Myth and history in Commonwealth literature

The author's interest in Commonwealth Literature is grounded in a concern about the place of English in post-colonial Malta. The writing of those who have been, like the Maltese, through the process of renegotiating their identity through and beyond Independence is of particular interest to our students. In addition, the fact that the author teaches English Colonial, Australian and African Literature within the Department of English has shown her how quick Maltese students are to grasp different aspects of identity construction in the work of these writers. An exploration of myth and history in Commonwealth Literature showed that the traditional European opposition between mythological thought and historic vision was untenable vis-a-vis the writer's practice in Africa, Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Writers such as Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Wole Soyinka, Patrick White and Randolph Stow often show a mythopoeic sensibility as well as political consciousness. Such writers utilise myth but do not allow their novels to move outside a time referent. They project indigenous religions with their gods and rituals but remain grounded in their society's actual situation, which they are fully committed to ameliorate.peer-reviewe

Jurisdictional Barriers to Enforcement

Preprin

The Brussels Ia Regulation as an Instrument for the Undermining of Press Freedoms and the Rule of Law : an Urgent Call for Reform

Publisher PD

SonicDraw: a web-based tool for sketching sounds and drawings

We present SonicDraw, a web browser tool that lies in between a drawing and a sound design interface. Through this ambiguity we aim to explore new kinds of user interactions as the creative process can be led either by sound or visual feedback loops. We performed a user evaluation to assess how users negotiated the affordances of the system and how it supported their creativity. We measured the System Usability Scale (SUS), the Creativity Support Index (CSI) and conducted an inductive thematic analysis of qualitative feedback. Results indicate that users find SonicDraw a very easy and intuitive tool which fosters the exploration for new unexpected combinations of sounds and drawings. However, the tool seems to fail in engaging high-skilled musicians or drawers wanting to create more complex pieces. To infer knowledge about user interaction, we also propose a quantitative analysis of drawing dynamics. Two contrasting modes of interaction are likely occurring, one where sketches act as direct controls of sonic attributes (sound focus), and the other where sketches feature semantic content (e.g. a house) that indirectly controls sound (visual focus)

The jewel beetle (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) fauna of Malta : remarks and additions

The jewel beetle fauna of the Maltese Islands was recently studied by Mifsud & Bily (2002) and a total of seventeen species were recorded. The present note is intended to provide data on a new record of a buprestid for Malta and includes other information on some previously recorded species.peer-reviewe

Open Band: Audiotype

Open Band is a collective performance, that deals with a contradiction of the social media, that is the apartness of the individual on their devices social media, to propose a collective sound intervention, were a conductor interacts with the audience through an anonymous chat interface that converts text into sound messages. In this version, we are working only with web audio synthesis, based on an idea of audio typography

User experience in an interactive music virtual reality system: An exploratory study

The Objects VR interface and study explores interactive music and virtual reality, focusing on user experience, understanding of musical functionality, and interaction issues. Our system offers spatio-temporal music interaction using 3D geometric shapes and their designed relationships. Control is provided by tracking of the hands, and the experience is rendered across a head-mounted display with binaural sound presented over headphones. The evaluation of the system uses a mixed methods approach based on semi-structured interviews, surveys and video-based interaction analysis. On average the system was positively received in terms of interview self-report, metrics for spatial presence and creative support. Interaction analysis and interview thematic analysis also revealed instances of frustration with interaction and levels of confusion with system functionality. Our results allow reflection on design criteria and discussion of implications for facilitating music engagement in virtual reality. Finally our work discusses the effectiveness of measures with respect to future evaluation of novel interactive music systems in virtual reality

Co-design of a Smart Cajon

The work of Luca Turchet is supported by a Marie-Curie Individual fellowship of European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, under grant agreement No. 749561. Mathieu Barthet also acknowledges support from the EU H2020 Audio Commons grant (688382)