“Wozu image?” / What’s the point of images? Exploring the relation between image and text through intersemiotic translation and its embodied experience

“Wozu Image?” is a two-hour workshop held as part of “(e)motion,” the second Cultural Literacy in Europe (CLE) Biennial Conference which took place in Warsaw on May 10-12, 2017. In our session, we expanded the themes of the “Wozu Poesie?” exhibition, first held in Berlin in 2013, which, with thanks to Haus für Poesie (formerly Literatur Werkstatt Berlin), was shown as part of the conference. The workshop explored, through intersemiotic translation and its embodied experience, the relation between image and text, and what it means to put oneself in the picture. In this paper, we contextualise this artivism, or metaphorical “act of war,” in relation to photography. Artivism is a composite word that denotes “an activist action directed to creating change through the medium and resources of art” (Poposki 718). We report and record the processes and outcomes of the workshop with the aim of opening up intersemiotic translation (translation as encounter and experience across different media) to explorations beyond words and across disciplines. Specifically, we explore the production of text in relation to images as a way of thinking through a problem and answering questions, and the composition of an image as a way to embody thoughts on cultural literacy

Mainstreaming the money shot: Reflections on the representation of ejaculation in contemporary American cinema

This paper was an extended version of a conference paper first delivered at a three day international conference 'Men's Bodies', University of Nottingham, 2001. The collection was favourably reviewed in the Journal Of European Studies Vol 36 2006: 90-91 in which Tuck's piece was described as 'particularly engaging'

Phylogenetic and Functional Substrate Specificity for Endolithic Microbial Communities in hyper-arid environments

Under extreme water deficit, endolithic (inside rock) microbial ecosystems are considered environmental refuges for life in cold and hot deserts, yet their diversity and functional adaptations remain vastly unexplored. The metagenomic analyses of the communities from two rock substrates, calcite and ignimbrite, revealed that they were dominated by Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi. The relative distribution of major phyla was significantly different between the two substrates and biodiversity estimates, from 16S rRNA gene sequences and from the metagenomic data, all pointed to a higher taxonomic diversity in the calcite community. While both endolithic communities showed adaptations to extreme aridity and to the rock habitat, their functional capabilities revealed significant differences. ABC transporters and pathways for osmoregulation were more diverse in the calcite chasmoendolithic community. In contrast, the ignimbrite cryptoendolithic community was enriched in pathways for secondary metabolites, such as non-ribosomal peptides (NRP) and polyketides (PK). Assemblies of the metagenome data produced population genomes for the major phyla found in both communities and revealed a greater diversity of Cyanobacteria population genomes for the calcite substrate. Draft genomes of the dominant Cyanobacteria in each community were constructed with more than 93% estimated completeness. The two annotated proteomes shared 64% amino acid identity and a significantly higher number of genes involved in iron update, and NRPS gene clusters, were found in the draft genomes from the ignimbrite. Both the community-wide and genome-specific differences may be related to higher water availability and the colonization of large fissures and cracks in the calcite in contrast to a harsh competition for colonization space and nutrient resources in the narrow pores of the ignimbrite. Together, these results indicated that the habitable architecture of both lithic substrates- chasmoendolithic versus cryptoendolithic - might be an essential element in determining the colonization and the diversity of the microbial communities in endolithic substrates at the dry limit for life