Media masters and grassroot art 2.0 on Youtube

Communication in the Web 2.0 context mainly works through images. The online video platform YouTube uses this form of visual communication and makes art forms of Western societies visible through their online videos. YouTube, as cultural reservoir and visual archive of moving images, accommodates the whole range of visualising creative processes – from artistic finger exercises to fine arts. A general characteristic of YouTube is the publishing of small everyday gestures of the ‘big ones’ (politicians, stars), like small incidents and their clumsiness in everyday actions, e.g. Beyonce´s fall from the stage or Tom Cruise’s demonic pro-scientology interview. Through their viral distribution on different platforms, these incidents will never be covered up or disappear from the public view. At the same time big gestures and star images are replicated and sometimes reinterpreted by the ‘small people’ who present themselves in the poses and attitudes of the stars. Generally, a coexistence of different perspectives is possible. YouTube allows polysemic and polyvalent views on the everyday and media phenomena. This article relies on YouTube research 2 that started in 2006 at the New Media Department of the Goethe University of Frankfurt. The results of the research have already presented representative forms and basic patterns, that is to say, categories for the clips appearing here. These kinds of clips, recurring in the observation period, have an impact on the basic representation of art or artistic expression within moving images on this platform. Methodologically the focus leads to the investigation (which has to be adequate to the specifics of the medium, or ‘media adequate’) of new visual structures and forms which can create – consciously or unconsciously – an art form. After focusing on the media structures, it will be discussed whether any and, if so, which ‘authentic’ new forms were developed solely on YouTube and whether these forms are innovative and can be characterised as avant-garde. This article first takes a small step in evaluating how to get from a general communication through means of visuality in web 2.0, an often endless chatty cheesy visual noise 3 – to the special quality of a consciously created aesthetic. From where do innovative aesthetic forms emerge, related to their media structures? 4 Are they the products of ‘media amateurs’ 5 or do we have to find new specifications and descriptions for the producers? The definition of a ‘media amateur’ describes technically interested private individuals who acquire and develop technology before commercial use of the technology is even recognisable. Just as artists are developing their own techniques, according to Dieter Daniels, media amateurs are autodidacts who invent techniques, rather than just acquire knowledge about them (see for example the demo scene, the machinima, brickfilm producers as well as many areas of computer gaming in general 6). The media amateur directly intervenes in the production processes of the medium and does not just simply use the medium. What is fascinating is the media amateur’s process of self education – not the result – and the direct impact on the internal structure and the control of the medium. 7 Media amateurs open a previously culturally unformed space of experience. This only partially applies to most of the YouTube clips in the realms of the visual arts; it is here most important to look at the visual content. This article discusses all these concepts and introduces new descriptions for the different forms of production: the technically oriented media master, the do-it-yourselfer, the tinkerer, the amateur handicraftsman and the inventor. It outlines a basic research project on ‘visual media culture’ (a triangulation of research on media structure and iconography) of the presented online video platform. It is a product of the analysis of clips focusing on the media structure, analyzing the creative handling of images and the deviations and differences of pre-set media formats and stereotypes

Killerinstinkt und Zerbrechlichkeit : wie Heldinnen in Computerspielen auftreten

Auch wer noch nicht das Computerspiel "Tomb Raider" gespielt hat, kennt die Hauptfigur Lara Croft: Sie wirbt auf Plakatwänden für die Zeitung "Die Welt", ist die Haupfigur in einem Werbespot für die Frauenzeitschrift "Brigitte" oder spielt im Musikclip "Männer sind Schweine" der Popgruppe "Die Ärzte" mit. Lara Croft ist eine der frühesten weiblichen Hauptfiguren im Computerspiel-Genre: Zwei Jahre nach dem Erscheinen der Sony-Playstation-Computerspielkonsole kommt 1996 das Action-Spiel "Tomb Raider" des englischen Spieleherstellers Eidos heraus, gefolgt von einer jährlichen Fortsetzung des Spiels, das im Juni mit der sechsten Folge "Angel of Darkness" erschienen ist

Cellular excitability and the regulation of functional neuronal identity: from gene expression to neuromodulation

The intrinsic properties of a neuron determine the translation of synaptic input to axonal output. It is this input– output relationship that is the heart of all nervous system activity. As such, the overall regulation of the intrinsic excitability of a neuron directly determines the output of that neuron at a given point in time, giving the cell a unique “functional identity.” To maintain this distinct functional output, neurons must adapt to changing patterns of synaptic excitation. These adaptations are essential to prevent neurons from either falling silent as synaptic excitation falls or becoming saturated as excitation increases. In the absence of stabilizing mechanisms, activity-dependent plasticity could drive neural activity to saturation or quiescence. Furthermore, as cells adapt to changing patterns of synaptic input, presumably the overall balance of intrinsic conductances of the cell must be maintained so that reliable output is achieved (Daoudal and Debanne, 2003; Turrigiano and Nelson, 2004; Frick and Johnston, 2005). Although these regulatory phenomena have been well documented, the molecular and physiological mechanisms involved are poorly understood

Variation in structural location and amino acid conservation of functional sites in protein domain families

BACKGROUND: The functional sites of a protein present important information for determining its cellular function and are fundamental in drug design. Accordingly, accurate methods for the prediction of functional sites are of immense value. Most available methods are based on a set of homologous sequences and structural or evolutionary information, and assume that functional sites are more conserved than the average. In the analysis presented here, we have investigated the conservation of location and type of amino acids at functional sites, and compared the behaviour of functional sites between different protein domains. RESULTS: Functional sites were extracted from experimentally determined structural complexes from the Protein Data Bank harbouring a conserved protein domain from the SMART database. In general, functional (i.e. interacting) sites whose location is more highly conserved are also more conserved in their type of amino acid. However, even highly conserved functional sites can present a wide spectrum of amino acids. The degree of conservation strongly depends on the function of the protein domain and ranges from highly conserved in location and amino acid to very variable. Differentiation by binding partner shows that ion binding sites tend to be more conserved than functional sites binding peptides or nucleotides. CONCLUSION: The results gained by this analysis will help improve the accuracy of functional site prediction and facilitate the characterization of unknown protein sequences

Warm Bitch: The Practice of Bootlegging as a Clash of Club Sound Cultures

This text deals with a phenomenon called Bastard Pop, Mash-up or Bootlegging as a subversive political and collective practice. Although sampling techniques (e.g. in R’n’B or House Music) have enabled the mixing of different styles of music for the dancefloor this has never been done in such a radical way before. Copyright protected samples of Whitney Houston and Kraftwerk are entangled on a vinyl record (e.g. GIRLS ON TOP’s “I Wanna Dance with Numbers”), and this most famous bastard pop anthem is played in clubs to dance to. The source of this new sound is the internet, where it is digitally produced by anonymous projects. Some of the tracks are then mastered onto vinyl and often released as White Labels. Through their emphasis on projects rather than protagonists, the producers return to the paradigm of the electronic underground: “tracks without stars”. But at the same time there is also a difference from the original house music concept that referred to pop artists such as Warhol as “making music like a machine” (eg Juan Atkins’ Cybotron). The goal of the house music projects was to initiate “the meeting of people and wavelength” as DJ and producer Blake Baxter once put it

Clipping gender: mediale Einzelbilder, Sequenzen und Bild-Nachbarschaften im Rahmen einer fokussierten Relationsanalyse

'Das Musikvideo stellt eine zwischen Alltagskultur und bildender Kunst changierende Hybridform dar. Für diese wird hier eine neue relationale, den Bildern angemessene Analysemethode entwickelt, die Einzelanalysen im Sinne der Theorie des 'Shifting image' und der Bildnachbarschaften = 'Cluster' miteinander in Beziehung setzt und auf das 'Lesen' von Bildern verzichtet. Dabei ist der inhaltliche Fokus die Darstellung von Geschlecht und die Suche nach emanzipatorischen Bildern von Weiblichkeit im zeitgenössischen Clip. Die Interpretation konzentriert sich auf die Entschlüsselung und den Nachvollzug der vorliegenden Produktionsästhetik, indem zunächst medientheoretische Voraussetzungen und methodische Verfahrensweisen geklärt werden, um in exemplarische Analysen der Videos von Madonna 'Die Another Day', Aphex Twin 'Windowlicker' und Brandy 'What About Us' zu münden. Durch die Isolierung von Schlüsselbildern und -sequenzen entsteht das Interpretationsgerüst für die Clipanalyse. Darauf baut ein Bildleitfaden auf, der dann die Relationen zwischen den Einzelclips herstellt und diese zu Bild-Clustern, d.h. zu thematisch fokussierten Bildnachbarschaften zusammenfasst. Die thematische Clusteranalyse im Sinne des shifting image wird abgeschlossen durch die Einordnung in den sozio-kulturellen Kontext im Hinblick auf den inhaltlichen Focus.' (Autorenreferat)'A video clip is a hybrid that is situated between popular culture and fine arts. So it is necessary to develop a method for its interpretation that is adequate for dealing with its images. The results of the analysis of single videos is to be combined after the theory of the shifting image to form image clusters that are organised as image neighbourhoods with special relations. On the content side the focus is on the representation of gender and the search for emancipatory images for the female in contemporary clips. The interpretation concentrates on the revelation of production aesthetics. Before coming to that the media structural premises and methological backgrounds are set. They are the preconditions for the analysis that is exemplified in the interpretation of Madonna's 'Die Another Day', Aphex Twin 'Windowlicker' und Brandy 'What About Us'. The isolation of key images and sequences builds up the basis for clip analysis. From that point special image categories are extracted: for example the key objects of the clip or the relation between male and female body. They construct the connections between the single clips and glue them together in image clusters that are content related image neighbourhoods. The focal cluster analysis framed by the term of shifting image will be terminated through putting the result into the social context of the focus.' (author's abstract

The Slow Displacement of Smallholder Farming Families: Land, Hunger, and Labor Migration in Nicaragua and Guatemala

Smallholders worldwide continue to experience processes of displacement from their lands under neoliberal political-economic governance. This displacement is often experienced as “slow”, driven by decades of agricultural policies and land governance regimes that favor input-intensive agricultural and natural resource extraction and export projects at the expense of traditional agrarian practices, markets, and producers. Smallholders struggle to remain viable in the face of these forces, yet they often experience hunger. To persist on the land, often on small parcels, families supplement and finance farm production with family members engaging in labor migration, a form of displacement. Outcomes, however, are uneven and reflect differences in migration processes as well as national and local political economic processes around land. To demonstrate “slow displacement”, we assess the prolonged confluence of land access, hunger, and labor migration that undermine smallholder viability in two separate research sites in Nicaragua and Guatemala. We draw on evidence from in-depth interviews and focus groups carried out from 2013 to 2015, together with a survey of 317 households, to demonstrate how smallholders use international labor migration to address persistent hunger, with the two cases illuminating the centrality of underlying land distribution questions in labor migration from rural spaces of Central America. We argue that smallholder farming family migration has a dual nature: migration is at once evidence of displacement, as well as a strategy for families to prolong remaining on the land in order to produce food

Capturing intrusive re-experiencing in trauma survivors’ daily lives using ecological momentary assessment

Intrusive memories are common following traumatic events and among the hallmark symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most studies assess summarized accounts of intrusions retrospectively. We used an ecological momentary approach and index intrusive memories in trauma survivors with and without PTSD using electronic diaries. Forty-six trauma survivors completed daily diaries for 7 consecutive days recording a total of 294 intrusions. Participants with PTSD experienced only marginally more intrusions than those without PTSD, but experienced them with more “here and now quality,” and responded with more fear, helplessness, anger, and shame than those without PTSD. Most frequent intrusion triggers were stimuli that were perceptually similar to stimuli from the trauma. Individuals with PTSD experienced diary-prompted voluntary trauma memories with the same sense of nowness and vividness as involuntary intrusive trauma memories. The findings contribute to a better understanding of everyday experiences of intrusive reexperiencing in trauma survivors with PTSD and offer clinical treatment implications

Capturing sequence variation among flowering-time regulatory gene homologs in the allopolyploid crop species Brassica napus

Flowering, the transition from the vegetative to the generative phase, is a decisive time point in the lifecycle of a plant. Flowering is controlled by a complex network of transcription factors, photoreceptors, enzymes and miRNAs. In recent years, several studies gave rise to the hypothesis that this network is also strongly involved in the regulation of other important lifecycle processes ranging from germination and seed development through to fundamental developmental and yield-related traits. In the allopolyploid crop species Brassica napus, (genome AACC), homoeologous copies of flowering time regulatory genes are implicated in major phenological variation within the species, however the extent and control of intraspecific and intergenomic variation among flowering-time regulators is still unclear. To investigate differences among B. napus morphotypes in relation to flowering-time gene variation, we performed targeted deep sequencing of 29 regulatory flowering-time genes in four genetically and phenologically diverse B. napus accessions. The genotype panel included a winter-type oilseed rape, a winter fodder rape, a spring-type oilseed rape (all B. napus ssp. napus) and a swede (B. napus ssp. napobrassica), which show extreme differences in winter-hardiness, vernalization requirement and flowering behaviour. A broad range of genetic variation was detected in the targeted genes for the different morphotypes, including non-synonymous SNPs, copy number variation and presence-absence variation. The results suggest that this broad variation in vernalisation, clock and signaling genes could be a key driver of morphological differentiation for flowering-related traits in this recent allopolyploid crop species

SMART 5: domains in the context of genomes and networks

The Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool (SMART) is an online resource () used for protein domain identification and the analysis of protein domain architectures. Many new features were implemented to make SMART more accessible to scientists from different fields. The new ‘Genomic’ mode in SMART makes it easy to analyze domain architectures in completely sequenced genomes. Domain annotation has been updated with a detailed taxonomic breakdown and a prediction of the catalytic activity for 50 SMART domains is now available, based on the presence of essential amino acids. Furthermore, intrinsically disordered protein regions can be identified and displayed. The network context is now displayed in the results page for more than 350 000 proteins, enabling easy analyses of domain interactions