Arte Conceptual

La categoría ‘arte conceptual’ se aplica a una gran cantidad de obras de arte contemporáneo. El artista Sol LeWitt introdujo el término en la jerga del arte al describir obras de arte donde “la idea o el concepto es el aspecto más importante de la obra” (LeWitt 1967: 79, traducción mía). Inicialmente, el término se utilizó para referirse a obras producidas entre finales de los años sesenta y principios de los setenta por artistas como Sol LeWitt, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari, el grupo Art & Language y otros (véase Lippard 1973). En España fueron relevantes el Grup de Treball, Zaj o Esther Ferrer entre otros. Más tarde se hizo evidente no solo que obras como Fuente (1917) de Marcel Duchamp – un urinario de porcelana, que fue firmado “R. Mutt” y presentado para una exposición de la Sociedad de Artistas Independientes – tenían mucho en común con aquellas producidas a finales de la década de 1960 y principios de la de 1970, sino también que obras de arte conceptual continuaron siendo producidas a lo largo de la década de 1970 y las décadas siguientes, hasta el punto de que podría argumentarse que gran parte del arte contemporáneo es, en cierta medida, conceptual. Es característico de los primeros autores conceptuales el uso del lenguaje natural en obras que son en principio visuales o plásticas, como las frases de Weiner, las definiciones de Kosuth o los ensayos de Art&Language. Se trata de un interés por el significado y el lenguaje heredado de la semiótica y la filosofía analítica de la época. También señala el énfasis (a menudo exclusivo) de todas las obras de arte conceptual en el elemento conceptual, como ocurre en los dibujos y pinturas murales de LeWitt, donde el artista produjo las instrucciones para su ejecución, luego las realizó en colaboración con otros, o transfirió completamente a otros esta tarea. Otra característica de las primeras obras de arte conceptual es que los artistas no manipularon ningún material para producir un objeto (como en Fuente de Duchamp) o usaron materiales excéntricos como el lenguaje natural, su propio cuerpo -como en I am the locus (# 1) (1975) de Adrian Piper, una performance en la que la artista se pegó un bigote en la cara, se puso una peluca Afro y anteojos redondos con montura de alambre y caminó en las calles actuando como un hombre-, o el chocolate con el que Anya Gallaccio revistió las paredes de un viejo edificio agrícola en Stroke (2004), dejando que el público las tocara y que el chocolate se pudriese. Debido a sus características inusuales, el arte conceptual plantea muchas preguntas filosóficas: sobre la definición de arte, sobre la ontología y los medios de las obras de arte y sobre nuestra experiencia apreciativa de ellas. En lo que sigue, presentaré brevemente cada uno de estos temas

Translating Popular Astronomy and Astrophysics. A chapter from Astrophysics: A Very Short Introduction

openThis thesis aims at providing a translation from English into Italian of Chapter 3: Stars of James Binney’s popular science book entitled "Astrophysics: A Very Short Introduction", published on March 24, 2016 by Oxford University Press. Before presenting the final translation, some theoretical background with a view towards some concepts, such as languages for specific purposes, controlled natural languages, scientific popularisation and specialised translation are provided to better outline the source text. The work is structured into three chapters, each one being divided into three sections. Chapter 1 provides a definition of special languages, as well as an analysis of their main lexical, morphosyntactic and textual features, with a special focus on the language of science, along with a presentation of the two domains involved, namely astronomy and astrophysics. Lastly, the ASD Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) and two controlled vocabularies, i.e. the NASA Thesaurus and the Unified Astronomical Thesaurus, are presented as an attempt of linguistic standardisation, being the concept of controlled natural languages strongly interrelated with the concept of special language. Chapter 2 focuses on the importance of communicating science, and, more specifically, astronomy and astrophysics, in today’s hyper-technological society. The main features of scientific popularisation and technical and scientific translation, as well as the translation of popular science articles and papers, are discussed, outlining the main analogies and differences between English and Italian texts of the same genre. Finally, last chapter includes the analysis of the source text with some information about the author and the Oxford’s Very Short Introductions book series, the final translation, and the translation process with a detailed commentary of the difficulties encountered and the strategies adopted to face them

Poverty traps in Southern rural Mozambique : a structural equation modelling approach

Mestrado em Desenvolvimento e Cooperação InternacionalEste trabalho visa analisar o contexto de economia rural em três distritos da região Sul de Mozambique, para demonstrar a existência de mecanismos "aprisionadores" que detêm as famílias camponesas numa condição de pobreza. Todas as variáveis tomadas em conta para o estudo resultam de uma base de dados autoproduzida que inclui informação sobre a subsistência no contexto rural e o sector agrícola. Este trabalho utiliza a abordagem dos modelos de equações estruturais (SEM) para detectar as possíveis não-linearidades no processo de criação de riqueza, em particular a través da análise da saúde, do contexto institucional e de mercado, e da segurança alimentar em relação à riqueza das famílias. Recorrendo aos conceitos de complexidade, multidimensionalidade e causação cumulativa, procura-se demonstrar a existência de uma "armadilha da pobreza" a partir da análise das diversas dinâmicas relacionadas com a relação que existe entre segurança alimentar e bem-estar das famílias inquiridas. A metodologia adotada neste trabalho constitui uma alternativa aos testes tradicionalmente utilizados na investigação sobre as armadilhas da pobreza, pois inclui um numero maior de factores na analise da pobreza persistente. Em conclusão, os resultados da estimação do modelo fornecem algumas recomendações em termos de politicas de combate contra a pobreza, de acordo com as características especificas da zona.This article analyses the rural economy of three districts in southern Mozambique, proving the existence of a lock-in device that keeps small-scale farmers and their households into poverty. All variables taken into account result from an original survey-based dataset which includes socio-economic information about rural livelihoods and the agricultural sector. A Structural Equation Modelling approach is adopted to detect non-linearity in wealth creation - in particular by analysing health, market/institutional environment and food security in relation to an asset-based measure of wealth. Drawing upon the concepts of complexity, multidimensionality and cumulative causation, this work proves the existence of a poverty trap by analysing the varying dynamics related to the relationship that exists between food security and wealth. The methodology adopted in this work represents an alternative to the traditional tests usually applied for the detection of poverty traps, including a wider number of factors in the study of persistent poverty; finally, it provides some useful policy recommendations regarding the struggle against poverty in this area.N/

Assessing the Intellectual Value of New Genre Public Art

AbstractSuzanne Lacy introduced the term 'New Genre Public Art' (NGPA) to refer to art practices that depart from those traditional of public art (such as installing works in parks and plazas) and focus instead on the direct engagement of artists with audiences to deal with pressing socio-political issues. In this paper, I argue that some works of NGPA should be valued for the intellectual value grounded in their artistic features, not dissimilarly to works of conceptual art. In developing my argument, I take distance from Vid Simoniti's recent account of 'Socially Engaged Art', offer a thorough analysis of Thomas Hirschhorn's Bataille Monument (2002) and Kathrin Bohm's and Stefan Saffer's Mobile Porch (1999), and submit that both such works qualify as good works of NGPA

Cosmic Microwave Background Spectral Distortions and Primordial Gravitational Waves

Distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectrum in the frequency domain provides a new window onto a variety of cosmological phenomena, including the physics of the early Universe. These distortions are tiny departures of the CMB frequency spectrum from a pure blackbody which are created whenever the energy or the number density of the CMB photons is changed and therefore encode information about the thermal history of the Universe. They can be produced by a number of processes occurring at the early stages of cosmic history and therefore allow us to probe the standard picture of cosmology. Spectral distortions are created by processes that drive matter and radiation out of equilibrium. This could be related to early energy injection. Depending on the moment of injection, this causes a distortion which can be of two main types, namely the so called µ and y-type distortions. The standard cosmological model predicts the production of CMB spectral distortions, thanks to various effects, one of which is the dissipation of acoustic waves of the photon-baryon plasma through the Silk damping effect. Such distortions can be used to constrain the power of the primordial density perturbations arising from inflation in the range . Moreover, this work will include an original part focused on the possibility of generating statistically anisotropic features in the CMB spectral distortions and on sources of these anisotropic features. Within many candidates, there are the so called inflationary fossils, models in which the scalar field driving inflation couples to a new primordial degree of freedom. In particular, tensor fossils refer to long wavelength relic gravitational waves from inflation that produce a quadrupolar modulation of curvature perturbations. The tensor fossils no longer interact, or interact very weakly, during late time cosmic evolution. Therefore, the unique observational effect due to the coupling with the inflaton field would be to give rise to local departures from statistical isotropy in the primordial curvature perturbation field. The original contribution of this Thesis will consist in the study of how this new tensor degree of freedom can distort the primordial scalar curvature two point correlation function. In order to evaluate this, the mixed bispectrum involving tensor scalar scalar fluctuations will be computed in the so called squeezed limit configuration, which gives rise to an anisotropic power spectrum of curvature (density) perturbations. Hence, in this work, we delve into CMB spectral distortions, pointing out the main features and their importance. We derive the cross correlation between CMB anisotropies and CMB spectral distortions, which is a useful observable to constrain primordial non Gaussianity. We then focus on the study of the imprints of the tensor fossils on cosmic structures. We will see how tensor fossils can leave a signature in the CMB spectral distortions, by evaluating the ensemble average of the µ distortion modulated by the long wavelength tensor mode. Then, we will also compute the corresponding cross correlation between CMB anisotropies and µ distortions, computing the tensor scalar scalar and the scalar tensor tensor bispectra, both in the case of modulation

The Interaction Of Three Dimensions Of Trust, Relational Selling, Team Selling And B2B Sales Success In The European Market

This study investigates the interaction of trust, relational selling behavior, team sales, and sales success in a business-to-business environment. The study data were collected in Europe for 270 different purchase situations for which business buyers rated their suppliers’ salespersons on various dimensions. This research considers the relationships among three levels of trust and relational selling behaviors and measures the interaction of successful or unsuccessful selling environment, continuing purchase conditions for the buyers and the presence of team selling circumstances. The findings indicate that the three levels of trust are related positively, that successful salespersons are rated significantly higher by buyers for all three trust scales and for relational behavior. In addition, relational selling behavior is favored by buyers in repeat purchase conditions. Further results indicate limited interaction among trust and relational behavior in team selling conditions