METROPOLITAN ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT. METROPOLITAN ANTHROPOLOGY FOR THE CONTEMPORARY LIVING MAP CONSTRUCTION

We can no longer interpret the contemporary metropolis as we did in the last century. The thought of civil economy regarding the contemporary Metropolis conflicts more or less radically with the merely acquisitive dimension of the behaviour of its citizens. What is needed is therefore a new capacity for imagining the economic-productive future of the city: hybrid social enterprises, economically sustainable, structured and capable of using technologies, could be a solution for producing value and distributing it fairly and inclusively. Metropolitan Urbanity is another issue to establish. Metropolis needs new spaces where inclusion can occur, and where a repository of the imagery can be recreated. What is the ontology behind the technique of metropolitan planning and management, its vision and its symbols? Competitiveness, speed, and meritocracy are political words, not technical ones. Metropolitan Urbanity is the characteristic of a polis that expresses itself in its public places. Today, however, public places are private ones that are destined for public use. The Common Good has always had a space of representation in the city, which was the public space. Today, the Green-Grey Infrastructure is the metropolitan city's monument that communicates a value for future generations and must therefore be recognised and imagined; it is the production of the metropolitan symbolic imagery, the new magic of the city

A generative framework for computer-based interactive art in mass transport systems.

Over the course of the past decade the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) stations in Taiwan have become open air art galleries: with more prominent and frequent display of various artistic creations in stations, including interactive artworks. However, unlike the audiences in more meticulously choreographed exhibition contexts, those in stations are usually involuntary. New criteria for the creation and evaluation of artworks in these context are necessary to enhance the connection between the audience and the artwork, and to elicit meaningful experience via interactivity. This research aims to uncover the critical factors that can turn an indifferent passenger into an explorative participant, subsequently leading them to obtain meaningful experiences through interaction with computer-based interactive artwork. This research focuses on artworks that are permanently installed in the stations, with three case studies conducted in MRT stations forming the backbone of the research. Field observation was the first step in each case study, conducted in order to understand the fundamentals of the interactivity between the passengers and the artworks. This was followed by in-depth interviews with the passengers and three professional interview groups. A critical Analytical Framework was formed throughout the course of the research, identifying five engaging characteristics: Incentive, Transfer, Accessibility, Play, and Challenge. These five characteristics were eventually reapplied to re-examine the case studies and the content of the interviews with the professionals. The findings of this research articulate how the Analytical Framework can be adopted in future research intended to create the conditions for more meaningful art-interactions. This Analytical Framework will assist artists, designers and researchers in their pre-planning and follow up evaluations of the degree of engagement generated by computer-based interactive artworks displayed in transport hubs. The interest that the outcomes of this research has attracted in the field suggests that the framework could be extended to the examination of various computer-based interactive artworks in similar public contexts. In this context, the framework would play a valuable role in uncovering a more dynamic paradigm used to illustrate how meaningful experiences can evolve in similar public spaces

Mustang Daily, April 3, 2003

Student newspaper of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA.https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/studentnewspaper/6995/thumbnail.jp

EVA London 2022: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

The Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London 2022 Conference (EVA London 2022) is co-sponsored by the Computer Arts Society (CAS) and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, of which the CAS is a Specialist Group. Of course, this has been a difficult time for all conferences, with the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time since 2019, the EVA London 2022 Conference is a physical conference. It is also an online conference, as it was in the previous two years. We continue with publishing the proceedings, both online, with open access via ScienceOpen, and also in our traditional printed form, for the second year in full colour. Over recent decades, the EVA London Conference on Electronic Visualisation and the Arts has established itself as one of the United Kingdom’s most innovative and interdisciplinary conferences. It brings together a wide range of research domains to celebrate a diverse set of interests, with a specialised focus on visualisation. The long and short papers in this volume cover varied topics concerning the arts, visualisations, and IT, including 3D graphics, animation, artificial intelligence, creativity, culture, design, digital art, ethics, heritage, literature, museums, music, philosophy, politics, publishing, social media, and virtual reality, as well as other related interdisciplinary areas. The EVA London 2022 proceedings presents a wide spectrum of papers, demonstrations, Research Workshop contributions, other workshops, and for the seventh year, the EVA London Symposium, in the form of an opening morning session, with three invited contributors. The conference includes a number of other associated evening events including ones organised by the Computer Arts Society, Art in Flux, and EVA International. As in previous years, there are Research Workshop contributions in this volume, aimed at encouraging participation by postgraduate students and early-career artists, accepted either through the peer-review process or directly by the Research Workshop chair. The Research Workshop contributors are offered bursaries to aid participation. In particular, EVA London liaises with Art in Flux, a London-based group of digital artists. The EVA London 2022 proceedings includes long papers and short “poster” papers from international researchers inside and outside academia, from graduate artists, PhD students, industry professionals, established scholars, and senior researchers, who value EVA London for its interdisciplinary community. The conference also features keynote talks. A special feature this year is support for Ukrainian culture after its invasion earlier in the year. This publication has resulted from a selective peer review process, fitting as many excellent submissions as possible into the proceedings. This year, submission numbers were lower than previous years, mostly likely due to the pandemic and a new requirement to submit drafts of long papers for review as well as abstracts. It is still pleasing to have so many good proposals from which to select the papers that have been included. EVA London is part of a larger network of EVA international conferences. EVA events have been held in Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, California, Cambridge (both UK and USA), Canberra, Copenhagen, Dallas, Delhi, Edinburgh, Florence, Gifu (Japan), Glasgow, Harvard, Jerusalem, Kiev, Laval, London, Madrid, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Paris, Prague, St Petersburg, Thessaloniki, and Warsaw. Further venues for EVA conferences are very much encouraged by the EVA community. As noted earlier, this volume is a record of accepted submissions to EVA London 2022. Associated online presentations are in general recorded and made available online after the conference

Sonic heritage: listening to the past

History is so often told through objects, images and photographs, but the potential of sounds to reveal place and space is often neglected. Our research project ‘Sonic Palimpsest’1 explores the potential of sound to evoke impressions and new understandings of the past, to embrace the sonic as a tool to understand what was, in a way that can complement and add to our predominant visual understandings. Our work includes the expansion of the Oral History archives held at Chatham Dockyard to include women’s voices and experiences, and the creation of sonic works to engage the public with their heritage. Our research highlights the social and cultural value of oral history and field recordings in the transmission of knowledge to both researchers and the public. Together these recordings document how buildings and spaces within the dockyard were used and experienced by those who worked there. We can begin to understand the social and cultural roles of these buildings within the community, both past and present

Airport Aura – A Spatial History of Airport Infrastructure

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the emergence of airports as gateways for their cities has turned into one of the most important architectural undertakings. Ever since the first manned flight by the Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17th 1903, utilitarian sheds next to landing strips on cow pastures evolved into a completely new building type over the next few decades – into places of Modernism as envisioned by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright (who themselves never built an airport), to eventually turn into icons of cultural identity, progress and prosperity. Many of these airports have become architectural branding devices of their respective cities, regions and countries, created by some of the most notable contemporary architects. This interdisciplinary cultural study deals with the historical formation and transformation of the architectural typology of airports under the aspect of spatial theories. This includes the shift from early spaces of transportation such as train stations, the synesthetic effect of travel and mobility and the effects of material innovations on the development, occupation and use of such spaces. The changing uses from mere utilitarian transportation spaces to ones centered on the spectacular culture of late capitalism, consumption and identity formation in a rapidly changing global culture are analyzed with examples both from architectural and philosophical points of view. The future of airport architecture and design very much looks like the original idea of the Crystal Palace and Parisian Arcades: to provide a stage for consumption, social theatre and art exhibition

Discrete Automation - Eyes of the City

Observing people’s presence in physical space and deciphering their behaviors have always been critical actions to designers, planners and anyone else who has an interest in exploring how cities work. It was 1961 when Jane Jacobs, in her seminal book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, coined a famous expression to convey this idea. According to Jacobs, “the natural proprietors” of a certain part of the metropolis – the people who live, work or spend a substantial amount of time there – become the “eyes on the street.” Their collective, distributed, decentralized gaze becomes the prerequisite to establishing “a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city.” Almost half a century later, we find ourselves at the inception of a new chapter in the relationship between the city and digital technologies, which calls for a reexamination of the old “eyes on the street” idea. In the next few years, thanks to the most recent advances in Artificial Intelligence, deep learning and imaging, we are about to reach an unprecedented scenario, the most radical development in the evolution of the Internet-of-Things: architectural space is acquiring the full ability to “see.” Imagine that any room, street or shop in our city can recognize you, and autonomously respond to your presence. With Jacobs’s “eyes on the street,” it was people who looked at other people or the city and interpreted its mechanisms. In this new scenario, buildings and streets similarly acquire the ability to observe and react as urban life unfolds in front of them. After the “eyes on the street,” we are now entering the era of the “Eyes of the City.” What happens, then, to people and the urban landscape when the sensor-imbued city is able to gaze back? What we are currently facing is an “utopia or oblivion” crossroads, to say it with the words of one of the most notable thinkers of the past century, Richard Buckminster Fuller. We believe that one of the fundamental duties of architects and designers today is to grapple with this momentous shift, and engage people in the process. “Eyes of the City” aims to experiment with these emerging scenarios to better comprehend them, deconstructing the potential uses of new technologies in order to make them accessible to everyone and inspire people to form an opinion. Using critical design as a tool, the exhibition seeks to create experiences that will encourage people to get involved in defining the ways in which new technologies will shape their cities in years to come. For this reason, it recognizes in Shenzhen’s Futian high-speed railway station its natural home – a place where to reach a broad, diverse audience of intentional visitors and accidental passersby, and a space where, just like in most other liminal transportation hubs, the impact of an “Eyes of the City” scenario is likely going to be felt the most

The building that disappeared : the Viipuri Library by Alvar Aalto

This dissertation introduces the `life´ of one building: the Viipuri Library, designed by Alvar Aalto in 1927-1935. The theoretical perspective draws from the field of material culture studies and the agency of objects. In the case of this particular building, the research enquires what buildings `do´as part of our material environment. In the context of architecture, the library has a role as an important early work by Aalto, while it is also internationally valued as a key building of modernist architecture. The meanings associated with this building are, however, also rooted in its geopolitical context. The library was originally opened in the Finnish city Viipuri, but at the end of World War II the city along with the larger region referred to as ´lost Karelia were annexed to the Soviet Union. Since 1991 the building has been located in present-day Russia. After the end of the Cold War, the Soviet/Russian, Finnish and international architectural community has advocated for the need to restore the library. The restoration was realized through Finnish-Russian cooperation, and completed in 2013. Regarding the building, this research aims to provide answers to two questions: 1) What exactly are the contexts in which the library has been presented as a building of importance? 2) What, if anything, is special about this particular library, enabling it with the ´capacity´to bring together recognizably different contexts? The study proceeds from two notions. First, that the library has been associated with contexts where there is something larger at stake, making the building stand out as a case of `more than just a building´. Second, that this particular building surfaces in very different types of materials ranging from professional architectural publications to war histories and opinion pieces in Finnish newspapers, which locate the building in Viipuri and lost Karelia. With use of materials from archival documents, military photographs, newspapers of the period, architectural drawings and publications, this work aims to unravel the `life cycle´ of the library to the present day. The structure of the thesis is thematic and approximately chronological. The main body consists of four thematic chapters. The first chapter titled `The City´ introduces the local context, the events behind the realisation of the library. The second chapter, `The Architect´. brings forth the context of architecture. focusing on the design process, Alvar Aalto building his career as an internationally recognized architect and the first Finnish and international reception of the library. The third chapter titled `The Lost Library´ describes the period of World War Ii when the borders moved back and forth between Finland and the Soviet Union. The fourth chapter, `The Restoration´, is where all the preceding events come together, as the building’s architectural importance and its geopolitical history are all discussed in association with the restoration project. The contents of the fourth thematic chapters are analysed through the lens of a theory developed by Alfred Gell in his work Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory (1998). This theory is widely known in the field of anthropology, but has remained essentially unused. I suggest that Gell’s theory offers thought-provoking terminology and tools for analyzing the built environment, specifically objects of architecture. Gell’s main assertion is that meanings are not given, and it is instead the social-relational-matrix within which material objects gain their meanings. As situations and interpretations change, material objects, such as the library, are not about assigned meanings, and their efficacy is instead rooted in specific contexts. In this way, objects such as the library can `abduct´ meanings. This work introduces the library as an exemplary case of a Gellian `distributed´ object, a building that has come to stand for notions much larger and more abstract beyond itself.Käsillä oleva tutkimus esittelee yhden rakennuksen, vuonna 1935 valmistuneen Viipurin kirjaston vaiherikkaan `elämän´. Teoreettinen lähtökohtani on materiaalisen kulttuurin merkitys ja esineiden toimijuus. Tutkimuksessani kysyn, mitä rakennukset `tekevät´ käyttäen esimerkkinä yhtä rakennusta. Kiinnostukseni tutkia aihetta perustui huomioon, että Viipurin kirjastoa on käsitelty hyvin erilaisissa yhteyksissä, arkkitehtuurin alan kirjallisuudesta sota-historioihin ja yleisönosastokirjoituksiin. Väitteeni on, että Viipurin kirjasto on rakennus, jolla on `kyky´ tuottaa erilaisia tulkintoja. Arkkitehtuurin alalla Viipurin kirjasto tunnetaan sekä merkittävänä Alvar Aallon varhaisena työnä että yhtenä modernin arkkitehtuurin avainteoksena. Rakennukseen assosioituvat merkitykset perustuvat myös sen geopoliittiseen sijaintiin ja historiaan. Kirjasto on sijainnut olemassa olonsa aikana kolmessa valtiossa: itsenäisessä Suomessa, Neuvostoliitossa ja nykyisellä Venäjällä. Kylmän sodan päättymisen jälkeen venäläiset, suomalaiset ja ulkomaiset arkkitehdit huolestuivat kirjaston kunnosta ja ryhtyivät edistämään sen restaurointia. Sijaintinsa ansiosta kirjasto on kiinnostanut myös laajempaa yleisöä, erityisesti Suomessa. Tutkimus pyrkii vastaamaan kahteen kysymykseen: 1) Millaisissa yhteyksissä kirjasto on esitelty tärkeänä rakennuksena? 2) Mikä tekee tästä rakennuksesta erityisen ja antaa sille ´kyvyn´ tuottaa erilaisia tulkintoja? Vastatakseni näihin kysymyksiin olen purkanut kirjaston `elämän´ tapahtumiin, joista sen merkitys rakentuu. Tutkimuksen rakenne on temaattinen ja kronologinen. Esittelen rakennuksen keskeiset vaiheet neljässä luvussa. Ensimmäinen luku `The City´ (Kaupunki) esittelee paikallisen kontekstin, kirjaston toteutuksen Viipurin kaupungissa. Toinen luku, `The Architect´ (Arkkitehti) käsittelee arkkitehtuurin kontekstia ja keskittyy rakennuksen suunnitteluprosessiin, Alvar Aallon uran muotoutumiseen sekä rakennuksen kotimaiseen ja kansainväliseen vastaanottoon. Kolmas luku, `The Lost Library´(Kadonnut kirjasto) kuvailee toisen maailmansodan aikaisia tapahtumia: miten rajan siirtyminen Suomen ja Neuvostoliiton välillä vaikutti Viipuriin ja kirjastoon. Neljäs luku, `The Restoration´ (Restaurointi) tuo yhteen aikaisemmin esitellyt teemat, jotka nousivat esiin myös restaurointia koskevassa keskustelussa: rakennuksen arkkitehtonisen merkityksen, Viipurin ja menetetyn Karjalan sekä kirjaston luonteen julkisena rakennuksena. Analysoin temaattisissa luvuissa esiteltyjä tapahtumia Alfred Gellin kirjassaan Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory (1998) esittämän teorian avulla. teos on tunnettu antropologian alalla, mutta sitä on hyödynnetty niukasti. Tutkimuksessani sovellan Gellin teoriaa Viipurin kirjaston tapaukseen. Väitän, että teoria tarjoaa hyödyllisiä käsitteitä ja työkaluja rakennetun ympäristön ja arkkitehtuurin analysointiin. Arkkitehtuuri on monin tavoin taiteen kaltaista, mutta samalla se ylittää tavanomaisten taideteorioiden rajat. Syynä tähän on, että arkkitehtuuri on tehty käytettäväksi, ja sen merkitykset muotoutuvat ja muuttuvat ajan kuluessa. Esitän, että Viipurin kirjasto on hyvä esimerkki gelliläisestä `jakautuneesta objektista´ (distributed object), jolla on `kyky´ kiinnittää itseensä laajoja ja abstrakteja merkityksiä

Coraline

Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) is stop-motion studio LAIKA's feature-length debut based on the popular children's novel by British author Neil Gaiman. Heralding a revival in global interest in stop-motion animation, the film is both an international cultural phenomenon and a breakthrough moment in the technological evolution of the craft. This open access collection brings together an international group of practitioners and scholars to examine Coraline’s place in animation history and culture, dissect its politics, and unpack its role in the technological and aesthetic development of its medium. More broadly, it celebrates stop motion as a unique and enduring artform while embracing its capacity to evolve in response to cultural, political, and technological changes, as well as shifting critical and audience demands. Divided into three sections, this volume’s chapters situate Coraline within an interconnected network of historical, industrial, discursive, theoretical, and cultural contexts. They place the film in conversation with the medium’s aesthetic and technological history, broader global intellectual and political traditions, and questions of animation reception and spectatorship. In doing so, they invite recognition – and appreciation – of the fact that Coraline occupies many liminal spaces at once. It straddles the boundary between children’s entertainment and traditional ‘adult’ genres, such as horror and thriller. It complicates a seemingly straight(forward) depiction of normative family life with gestures of queer resistance. Finally, it marks a pivotal point in stop-motion animation’s digital turn. Following the film’s recent tenth anniversary, the time is right to revisit its production history, evaluate its cultural and industry impact, and celebrate its legacy as contemporary stop-motion cinema’s gifted child. As the first book-length academic study of this contemporary animation classic, this volume serves as an authoritative introduction and a primary reference on the film for scholars, students, practitioners, and animation fans. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com