Visitors’ Perception Based Authenticity in Tourism Development Project: A Case Study of Xietang Old Street in Suzhou, China

Within the in-depth development of culture-historical block tourism and the involvement of new capital, a new type of culture-historical block tourism has flourished in time. Unlike the traditional culture-historical blocks, these emerging culture-historical blocks are usually archaized blocks. There have been some debates about the relationship between these kinds of archaized blocks and tourism authenticity. It is evident that due to the characteristics of this kind of archaized culture-historical blocks, they lack authenticity. However, whether the authenticity could be perceived by the local residents or tourists still needs to be argued. In this paper, it examined visitors’ perception of authenticity at Xietang Old Street, an archaized project in Suzhou, China. The construction of many historical heritage sites raised the issue about authenticity in tourism. However, visitors’ perceptions towards authenticity in this site continues to be mostly unknown. The study applied questionnaires and interviews to collect data from February 2019 to March 2019 at Xietang Old Street. Visitors were asked to rate the authenticity of many aspects of Xietang Old Street on a Likert-scale and to provide basic socioeconomic information, motivations, and loyalty & satisfaction grade. Moreover, this paper studied the relationship among visitors’ motivation, authenticity perception, and visitors’ loyalty & satisfaction at Xietang Old Street. Based on both the qualitative and quantitative information, the study evaluates the Xietang Old Street as whether it is a successful commercial / tourism / authentic culture-historical site respectively. The research defined the project as a successful commercial project in Suzhou. However, it cannot be regarded as a successful tourism project and authentic culture-historical site. All the site was reconstructed, and the authentic elements are hardly seen within the site. Although the visitors can perceive authenticity through the site, they are all based on the physical setting. It cannot be called an authentic culture-historical site, while it is successful among these archaized projects in China. The primary reason for this project is the full respect for the original site and original appearance. Since the old Xietang town was demolished, we should look upon it positively: without this project, the history or even the name of Xietang will be forgotten by the future generation forever. It is a good start point and there are lots of space improving this project. We can believe that Xietang Old Street can be more authentic in the future

Working With Clay

Evidence from sites in the lower Ulua valley of north-central Honduras, occupied between a.d. 500 and 1000, provides new insight into the connections between households, craft production, and the role of objects in maintaining social relations within and across households. Production of pottery vessels, figurines, and other items in a household context has been documented at several sites in the valley, including Cerro Palenque, Travesía, Campo Dos, and Campo Pineda. Differences in raw materials, in what was made, and in the size and design of firing facilities allow us to explore how crafting with clay created communities of practice made up of people with varying levels of knowledge, experience, and skill. We argue that focusing on the specific features of a particular craft and the crafter\u27s perspective gives us insight into the ways that crafting contributed to the reproduction of social identities, local histories, and connections among members of communities of practice who comprised multicrafting households

New Technologies for Ecosystem Analysis Planning and Management

Planning the rural environment is one of the most intriguing examples of technical challenge where a multi-disciplinary approach plays a crucial role. The agricultural production, both food and non-food, the social role of rural settlements, the state and diffusion of the infrastructural networks, the rural architectonic heritage that in many countries constitutes a major positive value, should be appropriately considered and sinergically interlaced for a sound planning of agricultural biosystems. Human activities impose a transformation of the extra-urban land that may lead to the modification of the frail equilibrium of whole ecosystems. Sound planning strategies should be therefore pursued, employing a multidisciplinary approach that should take into account geographical, environmental and landscape factors as variables interacting among themselves and with the social and economic aspects. In order to simultaneously analyse all these properties, tools able to manage, interpret and integrate several data are necessary

Modeling and Simulation in Engineering

This book provides an open platform to establish and share knowledge developed by scholars, scientists, and engineers from all over the world, about various applications of the modeling and simulation in the design process of products, in various engineering fields. The book consists of 12 chapters arranged in two sections (3D Modeling and Virtual Prototyping), reflecting the multidimensionality of applications related to modeling and simulation. Some of the most recent modeling and simulation techniques, as well as some of the most accurate and sophisticated software in treating complex systems, are applied. All the original contributions in this book are jointed by the basic principle of a successful modeling and simulation process: as complex as necessary, and as simple as possible. The idea is to manipulate the simplifying assumptions in a way that reduces the complexity of the model (in order to make a real-time simulation), but without altering the precision of the results

Environmental design studies on perception and simulation: an urban design approach

Perceptual simulation represents an attempt to anticipate physical reality, whereby people can experience and interpret future environments from a subjective perspective. Working on experiential simulation for urban and landscape design requires an understanding of the relationship between man and the environment from a perceptual and cognitive standpoint. In fact, only by investigating the sensing and cognitive processes behind perception can we establish an informed approach to simulation of places and their ambiances. In particular, we propose a parallelism between man/environment and man/simulation relationships, aiming at giving back a framework for replicating in simulation the multisensory aspects that occur in the perception of the physical world. Hence, the objective of this article is to present how we approach the dimension of perceptual simulation within our research and professional work as urban designers. From a methodological point of view, we explored the topic through two main tasks, namely the selection and reconstruction of the research context and the key issues of perceptual simulation finalized in the second task, i.e. the construction of a set of simulation tools for urban design, intended as a matrix of possible practical applications. In particular, the theoretical framework presented in this work consists of a selection and overview of references relevant to urban design, comprehension of the research context and delivery of the set of tools implemented within our research unit. This matrix of tools represents the novelty of this work and is intended as a practical reference for orienting the choice among different simulation tools within the urban design practice. For instance, it is important to highlight the efficacy of each type of simulation in mimicking the man/environment relationship

Photography as a New Medium Visual Arts: Family Photo is a Contemporary Art Expression

Photography is one of the most amazing inventions in human civilization. In the domain of fine art in the Era of Modernism, photography can be said to function as a ' steward ' of the art of painting which indeed plays an important role at that time. At that moment photography helps to make the painting look more realistic and proportional. At that time, the technology of photography cannot reach out and assist the process of creation of a work of art-in the style of Expressionism, cubicism, and abstract. In the Era of Postmodernism, photography occupies important positions in the domain of fine art, with the advent of Pop Art ' style ', which is pioneered by Andy Warhol. The progress of photography is more improving after the Postmodern artists do 'appropriation', 'unmasking', 'inmasking', and 'diartistic'. Here the artist is also becoming a photographer at the same time. In the Era of contemporary art, Art cannot escape the presence of digital photography. With the advances in technology and digital printing, causing shortages of photography on modernism can be covered, nowadays, the result of photos can be printed in a variety of mediums such as canvas, acrylic, plastic, metal, etc., including additional texture can be presented as desired by the artists. Family photos are artifacts and documentation of the cultural history of a family trip with all its dynamics. In this study will be assessed a family photo based on the theory of contemporary photography from Charlotte Cotton. Keywords: Photography, Modernism, Postmodernism, Contemporary, Family Photo

Gustave Caillebotte and Visual Representation: Perspective, Photography and Movement

ABSTRACT This dissertation examines spatial composition in Caillebotte’s painting and, through it, his ways of producing visual experience for the viewer. The four chapters evaluate the artist’s methods of composition through the use of perspective, photography, light and colour and depiction of the figures. This project will explore the development of his pictorial space organisation through the study of his realist works of the 1870s and the understanding of his convergence with Impressionism at the end of the decade and early 1880s. The first two chapters explore Caillebotte’s approach to spatial organization in his predominantly urban based works of the 1870s, examining the interaction these pictures establish with the viewer through their manipulation of space. It looks at how Caillebotte composed his paintings through the tradition of perspective and also his engagement with photography and photographic effects. The uses of photography in Caillebotte’s work is the particular focus attempts of the second chapter where I weigh up the evidence of Caillebotte’s use of photographic devices and look at the relationship of his painting to his brother’s photography. The second chapter of the dissertation explores Caillebotte’s evolution towards a more Impressionistic style of composition and the artistic dialogue with Monet that drew his work closer to impressionist painting. This sees the transition of Caillebotte’s representation of picture-space from the more structured and ordered compositions of the early 1870s, to a freer and looser style of painting focused more on atmosphere and light. Caillebotte’s depictions of the countryside bear close comparison with Monet in terms of their motifs, palette and technique. Like Monet, Caillebotte begins to translate and organise what he sees through colours, light and movement. However, Caillebotte preserved a sense of spatial structure in most of his paintings that differentiates his work from his Impressionist colleagues. The chapter also goes on to explore whether the change of motif in his work in the 1880s from city to countryside subjects influences his methods of composition? l argue that while Caillebotte and Monet share some similarities, they differ in their approaches towards Impressionism. Caillebotte puts more emphasis on the representation of figures as a way of conveying sensations through the figure’s gaze while Monet prefers to focus on pure landscape, where the only gaze is that of the solitary artist as spectator. The final chapter returns to the question of the figure and the way in which Caillebotte manipulates the attention of the viewer through the directional gaze of the figure in the picture. Here, drawing on the work of Fried and Prendergast among others I look at how Caillebotte creates complex visual effects of spectating in his work and explore some of the ways in which Caillebotte’s painting contains proto-cinematic devices

The evaluation of Corona and Ikonos satellite imagery for archaeological applications in a semi-arid environment

Archaeologists have been aware of the potential of satellite imagery as a tool almost since the first Earth remote sensing satellite. Initially sensors such as Landsat had a ground resolution which was too coarse for thorough archaeological prospection although the imagery was used for geo-archaeological and enviro-archaeological analyses. In the intervening years the spatial and spectral resolution of these sensing devices has improved. In recent years two important occurrences enhanced the archaeological applicability of imagery from satellite platforms: The declassification of high resolution photography by the American and Russian governments and the deregulation of commercial remote sensing systems allowing the collection of sub metre resolution imagery. This thesis aims to evaluate the archaeological application of three potentially important resources; Corona space photography and Ikonos panchromatic and multispectral imager). These resources are evaluated in conjunction with Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery over a 600 square km study area in the semi-arid environment around Homs, Syria. The archaeological resource in this area is poorly understood, mapped and documented. The images are evaluated for their ability to create thematic layers and to locate archaeological residues in different environmental zones. Further consideration is given to the physical factors that allow archaeological residues to be identified and how satellite imagery and modern technology may impact on Cultural Resource Management. This research demonstrates that modern high resolution and historic satellite imagery can be important tools for archaeologists studying in semi-arid environments. The imagery has allowed a representative range of archaeological features and landscape themes to be identified. The research shows that the use of satellite imagery can have significant impact on the design of the archaeological survey in the middle-east and perhaps in other environments