Trends and tradition: Negotiating different cultural models in relation to sustainable craft and artisan production

If the identity of ‘design’ as a practice is contested then the relationship of design and designers to craft and craft practices can be hugely confused. This lack of clarity can encourage non-design based organisations to promote the use of ‘trend forecasting’ as a panacea to the design dilemma associated with craft production for non-traditional markets. Consequently fashion sensitive trends become perceived as the driving force of design-led consumption. In this context how do we understand what ‘trend forecasting’ is and becomes when used in this manner? How does it contribute or not to the sustainability of local design cultures? This paper examines how these challenges have been interrogated and experienced through practice at Masters Level at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. It seeks sustainable strategies for design and craft drawing on a diverse range of examples to illustrate contemporary artefacts realised from a diverse range of projects, sources and geographical locations

In Step With Indiana Authors... Featuring an Interview With Tony Perona

After seeing the photos of Tony Perona at his website, tonyperona.com, which I perused in preparation for this interview, I wondered which man I would be meeting. Would it be the clean-cut businessman in a conservative suit, or the mysterious sword-wielding man with the wry grin who came through the door at Starbucks that afternoon? It was neither. The Tony Perona I had the pleasure of meeting drove up in a minivan and bounded through the door with a warm, friendly smile. He looked like any active dad out running errands in suburban Indianapolis on the weekend and, in fact, was fresh off the slopes from skiing the previous day with his church group

In Step With Indiana Authors... Featuring an Interview With James Alexander Thom

James Alexander Thom is a highly acclaimed, best-selling historical novelist whose works include Follow the River, From Sea to Shining Sea, and Panther in the Sky among many others. Born in 1933 in Gosport, Indiana, he now resides in the hill country outside Bloomington, Indiana, in a log cabin that he built with his own hands. He is married to Dark Rain, a member of the Shawnee National Tribe, of which Thom is an honorary member. Thom is a former Marine, newspaper man, and magazine editor. Contrary to what often happens with many aspiring writers, it was a rejection slip that actually bolstered his belief in his ability to be a writer

MY PROSTHETIC AND I: Identity Representation in Bodily Extension

My prosthetic is a secret of my self. It hides, tucked beneath clothing, allowing me to pass as something that I am not, that I can never be. It is precious to me, it enables me, gives me mobility and an aesthetic that would cease if it was removed from me. Within my body schema, my prosthetic is as much a part of my body as my skin, blood, and organs. It is also an object of technology, a topological replacement of a missing body part. However, a large, un-chartered misunderstanding of experience separates both of these experiences. For many years, academics, artists, and theorists have tried to merge the two, in the process bringing forth ideas on the prosthetic that have seemingly removed it from the realm of disabled experience and into the fantastical world of the uncanny. Therefore, the question for myself, as an artist, is how to explore this large chasm of differing experience and draw out the uncanny into a world of subtle, lived understanding and visual acceptance

The Number of Seymour Vertices in Random Tournaments and Digraphs

Seymour's distance two conjecture states that in any digraph there exists a vertex (a "Seymour vertex") that has at least as many neighbors at distance two as it does at distance one. We explore the validity of probabilistic statements along lines suggested by Seymour's conjecture, proving that almost surely there are a "large" number of Seymour vertices in random tournaments and "even more" in general random digraphs.Comment: 14 page

An integrated approach for evaluating the effectiveness of landslide risk reduction in unplanned communities in the Caribbean

Despite the recognition of the need for mitigation approaches to landslide risk in developing countries, the delivery of ‘on-the-ground’ measures is rarely undertaken. With respect to other ‘natural’ hazards it is widely reported that mitigation can pay. However, the lack of such an evidence-base in relation to landslides in developing countries hinders advocacy amongst decision makers for expenditure on ex-ante measures. This research addresses these limitations directly by developing and applying an integrated risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis of physical landslide mitigation measures implemented in an unplanned community in the Eastern Caribbean. In order to quantify the level of landslide risk reduction achieved, landslide hazard and vulnerability were modelled (before and after the intervention) and project costs, direct and indirect benefits were monetised. It is shown that the probability of landslide occurrence has been substantially reduced by implementing surface-water drainage measures, and that the benefits of the project outweigh the costs by a ratio of 2.7 to 1. This paper adds to the evidence base that ‘mitigation pays’ with respect to landslide risk in the most vulnerable communities – thus strengthening the argument for ex-ante measures. This integrated project evaluation methodology should be suitable for adoption as part of the community-based landslide mitigation project cycle, and it is hoped that this resource, and the results of this study, will stimulate further such programmes.Landslide modelling, Risk assessment, Cost Benefit Analysis, Developing countries, Community

Enredos historiográficos : Lope ante Lepanto

Se analiza La Santa Liga de Lope de Vega, con referencia a la diversidad de propuestas de narrar la batalla de Lepanto, tal como habían surgido a distancia de dos décadas de la batalla naval del 7 octubre de 1571.This article proposes that the long maligned blend of love intrigue and battle chronicle within Lope de Vega's La Santa Liga merits reconsideration in terms of how Spaniards negotiated the cultural memory of the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571)