L’Afrofuturismo e la crisi dell’umanesimo: prospettive recenti, visioni attuali e linguaggi futuri in Kodwo Eshun, John Akomfrah e nella musica techno

The essay outlines the origins of Afrofuturism, comparing the philosophical and musical theories of one of its founders, Kodwo Eshun, with the languages that best express the aesthetics, the perspectives and the diasporic nature of Afrofuturism. First of all, the artistic work by director John Akomfrah, and secondarily the essential contribution of techno music as the emblem of hybridization between past and future through the black rhythms extrapolated from electronic machines in the deindustrialized city of Detroit at the end of the Nineties. Starting from the matrix it is possible to see through the significance of the afrofuturist mainstream wave of the recent years, taking into account the contemporary crisis of western humanism, which risks colonizing afrofuturism and to translate it into a new exoticism

Arrivederci a San Junipero. Estetiche metaseriali della paranoia, dalla theory-fiction alla funzione black mirror

The British TV series Black Mirror, with its enunciative (starting from the opening sequence) and marketing strategies (both online and offline), has triggered innovative spectatorial dynamics in audiovisual seriality. They operate in the interzone known as ‘the space of the black mirror’ and rely on a radical exploitation of media convergence. The series has a strong ‘meta-serial’ component which becomes even stronger from season to season, from episode to episode. Starting from the interactive film Bandersnacth (2018), as well as other relevant episodes, the present paper aims to analyse the contemporary and progressive loss of autonomy of human beings and the crisis of their individual unity. Therefore, this paper deals with the ineluctable nostalgia for and the importance of the human dimension, as well as the functions played by Black Mirror. In particular, we focus on the categories of humanism, the collapse of the space-time linearity, and the questionable notion of ‘future’ which is broadly applied to most scenarios. Videodrome (1982) is here proposed as the antecedent of Black Mirror in order to better understand the advent of the new flesh, an electronic flesh which innervates the so-called BlackDrome

Lo statuto dell’immagine nel XXI Secolo

Abstract not availabl

HmtDB, a genomic resource for mitochondrion-based human variability studies

HmtDB (http://www.hmtdb.uniba.it:8080/hmdb) is a open resource created to support population genetics and mitochondrial disease studies. The database hosts human mitochondrial genome sequences annotated with population and variability data, the latter being estimated through the application of the SiteVar software based on site-specific nucleotide and amino acid variability calculations. The annotations are manually curated thus adding value to the quality of the information provided to the end-user. Classifier tools implemented in HmtDB allow the prediction of the haplogroup for any human mitochondrial genome currently stored in HmtDB or externally submitted de novo by an end-user. Haplogroup definition is based on the Phylotree system. End-users accessing HmtDB are hence allowed to (i) browse the database through the use of a multi-criterion ‘query’ system; (ii) analyze their own human mitochondrial sequences via the ‘classify’ tool (for complete genomes) or by downloading the ‘fragment-classifier’ tool (for partial sequences); (iii) download multi-alignments with reference genomes as well as variability data

A platform independent RNA-Seq protocol for the detection of transcriptome complexity

Background: Recent studies have demonstrated an unexpected complexity of transcription in eukaryotes. The majority of the genome is transcribed and only a little fraction of these transcripts is annotated as protein coding genes and their splice variants. Indeed, most transcripts are the result of antisense, overlapping and non-coding RNA expression. In this frame, one of the key aims of high throughput transcriptome sequencing is the detection of all RNA species present in the cell and the first crucial step for RNA-seq users is represented by the choice of the strategy for cDNA library construction. The protocols developed so far provide the utilization of the entire library for a single sequencing run with a specific platform. Results: We set up a unique protocol to generate and amplify a strand-specific cDNA library representative of all RNA species that may be implemented with all major platforms currently available on the market (Roche 454, Illumina, ABI/SOLiD). Our method is reproducible, fast, easy-to-perform and even allows to start from low input total RNA. Furthermore, we provide a suitable bioinformatics tool for the analysis of the sequences produced following this protocol. Conclusion: We tested the efficiency of our strategy, showing that our method is platform-independent, thus allowing the simultaneous analysis of the same sample with different NGS technologies, and providing an accurate quantitative and qualitative portrait of complex whole transcriptomes

Evolutionary Analyses of Entire Genomes Do Not Support the Association of mtDNA Mutations with Ras/MAPK Pathway Syndromes

BACKGROUND: There are several known autosomal genes responsible for Ras/MAPK pathway syndromes, including Noonan syndrome (NS) and related disorders (such as LEOPARD, neurofibromatosis type 1), although mutations of these genes do not explain all cases. Due to the important role played by the mitochondrion in the energetic metabolism of cardiac muscle, it was recently proposed that variation in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome could be a risk factor in the Noonan phenotype and in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which is a common clinical feature in Ras/MAPK pathway syndromes. In order to test these hypotheses, we sequenced entire mtDNA genomes in the largest series of patients suffering from Ras/MAPK pathway syndromes analyzed to date (n = 45), most of them classified as NS patients (n = 42). METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The results indicate that the observed mtDNA lineages were mostly of European ancestry, reproducing in a nutshell the expected haplogroup (hg) patterns of a typical Iberian dataset (including hgs H, T, J, and U). Three new branches of the mtDNA phylogeny (H1j1, U5b1e, and L2a5) are described for the first time, but none of these are likely to be related to NS or Ras/MAPK pathway syndromes when observed under an evolutionary perspective. Patterns of variation in tRNA and protein genes, as well as redundant, private and heteroplasmic variants, in the mtDNA genomes of patients were as expected when compared with the patterns inferred from a worldwide mtDNA phylogeny based on more than 8700 entire genomes. Moreover, most of the mtDNA variants found in patients had already been reported in healthy individuals and constitute common polymorphisms in human population groups. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: As a whole, the observed mtDNA genome variation in the NS patients was difficult to reconcile with previous findings that indicated a pathogenic role of mtDNA variants in NS

I Blue Jeans tra ordinario e anomia. Le culture urbane rappresentate in un capo vestimentario sulle riviste musicali

Uno studio sulla rappresentazione ed evoluzione dell'iconografia di genere e di stile dei blue jeans attraverso la pubblicità sulle riviste novecentesche. Parafrasando l’affermazione di James Laver, secondo il quale “gli abiti sono inevitabili. Altro non sono che l’arredamento della mente reso visibile: lo specchio dell’anima di un’epoca” (Laver, 1949, p. 6), possiamo affermare che gli stessi jeans sono inevitabili e per la loro struttura sono capaci di rendere visibile lo spirito del tempo (Morin, 1962), anticipandone i fermenti emergenti

Estetica del malessere. Il nero, il punk, il teschio nei paesaggi mediatici contemporanei

Il teschio è l’icona pop più diffusa del nostro tempo. Vampiri, zombie, junkie sono al centro delle scene urbane. Cinema, fotografia e reti sociali celebrano da un secolo l’immaginario dell’anomia e del disagio: il nero è la tonalità della nostra epoca! Attraverso gli studi visuali e la mediologia, questo libro ne indaga l’iconografia nel solco della schiavitù dei neri, che funge da tragica origine. Mentre cresce il movimento #blacklivesmatter occorre interrogarsi sulle dinamiche che investono darkness e blackness, lusso e sporco, lutto ed estasi. Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Siouxsie Sioux sono, insieme ad altri, i protagonisti di quel processo che ha integrato il male nel quotidiano, rendendolo innocuo e banale