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Creative industries foresight 2030: sustainability industry 4.0
Get PDFA foresight report on Creative Industries in 2030 with a particular focus on Sustainability & Industry 4.0. Research funded by Research England Strategic Priorities Fund
Are there peas in a pod when considering mobile phone and mobile applications use: A quantitative study
Get PDFDespite the acknowledgement of the significance of income, affordability and cultural factors in using mobile phones research, there are few studies on how these factors affect females' use of mobile technology. Hence, this paper aims to expand knowledge on female consumers' use of mobile phones and mobile applications in developing countries. It develops a model based on combining the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the cultural influence model. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to distribute hard copy questionnaires in Jordanian, Iraqi and UAE households led to 629 replies from female consumers. The results indicated that although income is an important factor, cost is not the highest barrier for females. Culture, society, national IT development and inclusive policies play a key role. This study contributes to existing literature by proposing a new integrated model acknowledging the role of income for females’ use of mobile phones
Tensed Muscles
Get PDFIn 2019 Steffi Klenz was selected as one of the artists to undertake the Camden Alive Commission. Camden Alive is part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture and is a Mayor’s Cultural Impact Award winner.
In 1971 Camden Council acquired 22 acres of land, just off York Way, London from the National Freight Corporation and built the Maiden Lane Estate. 200 years ago the site was farmland, with ‘Midden Lane’ running through it. This route into London from the north became notorious for highwaymen and footpads until the Midland Railway took over the area and used it as a depot for coal, cattle and sheep.
The Maiden Lane estate, designed by architects Benson and Forsyth, was a visionary, modernist scheme which included plans for 400 new homes, shops, sports facilities, a community centre, a primary school and open spaces. Due to financial pressures in the late 1970s the plans were not fully realised, resulting in a split site and years of practical and social challenges.
During 2019 Steffi Klenz spent time at Maiden Lane talking with residents and immersing herself in the architecture of the space. Her photographic practice has been preoccupied with the built environment, exploring the notion of place and spatiality. Her work unfolds in urban places and buildings but it is not architectural photography; instead it uncovers unexpected narratives and traces of history embedded in the place.
Tensed Muscles explores the relationship between the architectural promise of modernist living; of equality and opportunity, and the reality of living in Maiden Lane in the 40 years since its inception. Klenz layers images of the neighbourhood, mixed with architectural plans, archive material and hand-drawn medical illustration to unearth what is hidden beneath the surface of the site. Klenz is interested in the entanglements of the poetic, political and socio-economic aspects of the neighbourhood and uses the metaphor of the ‘phantom limb’ to present this. Medical drawings and images of Maiden Lane residents’ disconnected limbs signify something missing – something missing in society relating to inequality and social-economic trauma, represented through bodily trauma.
The use of the body in her work connects us with the site, animating modernist architectural plans which use the body to merely populate the space. Illustrations of tensed, spasmodic muscles suggests that these animated bodies (that society and politics might want to disappear) become visible, real and vocal. This idea is apparent in the images of disconnected hands. These hands are separate and disconnected from the main body politic through trauma, but are presented as significant tools of communication. In hip hop and rap hands become gestural instruments and, as presented in Tensed Muscles, capable of vocalising through sign language by shaping an alphabet. Klenz further explores communication by making correlations between Scriptio Continua (continuous writing), an early style of writing without spaces or punctuation which was performed rather than read and the fast-paced transmission of ideas through rap and hip hop.
Klenz’s complex abstract collages of images, photograms, Scriptio Continua, graph work and line drawing disrupt the discipline of architecture as a measured, rational and ordered space; interrupting this with human agency, interaction and the realities of life on a London estate.
First iteration of project: a music album which is available on Spotify for free and also on the 7th March 2020 Brownsilla and Boss B with a string quartet performed the album live in front of Klenz's large projection piece. There will also be a solo exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre and an Augmented reality app designed by Arcade.
In the Spring of 2019 Maiden Lane rap artists Brownsilla and Boss B collaborated with photographic artist Steffi Klenz. As artists in residence at the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, they explored the histories of Maiden Lane, using maps, newspapers, court reports and images.
Weaving these stories with their own experiences of living and being in London, the artists reflect on what has been, and of its relevance to lives today. The resulting album presents a complex view of Maiden Lane, one of tension and frustration but also of confidence and optimism.
Tensed Muscles is also presented through the new virtual Camden People’s Museum and through augmented reality on the streets of Camden. Klenz worked with immersive technology specialists Arcade Ltd developing a bespoke augmented reality app which was launched as part of London Festival of Architecture in June 2022.
The immersive augmented reality piece situates the work of Tensed Muscles permanently at the Maiden Lane Estate to be enjoyed by the current as well as future residents of the estate.
The approach to take to digital technologies in expanding and diversifying the audience demographic of Tensed Muscles and bringing the work ‘back home’ was an urgent request of the artist.
Tensed Muscles allows us to consider our histories, cultural heritage and contemporary stories in a new way; sharing meaningful, research-led creative collaboration. This project explores cross-disciplinary practice, not just across visual arts, photography, music and words but also digital technologies and the relationship between artists, audiences and augmented reality.
As part of the Photography Biennale in Brazil a catalogue was produced. Interestingly the catalogue functions as a mobile home exhibition which was sent out to thousands of homes. This mobile exhibition, printed in a publication format, containing 100 posters , presents a view of the artists' work participating in the biennale. It is a great way for many people to enjoy the work of the biennale without visiting the actual show. Each person can create their own version of the Resolving Images exhibition at home.
Tensed Muscles has also been selected by the curatorial team of the Peckham 24 Photography Festival. The festival ran from the 12th-14th May 2023. Tensed Muscles was presented in a site-specific installation of a wooden framework. In appreciation of how this year's festival theme connects to performative practices, a live performance by Maiden Lane rappers Brownsilla and Boss B (both were born and still live on the estate) took place as part of the Late Friday Opening Night program on the 12th May 2023.
In collaboration with Brownsilla and Boss B, I created a fold-out booklet which includes my artworks as well as the lyrics of the songs. The fold-out booklet was handed out for free during the live performance of Brownsilla and Boss B and the exhibition. Local residents of the Maiden Lane Estate were invited to the live performance of Brownsilla and Boss B.
Peckham 24 is a festival of contemporary photography that takes place during Photo London week across galleries and art spaces such as the Copeland Gallery, Bussey Building or Seen Fifteen in one of London’s most exciting and dynamic artistic quarters in Peckham in London. The festival is conceived as a curated program to extend the celebrations happening around the photography fair at Photo London at Somerset House. Peckham 24 is established as a vibrant festival that champions important and experimental voices in contemporary photography in a curated program rather than featuring gallery artists as part of a commercial photography fair like Photo London. The festival had an average visitors’ count of 6,250 over its 3-day duration (figure provided by Peckham 24)
‘Can anything good come out of southern California?’* (*hyperlink to John 1:46)1: the Christian critical reception of elliptical Jesus narratives
No full textWithin the body of Biblical epics made from 2004 onwards, a few films are directly inspired by the Bible, but not adapted from specific events. Two such films focus on elliptical periods in the narrative of Jesus; events set during periods of time broadly identified, but not detailed in the Gospels. Last Days in the Desert (2015; dir. García) follows Jesus (Ewan McGregor) during his forty days and forty nights in the desert where he was tempted by Satan (also Ewan McGregor). In this film he struggles with the silence of God, his father, while witnessing the tense relationship between a father (Ciarán Hinds) and son (Tye Sheridan) who enlist his help as a carpenter. This parallel father/son relationship is clearly metaphorical for Jesus’s own perceived relationship with God. The Young Messiah (2016; dir. Nowrasteh) follows a year in the life of young Jesus (Adam Greaves-Neal) at an unspecified young age as his identity of the son of God gradually becomes clear to himself, his family, and the local government and military.
This chapter reviews the critical reception of these two films by Christian reviewers and organizations. The Young Messiah was produced in part by Chris Columbus and Mark Radcliffe (of Harry Potter film franchise fame), based on a novel by vampire maven Anne Rice, and distributed in North America by Universal subsidiary Focus Features. The film has been positively received by Christian critics, even attaining the “Faith-Friendly” seal of approval from The Dove Foundation, in spite of negative mainstream criticism. Last Days in the Desert, despite having a major star attached, had a weaker distribution deal and was praised for cinematic quality by both mainstream and Christian critics, though more hesitantly recommended by Christian critics for having a somewhat uncertain relationship to institutionally-approved faith. Furthermore, this chapter will explore the role of aesthetics, the faith status of the talent, and the role of Jesus’s represented humanity in the extent to which Christian critics recommended these films. This exploration into faith-based reception will aid in the understanding of the relationship between the texts in this modern wave of Biblical epics, and what Christians desire to see, stylistically and thematically, in clearly fictional explorations of their religion’s most sacred figures
Chek Lap Kok (Hong Kong Airport) 21.00 01.12.19
Get PDFThe short video Chek Lap Kok (Hong Kong Airport) 21.00 01.12.19, documents a walk to Hong Kong Airport from the Expo centre on the airport island, by means of slow travel, under makeshift conditions, and without carbon expenditure. It’s a harbinger of lean and informal travel arrangements which may be a feature of time to come. The film is a brief exploration of the materialities and grounded infrastructures of aviation at a moment of pandemic-led change
Ithacas, a photographic journey: exile and displacement arising from the Greek crisis
Get PDFThe economic crisis in Greece, that became an acute reality in 2010, revealed the preexisting cultural crisis in the country and created the need to redefine the Greek identity. This practice-based research explores this particular need through the conditions of immigration to European metropolises, repatriation from abroad and internal migration to Greek islands that are incited by the crisis, and are part of the many consequences of the crisis. The aim is to create a photographic narrative on the subject with an approach embedded within it that emphasises the need to recreate both Greek identity and Greek photography, as the latter was never incorporated into a Greek cultural context but rather developed as an imitation of European and North-American photographic trends. The project draws upon original visual and academic research to construct a photographic narrative. The process of image making works as a methodological tool that uses morphological, aesthetic, and narrative elements from the genres of subjective documentary and landscape photography and develops in parallel with the theoretical research on the areas of (i) displacement and exile, (ii) Greek culture and aesthetics and (iii) Greek landscape photography. To achieve a photographic approach that can be described as Greek, three basic methods are used; (i) the reappropriation of the myth of Odysseus as a representational and symbolic structure of the voyage of contemporary Greek migrants towards their own Ithacas, (ii) the appliance of the Neohellenic principle of entopia in image making as a code of symbolism, and (iii) the use of symbolic Greek landscape images to re-create/restore a collective memory. The project uses the mythological ten-year journey on the sea of Odysseus towards his home and redirects it to represent the migratory flows of Greek neo-migrants. The story is seen from the perspective of Odysseus, who becomes the narrator that experiences displacement and tries to define his/her identity in relation to the borders of each place he/she resides. The narrative, that is presented as four books in a slipcase, consists of two main types of images, colour landscapes and black-and-white instant images. The first explore the concept of the border and build the inner landscape of the narrator, based on theoretical research on displacement and exile and the code of symbolism inspired by Neohellenism. The latter refer to archive images and use representations of the Greek landscape to explore cultural memory. In this thesis, the final outcome is analysed in a Greek cultural context and it is argued that just as the redefinition of Greek identity is possible by redefining the traditional values of Greek culture, the search for the new Greek photographic identity can be achieved by studying the principles of Greek culture and applying them info photography
Bernard Leach: discovered archives
Get PDFA new study of the life and work of the pioneer studio potter Bernard Leach based on critical readings of newly discovered archives and collections, and set in the context of his practice and thinking located both in St Ives and in Japan. Texts by Dame Magdalene Odundo (Foreword) and chapters by Simon Olding, Yuko Matsuzaki and Sadahiro Suzuk
Machine gaze on women: how machine vision technologies see women in films
No full textMachine vision systems provide new ways to study moving images. Recently, tools employing specifically designed machine vision algorithms are being used to analyze gender perspective in films. The results are effective for policymaking and creating awareness for gender imbalance in film culture. Adopting an experimental approach, this study looks at women’s images in films through commercially available machine vision systems and discusses what we can learn from machine ways of looking at films about both films and machines. The first section discusses the tectonic shift machine vision systems caused in contemporary visual culture and how this shift challenges visual culture researchers to find new ways to make sense of new visuality. The second part addresses the continuity, validity of discussions on race and gender in contemporary visual culture by introducing the concepts such as “coded gaze” and “algorithmic oppression” and it is followed by a review of how computational approaches have been employed to study gender representation in films. The last section presents a playful experiment to look at film images through commercially available machine vision systems and discusses the findings as a basis to initiate further questions interrogating the agency of women in contemporary visuality
The Whalebone Box
Get PDFA whalebone found washed up on the shore becomes a box. Is it an enigmatic object containing a secret, a survivor from a shipwreck or a magical sculpture with the powers of a Pandora’s Box?
It was given to Iain Sinclair, Kötting’s regular walking companion for his latest jaunt-themed project. They set out on an expedition to take the box back from London to its place of origin, a beach on the Isle of Harris in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides.
Kötting’s disabled daughter Eden, shapes the film, and in many ways, it’s an ode to her indomitable spirit. She provides a voice-over which is subtitled because of her idiosyncratic and limited speech patterns. However, it is as much a demystifying dissection of the filmmaking process where form and content become one.
The Whalebone Box defies logic, story and classification and is all the better for it. Kötting has an intuitive gift for abstracting the mundane to the point of transcendence. And as with much of Kötting’s work, a remixed soundtrack was produced as a double vinyl boxset LP, which included a limited edition booklet, pin-hole photographs and signed posters for the film
Zatoka / The Bay
Get PDFThe point of departure for Sława Harasymowicz's exhibition is a tragedy that took place in the closing days of World War II, in Neustadt Bay, near Lübeck. Prisoners evacuated from the Neuengamme concentration camp lost their lives in the bombardment of three German ships by the RAF.
The research by Sława Harasymowicz is full of murky twists and turns, interlocking and astonishing stories involving both people and objects.
This exhibition is part of a long term and continuing artistic enquiry
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