Painting in the light of digital reproduction

"The proliferation of digital photographs on the Internet is incomprehensibly vast. These images owe much to the categories and styles of traditional photography, yet often it is their unmediated low quality, in terms of selection, composition, and compression, which is particularly elevated to prominence by the new medium. The Internet represents a near infinite expansion of the mail-order catalogue, amateur snapshot or analogue video; a way of collecting visual information where the aesthetics of simple functionality or mediocrity is observed, as there is virtually no material cost involved. Photographers, filmmakers and painters have already trawled the found-image archive extensively. Gerhard Richter's encyclopaedic Atlas project or the photographic collections of Fischli and Weiss are clear examples of the artistic imperative to gather, filter and categorise pictures. Trying to develop taxonomies of images is like assembling a Thesaurus, where it is possible to cross-reference through every definition. Now it would seem that found images are all we have thanks to the Internet's primary function as consumer and diffuser of information, a generator of simulacra. Paradoxically, this infinite source seems to have more veracity due

Space languages

Applications of linguistic principles to potential problems of human and machine communication in space settings are discussed. Variations in language among speakers of different backgrounds and change in language forms resulting from new experiences or reduced contact with other groups need to be considered in the design of intelligent machine systems

The reassurance of atmospherics

"The immateriality and infinite reproducibility of digital information presents significant phenomenological shifts in the entwined relationship between painting and photography. The virtual matrix supporting digital images reveals the mechanics of illusion in pixelated close-up, reminiscent of representational painting‟s abstracted, brush-stroked surface. Seamless computer simulations of three-dimensional space, or different painting styles combined with intended and accidental atmospheric effects and filters, dissolve distinctions between the two media.

Runaways - then and now: A comparison of the 1978 original New York production and the 1992 University of Nebraska at Omaha production

This thesis is concerned with Elizabeth Swados’s musical, Runaways. The original production was preformed in New York City in 1978 after a ten-month long workshop where actual runaways were interviewed and their stories recorded for later use in production. The musical was a surprise hit, even though the reviews were mixed. It was successful, at least in part, because of its departure from what is normally expected of a musical. Following the influences of such musicals as A Chorus Line and Hair, Runaways was one of the original “concept musicals” which began to flourish in the 1970s. This musical was different than the more well known hits of Rodgers and Hammerstein because: it had no “book”; it was more serious in nature than most popular musicals; it contained an electric mixture of music, ranging from reggae to blues to country; it used a combination of professional young actors and real runaway teenagers; and it was an ensemble approach, meaning that the monologues and songs were not connected by a storyline, but rather the connection was the cast themselves

Languages for artificial intelligence: Implementing a scheduler in LISP and in Ada

A prototype scheduler for space experiments originally programmed in a dialect of LISP using some of the more traditional techniques of that language, was recast using an object-oriented LISP, Common LISP with Flavors on the Symbolics. This object-structured version was in turn partially implemented in Ada. The Flavors version showed a decided improvement in both speed of execution and readability of code. The recasting into Ada involved various practical problems of implementation as well as certain challenges of reconceptualization in going from one language to the other. Advantages were realized, however, in greater clarity of the code, especially where more standard flow of control was used. This exercise raised issues about the influence of programming language on the design of flexible and sensitive programs such as schedule planners, and called attention to the importance of factors external to the languages themselves such as system embeddedness, hardware context, and programmer practice

Political Science Spring 2008

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/poli_newsletter_2008_spring/1000/thumbnail.jp

Vulnerability-attention analysis for space-related activities

Techniques for representing and analyzing trouble spots in structures and processes are discussed. Identification of vulnerable areas usually depends more on particular and often detailed knowledge than on algorithmic or mathematical procedures. In some cases, machine inference can facilitate the identification. The analysis scheme proposed first establishes the geometry of the process, then marks areas that are conditionally vulnerable. This provides a basis for advice on the kinds of human attention or machine sensing and control that can make the risks tolerable