Travel, space and transformation

Under the theme of transformation through physical and non-physical travel, this article explores known and unknown worlds, and real, imagined, and virtual spaces, through collaborative art and performative writing practices. The weaving of real stories and aspirations, and the notion of the journey that extends beyond or breaks through cultural boundaries and stories of personal transformation are themes that are explored in particular. The article further explores virtual worlds as spaces of and for the imagination, where the entanglement of the physical with the virtual is exploited for its creative potential. In particular, there are opportunities to further explore our understanding of the transforming act of virtual and imagined travel through an exploration of the experience of time, space and place

Virtual Worlds and New Realms of Creativity: The Kritical Works in SL Project

Kritical Works in SL is an inWorld exhibition hosted on Kriti Island on the Second Life (SL) grid, curated by Wanderingfictions Story, my virtual counterpart, and includes work by ten international artists produced in and for SL. The project was launched at ISEA2008 in Singapore. The artists invited to contribute to Kritical Works in SL were selected because they were already exploring the SL platform in some way in their creative practice. Many of the contributors were already well known within SL for their virtual arts practice through their virtual personas and avatars. Under the theme of Reality Jam, the work produced explored the relationship between the virtual and the real within the SL environment. This is the discursive space, described by Jones as the struggle between the real and the virtual, \u27that makes virtual reality and virtual worlds so compelling to the contemporary imagination\u27 (2006: 15). This paper will reflect upon the challenges and opportunities of inWorld spaces for creative practice, the role of the virtual artist, and how new virtual practices and virtual relationships are transforming creative opportunities in online and virtual worlds

Immersive storytelling in mixed reality environments

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by IEEE in Proceedings of the 2017 23rd International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM) on 26/04/2018, available online: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8346299 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.How will we adapt to a future that may see humans as an interplanetary species? The proposed project uses themes of outer space, future worlds and space travel to examine ways in which our future identities may be formed from these new environments, the role/s we may have in future societies; and the relationships that we will form with the people we will meet. The utilization of virtual and mixed reality (AR/VR) technologies can be a powerful tool in which to place the audience in different scenarios, to experience it from different viewpoints, and to allow them to anticipate what the future may look, feel like, and indeed be like, by being placed into a set of future space scenarios. This paper presents ideas from an interdisciplinary team of artists, scientists, and technologists of methodological approaches for art-science-technology and the prototypes anticipated through these dialogues.Published versio

Lyrical Music Improves 5 km Time Trial Performance Compared to Non-Lyrical Music

This study examined the effects of lyrical music compared to non-lyrical music on 5 km running performance. Thirteen subjects with an average age of 33.5 ± 8.3 years of age ran three separate 5 km time trials. The first trial acted as a familiarization trial where no music was present, followed by either a lyrical or non-lyrical music trial in a random counterbalanced order. Trial times, RPE, HR, and questionnaire information was analyzed using paired samples t-tests, ANOVA, and multivariate regression analyses. Lyrical music showed a significant improvement over non-lyrical music improving performance time compared to non-lyrical music, on average by 36 ± 41s (p=.000). While not statistically significant, a trend showing lyrical music was faster than no music, followed by the slowest trial of non-lyrical music. No change was detected in HR, or RPE at the 3.05 km mark suggesting that at the end although subjects were working harder (indicated by the faster completion times) they do not perceive themselves to be working harder. A correlation between increased mileage and the decreased effects of music as an ergogenic aid was seen (p=.044 r=.638) which supports previous research. This study suggests that lyrical music may improve 5 km running performance compared to no lyrical music

Emerging themes in the Identifying Successful STARTS Methodologies project and exhibition

© 2023 The authors. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.7238/artnodes.v0i32.407435.In 2019 a team of multi-disciplinary researchers undertook a research project entitled Identifying Successful STARTS Methodologies (ISSM) (2019-2021) in order to analyze the innovative and collaborative strategies utilized by the global Science, Technology and Arts (STARTS) Prize Winners and nominees. The aim was to identify and articulate successful STARTS Methodologies through a series of interviews and in-depth case studies of the recognized projects. The project culminated in a series of case studies and an exhibition at the Made in Wolves Gallery at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and further presented at the UK Garden of Earthly Delights at Ars Electronica in 2020. The project identified three emerging themes: the significance of building a new language of art and science through a third space, the process of anti-disciplinarity as an emergent form of practice, and the importance of different ways of knowing through art and science. A number of the case studies and themes are presented here alongside images from the exhibition.The University of Wolverhampton International Research and Innovation Scheme (IRIS).Published versio

Art, Virtual Worlds and the Emergent Imagination

This paper presents a framework for the emergent imagination that arises out of the transitional spaces created in avatar-mediated online space. Through four categories of transitional space identified in artworks created in virtual worlds, the paper argues that, as the virtual remains connected to time, the imagination becomes connected to space. The author’s analysis of the imaginative effects of artworks presented in the two virtual (and physical) gallery exhibitions of the Kritical Works in SL project demonstrates a mode of artistic exploitation of the particular combination of user-generated and avatar-mediated space

Aquilegia, Vol. 25 No. 1-2, January-February 2001: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1183/thumbnail.jp

Portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method for the in‑feld screening of organic pollutants in soil and water at pollution incidents

Environmental pollution incidents generate an emergency response from regulatory agencies to ensure that the impact on the environment is minimised. Knowing what pollutants are present provides important intelligence to assist in determining how to respond to the incident. However, responders are limited in their in-feld capabilities to identify the pollutants present. This research has developed an in-feld, qualitative analytical approach to detect and identify organic pollutants that are commonly detected by regulatory environmental laboratories. A rapid, in-feld extraction method was used for water and soil matrices. A coiled microextraction (CME) device was utilised for the introduction of the extracted samples into a portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) for analysis. The total combined extraction and analysis time was approximately 6.5 min per sample. Results demonstrated that the in-feld extraction and analysis methods can screen for ffty-nine target organic contaminants, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, monoaromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, phthalates, organophosphorus pesticides, and organochlorine pesticides. The method was also capable of tentatively identifying unknown compounds using library searches, signifcantly expanding the scope of the methods for the provision of intelligence at pollution incidents of an unknown nature, although a laboratory-based method was able to provide more information due to the higher sensitivity achievable. The methods were evaluated using authentic casework samples and were found to be ft-for-purpose for providing rapid in-feld intelligence at pollution incidents. The fact that the in-feld methods target the same compounds as the laboratory-based methods provides the added beneft that the in-feld results can assist in sample triaging upon submission to the laboratory for quantitation and confrmatory analysis