Spatial Translations and Embodied Bilingualism: Defining the Migrant\u27s Experience from an Architectural Perspective

As a bilingual writer and architect, my research is practice-based and multidisciplinary. In pulling together theories and practices about Space, Language and the Body, my aim is to develop a notion of Embodied Bilingualism. If the word ‘translate’ is to move something from one place to another, as architectural historian Robin Evans explains, then one needs to understand its pure and unconditional existence as a geometrical construct in the first place in order to fully appreciate the workings of linguistic translation. In this paper, language is considered as an embodied practice, which for the bilingual migrant leads to considerations about translatory motion not only of the body, but also of words. Using the contribution of Henri Poincare to the philosophy of geometry, we will see how the body’s very own capacity of movement contributes to the understanding of the movement of words

Spatial translations and embodied bilingualism

As a French architect, writer and educator living in London, my doctoral research at Chelsea College of Art and Design is concerned with the effects of bilingualism and dislocation on perception of space and, inversely, how architectural thinking might inform and help define what I call Bilingual Space, through Spatial Translations. So my paper for Language, Migration and Diaspora is an interdisciplinary view on bilingualism from an architectural perspective. In a world of increasing mobility, where you come from and where you are going to start taking utmost importance, thus creating a physical movement of translation between A and B, which has become a state of being for many. If words travel, they usually take their roots in a specific location, so that the acquisition of languages, unless learnt in textbooks, generally relates to places where they were learnt. When dislocation occurs, languages from two different places are used. A cognitive oscillating movement of translation between places A and B is set in motion, creating a new Bilingual Space, akin to a vector field. In this space, complex mechanisms of comparisons and equivalences are taking place, with for instance bilingual illusions where, not unlike visual illusions, the ear hears a word and the brain understands another. The word umbrella for instance sounds very much like the French word ombrelle, meaning parasol, but translates as parapluie. Through these phonetic illusions the bilingual subject operates an oscillating movement or bidirectional translation between here and there. For this paper, I will look at physical and visual mechanisms of Vector Fields and Linguistic Illusions applied to the use of two languages, using French-English translations, graphic representations and artists’ works

Being outside inside Oran: deconstruction, translation and architecture in Hélène Cixous’s ‘Promised cities’

‘I am from Oran. I translate: I am from Hors En [Out In]’ (Cixous 2006, 30). Throughout her autobiographical account entitled ‘Promised Cities’, Hélène Cixous talks about her cities and her many languages. She deconstructs the significant cities of her life, and in particular the city of Oran in Algeria, where she spent her early years at the onset of the Second World War. In this journey across former cities, exodus cities, cities of the past, reconstructed cities, imagined cities, she tells us how personal experience and historical political events have merged at specific locations. Through close reading of ‘Promised Cities’, this essay shows that Cixous’s writing is an embodied practice that extends beyond the French language and embraces cultural multiplicity. Being outside inside Oran, her experience does not follow the delineation of linguistic and national borders, instead Cixous lives in a permanent state of translation, where not only does every language contain the possibility of other languages but every city contains the possibility of other cities. This essay proposes to learn from Cixous’s embodied and situated writing, and her sense of ‘doubly open belonging’, in order to rethink post-colonial identities and architectures in conflicted cities

'I', taken away from me

An evening of readings, soundings and ponderings about the ‘I’s relation to ‘you’. We are each other’s echo, says the linguist Émile Benveniste. ‘I’ posits another person, the one who, being as she is, completely exterior to ‘me’, becomes my echo — to whom I say ‘you’ and who says ‘you’ to me.’ So, echo greets us from the outside. So, we form ourselves in relation. So, we work towards a new poetics of ‘us’

Spatial models and affects: Scanlab’s Frozen Relics / Arctic Works & Framerate / Pulse of the Earth

Matthew Shaw and William Trossell founded Scanlab Project in 2010; trained as architects they have been scanning objects, cities and landscapes for over a decade. Ranging from historical artefacts for museums such as the National Maritime Museum or the Sir John Soane Museum, to the exploration of underground Rome or the Arctic icecap, the precision of the data collected has been used for scientific research, yet their work also takes 3D modelling and the architectural model to a new level. With their command of new technologies and spatial understanding, Scanlab’s work is at the crossroads between scientific research and art practice. In this presentation I will undertake a comparison between two of their projects that raise awareness of climate change and will examine them through the lenses of Posthuman theory. In particular I will refer to Jane Bennet’s definition of Vibrant Matter (2010) in which she explains that all things, human and non-human, living and non-living, should be understood as actants with political agency. I will compare Scanlab’s recent project Framerate: Pulse of the Earth (2022), an immersive experience shown at the Biennale Venice International Film Festival, to their earlier project Frozen Relic: Arctic Works (2013), a scale model of the arctic icecap shown at the AA School of Architecture in London, and ask whether the scale model can create the same affect than a more immersive experience

When the human viral infectome and diseasome networks collide: towards a systems biology platform for the aetiology of human diseases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Comprehensive understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying viral infection is a major challenge towards the discovery of new antiviral drugs and susceptibility factors of human diseases. New advances in the field are expected from systems-level modelling and integration of the incessant torrent of high-throughput "-omics" data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we describe the Human Infectome protein interaction Network, a novel systems virology model of a virtual virus-infected human cell concerning 110 viruses. This <it>in silico </it>model was applied to comprehensively explore the molecular relationships between viruses and their associated diseases. This was done by merging virus-host and host-host physical protein-protein interactomes with the set of genes essential for viral replication and involved in human genetic diseases. This systems-level approach provides strong evidence that viral proteomes target a wide range of functional and inter-connected modules of proteins as well as highly central and bridging proteins within the human interactome. The high centrality of targeted proteins was correlated to their essentiality for viruses' lifecycle, using functional genomic RNAi data. A stealth-attack of viruses on proteins bridging cellular functions was demonstrated by simulation of cellular network perturbations, a property that could be essential in the molecular aetiology of some human diseases. Networking the Human Infectome and Diseasome unravels the connectivity of viruses to a wide range of diseases and profiled molecular basis of Hepatitis C Virus-induced diseases as well as 38 new candidate genetic predisposition factors involved in type 1 <it>diabetes mellitus</it>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The Human Infectome and Diseasome Networks described here provide a unique gateway towards the comprehensive modelling and analysis of the systems level properties associated to viral infection as well as candidate genes potentially involved in the molecular aetiology of human diseases.</p

Convivial spaces: forms and figures of encounter in writing and architecture

This stream aims to explore and re-imagine the possibilities and conditions of convivial spaces, architectural, literary, discursive, or other, that might foster reconnection and collaborative co existence while supporting plurality, mixture and difference. First theorised by Austrian philosopher Ivan Illitch (Tools for Conviviality), ‘conviviality’ has become a productive concept in postcolonial, transcultural, ethnicity and race studies, particularly following sociologist Paul Gilroy’s articulation of ‘convivial culture’ in 2004. As the flourishing of more recent scholarship on conviviality makes clear, it remains a timely term, with traction across a wide variety of disciplines, contexts and forms – thus, a park bench might be ‘convivial’, and so might a codex (Rishbeth & Rogaly, ‘Sitting outside’; Robertson, Nilling: Prose). While Ilitch, Gilroy and many later commentators envisage conviviality in positive terms, for others conviviality’s ‘normative’ impetus not only fosters community but can also entrench marginalisation (Chambers, ‘Performed Conviviality’). Remaining hopeful about the political potential of convivial spaces, the stream proposes to harness the potential of collaborative interdisciplinary practice for generating new forms of conviviality. We aim to explore the spatial configurations of forms and figures of conviviality at the intersection of architecture and literature, with a focus on specific historical and geographical contexts. We welcome interventions which might lead to new forms of convivial practice, extending to sculptural, performative, vocal or habitual practices. We therefore warmly encourage applications from researchers and practitioners from all disciplines, and welcome contributions from creative writers, architects, artists, designers, historians, philosophers and sociologists that may address or respond to the following questions/topics: • How might one describe or imagine a ‘convivial space’? Or, what are (some possible) characteristics or qualities of convivial spaces, in architecture, spatial literature and/or discourse? • How might convivial spaces, whether in architecture, discourse or in other socio- cultural formations, be contrived, fostered and/or encouraged? • Consideration of particular historical or contemporary spaces, in spatial literature, situated writing, architecture or in other modalities, under the rubric of conviviality. • How are historical practices and narratives of conviviality generated and perpetuated via architectural or discursive figures and/or forms? • What spatial counter-concepts, addendums or alternatives have been or might be proposed to ‘conviviality’? • Research on practitioners or theorists whose work articulates and/or instantiates particular forms and/or ideals of convivial space and encounter. • What political possibilities or difficulties might attend the conceptualisation and production of convivial space? • Is convivial space politically radical? • How do cultural, socioeconomic, geographic, experiential and other differences shape the possibilities and experiences of convivial space? • What dangers might attend the production or experience of convivial space? • When/how/under what conditions might a space cease to be convivial

Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen 3A protein regulates CDKN2B transcription via interaction with MIZ-1

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 3 family of protein is critical for the EBV-induced primary B-cell growth transformation process. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen we identified 22 novel cellular partners of the EBNA3s. Most importantly, among the newly identified partners, five are known to play direct and important roles in transcriptional regulation. Of these, the Myc-interacting zinc finger protein-1 (MIZ-1) is a transcription factor initially characterized as a binding partner of MYC. MIZ-1 activates the transcription of a number of target genes including the cell cycle inhibitor CDKN2B. Focusing on the EBNA3A/MIZ-1 interaction we demonstrate that binding occurs in EBV-infected cells expressing both proteins at endogenous physiological levels and that in the presence of EBNA3A, a significant fraction of MIZ-1 translocates from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Moreover, we show that a trimeric complex composed of a MIZ-1 recognition DNA element, MIZ-1 and EBNA3A can be formed, and that interaction of MIZ-1 with nucleophosmin (NPM), one of its coactivator, is prevented by EBNA3A. Finally, we show that, in the presence of EBNA3A, expression of the MIZ-1 target gene, CDKN2B, is downregulated and repressive H3K27 marks are established on its promoter region suggesting that EBNA3A directly counteracts the growth inhibitory action of MIZ-1

Feminea fraus

This article focuses on a few episodes in the life of Countess Adelaide del Vasto, regent of the county of Calabria and of Sicily, as recounted by her principal biographer Orderic Vitalis. In his chronicle, the Norman monk highlights the theme of poisoning by women in power.Cet article décrit quelques épisodes de la vie de la comtesse Adélaïde del Vasto, régente de comté de Calabre et de Sicile, telle qu’elle nous a été transmise par son principal biographe, Orderic Vital. La biographie du moine normand met en évidence l’un des thèmes dominants des écrits du célèbre chroniqueur: le crime d’empoisonnement perpétré par les femmes de pouvoir

Event-Driven User-Centric Middleware for Energy Efficient Buildings and Public Spaces

In this work, the design of an event-driven user-centric middleware for monitoring and managing energy consumption in public buildings and spaces is presented. The main purpose is to increase the energy efficiency, reducing consumption, in buildings and public spaces. To achieve this, the proposed service-oriented middleware has been designed to be event based, also exploiting the user behaviours patterns of the people who live and work into the building. Furthermore, it allows an easy integration of heterogeneous technologies in order to enable a hardware independent interoperability between them. Moreover, a Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control strategy has been developed and the whole infrastructure has been deployed in a real-world case study consisting of a historical building. Finally the results will be presented and discusse