Women in Black

Women in Black is a an animated title sequence for a BBC 2 documentary series which explores the role of the `Abaya or veil in contemporary Muslim societies. I was commissioned to produce a 30 second animation illustrating the journey of UK born, Yemeni presenter Amani Zain as she travelled the world investigating customs and traditions relating to Islamic dress codes for women. This hand drawn digital animation piece emerged from my commercial animation practice at Picasso Pictures in London, and focused on the use of animated transformations to create a constantly moving tableau. The use of metamorphosis has a long history in drawn animation, exploiting the `frame by frame nature of the drawn sequences, a process that allows for considerable latitude in visual continuity. The design research process for this piece was driven by the content of the documentaries, with their portrayal of ordinary womens lives in Muslim countries. This material was rich in detail and subtle difference and allowed me to develop a number of linked visual themes through the sequence. This project contributes to research around animation as an appropriate medium for discussing complex social issues. Recent animations such as `Dance with Bashir and `Persepolis have applied a new perspective to Middle Eastern documentary subjects, drawing new audiences into debates around history and culture. The significance of this research is that it furthers discussion around cultural identity and choice for women in Islamic societies. The title sequence animation was the first point of entry to the documentary series, as such it had to both encapsulate ideas and engage the audience, representing the key themes of identity and diversity for women in Islamic societies

Agritourism in the West: Exploring the Behavior of Colorado Farm and Ranch Visitors

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Sweet Air/Still Fast

Damian Gascoigne 114682 2013002473 SWEET AIR/STILL FAST August 2013 J1 SWEET AIR, exhibition of line drawings, (NG pop up Gallery, Chippendale, Sydney) August 22 to September 13 2013. This exhibition was comprised of a selection of 150 line drawings. These images form part of a larger series of 400 themed drawings covering a period of four years from 2010-2013. These loosely connected images acted as an oblique visual diary in which events and ideas were documented and worked through as they emerged. The work comprises of black and white line drawings on paper, with key visual motifs and icons developed through multiple iterations. The overarching theme in my current practice is the development of a personal visual lexicon; playful pictographic symbols to represent both ordinary and life-changing experiences. The use of line, pattern and hatching relates to the draughtsmanship of artists such as Saul Steinberg and Paul Klee. Steinbergs use of repetition in architectural detail and characters is referenced here, as is Klees use of systematic drawing to suggest grids, staves and graphic spaces. The black and white line drawing sits within a long British tradition, stretching from William Hogarth, through Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray, to Ralph Steadman, Quentin Blake and Gerald Scarfe, in which the pared down image and gestural line are key considerations. In contemporary art the work also references the notation of the mundane and the everyday in the line drawings of Tracey Emin, Henrick Drescher and David Shrigley. The series of works aim to address questions relating to drawing as a form of communication, and also as a physical, tactile process. The work explores ideas around cumulative communication- asking whether multiple versions of the same drawing can tell us more about a subject than one single image. The work also plays with notions around what constitutes good drawing, subverting accuracy and realistic representation, and exploring mess and mistakes. STILL FAST, animation installation, (Beams Festival, Chippendale, Sydney) September 21st 2013 This drawn animation piece is an extension of work created in Sweet Air. Iconography is taken from this series of drawings and used to explore movement languages for animation beyond conventional story telling forms. The use of gesture and mark making are investigated further through the animation process; the evidence of rough, inaccurate and unpredictable line work becoming amplified across time. Still Fast sits within a rich tradition of non-narrative animation as pioneered by animation filmmakers such as Robert Breer, Len Lye and Norman McLaren in the mid 20th Century. In current practice artists such as David OReilly, Wendy Tilby and Stuart Hilton use rough hand drawing and low-poly computer animation to deliberately challenge the norms and conventions of digital practice. The research themes embodied here are concerned with the relationship between hand drawing and digital technology, asking the question How can the hand drawn image remain relevant in the digital realm? I am concerned with developing hybrid visual languages that allow rawness and accident to play a central role in digital animation

Muso Soup

Muso Soup is a short animation film, which combines hand drawing and 3D computer animation. The work represented a significant change of direction in my practice, moving away from traditional hand drawn animation and working with 3D software. Muso Soup premiered at the Bristol Encounters Animation Festival in 2011, nominated in the Best Short Film category, and has subsequently been shown in competition at the Stuttgart Animation Festival 2012, Prix Ars Electronica 2012 in Taiwan and at the Sydney International Animation festival. Muso Soup builds upon more than twenty years of experience as a 2D animation director. The research questions addressed in this project relate to the development of hybrid aesthetics for 3D animation. Computer animation is still a relatively new discipline, starting with John Lasseters The Adventures of Andre and Wally B in 1984. The prescribed look and movement of much computer animation reflects a visual culture in which design has primarily been dictated by the software, and it is this default digital aesthetic that I have sought to challenge with this film. This research contributes to the discussion around developing new aesthetics for computer animation. Muso Soup sits alongside the work of practitioners such as David OReilly, Chris Landreth and Wendy Tilby, artists who are engaged in exploring alternative visual and movement languages for computer animation. Their work shares common themes around challenging the `perfection tendency in digital animation, the search for accidents and mistakes, and the evidence of the hand made mark. This character animation piece has opened up rich new territory for my practice. Insights gained during this process have led to the instigation of a project based PhD, to further research into relationships between drawing and digital practice. This is still relatively new territory for practice based research, as computer animation has tended to displace drawn animation over recent years, and this current investigation aims to bring the energy and singularity of drawing back to the heart of animation

Classical Cepheid Pulsation Models. III. The Predictable Scenario

Within the current uncertainties in the treatment of the coupling between pulsation and convection, limiting amplitude, nonlinear, convective models appear the only viable approach for providing theoretical predictions about the intrinsic properties of radial pulsators. In this paper we present the results of a comprehensive set of Cepheid models computed within such theoretical framework for selected assumptions on their original chemical composition.Comment: 24 pages, 1 latex file containing 6 tables, 10 postscript figures, accepted for publication on Ap

A new LMC K-band distance from precision measurements of nearby red clump stars

High-precision (sigma < 0.01) new JHK observations of 226 of the brightest and nearest red clump stars in the solar neighbourhood are used to determine distance moduli for the LMC. The resulting K- and H-band values of 18.47\pm0.02 and 18.49\pm0.06 imply that any correction to the K-band Cepheid PL relation due to metallicity differences between Cepheids in the LMC and in the solar neighborhood must be quite small.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud from 2MASS

We derive structural parameters and evidence for extended tidal debris from star count and preliminary standard candle analyses of the Large Magellanic Cloud based on Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) data. The full-sky coverage and low extinction in K_s presents an ideal sample for structural analysis of the LMC. The star count surface densities and deprojected inclination for both young and older populations are consistent with previous work. We use the full areal coverage and large LMC diameter to Galactrocentric distance ratio to infer the same value for the disk inclination based on perspective. A standard candle analysis based on a sample of carbon long-period variables (LPV) in a narrow color range, 1.6<J-K_s<1.7 allows us to probe the three-dimensional structure of the LMC along the line of sight. The intrinsic brightness distribution of carbon LPVs in selected fields implies that \sigma_M\simlt 0.2^m for this color cut. The sample provides a {\it direct} determination of the LMC disk inclination: $42.3^\circ\pm 7.2^\circ$. Distinct features in the photometric distribution suggest several distinct populations. We interpret this as the presence of an extended stellar component of the LMC, which may be as thick as 14 kpc, and intervening tidal debris at roughly 15 kpc from the LMC.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures. Submitted to Ap

Temperature Differences in the Cepheid Instability Strip Require Differences in the Period-Luminosity Relation in Slope and Zero Point

A graphical and an algebraic demonstration is made to show why the slope and zero point of the Cepheid period-luminosity (P-L) relation is rigidly coupled with the slope and zero point of the Cepheid instability strip in the HR diagram. The graphical demonstration uses an arbitrary (toy) ridge line in the instability strip, while the algebraic demonstration uses the pulsation equation into which the observed P-L relations for the Galaxy and the LMC are put to predict the temperature zero points and slopes of the instability strips. Agreement between the predicted and measured instability strip slopes argue that the observed P-L differences between the Galaxy and LMC are real. In another proof, the direct evidence for different P-L slopes in different galaxies is shown by comparing the Cepheid data in the Galaxy, the combined data in NGC 3351 and NGC 4321, in M31, LMC, SMC, IC 1613, NGC 3109, and in Sextans A+B. The P-L slopes for the Galaxy, NGC 3351, NGC 4321, and M31 are nearly identical and are the steepest in the sample. The P-L slopes decrease monotonically with metallicity in the order listed, showing that the P-L relation is not the same in different galaxies, complicating their use in calibrating the extragalactic distance scale.Comment: 15 pages, 1 table, 4 figures, submitted to The Ap

Teleology and Realism in Leibniz's Philosophy of Science

This paper argues for an interpretation of Leibniz’s claim that physics requires both mechanical and teleological principles as a view regarding the interpretation of physical theories. Granting that Leibniz’s fundamental ontology remains non-physical, or mentalistic, it argues that teleological principles nevertheless ground a realist commitment about mechanical descriptions of phenomena. The empirical results of the new sciences, according to Leibniz, have genuine truth conditions: there is a fact of the matter about the regularities observed in experience. Taking this stance, however, requires bringing non-empirical reasons to bear upon mechanical causal claims. This paper first evaluates extant interpretations of Leibniz’s thesis that there are two realms in physics as describing parallel, self-sufficient sets of laws. It then examines Leibniz’s use of teleological principles to interpret scientific results in the context of his interventions in debates in seventeenth-century kinematic theory, and in the teaching of Copernicanism. Leibniz’s use of the principle of continuity and the principle of simplicity, for instance, reveal an underlying commitment to the truth-aptness, or approximate truth-aptness, of the new natural sciences. The paper concludes with a brief remark on the relation between metaphysics, theology, and physics in Leibniz

High resolution DNA barcode library for European butterflies reveals continental patterns of mitochondrial genetic diversity

The study of global biodiversity will greatly benefit from access to comprehensive DNA barcode libraries at continental scale, but such datasets are still very rare. Here, we assemble the first high-resolution reference library for European butterflies that provides 97% taxon coverage (459 species) and 22,306 COI sequences. We estimate that we captured 62% of the total haplotype diversity and show that most species possess a few very common haplotypes and many rare ones. Specimens in the dataset have an average 95.3% probability of being correctly identified. Mitochondrial diversity displayed elevated haplotype richness in southern European refugia, establishing the generality of this key biogeographic pattern for an entire taxonomic group. Fifteen percent of the species are involved in barcode sharing, but two thirds of these cases may reflect the need for further taxonomic research. This dataset provides a unique resource for conservation and for studying evolutionary processes, cryptic species, phylogeography, and ecology.Peer reviewe