Issues in the processing and analysis of functional NIRS imaging and a contrast with fMRI findings in a study of sensorimotor deactivation and connectivity

Includes abstract.~Includes bibliographical references.The first part of this thesis examines issues in the processing and analysis of continuous wave functional linear infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) of the brain usung the DYNOT system. In the second part, the same sensorimotor experiment is carried out using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and near infrared spectroscopy in eleven of the same subjects, to establish whether similar results can be obtained at the group level with each modality. Various techniques for motion artefact removal in fNIRS are compared. Imaging channels with negligible distance between source and detector are used to detect subject motion, and in data sets containing deliberate motion artefacts, independent component analysis and multiple-channel regression are found to improve the signal-to-noise ratio

Introduction: Multisensory materialities in the art school

Little has been written about the specific and complex environments of the studio and the art school. A ‘material culture’ approach to art and design can throw light on the multi-materiality of works of art and design, and on the affective resonances of artefacts. We complied this special issue of the journal 'Studies in material thinking' with particular focus the multisensorial and affective materialities in relation to the objects, meanings and practices of art and design and art education. While many writers have noted that the multi-sensual aspect of material culture is also that which resists attempts of narration or rationalisation, we discuss how this raises particular concerns within some of the less well theorised or observed fields of art and design, where practitioners may themselves believe that ‘theory’ is not part of practice. We examine the formation of identity also, as art school students can be thought of as self-fashioning professionals, young adults engaged in varying processes of self-creation and self-narration through material practices. we examine the continuous appropriation within the art school of vernacular cultures, and the repurposing of various amateur practices. We introduce the issues and debates in a collection of critical reflections that bring together the study of material culture with that of affect, aesthetics, and politics in a cross-disciplinary dialogue, engaging theorists and artists, thinkers, makers and collectors/connoisseurs of objects

Nuclear architecture : perceptions of architectural technology

Abstract. In this paper we explore the implications of pluralist curricula for architectural technology. This includes the potential effects on strengthening the identity of the architectural technology profession and the academic development of the discipline. This latter relies, arguably, on research being explicit in CIAT’s eight mandatory threshold standards. This work concentrates on one of the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologist’s (CIATS’s) key subjects; 'design', defined as detail design for the architectural technologist. In postulating a philosophy of architectural technology epistemology with a focus on detail design, the pedagogy of architectural detailing in practice and academia is investigated: the associated roles of creativity and conditioning are explored. The interrelationship between conceptual design and construction processes in practice is outlined, identifying the role of the detail design specialist (architectural technologist) in the management of design and production information. Thus is identified the future architectural technologists’ specialisation of nuclear architecture: the total quality construction created by quality of thinking which permeates from and to detail design for assembly/disassembly and production within a collaboratively mechanised AEC team. A theory of nuclear architecture and an associated approach to detail design pedagogy are postulated, aiming to promote a revised perception of the definition of design for the architectural technologist. How this theory can be applied to the creation of a paradigmatic student project, themed on designing for disassembly as a key future focus of ‘Healthy Building’ design is introduced for future exploration. This future research into detail design, the authors propose, should be predicated on the appropriate methodology related to the epistemology of a design-based area of the architectural technology discipline. The roles of Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies (PSRB) in the evaluation and subsequent dissemination of this detail design pedagogy, with the aim of strengthening the architectural technology discipline are emphasised. Keywords: Philosophy of architectural technology epistemology; Pedagogy of architectural detailing; Theory of nuclear architecture; Dissemination of detail design pedagogy; Strengthening the architectural technology disciplin

The drawing strategies of James Nasmyth (1808-1890): Technological and artistic visual traditions in the early nineteenth century

This dissertation explores the range of drawing practices open to James Nasmyth (1808-1890), the mechanical engineer. He has been used as the focus for the study of different conventions of drawing and mark-making in mid-19th-century Britain at a time when mechanization began to influence the production of images at many levels. The context of his education and training in Edinburgh in the 1820s is described first; this covers not only the influence of his father, Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840), the landscape painter, but also the curriculum and student bodies of the Trustees' Academy and the Edinburgh School of Arts. Nasmyth's working life coincided with the development and consolidation of technical and engineering drawing, and this dissertation examines the theoretical and material bases of this style as it appeared in technical illustrations; in teaching manuals; and in working and presentation drawings, using material from the Nasmyth & Gaskell donation at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. In tandem with his working drawings, Nasmyth throughout his life continued the practice of observational sketching as a record of the people, places, and objects that interested him, and many of these drawings have been preserved in sketchbooks or in his Autobiography, In addition, James Nasmyth produced a book on the nature of the Moon landscape. The Moon, considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite in 1874 in collaboration with James Carpenter (1840-1899). This was illustrated with photographic images which exhibited several innovative features both in Nasmyth's idiosyncratic mixed-medium method of working, and in their method of production as print illustrations; this section drew on material from the John Murray Archive. This whole range of drawing practices was considered in order to begin to address two questions; 1) were different drawing conventions kept rigidly apart at this period, and 2) did the development of mechanically reproduced images lead to a new synthesis between different mark-making conventions

‘Flower power: designers, printers and home dressmakers draw up 1960s fashion’

Art and design in the psychedelic era has been characterised in various ways, as the 'politics of ecstasy' (Grunenberg 2005: 11); or more warily as the harnessing of 'hip consumerism' by corporate admen and marketeers (Frank 1997). In relation to fashion and emulation this paper will examine printed textiles in relation to the neo-art nouveau/ psychedelic movement in the 1960s-early 1970s. Many commentators have described the Beardsley exhibition at the V&A as perhaps the most influential stimulus to the development of both psychedelia as well as of other consciously 'retro' styles that featured in the clothing, graphic design, art and other manifestations of rebellion against clean modernist notions of good taste. While this causal claim can easily be disputed, there is no denying the gleeful presence of Beardsley's erotic graphic inventions in psychedelic imagery. But this paper will also be more concerned with a different mode of analysis, with the separate echo we can find to the graphic era of the 1890s, with the exploitation of new, liberating, cheap, and dramatic graphic print technology. Beardsley drew for the photographic line block process; textiles and poster art of the 1960s also used photo-techniques of screen printing or offset litho to similar effect. Photoprinting techniques allow freewheeling, eclectic, promiscuous line inventions as surface decoration, creating effective visual statements even in simple monochrome or limited colour separations. Designers could work from their kitchen tables. This paper will explore the emulative, aspirational work of more anonymous designers and amateur dressmakers in the era of 'self-sufficiency' and compare it to some opportunistic aspects of the graphic design explosion in the 1890s.This paper will link drawing to print production in order to discuss the power in the draughtsman and woman’s mind of mark making as a means of appropriating a desired style or ethos