Toronto Metropolitan University Open Journals
Not a member yet
1204 research outputs found
Sort by
Receipts: Critical Experiments in Mediated Testimony and Human-Computer Witnessing of Discrimination Against Equity-Seeking Communities in Public Space
No full textVideos from mobile phones and security cameras are one form of proof of the aggressions experienced by victims and witnesses of various forms of discrimination against equity-seeking individuals and groups in public spaces. At the same time, people do not always feel that they can safely record an incident or easily gain access to archived data. They may also need time and space to process what they have experienced. Furthermore, official channels to lodge complaints are often exclusionary, byzantine, isolating, individuating, demoralizing cul-de-sacs. The result is that the experiences and voices of victims and witnesses of hate and discrimination in public spaces are often diluted or silenced. Computer vision and artificial intelligence tools increasingly deployed as part of “smart city” infrastructures have been proposed as a means to address these issues in real time by predicting, identifying, and aggregating transgressions. Yet, in practice, these tools lack nuance, approximate and automate-out the importance of relationship building with communities, and have generally been used to identify patterns and build predictive surveillance that disproportionately disadvantages already discriminated-against groups.
This paper will report on two iterations of our ongoing Receipts project. The project serves as a means to experiment with and propose processes that use social practice and machine learning technologies to prepare testimonies and listeners to more clearly and impactfully speak, hear, and feel what it is like to respond to mimetic trauma and be part of an equity-deserving group in public space. The work is guided by the following question: How can the process of facilitating the preparation and presention of anonymized testimonies of discriminatory aggression in public spaces with the witnesses and victims of said agressions create structures of accountability, solidarity, healing, and community?
The first project, Receipts (2020) — https://receipts.publicvisualizationstudio.co/ — was presented as part of The Bentway’s Safe in Public Space program in Toronto, and addressed anti-Asian aggression in public spaces. The second project, Receipts NB, in collaboration with ArtFix, an organization that works with artists with substance abuse and mental health lived experience in North Bay, will address the stigmatization and isolation of this community during the pandemic. It will be presented as part of IceFollies 2023, a week-long public art festival on frozen Lake Nipissing.
These explorations emerge from, and reflect upon a theoretical framework that connects visual culture, data creation, visual perception, cognition, machine learning processes, human-computer interaction, social practice and a practice-based framework for research-creation. The work is also informed by an approach to technoscience that uses a critical race, feminist , and decolonial lens. A necessary component of this framework is to prioritize equity through an emphasis on critical pedagogy, co-creation , and participatory art and design practice.
The critical media art practices and processes of Receipts do not aim to replace identifying video as an important means of holding people accountable. Instead, we hope that the project can shape technical, social, cultural practices of testimony and listening and make collectivized community resistance resonate more deeply
Democratic Potentials and Social-Communicative Functions of Interactivity on Open Documentary Platforms Addressing Pressing Questions
No full textIn recent years, there has been an increase in the number of open documentary projects on the web providing platforms for those affected by social problems to tell their stories. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, they gained significance as collaborative projects responding to pressing questions. They offered virtual spaces for community interaction and for the interactive negotiation of meanings and perceptions of reality, as face-to-face interactions on the ground became unfeasible. As networks of mutual support in times of uncertainty, they responded to the various needs of many people worldwide and in doing so avoided a hierarchical approach in favor of participatory, partly dialogical practices and a polyphonic form of presentation. This makes them interesting examples for the discussion of the democratic potentials and social-communicative functions of interactivity on such documentary platforms.
This contribution analyzes two documentary projects: Corona Haikus (initiated by Sandra Gaudenzi and Sandra Tabares-Duque, 2020), launched as a Facebook group for visual poetry, and Corona Diaries (initiated by Francesca Panetta et al., 2020), a database for voice recordings. It argues that interactivity in the two examples first of all fosters democratic processes on the level of production and decision-making processes as well as on the level of meaning construction; further – as an adjacent claim – the paper suggests that the projects as complex assemblages allowed for the experience of virtual communities.
By combining material analyses and praxeological analyses as well as drawing on approaches from political theory, philosophy, and social sciences in addition to the media studies-oriented analyses, the paper identifies the transformative dimension of collaborative interactive documentaries, especially in times of crisis. Despite different medial approaches with different advantages – visual poetry that encourages reflection and intimate voice recordings that enable affective, attentive listening –, both platforms function as a medial in-between that enables forms of collective identification and solidarity. The difference between Corona Haikus and Corona Diaries is: Corona Haikus uses the democratic potentials of the interactive communication network for collective negotiations of meanings, dialogue, and co-creation, while Corona Diaries focuses more on low participation thresholds for a – in terms of content – highly open space, which in turn does not allow for interactions among the participants.
What the projects have in common is that the active participation in the open space without the classical hierarchies between professional media makers and subjects, the collective narrative processes, and the sharing of emotions can lead to the feeling of being part of a developing community, which in turn can help individual participants to cope with their experiences. Additionally, the nonlinear, polyphonic platforms open up new perspectives and relations not seen before. Another result of the paper is that future research should differentiate more nuancedly between forms of participation rather than arguing on the basis of an artificial distinction between interactivity and participation
Diversity demographics are needed to enhance accurate assessment of diversity in the nutrition and dietetics profession
No full textA diverse workforce is vitally important to ensure that our nation has quality, affordable, and accessible health care. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are crucial to the nutrition/dietetics profession. As the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Academy) strives to increase and better target its efforts in these areas, assessment will be required to measure progress. Evaluation of progress hinges on the cooperation of individual nutrition/dietetics practitioners — registered dietitians (RDs) or registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) and dietetic technicians registered (DTRs) and nutrition dietetics technicians, registered (NDTRs) to report race/ethnicity and/or gender to the Academy and/or the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). Furthermore, accurate assessment and reporting of diversity demographics of the profession rely on the Academy and/or the CDR to use the full de-identified database of practitioners rather than smaller surveys. This article 1) summarizes reports on practitioners in health occupations by race/ethnicity and gender diversity from the CDR, U.S. government, and other professional organizations, 2) summarizes data collection standards issued by the U.S. government on race and ethnicity, 3) provides a recommended action step to encourage nutrition/dietetics practitioners to self-report race/ethnicity and gender to the Academy and/or the CDR, and 4) provides recommended action steps to encourage the Academy and/or the CDR to use the full de-identified database of nutrition/dietetics practitioners rather than smaller surveys to report diversity demographics of RDs/RDNs and DTRs/NDTRs by Academy groups, and to make several revisions to the CDR Registry Statistics and surveys to enhance future diversity and more accurate assessment of diversity in the profession
Analyse comparative des initiatives One Health en Guinée et en République Démocratique du Congo : Un appel à l’opérationnalisation/ Comparative analysis of One Health initiatives in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo: A call for operationalization: NON-RESEARCH PAPER
No full textLa Guinée et la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) sont deux pays confrontés à des maladies zoonotiques (ré)émergentes, lesquelles représentent de graves menaces pour la santé publique et pour l’économie. Cela renforce l’importance de mettre l\u27accent sur les approches interdisciplinaires pour la prévention, la détection et l’atténuation des maladies infectieuses afin de mettre en place des systèmes de réponses adéquats. Dans les dernières années, des efforts ont été fournis dans les deux pays pour la conception, la mise en œuvre et la promotion de l’approche “Une Seule Santé” (One Health) qui offre des solutions à l’interface homme-animal-plante-écosystèmes. Cependant, dans ces pays, il n’existe pas une approche systémique “Une Seule Santé” qui soit réellement opérationnelle. Ainsi, cet article vise à faire une analyse comparative des initiatives « One Health » (OH) en Guinée et en RDC. Les résultats suggèrent qu\u27il existe un engagement fort de la part du gouvernement guinéen à signer un ordre conjoint de collaboration entre les trois départements clés, mais la coopération et la collaboration entre les différents secteurs et disciplines font défaut. En RDC, trois plateformes existent, mais leurs actions ne sont pas coordonnées, ce qui démontre les lacunes dans la vision globale que devrait avoir l’approche OH. Le défi majeur dans ces deux pays est d\u27adopter une approche holistique pour dépasser les structures et les paradigmes organisationnels et disciplinaires pour développer une véritable coopération entre tous les secteurs directement ou indirectement touchés par les maladies à potentiel épidémique.
Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are two countries facing (re)emerging zoonotic diseases, which pose serious threats to public health and the economy. This reinforces the importance of emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches for the prevention, detection, and mitigation of infectious diseases to put in place adequate response systems. In recent years, efforts have been made in both countries for the design, implementation, and promotion of the “One Health” (OH) approach which offers solutions at the human-animal-animal-plant-ecosystems interface. However, in these countries, there is no operational OH systemic approach. Thus, this article aims to make a comparative analysis of the OH initiatives in Guinea and the DRC. Findings suggest there is a strong commitment on the part of the government of Guinea to sign a joint order of collaboration between the three key departments, but cooperation and collaboration between different sectors and disciplines is lacking. In the DRC, three platforms exist but are not coordinated, which shows gaps in the overall vision that OH should be in the country. The major challenge in these two countries is to adopt a holistic approach to go beyond organizational and disciplinary structures and paradigms to develop real coordination and cooperation between all the sectors directly or indirectly affected by diseases with epidemic potential
Pin Up! The Interactive Documentary : A Shared Authority
No full textPin Up! The Movie: An Interactive Documentary uses oral history to explore an international subculture. In it, women and men adopt vintage style and advocate for social and political change. Specifically, they use the subculture to advocate for anti-racist practices, call for body positivity, and lobby for full equity and acceptance of LGBTQI subcultural members. These advocates do this with acknowledgement of historical racism and sexism, which is sometimes echoed in the contemporary subculture. This i-doc intentionally uses non-professional storytelling tactics (vertical video, online video recordings, strait to camera interviews) to transform notions of a proper “aesthetic” within the documentary genre. It also invites subcultural members to take over its social media feeds. This paper argues that actively approaching the i-doc as a shared authority demonstrates how emerging formats, gamification of storytelling, and non-narrative structures can result in a sense of subcultural authenticity: a way to use the documentary format to provide agency to both members of the subculture featured in the project, as well as to audience members
Enactive Experience for Streaming Media Services
No full textSince the beginning of humankind, storytelling enabled people to understand and shape their impressions of reality. Depicted by Walter R. Fisher, the narrative paradigm encounters the ubiquitous computing dimension, as proposed by Mark Weiser (Fisher 1984, Weiser 1991), that results in the interdisciplinary field of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN).
Departing from the first text-based experimentation in the late 1970s, IDN can be considered a vibrant field wherein different forms of interactive artifacts derived such as Hypertext Fiction, Interactive Installations, Video Game Narrative (Koenitz et al. 2015), and Enactive Cinema (Tikka 2006, 2008). IDN presents a field of inquiry prevailing for over three decades, but the question remains: is it supposed to be strictly entertainment or something else?
In response, this paper explores the possibility of implementing an enactive paradigm to design a tailored experience for streaming media services, thus proposing a conceptual, methodological framework for designing a system to be prototyped and tested in accompanying research
“It’s Not Like I Could Change Anything, so Why Should I Care?”: Exploring Political Narratives in Depoliticized White Working-Class Environments
No full textAs part of my Ph.D. thesis, this paper explores how “whiteness” became a contributing factor when investigating how francophone members of Quebec’s working class, who claim to disregard politics, come into contact with social and political issues, such as immigration or poverty, in everyday life and how the increased fragmentation of public discourse via social media shapes their (a)political stances. An intersectional narrative approach combining three rounds of in-depth life-story interviews and a one-year ethnographic observation of the interviewees’ social media accounts allowed me to analyze class, nation, and racial dynamics via their “mediated everyday political experiences.
Origins of the Twenty-First Century: The Impact of Digital Technology on the Construction of the Cinematic Essay
No full textThis paper explores the impact of technology on the practice and theorization of the cinematic essay, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which digital tools have shaped the form in the early twenty-first century. I first argue that the cinematic essay has been associated with technological evolution throughout its history, and then discuss recent examples of the form which utilize aesthetic strategies, editing techniques, and modes of spectatorial address that are rooted in the capabilities of digital technologies. I conceptualize the cinematic essay as a self-reflexive mode of nonfiction cinema that foregrounds the filmmaking apparatus and the act of its own making. In doing so, the cinematic essay launches an inquiry into the ontological nature of the cinematic image, the tools which construct it, and the wider artistic landscape in which it is embedded. To illustrate how digitization has opened new opportunities for essayistic expression, this paper draws parallels between the current use of digital moviemaking tools and earlier periods in which new technologies were utilized to reimagine essayistic craft
Monument Public Address System AR
No full textMonument Public Address System AR is an interactive augmented reality (AR) documentary revolving around an expanding collection of audio interviews about the past, present, and future of confederate and colonial monuments across the United States. The interviewees include activists, scholars, students, planners, community organizers, and other artists. Some have discussed feelings of exclusion when they see confederate and colonial imagery. Others have evaluated the symbolic violence of the monuments in relation to ongoing racist systems. And others have described potential liberatory sculptural works as replacements.
The main goal of the project is to engender thoughtful individual and collective experiences and to support critical and ongoing engagement with public memory and the political, social, and cultural processes responsible for public spaces. As Ana Lucia Araujo, historian and professor at Howard University, writes, “All monuments emerge and disappear because of political battles that take place in the public arena. Likewise, public memory is always political” (Lucia Araujo, 2020).
In terms of a participant’s experience of the AR media, once they download and open Monument Public Address System AR on their mobile devices, they will discover 3D virtual objects and animations superimposed on the world around them. When they interact with these objects, short sections of the audio interviews are triggered and play. As they listen to the interviewee’s narratives, participants can explore the virtual animations in relation to the surrounding physical space.
It is important to the author-artist that the app is accessible to as many people as possible. While the augmentations are geo-located, and the intention is for participants to circumnavigate confederate and colonial monuments – and the empty spaces where they once stood – while experiencing the AR, the app can be opened anywhere. Moreover, the app is mobile AR, released on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, so that it can be used on a large variety of hand-held devices. It is not dependent on expensive technology.
As a cis-gendered middle-class white woman from the southeast of the United States, the author-artist recognizes that her perspective regarding the racist history carried by these monuments is limited. She has initiated the project as a way of discovering, and undoing, her blindspots.
The author-artist sets out to support critical thinking about the future of public monuments and spark conversations on the history of slavery and racism in the United States. Monument Public Address System AR is offered as a platform for visual and aural expressions of frustration, anger, sadness, fear, and confusion regarding the racist, unjust and violent narratives that have shaped, and continue to shape, our present and future. It is also built for the enunciation of anti-racist hopes, activities and initiatives
Evoking Interactivity and Fostering Ecomedia: The Case of Jeta Amata’s Black November
No full textA growing concern for a sustainable environment has given rise to a rich corpus of fictional and non-fictional media products that address humans’ relationship with the natural world. Arguably, eco-films present narratives that submit as a convergence of physical and human environmental interactions. Jeta Amata’s filmic presentation, Black November is one of such. Black November presents the case of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, addressing the dynamics of the ecological struggles and plights of the people. It goes further to present how a volatile and ravage community wages war against a perceived corrupt government and an international oil corporation in an attempt to save their community from being destroyed by frequent oil spills and excessive drilling. Interestingly, this creative depiction of non-fictional environmental challenges has manifested in an interactive driven medium as a video game that affords players an insight into the challenges and offered them a platform to decide how the challenges are addressed. The video game Niger Delta Commando is domiciled in Google play store; it brings to the knowledge of humanity the environmental degradation that defines the Niger Delta region and the resultant effect which includes the spring of militancy, combining also the effort initiated to curb activities of militants in the region. Niger Delta Commando opens up a relationship between the game participants and the Niger Delta environment, posing as an integral technological command between humans and ecology. Recognizing that interactivity allows for an alternative process to recreate, re-order and heighten significant incidents and experiences in order to draw attention, for remediation, this study seeks to reconcile the dominant trend in ecomedia and how the Nigerian narrative presents notions of interactive, immersive and environmental imperative that Niger Delta Commando evokes. Leaning on the relative theories of ecomedia and interactivity, this study adopts a dual methodology that is at once analytical and descriptive. It further maintains and appropriates a more detailed rendition and critical scrutiny that aligns the Niger Delta Commando with a more robust outlook. The attempt here is to objectify how this game appreciates interactive media that is unique and reads as a certain innovation in the Nigerian environment