INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology 5 (II/2020)

The fifth issue of INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology is the second one we are preparing and publishing in the Covid-19 pandemic. And while the theme for the previous issue was conceived in a world unburdened with what has preoccupied our minds and lives in 2020, the theme for this one is directly shaped by it. During the Spring, when we were taken aback by the governmental measures and the fear of the “invisible enemy” (the use of militant vocabulary is rather prominent in the discourse surrounding the virus), the uncertainty for the future grew strong. However, at that time, we could not predict the longevity, brevity and consequences of the pandemic – in December we are still not certain, but we are getting tired. This is why I would like to thank all the authors for working with us in these trying times, unpacking what can only be a beginning of ‘a global crisis’ during the Summer and Autumn of 2020. The main theme of the issue, Music, Art, and Technology in the Time of Global Crisis, strives to capture this period through the lens of workers in art, music, and academia around the world, focusing on the role and place of arts and technology in our/their relocated institutional realities

COBE's search for structure in the Big Bang

The launch of Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the definition of Earth Observing System (EOS) are two of the major events at NASA-Goddard. The three experiments contained in COBE (Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), and Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE)) are very important in measuring the big bang. DMR measures the isotropy of the cosmic background (direction of the radiation). FIRAS looks at the spectrum over the whole sky, searching for deviations, and DIRBE operates in the infrared part of the spectrum gathering evidence of the earliest galaxy formation. By special techniques, the radiation coming from the solar system will be distinguished from that of extragalactic origin. Unique graphics will be used to represent the temperature of the emitting material. A cosmic event will be modeled of such importance that it will affect cosmological theory for generations to come. EOS will monitor changes in the Earth's geophysics during a whole solar color cycle

Changing society : technology and lifelong learning in the public eye

I begin with the assumption that representations of technology (specifically, in the context of this thesis, print and televised advertisements) offer valuable insights into contemporary perceptions of technology, learning and adulthood that are germane to the theory and practice of lifelong learning. I use a combination of textual analysis and philosophical reflection to study what happens when a postmodern and/or modem tool (the technological product) is applied to a postmodern and/or modem terrain (education). My method - a deconstruction of advertisements for technological products with educational applications - positions this research within the fields of education, media studies and hermeneutics, and represents a new interdisciplinary configuration. The thesis has three central arguments. The first is a philosophical claim about a reconciliation between modem and postmodern readings, one that is consonant with a critical realist methodology (briefly, the position that there is a real world to be interpreted, but knowledge of it can never be absolute and many possible interpretations exist). The second argument is that normative distinctions between education, work and play (education and play alternatively being conceptualised as learning and leisure with slightly different connotations) are eroded both in the text of the advertisements selected and in contemporary theory and rhetoric. The third, allied, claim is that normative assumptions sharply differentiating children from adults are divested of their metaphorical power in advertisements that reflect shifting demographic trends and perceived technological change. The impulse of continuing education to find fruitfulness in the blurring of boundaries (epitomised in the currency of the term ‘lifelong learning’) is elaborated in the new context of ambiguous theory and media representation, and this thesis represents a significant contribution to this ongoing impulse

Getting smarter? : inventing context bound feminist research/writing with/in the postmodern

This thesis is a contribution to the debates about the impact of ‘postmodernism’ on qualitative research practices. It is a performative discourse on the invention of feminist research methods with/in the postmodern (here, related to the pedagogy of Rape Crisis volunteer counsellor training). It addresses how feminism acting with/in postmodernism may experiment with the invention of a ‘new’ method hyper-textual electronic bricolage, which 1 name from my readings of Gregory Ulmer’s re-readings of Jacques Derrida. The research takes into account the enframing limits of technologies to argue that the theory and practice of electronic data analysis has been modelled to fit with/in existing notions of reading, writing, and the culture of qualitative research practice. It asserts that to invent a feminist research practice with/in the postmodern requires that we use hypertext not to do the work of print but to facilitate an alternative way of knowing materials. The thesis attends to the possibilities of electronic scripting as invention, and to the production of a print text arising from this. This electronically generated method bears the same relation to current CAQDAS (computer aided qualitative data analysis) techniques as the ‘new’ evocative ethnographic writings bear to the traditional ethnographic text. The thesis tells a reflective story of carrying out feminist inspired empirical work with/in the postmodern. It shows how, if feminism acting with/in the postmodern conceptualises research as an enactment of power relations between constituted subjects, the nature of our research conceptions and practices changes. It includes a multi-linear layered ‘collective story’ arising from the electronic hypertext generated from qualitative interview materials. This scripts some of the common themes that are important in forging an understanding of women’s experiences of Rape Crisis counsellor training, yet always retains an awareness of the significant differences between these tales. Finally, the thesis suggests that, if we are to develop feminist research methods with/in the postmodern that take into account the enframing limits of our technologies, we need to attend to the re-mapping of validities as we move from print to electronic ways of doing/knowing research