The Parking Gallery: Experimental practice and the artist-run initiative in South Africa

In a contemporary South African context of arts production and exhibition, there are few spaces or arenas dedicated to the development and presentation of experimental and non-commercial projects. This ‘void’ has become increasingly evident amidst the growing interest in social and participative aesthetics within artistic production which include (but are not limited to) relational, collaborative and dialogical art. In this research article I examine the emergence of the artist-run initiative (ARI) as a means to address the lack of ‘exhibition’ space available for the presentation of said practices. In particular, I explore the Parking Gallery, from its first brief incarnation as a project space, to its current form as a malleable, participative, non-commercial platform. I discuss the influence of Gush’s practice on the gallery, and how his overarching interest in autonomous-Marxism has influenced its socialistic approach to the institutionalisation of art. Moreover, I posit that this methodology provides a valuable (albeit fallible) prototype for the potentialities of non-traditional economies (trade, collective funding and so on) within a South African arts landscape defined by funding deficits and a commercially driven art market

A crash course in empathy: Design Thinking 101

Examining how designers solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for clients by drawing upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning

Bicultural Immersion as a Strategy to Promote A Healthy Professional Role Transition for New Graduate Registered Nurses

The transition to professional practice for newly graduated nurses (NGN) finds them struggling to balance the ‘ideals’ taught in their undergraduate education with the ‘realities’ of the contemporary workplace. Failure to successfully navigate this struggle is playing out in alarming statistics related to NGN attrition, with 33-61% NGNs changing their place of employment or leaving the nursing profession within the first two years, 45.5% expressing uncertainty about their decision to remain in practice, and 25% claiming they would actively discourage someone from going into nursing. The intent of this study was to explore how NGNs experience the cultures of education and the workplace and how the relationship between NGNs and senior nursing staff influences the experience of transition. Duchscher’s Professional Role Transition Risk Assessment Instrument was used to determine correlations between mentoring support and the NGNs experience of transition shock. Preliminary findings indicate that a mentor’s knowledge of the transition experience is imperative to the provision of adequate support. Further to this, the process of guiding the NGN through the transition experience is significantly facilitated when meetings are structured and framed by the Stages of Transition theory variables. Further findings indicate a potential shift in the approaches of NGNs to work, with casualization offering them control over the pace and intensity of their transition. It would appear that previous experience on the ward to which the NGN is hired positively influences their experience and night and day shifts need to be intentionally balanced to provide both stability and growth

Privacy policies: Are they meeting users\u27 needs?

This paper examines the web site privacy policies of 200 web sites, 100 of the most popular as well as 100 random web sites. It examines the extent at which these privacy policies comprehensively define a company\u27s data collection and dissemination policies. Such policies are important in creating trust between a company and its customers

Design Thinking, neoliberalism, and the trivialisation of social change in higher education

Whilst the notion of Design Thinking is nothing new, the methodology, and its focus on innovation, has become increasingly popularised within Higher Education over the last decade. Along with related practices, including Service Design, Design for Social Change, Social Design, and Design for Social Innovation, Design Thinking advocates a strategic, human-centred approach to design which ostensibly provides a “tool to address some of [societies’] most pressing issues: alleviating poverty, providing better education, and improving basic health services for all human beings” (Sharma 2012:195). Using examples from the RSA Student Design Awards, this chapter examines various ideological and practical problems inherent within the methodology. These include Design Thinking’s proximity to neoliberal economic policy, and a concomitant emphasis on ‘social change’ through marketisation and responsibilisation; its injudicious borrowing of techniques associated with the social sciences; and concerns around positioning vulnerable communities as ‘opportunities’ for gaining creative or mercantile capital, under the mantle of effecting positive ‘social change’. The chapter concludes by sketching out a possible way forward for developing a more critical and situated form of the practice, to ensure that the current rhetorical hyperbolisation around Design Thinking as a panacea for our global crises is balanced with an understanding that it is not an inherently emancipatory practice, but rather, one that has the potential to do more harm than good

The relationship between corporate governance practices and firm performance in the junior Canadian Life Sciences sector

1 online resource (xi, 89 p.) : col. ill.Includes abstract and appendix.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-86).The relationship between four corporate governance characteristics and six measures of firm performance are examined in a sample of sixty-two Life Sciences firms listed on Canada’s TSX-Venture stock exchange. Results from univariate and logistic regression analyses support prior corporate governance research by demonstrating that the effect of good corporate governance structures on firm performance may be contingent on the specific circumstances within the firm or even the industry as a whole. Majority independence of the Board of Directors was found to have minor negative impact on firm performance. CEO duality was shown to enhance firm performance as proxied by return on assets; this result is contrary to expectations based on the agency model of corporate governance, but consistent with this study’s hypothesis. Gender diversity of the Board indicated mixed results, showing a negative association with firm performance. Equity ownership by the Board was associated with better firm performance. In sum, this study shows that significant associations are present among the selected corporate governance factors and relevant measures of performance for junior Canadian Life Sciences firms. These findings should be used as a basis for further investigation which may include expanding the sample and the time frame. Ultimately, this research may serve to provide guidance to industry and indicators to investors of future firm performance

The rise of the sidekick: renegotiating the relationship between performance art and performance documentation

M.A., Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011Within this research project I investigate the uneasy, co-dependent relationship that has developed between performance art and the documentation thereof. ‘Traditional’ performance art1 is understood as a necessarily live medium, one that is available to an audience only through a direct interaction with the artist as ‘performer.’ Documentation as a tangible ‘object’ – be it text, video or photograph – is seen as antithetical to the central position of performance art as a non-material, experiential art form. Despite this dilemma, artists recognise the need to create a record of their performances, both as an archival document, and as a means to distribute it to a wider audience. As such, performance art and performance documentation have slipped into an uneasy hero:sidekick alliance, where documentation is seen only in the role of addendum to the ‘live-act.’ However, a branch of performance art, termed “theatrical performance” has, contentiously, redressed this imbalance (Auslander, 2005: 21). ‘Theatrical’ performance art challenges the core characteristics of ‘traditional’ performance art by presenting a performance to an audience purely as documentation, negating the need for a direct, live encounter with the artist as ‘performer.’ Within this research paper I will argue that the ‘traditional’ relationship between performance art and performance documentation is based on a set of archaic, anti-Modernist, and related anti-commodification, imperatives. I will posit that if these imperatives are removed, ‘traditional’ performance and ‘theatrical’ performance can be commonly seen as sites for creation of “interactivity” (Bourriaud, 2002: 21). As such, it is the inter-human relations represented, prompted or produced by the “artistic proposition” that defines performance art as such, rather than the ‘live-ness’ of the act (Bourriaud, 2002: 21, 33 and Bourriaud in Smith, 2006: 3). This distinction is becoming ever more critical within the current “Digital Age” (Dixon, 2007: 1). Digital transmissions and interactive websites are increasingly challenging the ‘traditional’ hierarchical relationship between the performance act and its representation through documentation (Dixon, 2007: 1). This research project extends across two registers and encompasses both a written and a practical component. Through my research, and a new body of work entitled Girl, you know it’s true, I will mobilise my position on ‘theatrical’ performance as a legitimate species of performance art, a ‘hero’ in its own right

Speculating on the Future of Graphic Design in the Age of Intelligent Machines

Machine learning is set to have a profound impact on the graphic design industry in the near future. Despite its proximity, graphic design education and practice are largely sidelined from participating in the highly scientized spheres of computational aesthetics and applied image processing. Within this context, the researchers sought to make visible some of the cultural and practical implications of AI-powered design, from a graphic design perspective. The resulting practice-led project, Michael Barnes, falls within the subfield of adversarial design, and seeks to provoke contestation and debate around automation in design. The following short paper briefly sketches out the current graphic design landscape in relation to emerging technologies; outlines Michael Barnes; and explores a number of issues raised by the project including questions around (inter alia) aesthetics, authorship, and representation

Seeing Is Believing: The CSI Effect Among Jurors in Malicious Wounding Cases

With the popularization of television crime shows that focus heavily on forensic science, such as CSI and its spin-offs, concerns about a new threat to jury trials have emerged in recent years. Dubbed the “CSI effect,” this phenomenon has reportedly come to influence the way jurors perceive forensic evidence at trials based on the way forensic evidence is presented on television. While the CSI effect has been the topic of much discussion throughout the popular press, the CSI effect has seldom been empirically tested. In this study, we present a selection of media accounts as well as criminological and legal literature that provides a review of the current state of the CSI effect. Additionally, we present the findings of a survey of 60 jurors from five malicious wounding cases on the influence of viewing CSI on jury decision-making. Using a logistic regression model, we found that belief in the accuracy of the scientific methods used on CSI was significantly related to juror verdicts