Constructing dialectical images in sound and space : adapting Walter Benjamin's The Arcades project

In November 2014 a specially created audio walk, A Roving Soul: Walking the City with Walter Benjamin, was presented as part of the School of Advanced Study’s Being Human Festival of the Humanities. The piece invited listeners to put on headphones and take a walk through an urban environment of their choice, guided by the critical thought of Walter Benjamin. Focusing specifically on Benjamin’s late work on the Paris arcades, the audio material was designed to be experienced as a fragmentary collage ­­– echoing the form of his uncompleted research. The piece placed commentary from leading Benjamin scholars alongside proposals and suggestions that encouraged listeners to re-assess their habitual engagement with urban space. This article will examine the process of adapting Benjamin’s work, considering how the participatory and interactive framework used within the audio walk encouraged listeners to recognise and construct dialectical images during their individual journeys through urban and imagined space. It will analyse how the dramaturgical approaches employed within the audio walk attempted to highlight the listener/participant’s role as a maker of meaning – creating conditions of reception that can be used to invoke the kinds of dialectical thinking developed by Benjamin

Twisting your melon: describing tricky movements on the page

Describes a warm-up exercise for drama students

Using the method to be myself: adapting and appropriating historical training approaches for interactive performance

This article examines how notions of artistic truth and authenticity articulated by Konstantin Stanislavski and his followers might be adapted for use within interactive and immersive performance. Making connections between Stanislavski's aesthetics and the kinds of spectatorial relationships established within contemporary participatory performance, the article asserts that Stanislavskian techniques used for training actors to behave truthfully in imaginary circumstances can also be used productively when training for performances that reject the fourth wall conventionally associated with Stanislavskian theatre. The article draws on the author's experience of practising and teaching techniques developed by Stanislavski, Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner, as well as his experiences of creating and performing within intimate, interactive performances. The discussion of these practices is framed by a critical discussion of how issues in contemporary performance aesthetics relates to the field of performance training, making specific reference to Nicolas Bourriaud's theory of relational aesthetics

Editorial

Editorial for a special issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, dedicated to training for immersive, interactive and participatory performance

A marine reservoir effect ΔR value for Kitandach, in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia, Canada

Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), on the north Pacific Coast of British Columbia, contains at least 157 shell middens, of which 66 are known villages, in an area of approximately 180 km. These sites span the last 9500 yr and in some cases are immense, exceeding 20,000 m surface area and several meters in depth. Recent archaeological research in PRH has become increasingly reliant on radiocarbon dates from marine shell for developing chronologies. However, this is problematic as the local marine reservoir effect (MRE) remains poorly understood in the region. To account for the MRE and to better date the Harbour’s sites, we propose a ΔR of 273 ± 38 for the PRH area, based on our work at the site of Kitandach (GbTo-34), a massive shell midden-village centrally located within the Harbour. We followed the multiple paired sample approach for samples from speci fic contexts and ensured contemporaneity within the groups of marine and terrestrial materials by statistically assessing for outliers using the χ2 test. Taking together, the results for this and previous studies, it appears the MRE was fairly constant over the past 5000 yr

Life history parameters in acellular extrinsic fiber cementum microstructure

Life-history parameters such as pregnancies, skeletal trauma, and renal disease have previously been identified from hypomineralized growth layers (incremental lines) of acellular extrinsic fiber cementum (AEFC). The precise periodicity of these growth layers remains vaguely approximated, so causal life-history explanations using tooth cementum cannot yet be rigorously calculated or tested. On the other hand, we show how life history parameters in AEFC can be identified by two contrasting elemental detection methods. Based on our results we reject the possibility of accurate estimation of pregnancies and other life history parameters from cementum using scanning electron microscopy alone. Here, we propose a new methodological approach for cementum research, Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), to measure degree and distribution of mineralization of cementum growth layers. Our results show that Tof-SIMS can significantly increase our knowledge of cementum composition and is therefore a powerful new tool for life history researchers

Introspección y organización de la experiencia: examinando el budo de Inaba Minoru como forma de arte

Este artículo examina cómo el budo japonés (artes marciales), y en concreto el enfoque que desarrolla Inaba Minoru (antiguo director del Shiseikan Budojo, Tokio), puede ser entendido funcionalmente como una forma de arte. Sobre la base de las teorías estéticas de Dennis Dutton, Ellen Dissanayake y Joseph Carroll, el artículo examina el budo como una forma de organizar la experiencia, reconocible al lado de la pintura, la danza, el teatro y la literatura

Organization of Experience: Examining Inaba Minoru’s Budo as a Form of Art

[ES] Este artículo examina cómo el budo japonés (artes marciales), y en concreto el enfoque que desarrolla Inaba Minoru (antiguo director del Shiseikan Budojo, Tokio), puede ser entendido funcionalmente como una forma de arte. Sobre la base de las teorías estéticas de Dennis Dutton, Ellen Dissanayake y Joseph Carroll, el artículo examina el budo como una forma de organizar la experiencia, reconocible al lado de la pintura, la danza, el teatro y la literatura

Evolution of bow-arrow technology.

This thesis examines the development of bow-arrow technology in terms of modem evolutionary theory. Previous approaches that propose functional-adaptive technological trajectories are critiqued. Different theoretical approaches towards technology and associated units of analysis are examined. Behavioural ecology, evolutionary archaeology, and dual inheritance theory are shown to hold most promise for explaining trait-lineages in a given technological tradition. Previous approaches to bow-arrow technology are analysed, and an evolutionary archaeological methodology appropriate for examining lithic armatures is presented. Environment, historical contingency, selection, drift, population dynamics and social learning mechanisms are seen as key complex factors requiring case by case examination. An evolutionary case study with nine temporally, geographically, and culturally related stratigraphic phases containing a total of 3600 complete lithic armatures from the south Scandinavian middle Mesolithic (c. 6600-5400 BC) is presented. The phases are described in terms of associated fine-grained archaeological data and previous interpretations. A Bayesian chronological framework is constructed for the case study, using modelling facilities in the OxCal calibration package. This method time-steps and calculates relative occupation durations of point bearing phases in terms of available archaeological and radiometric data. The chronological model covers the culture-historical periods termed Blak, Kongemose and Early Ertebolle phases. The validity of previous typological interpretations of projectile point sequences is questioned in light of these results. The nine time-stepped lithic armature assemblages are then analysed to describe inter- and intra-site point trait variation. A linked series of descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques identify key morphological attributes that summarise trait variation within and between phases. Variation is graphically represented and related to different social learning populations, reduction strategies, and engineering constraints. A remarkably long-term homogenous pattern of complex projectile point manufacture is found for the Kongemose phases, compared to the temporally bracketing Blak and Ertebolle phases. Faunal, climatic, and population level factors are then modelled to account for variation and stability of the case study's armature traits. Faunal data from the Tagerup and Segebro sites, spanning the case study period, are examined for possible diet breadth changes, in relation to point-trait variation. No functional relationship is found between point-shape and potential target-prey. A population model is then constructed in OxCal using all published south Scandinavian radiometric data from the final Maglemose to the final Ertebolle cultural phases. A simple model of landmass reduction, forestation cover and mammalian population density levels demonstrates reduced land mass alone would not significantly affect human population levels - even with relatively high human population densities. Holocene 5180 and A14C data is used as a proxy for contemporaneous climatic fluctuations. These proxies are plotted and superimposed onto the population graph. A correlation between climate change, population fluctuation, and projectile point technology is found. As changes in point morphology and lithic reduction strategies coincide with apparent regional drops in population, drift processes may account for some variation in point-shape