is happening. We have collected some diverse examples of research and subjected them to various examinations. We have also examined a selection of research projects funded by AHRC and other projects by creative practitioners, funded by a non-research organisation. From all this we have been able to describe the landscape in a straightforward sense: We have measures of the proportions of ADA academics involved in practice-led research. We have clarified differences in the ways that the different ADA disciplines engage with practice-led research and identified some problems that indicate possible future support strategies. We have discussed some problems with general definitions of research and identified issues that should be addressed to ensure that the AHRC definition can be applied to the full range of practice-led research. We have picked out some specific case examples that illustrate the range of contexts, methods and contributions made by practice-led researchers, and more are described in detail in Appendix F. We have also sought to assess how this research relates to the wider international picture in which the UK appears to have a strong position in both volume and development of research. We have also set out some issues that affect this community of researchers: What strengths and weaknesses have we observed and where is there a need to support development? Do the AHRC definition of research and guidance on practice-led research provide an effective framework? We have illustrated the state of development of research in ADA, and some reasons why it is less robust than might be expected from such long established disciplines. We recommend that the career path of researchers in ADA needs some attention and make some suggestions about how that could be achieved. We have also indicated some areas of inquiry that might be supported to advance the theory and methods of practice-led research. In particular we have come to the conclusion that conventional ideas of contribution to knowledge or understanding may not be serving us well. This is significant to fine artists but we believe that it relevant across ADA and a shared effort to develop appropriate new models would be a constructive development. The full set of recommendations can be found in chapter 5