The Human Use of the Human Face: The Photographic Self-­Portrait in the Age of the Selfie

Karen Ann Donnachie's research explores the phenomenon of the selfie as a vehicle for the mass projection of self and the effect it has on contemporary notions of identity, society and photography. During her practice-led research, Donnachie created electronic, algorithmic and Internet artworks including self-made and self-programmed ‘selfie’ cameras. This thesis maps the complex genre of the selfie between performance, narcissism, social tic, intrinsic desire for self-projection and a quest for authenticity and human connection

Copyright and the Brain

This Article explores the intersection of copyright law, aesthetic theory, and neuroscience. The current test for copyright infringement requires a court or jury to assess whether the parties’ works are “substantially similar” from the vantage point of the “ordinary observer.” Embedded within this test are several assumptions about audiences and art. Brain science calls these assumptions into question. The substantial similarity test posits that aesthetic reactions are unmeasurable and uniform. In actuality, they can be quantified and vary depending on audience and artistic medium. Neuroscience has already reconfigured the law in many areas, from tort damages to the death penalty. Now it may offer copyright law a way forward, opening up the black box of aesthetic encounters to reveal what is most salient when making the comparison at the heart of copyright infringement. Three suggested reforms—admitting expert testimony to tailor the substantial similarity test to different kinds of artistic works, using survey evidence to better understand the aesthetic responses of specialized audiences, and reordering the infringement analysis to debias judges and jurors—deploy the insights of neuroaesthetics to improve the law of copyright infringement

The mattering of African contemporary art: value and valuation from the studio to the collection

This interdisciplinary research bridging geography and fine art (‘geo-aesthetics’) follows contemporary artwork journeys from the studio into the public domain to discover how notions of value shift as the artwork travels. It seeks transfigurative nodes and their catalysts to explore how art matters: firstly how it becomes matter in the studio, and then how it comes to matter beyond the studio door. Two case studies at key moments of revaluation, a buy-out and a buy-in, both reveal responses to uncertainty that stress different kinds of collectivity. The first case study follows artistic practice and process in four studios in a Johannesburg atelier to investigate intrinsic value and finds ‘artistic thinking’. The second case study follows the assemblage of a private art collection managed from Cape Town, initially as an art fund, to investigate extrinsic valuation and finds ‘structural thinking’. These different modalities in the production and consumption circuitry of the artworld have unexpected correlations including shared artists and three linking concepts, namely, uncertainty, mobility, and the web. These in turn inform three observations: nested capacity, derivative value, and art as a public good. Two key findings emerge: contemporary art is itself a vector of value that performs meaning as it moves; and public interest is a central characteristic from which other valuations flow. The research uses repeat interviews, site visits and visual methods, which are triangulated with artwork trajectories to surface linkages between space and imagination. It offers a performative theory of value that speaks to an expanded new materialism. Applying an ecological framework allows a final transfiguration for an artworld ecosystem that (re)values contemporary art as part of an undercommons

Renal hemodynamic changes and renal functional reserve in children with type I diabetes mellitus

Increased glomerular filtration rate (GFR) has been implicated in the development of diabetic nephropathy. Large normal interindividual variations of GFR hamper the diagnosis of renal hemodynamic alterations. We examined renal functional reserve (RFR) in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus to assess whether hyperfiltration occurs. The renal hemodynamic response following dopamine infusion was examined in 51 normoalbuminuric diabetic children (7.7 +/- 3.6 years) with a mean duration of diabetes of 6.2 years and compared them with 34 controls. Mean baseline GFR in diabetic children did not differ from the control population (130.7 +/- 22.9 vs. 124.8 +/- 25 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) stop), whereas renal plasma flow was significantly lower (463.7 +/- 103.9 vs. 587.2 +/- 105 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) , p < 0.001), and filtration fraction was increased (29 +/- 8 vs. 21 +/- 2%, p < 0.001), compared with controls. The mean RFR was lower (p < 0.001) than in control subjects (-0.77 +/- 23 vs. 21 +/- 8 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) stop). This study documents an increased filtration fraction and reduced or absent RFR in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus in the stage before apparent nephropathy. GFR values were within normal range. Although the reduced RFR and increased filtration fraction indicate the presence of hemodynamic changes, their relevance to the development of hyperfiltration and subsequent diabetic nephropathy remains unknown