Savage Words

Savage Words is a realtime massive multiplayer online text space as well as a collaborative poem and asynchronous chatroom. It is a corner of the internet built on the platform Your World of Text, an infinite grid of text editable by visitors. Throughout the conference period, participants can join in a communal writing, a textual table of simultaneous and asynchronous shared writing. ASCII images, freewheeling conversations, \u27Poetry\u27, and other forms of experimental text will be woven together into a freewheeling shared work. Screenshots of the unfolding text will be saved at regular intervals, to be published after the conclusion of the conference. Savage Words serves simultaneously as a place of experimentation, documentation, poesis, and communal conversation. Savage Word

Pozorna lekkość bytu - estetyzacja w fotografii dokumentalnej

The simulacre lightness of being – aestheticization in documentary photographyThe starting point for analyzing aestheticization processes in contemporary documentary photography in this text are both the “poetic” images of lightness in literature and culture analyzed in a lecture by Italo Calvino (Six Memos for the Next Millennium) and the critical thought of Wolfgang Welsch on intentional aestheticization processes in the real world. According to Welsch, these processes, through specific procedures of “lavishing lightness”, cease to be a binding image of the world and become part of a culture game (Grenzgange der Asthetik). Examples selected for analysis include award-winning documentary photography, including war photography, represented by the work of Georges Merillon, Sebastiao Salgado, Luc Delahaye, Simon Norfolk and Tim Hetherington. These ‘aestheticization procedures’ are outlined in this text in the context of the history of photography perceived as its “struggle” for a place in the history of art, as well as in the context of the theoretical considerations which accompany these processes.The simulacre lightness of being – aestheticization in documentary photographyThe starting point for analyzing aestheticization processes in contemporary documentary photography in this text are both the “poetic” images of lightness in literature and culture analyzed in a lecture by Italo Calvino (Six Memos for the Next Millennium) and the critical thought of Wolfgang Welsch on intentional aestheticization processes in the real world. According to Welsch, these processes, through specific procedures of “lavishing lightness”, cease to be a binding image of the world and become part of a culture game (Grenzgange der Asthetik). Examples selected for analysis include award-winning documentary photography, including war photography, represented by the work of Georges Merillon, Sebastiao Salgado, Luc Delahaye, Simon Norfolk and Tim Hetherington. These ‘aestheticization procedures’ are outlined in this text in the context of the history of photography perceived as its “struggle” for a place in the history of art, as well as in the context of the theoretical considerations which accompany these processes

Spatial information retrieval and geographical ontologies: an overview of the SPIRIT project

A large proportion of the resources available on the world-wide web refer to information that may be regarded as geographically located. Thus most activities and enterprises take place in one or more places on the Earth's surface and there is a wealth of survey data, images, maps and reports that relate to specific places or regions. Despite the prevalence of geographical context, existing web search facilities are poorly adapted to help people find information that relates to a particular location. When the name of a place is typed into a typical search engine, web pages that include that name in their text will be retrieved, but it is likely that many resources that are also associated with the place may not be retrieved. Thus resources relating to places that are inside the specified place may not be found, nor may be places that are nearby or that are equivalent but referred to by another name. Specification of geographical context frequently requires the use of spatial relationships concerning distance or containment for example, yet such terminology cannot be understood by existing search engines. Here we provide a brief survey of existing facilities for geographical information retrieval on the web, before describing a set of tools and techniques that are being developed in the project SPIRIT : Spatially-Aware Information Retrieval on the Internet (funded by European Commission Framework V Project IST-2001-35047)

Social Studies

Artist Statement In my mixed media work, I focus on people who are in the process of being uprooted and exiled from their home. My work reflects the limbo refugees experience while they search for balance and a new place to settle. The cultural diaspora affects the transplanted individuals as well as the host communities. Everyone experiences and needs to adapt to change. My abstracted images are created by manipulating layers of acrylic paint, photo gel transfers, gel medium, and tempera paint. I combine human forms with layers of English and foreign text while exploring concepts of displacement. I use materials that I can rub dry, re-wet, and work into again. This process-oriented approach allows me to create figurative images that are ghost-like and in ambiguous environments which create an ephemeral world

Holy Things: Foundations for Liturgical Theology

(Excerpt) Christian corporate worship has biblical foundations. This is so, of course, in the most obvious ways: at the heart of the meeting the book called the Bible is read and then interpreted as having to do with us. Sometimes, as ceremonial preface to that reading, the book is carried about, even enthroned. Furthermore, the text of the Bible provides the source of the imagery and, often, the very form and quality of the language in prayers, chants, hymn texts, and sermons. Psalms are sung as if that ancient collection were for our singing. Snatches of old biblical letters are scattered throughout the service, as if we were addressed. Frequently images and texts drawn from the Bible adorn the room which provides a place for the meeting. The very actions of the gathering may seem like the Bible alive: an assembly gathers, as the people gathered at the foot of Mt. Sinai; arms are upraised in prayer or blessing, as Moses raised his arms; the holy books are read, as Ezra read to the listening people; the people hold a meal, as the disciples did gathered together after the death of Jesus. To come into the meeting seems like coming into a world determined by the language of the Bible

The aesthetic and the mystic experience in Indian theory

In the Sānkhyakārikās, the chief text of the dualistic Sānkhya philosophy, the world and salvation therefrom are described in compressed images as various stages of aesthetic situations. Purusa, the spiritual principle, whose only characteristic apart from being is consciousness, regards the spectacle which prakrti, primary substance, natura, gives. Existence is a theatrical show where that which takes place on the scene only acquires meaning through being regarded and enjoyed by a spectator. The spectator is totally absorbed by the show to the point of identifying himself with it, and he enjoys it. Salvation takes place when the false identification ceases, when insight into the true dualism arises, when the spectator leaves the theatre and the dancing-girl leaves the scene

An Undiscovered Wilderness--Place and Self: a Digital Curation of Text and Images

Medieval manuscripts are beautiful compilations of text and image. My work explores this media as a way to celebrate the beauty of the natural world, combining nature writing with marginalia and illustrations that reflect the content of the text. The calligraphy style is modeled after the font used in the Book of Kells, as it too portrays natural imagery throughout its pages. Manuscripts were meant to glorify the text within, and it is my hope to glorify and preserve an appreciation of nature in a world where it is sometimes overlooked. The culmination of this research has grown into a thesis project as well. Soon after my summer manuscript work was completed, I spent the next month traveling to different natural places around the U.S., keeping a journal and sketchbook along the way. These musings inspired the text of the thesis, which has evolved into a study of place and self, exploring the reciprocity of human beings and the environments we inhabit. Using the same ideas as the manuscript, combining text and images, I instead have compiled them in a more modern, digital format. I have compiled the journals and sketches, as well as photos and maps to represent the project on a public website that can be viewed at http://ajthesis2015.blogs.bucknell.edu/. It explores the connections we share with the natural world, but also raises questions about the established divide between man and nature. Are we natural beings? Can the things we create be considered natural? What about National Parks? Can the wilderness that we fence off really be thought of as natural? Why is there this divide? Are we not natural beings ourselves? These thoughts brush the surface of our complex relationships with where we are at any given moment, coexisting with the environments we live in. And as we live, these things evolve. Side by side the manuscript project and the thesis represent an evolution of an art form that mirrors the constantly changing world in which we live. We and our surroundings are always developing, responding to each other\u27s presence in a reciprocal evolution of place and self