Neutrality and Many-Valued Logics

In this book, we consider various many-valued logics: standard, linear, hyperbolic, parabolic, non-Archimedean, p-adic, interval, neutrosophic, etc. We survey also results which show the tree different proof-theoretic frameworks for many-valued logics, e.g. frameworks of the following deductive calculi: Hilbert's style, sequent, and hypersequent. We present a general way that allows to construct systematically analytic calculi for a large family of non-Archimedean many-valued logics: hyperrational-valued, hyperreal-valued, and p-adic valued logics characterized by a special format of semantics with an appropriate rejection of Archimedes' axiom. These logics are built as different extensions of standard many-valued logics (namely, Lukasiewicz's, Goedel's, Product, and Post's logics). The informal sense of Archimedes' axiom is that anything can be measured by a ruler. Also logical multiple-validity without Archimedes' axiom consists in that the set of truth values is infinite and it is not well-founded and well-ordered. On the base of non-Archimedean valued logics, we construct non-Archimedean valued interval neutrosophic logic INL by which we can describe neutrality phenomena.Comment: 119 page

Greening Bonnaroo: exploring the rhetoric and reality of a sustainable festival through micro-ethnographic methods

This research revealed that the greening policies of the Bonnaroo Festival are translated into sustainable event practice through: educational activities for volunteers and festival-goers, the creation of spaces of hyper-sustainability within the event and the embedding of green issues into the core values of the event. By using micro-ethnographic methods within a qualitative case study to compare the rhetoric of the festival with the practices occurring within it, the researchers have been able to make a number of recommendations for continuing and deepening the greening policies of this event, including a need to increase the scope and influence of the spaces of hyper-sustainability within the festival so as to broaden their localised impact and increasing direct engagement with festival goers on environmental issues

Hot wheels, cool cars, and an aesthetics of simulation

This article considers Mattel’s miniature cars, Hot Wheels, and the aesthetic meanings of the word “cool”. It addresses the material object (the toy cars), the graphic art, and film representations in order to trace four specific aesthetic relationships: first, the relationship between shine, reflection, and transparency as necessary components for the assessment of “cool”; second, the ways in which these attributes also function as visual coding for Baudrillard's “hyperreal”; third, the ways in which this coding forges associative links between fantasy and simulation; and, lastly, the coincidence of this coding with evolutionary instincts. Following the development of the toy cars in the 1960s through to the 2000s, a development which has culminated in a media network that includes graphic art and animated feature films, as well as the toys and accessories, this article argues that the car, the act of driving, and the aestheticisation of reflective surfaces not only help to define the word “cool” but have also become defining symbols of technological postmodernity.peer-reviewe

Be Our Guest or Welcome Foolish Mortals? Disney’s Invitation to Play and the Delusion/Illusion of Hyperreal, Immersive Documents

This paper playfully appropriates the metaphor of delusional states to frame a discussion of hyperreal documents present in Disney theme parks and resorts. A brief overview of the literature on delusion in individuals transitions into the collective formation of positive illusions to introduce the concept of play. The conceptual framework of play culture, or ludics, is presented to understand cultural production and meaning, which is further described in relation to theme park design and the negotiation of theme park experiences. This discussion is situated in document theory to explicate the intentionality of theme park designers and the indexicality of park guests. Aspects of theme park experiences as document transactions are elucidated in alignment with document phenomenology, touching on the implications for interpreting meaning and authenticity in environments characterized by hyperreal simulacra. The paper ends with an outline for a research agenda involving Disney theme parks, document phenomenology, and immersive documents

(re)construct: exploring objecthood in a digital age

The following paper describes the conceptual framework and several works in the exhibition: (re)construct: exploring objecthood in a digital age, which was on view at the Laura Mesaros Gallery at the College of Creative Arts, West Virginia University. The exhibition ran from November 30th through December 11th, 2009. The exhibition consisted of both oil paintings on clear acrylic and ink jet photographs. The question which this paper and the exhibition attempts to address is: what are the ontology and the limits of hyperreality in contemporary society? The following paper and the exhibition is epistemologically based and asks the following questions: Are we in a continuous state of the hyperreal, as theorist Jean Baudrillard (1929--2009) suggested, or are we in a state of flux between the real and the hyperreal? And further, what place does the handmade play in contemporary society and art making? The work and the paper assert that the handmade, the sense of objecthood and physical manipulation in the works, dislocates the digital referent, which is suggested through both process and image

The digital feminine

This MFA is a visual art critical investigation of digital representations, manipulations, and exploitations of feminine figures in cyberspace. The particular focus of this study is centred on the work of self-titled reality artist Signe Pierce, as well as my own practical body of work: The Digital Feminine. Case studies of Pierce’s practice include Big Sister (2016), Halo (2018), American Reflexxx (2013) and Reality Hack (2016). Through these case studies I examine the nature of identity formation online as underscored by notions of performativity as well as arguments for the use of feminine aesthetics as feminist critique, specifically through the use of the ‘Venus Flytrapping’ method. Jean Baudrillard famously theorised the hyperreal and the simulacra, claiming that human experience is a simulation of reality1. My MFA thesis addresses contemporary concerns relating to issues of reality, perception, the gaze, and identity in an increasingly virtual world. The 20th century witnessed massive changes in technology, and its subsequent commercialisation marked new territories for mass media, politics, entertainment, social life, and the art world. Avant-garde modern art movements shattered previously held standards of traditional artistic production, thus ideas surrounding the ‘art object’ and the role of artists themselves were fundamentally changed. In a postmodern world where nothing is sacred and life is experienced through the simulacra of the screen, the hyperreal takes over. I investigate how real-world socio-political issues, particularly those related to gender, transcend into the digital realm of cyberspace through discussions of Donna Harraway’s ‘cyborg feminism’ and Judith Butler’s ideas of gender performativity, as well as Erving Goffman’s ideas of everyday performativity. My final body of work for the professional art practice component of this MFA is realised in the form of an immersive installation that straddles the virtual and the real. Influenced by digital and hyperreal aesthetics (such as VapourWave), this installation also explores various expressions of femininity that an individual can express both online and in real life

Fashion and desire in an ecologically sustainable world

The popularity of sustainability has encroached on the fashion industry and as such, there are currently an increasing number of fashion designers and brands who profit from the sales of “sustainable fashion.” The fashion industry capitalises upon its ability to create new, desirable trends that equally as expeditiously become undesirable. Is an industry whose sole purpose is to create products which consumers desire for a meagre ration of time (before disposing of and purchasing the next emerging trend) ever capable of being truly sustainable? And more so, what fundamental social structures hold consumers hostage to an industry which hegemonically disempowers them through creating a clever and deceptive guise of ‘pseudo-empowerment’