Paris Offscreen: Chinese Tourists in Cinematic Paris

This article examines from a European-Asian perspective the relationship between media representations and the tourist’s imagination. We use the case of Chinese tourists in Paris to investigate how these non-European tourists imagine Europe, and how these imaginations are being realized, challenged, and modified during concrete tourist experiences. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with tourists and field observations, this paper shows how the Chinese tourist imagination of Europe is strongly influenced by popular representations from the media. More in particular, the Chinese tourist experience of Paris as it turns out is characterised by an on-going negotiation between media-inspired fantasies and personal experiences of the ‘real’ Paris. As a result of this, the way the Chinese imagined Europe before their visitis reinforced, but also challenged. Chinese tourists tend to develop a hybrid perspective: they learn to re-appreciate Paris in its complexity, while at the same time re-constituting their own cultural identity vis-à-vis the European Other

The Qian painterly voice

My research explores my Chinese background experiences of immigration to Australia within the visual domain of Ba-Gua energies dialoguing with selected European painterly influences (especially Jenny Saville) related to Australia, painterly and new ink tradition methods, contemporary Chinese and Chinese-Australian painting unified by Ba-Gua spiritual ideas, through a methodology utilizing impasto and line informed by Chinese and European Romantic opera, all expressed within a contemporary version of Yan Li-ben’s emperor imagery, especially related to Qian or heaven. In this work and others in the folio, I use Chinese Ba-Gua (Qian) and Confucian philosophy to explore Chinese and Western artistic influences and Ba-Gua energies dialoguing with Chinese-Australian visual influences and Peking Opera and contemporary Australian music. I explored the artistic influences that have contributed to the extended sensation or synaesthesia of my painting across the tactile, sonic and optical fields. I drew across sources from ancient Chinese Emperor paintings and ink tradition alongside contemporary British and Australian layered paint and anatomical techniques, as well as draw from Renaissance masters. In addition, this research explores the contemporary themes, which have also influenced my work including intercultural contemporary Australian music. The originality of this approach in my cultural artistic fusion is that the Daoist-like movement of spirit and body (Chou, “Wenren and Culture”2004), expressed within Ba-Gua philosophy, becomes a kinetic unifying factor across a Chinese multi-artform practice. My creative folio included paintings and films which provide evidences for an analysis of both the common point of visual dialogue and cultural realities within these Chinese-Australian confluences towards expression of my artistic identity or voice, which I describe as Qian ‘painterly voice’. This ‘painterly voice’ has five main areas of investigation: firstly, English painter Jenny Saville’s intersection of painterly impasto and Chinese calligraphical line; secondly, the techniques of impasto and line related to Peking opera and Italian lyric opera; thirdly, ancient Chinese painter Yan Li-pen’s iconic emperor series extended to Australia; fourthly, the intersections of the Chinese multi-artform practice where calligraphically line, watercolour suggestiveness, and painterly impasto layering work as synergies and counterpoints to contemporary Australian composition within several music-theatre works; and finally, Ba-Gua ideas into contemporary Chinese artistic ideas in China (Qian and family order within Zhang Xiaogang) and Australia (Chinese-Australian Lindy Lee’s exploration of Zen Buddhism). Ultimately, this research examines how each of these factors culminates in my own personal philosophy and Qian ‘painterly voice’

Queensland University of Technology: Annual Report 2009

Our annual report provides an evaluation of our performance and achievements during the previous year, measured against our goals and strategic plans. It documents our performance in the three key areas of: teaching and learning research community service. The report includes a summary of financial performance and a copy of our audited accounts

RISDxyz Fall/Winter 2014/15 | Full Issue

LOVE THEM, HATE THEM, feed and obsess about them as we do, our bodies are our interface with each other and the physical world. They’re the often astonishing and perpetually intriguing vessels that hold who we are. When you think about the body in the context of art, it’s almost impossible to separate one from the other— just as it’s impossible to separate the body from considerations of health and health care. They’re all inextricably intertwined. ... From the editor\u27s message by Liisa Silanderhttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdxyz_fallwinter20142015/1005/thumbnail.jp

Enhanced device-based 3D object manipulation technique for handheld mobile augmented reality

3D object manipulation is one of the most important tasks for handheld mobile Augmented Reality (AR) towards its practical potential, especially for realworld assembly support. In this context, techniques used to manipulate 3D object is an important research area. Therefore, this study developed an improved device based interaction technique within handheld mobile AR interfaces to solve the large range 3D object rotation problem as well as issues related to 3D object position and orientation deviations in manipulating 3D object. The research firstly enhanced the existing device-based 3D object rotation technique with an innovative control structure that utilizes the handheld mobile device tilting and skewing amplitudes to determine the rotation axes and directions of the 3D object. Whenever the device is tilted or skewed exceeding the threshold values of the amplitudes, the 3D object rotation will start continuously with a pre-defined angular speed per second to prevent over-rotation of the handheld mobile device. This over-rotation is a common occurrence when using the existing technique to perform large-range 3D object rotations. The problem of over-rotation of the handheld mobile device needs to be solved since it causes a 3D object registration error and a 3D object display issue where the 3D object does not appear consistent within the user’s range of view. Secondly, restructuring the existing device-based 3D object manipulation technique was done by separating the degrees of freedom (DOF) of the 3D object translation and rotation to prevent the 3D object position and orientation deviations caused by the DOF integration that utilizes the same control structure for both tasks. Next, an improved device-based interaction technique, with better performance on task completion time for 3D object rotation unilaterally and 3D object manipulation comprehensively within handheld mobile AR interfaces was developed. A pilot test was carried out before other main tests to determine several pre-defined values designed in the control structure of the proposed 3D object rotation technique. A series of 3D object rotation and manipulation tasks was designed and developed as separate experimental tasks to benchmark both the proposed 3D object rotation and manipulation techniques with existing ones on task completion time (s). Two different groups of participants aged 19-24 years old were selected for both experiments, with each group consisting sixteen participants. Each participant had to complete twelve trials, which came to a total 192 trials per experiment for all the participants. Repeated measure analysis was used to analyze the data. The results obtained have statistically proven that the developed 3D object rotation technique markedly outpaced existing technique with significant shorter task completion times of 2.04s shorter on easy tasks and 3.09s shorter on hard tasks after comparing the mean times upon all successful trials. On the other hand, for the failed trials, the 3D object rotation technique was 4.99% more accurate on easy tasks and 1.78% more accurate on hard tasks in comparison to the existing technique. Similar results were also extended to 3D object manipulation tasks with an overall 9.529s significant shorter task completion time of the proposed manipulation technique as compared to the existing technique. Based on the findings, an improved device-based interaction technique has been successfully developed to address the insufficient functionalities of the current technique

URBAN CORPORIS X - UNEXPECTED

Starting from the emergency provoked by the Sars-Cov2 that affected the whole world, the book brings the contributions of researchers and artists from all over the world discussing the theme of the \u201cunexpected\u201d, its implication, and inter-action with everyday life. The book presents a series of essays divided into three parts: Living unexpectedly, Missing interactions, and Different sociality. These three categories bring together authors who have had a reading of the unexpected emergency that occurred, pointing out different perspectives upon dynamics and relation caused by this situation, underlining how the isolation period has affected both the domestic and the urban sphere. Moreover, through drawings, photomontages and photographs, several authors gave a visual interpretation of the changed lives, spaces, and routines. All these contributions don\u2019t want to answer to the enormous problems brought by the pandemic. Rather they synthesize an interpretation of the shifting condition that occurred, showing both the great reactive capacity and the fragility of the no longer present reality

Steps to an Ecology of Networked Knowledge and Innovation: Enabling new forms of collaboration among sciences, engineering, arts, and design

SEAD network White Papers ReportThe final White Papers (posted at http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/white-paper- abstracts/final-white-papers/) represent a spectrum of interests in advocating for transdisciplinarity among arts, sciences, and technologies. All authors submitted plans of action and identified stakeholders they perceived as instrumental in carrying out such plans. The individual efforts led to an international scope. One of the important characteristics of this collection is that the papers do not represent a collective aim toward an explicit initiative. Rather, they offer a broad array of views on barriers faced and prospective solutions. In summary, the collected White Papers and associated Meta- analyses began as an effort to take the pulse of the SEAD community as broadly as possible. The ideas they generated provide a fruitful basis for gauging trends and challenges in facilitating the growth of the network and implementing future SEAD initiatives.National Science Foundation Grant No.1142510. Additional funding was provided by the ATEC program at the University of Texas at Dallas and the Institute for Applied Creativity at Texas A&M University

5 European & African Conference on Wind Engineering

The 5th European-African Conference of Wind Engineering is hosted in Florence, Tuscany, the city and the region where, in the early 15th century, pioneers moved the first steps, laying down the foundation stones of Mechanics and Applied Sciences (including fluid mechanics). These origins are well reflected by the astonishing visionary and revolutionary studies of Leonardo Da Vinci, whose kaleidoscopic genius intended the human being to become able to fly even 500 years ago… This is why the Organising Committee has decided to pay tribute to such a Genius by choosing Leonardo's "flying sphere" as the brand of 5th EACWE

Cable-driven parallel mechanisms for minimally invasive robotic surgery

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has revolutionised surgery by providing faster recovery times, less post-operative complications, improved cosmesis and reduced pain for the patient. Surgical robotics are used to further decrease the invasiveness of procedures, by using yet smaller and fewer incisions or using natural orifices as entry point. However, many robotic systems still suffer from technical challenges such as sufficient instrument dexterity and payloads, leading to limited adoption in clinical practice. Cable-driven parallel mechanisms (CDPMs) have unique properties, which can be used to overcome existing challenges in surgical robotics. These beneficial properties include high end-effector payloads, efficient force transmission and a large configurable instrument workspace. However, the use of CDPMs in MIS is largely unexplored. This research presents the first structured exploration of CDPMs for MIS and demonstrates the potential of this type of mechanism through the development of multiple prototypes: the ESD CYCLOPS, CDAQS, SIMPLE, neuroCYCLOPS and microCYCLOPS. One key challenge for MIS is the access method used to introduce CDPMs into the body. Three different access methods are presented by the prototypes. By focusing on the minimally invasive access method in which CDPMs are introduced into the body, the thesis provides a framework, which can be used by researchers, engineers and clinicians to identify future opportunities of CDPMs in MIS. Additionally, through user studies and pre-clinical studies, these prototypes demonstrate that this type of mechanism has several key advantages for surgical applications in which haptic feedback, safe automation or a high payload are required. These advantages, combined with the different access methods, demonstrate that CDPMs can have a key role in the advancement of MIS technology.Open Acces