Ancestral Spaces: Time, Memory and the Liminal Experience of Painting

Abstract of Dissertation Where a person is situated in space and time determines the way an artwork is perceived. The result of this experience implies a relationship between the viewer and the artwork, thereby creating a liminal space. The terms liminal space and nonduality in this paper refer to the threshold, or in-between space that both separates and unites two opposing forces, creating a unique place that transcends memory and time. An artwork can serve as a mediatory object between artist and viewer because with each encounter, a unique meeting occurs. Thus, the meeting of audience and art object is transitory, ephemeral and temporal by nature and will be discussed in relation to the artwork as a vehicle to foster a subjective perception. Using my ancestral memories as a starting point, I refer to the art object as a means to explore time as a cross section of experience. Like dreams, where time is non-linear and memories exist side by side, I refer to the nondual space that exists between artist, artwork and audience as an opportunity to access an intuitive reaction to perception. The yearning to represent subjective space stems from my desire to understand perception and the brain. By presenting an overview of approaches from art history and contemporary art, this paper will discuss the various philosophical approaches that have been employed to represent space and time. I emphasise the ability of visual art to record the multifarious nature of experience, and the ability of the picture plane as a means to employ illusory and abstract space simultaneously. I have approached the research of time, memory and space through the lens of my own ancestry, which is essentially a combination of eastern and western in origin. Through this model I explore the tendencies throughout art history to depict space and time and the influences that culture and science have had upon the visual arts. My own paintings, and the work of Louise Bourgeois, Amy Cutler and Mamma Andersson are discussed with the intention of describing how the subjectivity of space can be expressed through a method that embraces the theories of nonduality and liminal space. Between the junction of east/west and abstract/illusory space, lies a point of union that I will refer to as ‘transcendent space’. By existing in the nondual, access is granted into a field that transcends the ‘either/or’ and allows access into a temporal space that permeates all experience. Studio work The studio component of the MVA will comprise of a series of paintings and an installation entitled, Only the memories are new. The paintings are of small scale and play with depictions of flatness and illusion. I have referenced Arabic miniatures as a means to employ a vertical perspective, whilst the inclusion of windows and doorways imply an opening to the nondual and the liminal. For the installation, components of the paintings come to life and occupy a space that invites the viewers’ participation. The installation presents an environment that asks the viewer to navigate the space that they occupy by way of memory and time

Characterising Structure-Property Reasoning within a Chemical Design Challenge: Green Bubble Soap

Where design seems to merge easily with physics or technology education, it does not seem to take place much in secondary chemistry education. Design is one of the crosscutting concepts between the different STEM subjects, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and is therefore included in curricula and standards in many countries. Structure-function reasoning is an important design skill. In a chemical context it shows similarities with structure-property reasoning (SPR). This SPR is a common practice for expert chemists but difficult to learn for secondary students. Given the similarities, chemical design activities might be a way to enhance students’ SPR. Moreover, stimulating SPR might open a way to expand the role of chemistry in integrated STEM education. We describe an explorative study in which the design of bubble soap is used as a context to promote students’ SPR. Data was collected in the form of audio recordings of student conversations within the design team, student-teacher conversations and design drawings on worksheets. Qualitative analysis, using the perspective for SPR as a framework, revealed that identified SPR was expressed in three ways: as a link between structural features and substances, as a link between the term ‘molecule’ and property and as a link between molecular structures and properties of a substance. Furthermore, analysis showed that SPR was only found during evaluation, discussion and ideation stages of the design process. The results indicate that this chemical design project can be used to stimulate students’ SPR and that SPR can be a way to integrate design practices more in chemistry classrooms

Youth’s Perspectives of Computational Design in Making-based Coding Activities

There are increasing calls to introduce coding in K-12 in creative ways that provide opportunities for personal expression. Computational design projects include computational concepts fundamental to computer science to generate 2D and 3D models that can potentially be personally meaningful. We developed and implemented making-based coding activities for youth that combine computational design and 3D printing tools and allow the participants to design and fabricate free-choice projects. To investigate how young persons engaged in computational design and which aspects demotivated them, we used a mixed-methods approach that included semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. We took field notes and collected students’ artifacts to triangulate the data wherever possible. The results show that 3D printing, creating unique aesthetics, enhanced personalization, and ownership of design models are crucial elements for engaging youth in computational design. We discuss the implications of our exploratory study and suggest directions for future work in developing computationally rich making-based activities

Uniqueness Typing for Resource Management in Message-Passing Concurrency

We view channels as the main form of resources in a message-passing programming paradigm. These channels need to be carefully managed in settings where resources are scarce. To study this problem, we extend the pi-calculus with primitives for channel allocation and deallocation and allow channels to be reused to communicate values of different types. Inevitably, the added expressiveness increases the possibilities for runtime errors. We define a substructural type system which combines uniqueness typing and affine typing to reject these ill-behaved programs