Lion and The Unicorn

Exhibition 2-10 May 2011 to mark 60 years of RCA participation in post war UK design. Sponsored by Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, Sandersins and Napier heritage Trust, RCA Gulbenkian Gallery Kensington Gore, Catalogue of exhibition boards by Claire Pajaczkowska and Henrietta Goodden and curatorial essay 1851-1951-2011 by Claure Pajaczkowska and Barry Curti

The Seeds of Time

A fictional exploration of the uses of Shakespeare in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Festival of Britain of 1951, and the 2012 London Olympics, in the form of an imitation of H.G.Wells's story The Time Machine.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

PRISMS: a portable multispectral imaging system for remote in situ examination of wall paintings

We present a proto-type portable remote multispectral imaging system, PRISMS (Portable Remote Imaging System for Multispectral Scanning), that is light-weight, flexible and without any cumbersome mechanical structure for in situ high resolution colour and spectral imaging of large and inaccessible paintings such as wall paintings. This is the first instrument to be able to image paintings at inaccessible heights in situ from ground level to produce not only high resolution colour images but also multispectral images

A Pátria aos quadrados: Joaquim de Vasconcelos (1849-1936) painéis identitários

Considered the founder of Art History in Portugal with a rigorous method, Joaquim de Vasconcelos was also a Musicologist, Museologist, Teacher and Professor, Art Critic and a "champion" of visual transmission “systems” like Photography and Drawing. His capacity for critical analysis, his anarchic enthusiasm for various areas of knowledge indicating right or wrong tracks when almost everything was still to be done, impose him as an anti-mythical and unique character who created his own legend, a myth and a romantic hero, a master of himself far beyond from Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) or Giambattista Cavalcaselle (1819-1897) just to point out two of the masters that he admired. Homeland squares is not only a way of referring how tiles are a very important part of the Portuguese identity puzzle, but also a way of alluding to the geometry of parallels and meridians that Joaquim de Vasconcelos drew when trying to identify the Art in Portugal.Considerado o fundador da História da Arte em Portugal com um método rigoroso, Joaquim de Vasconcelos foi um Musicólogo, Museólogo, Professor, Crítico de Arte e "campeão" dos sistemas de transmissão visual como a Fotografia e o Desenho. A sua capacidade de análise crítica, o entusiasmo anárquico por várias áreas do conhecimento indicando pistas certas, ou erradas, num tempo onde quase tudo estava ainda por escrever, impõe Vasconcelos como um caráter anti-mítico e único, um homem que criou a sua própria lenda, um mito e um herói romântico, um mestre de si mesmo muito além de Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) ou Giambattista Cavalcaselle (1819-1897). apenas para apontar dois mestres que admirava. A Pátria aos quadrados expressa, em metáfora, como os azulejos são uma parte muito significativa do quebra-cabeças da identidade portuguesa e alude igualmente à geometria dos paralelos e meridianos que Joaquim de Vasconcelos desenhou ao tentar identificar a Arte em Portugal

PRISMS: remote high resolution in situ multispectral imaging of wall paintings

The non-invasive monitoring and examination of wall paintings in grotto sites, tombs and buildings is particularly important since these paintings are often extremely vulnerable. Traditionally, inspection of wall paintings at high resolution (i.e. sub-millimetre resolution) requires either scaffolding or some heavy and cumbersome mechanical structure to lift a person or camera to the upper parts of a wall or ceiling. We have developed a proto-type portable remote imaging multi-spectral camera that operates at ground level for in situ high-resolution colour and spectral imaging of wall paintings. We present here the latest developments for the instrument and examples of how the instrument can be used for diagnosis of wall paintings

Samuel Daniel's The Complaint of Rosamond and the arrival of Tasso's Armida in England

This essay argues that the earliest English work to offer a sustained poetic engagement with the figure of Armida, the celebrated pagan enchantress from Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581), is Daniel’s The Complaint of Rosamond (1592). Unlike Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1590), who pays little attention to the enchantress herself even as he imitates Tasso directly in his construction of the Bower of Bliss, Daniel’s portrayal of his long-dead royal mistress is repeatedly, if unexpectedly, associated with Armida’s beauty. The essay considers how Daniel might have first encountered Tasso’s character in Italy, and goes on to demonstrate how frequently he translated from Tasso in describing the analogous impact of Rosamond’s beauty at the court of Henry II. A few of Daniel’s direct imitations from the Italian were detected by his contemporary Francis Davison, but many others were missed, and they have all been entirely ignored in modern criticism. This essay then seeks to demonstrate their centrality to Daniel’s conception of his spectral narrator, concluding that his translation and creative adaptation of material related to Armida from Tasso’s poem adds a significant level of interpretative ambiguity to the figure of Rosamond

The Media Trade in Virtual Design

As media attention has become a dominating force within the design economy, visibility became the combustible that fuels the current design industry. Designed objects were once real products, but are now often prototypes, props to be exhibited and photographed, whose role is to fill space in the media, raise the media profile of their creators and convey the name of brokers, sponsors and partners. As a result celebrated design objects are now rare pieces that are highly visible in the virtual media, while they are virtually absent from the conventional market. For industry, this trajectory of design makes them props to fill space in the media, raise the media profile of their creators and ‘brand’ the name of brokers, sponsors and partners. Today a designer has to be successful in the media in order to attract industry attention. This paper observes the way designers make virtue of their visibility in mediated contexts, thus redefining the industrial model of design practice. Simultaneously, the paper looks at the way the media makes use of its influence in a new virtual design context, producing informed speculations for the evolution of design activities. And in order to contextualize this evolution the paper follows a trajectory from the history of design to build a background to this foreground