Auto-maticity: Ruscha and Performative Photography

This piece argues that Ed Ruscha's books, such as Twentysix Gasoline Stations, are not journalistic or amateurish in style, as Jeff Wall contends, but rather performative and instructional, that is, following in a tradition initiated by Marcel Duchamp's 3 Standard Stoppages

Introduction : photography between art history and philosophy

The essays collected in this special issue of Critical Inquiry are devoted to reflection on the shifts in photographically based art practice, exhibition, and reception in recent years and to the changes brought about by these shifts in our understanding of photographic art. Although initiated in the 1960s, photography as a mainstream artistic practice has accelerated over the last two decades. No longer confined to specialist galleries, books, journals, and other distribution networks, contemporary art photographers are now regularly the subject of major retrospectives in mainstream fine-art museums on the same terms as any other artist. One could cite, for example, Thomas Struth at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2003), Thomas Demand at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) (2005), or Jeff Wall at Tate Modern and MoMA (2006–7). Indeed, Wall’s most recent museum show, at the time of writing, The Crooked Path at Bozar, Brussels (2011), situated his photography in relation to the work of a range of contemporary photographers, painters, sculptors, performance artists, and filmmakers with whose work Wall considers his own to be in dialogue, irrespective of differences of media. All this goes to show that photographic art is no longer regarded as a subgenre apart. The situation in the United Kingdom is perhaps emblematic of both photography’s increasing prominence and its increased centrality in the contemporary art world over recent years. Tate hosted its first ever photography survey, Cruel and Tender, as recently as 2003, and since then photography surveys have become a regular biannual staple of its exhibition programming, culminating in the appointment of Tate’s first dedicated curator of photography in 2010. A major shift in the perception of photography as art is clearly well under way

Analogue: On Zoe Leonard and Tacita Dean

“Analogue: On Tacita Dean and Zoe Leonard” draws on surrealist conceptions of automatism and chance. It engages with current debates concerning artistic agency and automatism that hinge on the difference between digital and analogue photographic processes. The debate is joined in this paper through the work of two artists who attach great value to the analogue medium. Both Leonard and Dean are resistant to the inexorable rise of digital photographic technologies and the corresponding near obsolescence of the analogue. In response, they are concerned to make salient the virtues or specific character of analogue film such as its indexicality and openness to chance—characteristics the full significance of which may only have become apparent under pressure of digitalization. Drawing on Eric Santner’s account of the concept of “exposure,” Iversen draws attention to a kind of photographic art practice that is marked by contingency and seared by reality

The Diaristic Mode in Contemporary Art after Barthes

The rise of the diaristic mode in contemporary art might seem like the return of the dead author in a particularly self-absorbed frame of mind. Yet the diary is a form of writing that relinquishes authorial control to the passing moods and contingencies of the day. The diarist writes hastily, automatically, involuntarily, thereby giving access to insights unavailable to deliberation. An account of Roland Barthes's Mourning Diary, 2009, and his reflections on the diary as a form of writing serve to introduce the diaristic work of two contemporary artists, Moyra Davey and Susan Morris. Their work is directly informed by Barthes's and others' experiments with a mode of address that is intimate, but also de-centred and fragmentary

Teaching Electronics and Programming in Norwegian Schools Using the air:bit Sensor Kit

We describe lessons learned from using the air:bit project to introduce more than 150 students in the Norwegian upper secondary school to computer programming, engineering and environmental sciences. In the air:bit project, students build and code a portable air quality sensor kits, and use their air:bit to collect data to investigate patterns in air quality in their local environment. When the project ended students had collected more than 400,000 measurements with their air:bit kits, and could describe local patterns in air quality. Students participate in all parts of the project, from soldering components and programming the sensors, to analyzing the air quality measurements. We conducted a survey after the project and describe our lessons learned from the project. The results show that the project successfully taught the students fundamental concepts in computer programming, electronics, and the scientific method. In addition, all the participating teachers reported that their students had showed good learning outcomes

Are all sediment traps created equal? An intercomparison study of carbon export methodologies at the PAP-SO site

Sinking particulate flux out of the upper ocean is a key observation of the ocean’s biological carbon cycle. Particle flux in the upper mesopelagic is often determined using sediment traps but there is no absolute standard for the measurement. Prior to this study, differing neutrally-buoyant sediment trap designs have not been deployed simultaneously, which precludes meaningful comparisons between flux data collected using these designs. The aim of the study was to compare a suite of modern methods for measuring sinking carbon flux out of the surface ocean. This study compared samples from two neutrally buoyant drifting sediment trap designs, and a surface tethered drifting sediment trap, which collected sinking particles alongside other methods for sampling particle properties, including in situ pumps and 234Th radionuclide measurements. Samples were collected at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain Sustained Observatory (PAP-SO) site in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean (49°N, 16.5°W). Neutrally-buoyant conical traps appeared to collect lower absolute fluxes than neutrally-buoyant, or surface-tethered cylindrical traps, but compositional ratios of sinking particles indicated collection of similar material when comparing the conical and cylindrical traps. In situ pump POC:234Th ratios generally agreed with trap ratios but conical trap samples were somewhat depleted in 234Th, which along with sinking particle size distribution data determined from gel traps, may imply under-sampling of small particles. Cylindrical trap POC fluxes were of similar magnitude to 234Th-derived POC fluxes while conical POC fluxes were lower. Further comparisons are needed to distinguish if differences in particle flux magnitude are due to conical versus cylindrical trap designs. Parallel analytical determinations, conducted by different laboratories, of replicate samples for elemental fluxes and gel trap particle size distributions were comparable. This study highlights that the magnitude of particle fluxes and size spectra may be more sensitive than the chemical composition of particle fluxes to the instrumentation used. Only two deployments were possible during this study so caution should be taken when applying these findings to other regions and export regimes. We recommend that multiple methodologies to measure carbon export should be employed in field studies, to better account for each method’s merits and uncertainties. These discrepancies need further study to allow carbon export fluxes to be compared with confidence across laboratory, region and time and to achieve an improved global understanding of processes driving and controlling carbon export

The effect of medications which cause inflammation of the gastro-oesophageal tract on cancer risk : a nested case–control study of routine Scottish data

Peer reviewedPostprin

Incarceration history and risk of HIV and hepatitis C virus acquisition among people who inject drugs: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background People who inject drugs (PWID) experience a high prevalence of incarceration and might be at high risk of HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection during or after incarceration. We aimed to assess whether incarceration history elevates HIV or HCV acquisition risk among PWID. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO databases for studies in any language published from Jan 1, 2000 until June 13, 2017 assessing HIV or HCV incidence among PWID. We included studies that measured HIV or HCV incidence among community-recruited PWID. We included only studies reporting original results and excluded studies that evaluated incident infections by self-report. We contacted authors of cohort studies that met the inclusion or exclusion criteria, but that did not report on the outcomes of interest, to request data. We extracted and pooled data from the included studies using random-effects meta-analyses to quantify the associations between recent (past 3, 6, or 12 months or since last follow-up) or past incarceration and HIV or HCV acquisition (primary infection or reinfection) risk among PWID. We assessed the risk of bias of included studies using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Between-study heterogeneity was evaluated using the I2 statistic and the P-value for heterogeneity. Findings We included published results from 20 studies and unpublished results from 21 studies. These studies originated from Australasia, western and eastern Europe, North and Latin America, and east and southeast Asia. Recent incarceration was associated with an 81% (relative risk [RR] 1·81, 95% CI 1·40–2·34) increase in HIV acquisition risk, with moderate heterogeneity between studies (I2=63·5%; p=0·001), and a 62% (RR 1·62, 95% CI 1·28–2·05) increase in HCV acquisition risk, also with moderate heterogeneity between studies (I2=57·3%; p=0·002). Past incarceration was associated with a 25% increase in HIV (RR 1·25, 95% CI 0·94–1·65) and a 21% increase in HCV (1·21, 1·02–1·43) acquisition risk. Interpretation Incarceration is associated with substantial short-term increases in HIV and HCV acquisition risk among PWID and could be a significant driver of HCV and HIV transmission among PWID. These findings support the need for developing novel interventions to minimise the risk of HCV and HIV acquisition, including addressing structural risks associated with drug laws and excessive incarceration of PWID