Multi-user investigation organizer

A system that allows a team of geographically dispersed users to collaboratively analyze a mishap event. The system includes a reconfigurable ontology, including instances that are related to and characterize the mishap, a semantic network that receives, indexes and stores, for retrieval, viewing and editing, the instances and links between the instances, a network browser interface for retrieving and viewing screens that present the instances and links to other instances and that allow editing thereof, and a rule-based inference engine, including a collection of rules associated with establishment of links between the instances. A possible conclusion arising from analysis of the mishap event may be characterized as one or more of: not a credible conclusion; an unlikely conclusion; a credible conclusion; conclusion needs analysis; conclusion needs supporting data; conclusion proposed to be closed; and an un-reviewed conclusion

Attributing scientific and technical progress: the case of holography

Holography, the three-dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated with different sponsors and user communities, cast holography as a field on the verge of success—but with the dimensions of success repeatedly refashioned. This retargeting of the subject represented a degree of cynical marketeering, but was underpinned by implicit confidence in philosophical positivism and faith in technological progressivism. Each of its communities defined success in terms of expansion, and anticipated continual progressive increase. This paper discusses the contrasting definitions of progress in holography, and how they were fashioned in changing contexts. Focusing equally on reputed ‘failures’ of some aspects of the subject, it explores the varied attributes by which success and failure were linked with progress by different technical communities. This important case illuminates the peculiar post-World War II environment that melded the military, commercial and popular engagement with scientific and technological subjects, and the competing criteria by which they assessed the products of science

Memorial meshwork: the making of the commemorative space of the Hyde Park 7/7 memorial

How do memorials act to transmit memory through the organization of space? In this paper we contrast a ‘preservation’ model of the endurance of encoded memory with a ‘meshwork’ model which treats memory as emergent on the perdurance of the memorial site. Developing a theoretical framework from Tim Ingold’s (2011; 2013) work, we describe how memorialization receives its spatial form through a collective work of braiding together multiple threads of activities and material flows. To illustrate, we examine the spatial and temporal organization of the Hyde Park 7/7 memorial from its initial designs, through to installation and contemporary use. We draw on interview data featuring various stakeholders in the 7/7 memorial project to analyse the relationship between memorial space and material relations. We develop an approach to organizational space as an unfinished meshwork that folds together wanted and unwanted memory, making the historical a matter of ongoing live concern but with the absence of a permanent guiding narrative

‘Dark Tourism’ and the ‘Kitschification’ of 9/11

This paper aims to interrogate the framing of New York’s Ground Zero as a ‘dark tourist’ destination, with particular reference to the entanglement of notions of kitsch in academic discussions of the events of September 11th 2001. What makes Ground Zero contentious, even scandalous, for many scholars is the presence of a conspicuous commodity culture around the site in the form of tourist souvenirs, leading to accusations of kitschification of memory and the constitution of visitors as ‘tourists of history’. Drawing upon theoretical ideas of Jacques Ranciere, Bruno Latour and W. J. T. Mitchell around image politics, the alignment of kitsch with the figure of the tourist will be questioned, along with the conviction that the so-called ‘teddy-bearification’ of 9/11 threatens the formation of dangerous political subjectivities. In attempting to rid the debates of their default settings, and reliance on essentialist notions of kitsch, it is hoped that that the way will be cleared for the sociological, ethnographic and empirical work necessary to considering the cultural and political significance of the Ground Zero souvenir economy

The Web will kill them all: new media, digital utopia, and political struggle in the Italian 5-Star Movement

This article examines the role of discourses about new media technology and the Web in the rise of the 5-Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S) in Italy. Founded by comedian and activist Beppe Grillo and Web entrepreneur Gianrobe rto Casaleggio in 2009, this movement succeeded in becoming the second largest party at t he 2013 national elections in Italy. This article aims to discuss how elements of digital uto pia and Web-centric discourses have been inserted into the movement’s political message, and how the construction of the Web as a myth has shaped the movement’s discourse and political p ractice. The 5-Star Movement is compared and contrasted with other social and political move ments in Western countries which have displayed a similar emphasis on new media, such as the Occupy movement, the Indignados movement, and the Pirate Parties in Sweden and Germ any. By adopting and mutating cyber- utopian discourses from the so-called Californian i deology, the movement symbolically identifies itself with the Web. The traditional political esta blishment is associated with “old” media (television, radio, and the printed press), and rep resented as a “walking dead,” doomed to be superseded and buried by a Web-based direct democra cy

Connective Memory Work on Justice for Mike Brown

This chapter addresses what I term the "connective memory work" carried out on Facebook page dedicated to achieving justice for Michael Brown, an African America teenager whose death at the gun of white police officer Darren Wilson in early August 2014 led to the Ferguson protests. The chapter outlines four types of connective memory work evident on the page. These types include the ‘memetic resurrection’ that involved the appropriation of iconic historical imagery alongside those of networked commemoration, digital archiving and curation, and crowd reconstruction. Central to this contribution the call to rethink the digital memory work practices of activists so as to integrate a concern for the agency of social media platforms themselves.<br/

Aesthetics of protest: An examination of the photojournalistic approach to protest imagery

Images of protests and demonstrations are crucial to both social movements and protesters who wish to communicate their identity and their messages to wider audiences. However, the photographing of such political events by press photographers is a complex process. The current analysis focuses on questions of aesthetics surrounding issues of visuality regarding protests and demonstrations. Based on empirical data from 17 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Greek photojournalists, this paper examines what is photographed during a protest and how this is affected by the photojournalists’ aesthetic criteria. Drawing on scholarly work on photojournalism (Ritchin and Åker) and photography (Sontag), this article discusses that besides the presumption in the principal of recording reality, photojournalists’ practice is also infused with subjective language and influenced by art photographers’ techniques. Thereupon, the main argument of this paper is that the employment of hybridized photographing practices by photojournalists can have an impact upon their visual decisions with regard to what and how is photographed during a protest. The product of such practices is usually high quality, captivating images with apparent affective qualities