3983 research outputs found
Sort by
Unexpected pleasures: Women, punk and experimental film
No full textScreening and in conversation chaired by Garfield with Peggy Ahwesh, Tessa Hughes Freeland and Abigail Child. as part of New York book launch of single authored book by Garfield Punk, Feminism and Experimental Film (2022, Bloomsbury). Attended by over 100 with standing room only
The temperament index
No full textAspex Portsmouth is delighted to present The Temperament Index – the latest incarnation of Melanie Jackson’s travelling project ‘Spekyng Rybawdy’.* In her installation, the viewer is invited to wander amongst projected animations, cut-out figures and body bits, handmade clay objects, drawings and more. Jackson has rallied together a procession, a carnival of conceptual nomads that jostle and jive, pleasure, fight and take flight across a trans-historical plane of existence, in which we are as much participants as voyeurs. Pilgrim Badges were small cast tin or lead alloy brooches that were mass-produced in the medieval period and sold along pilgrim routes, and at fairs and carnivals. Easily affordable, made by and for working people, they were part of a vast and profitable pan-european trade. A group of these were known as the bawdy badges, the secular badges, the sexual badges, or the erotic pins. There are persistent images of locomotion, and motility, farcical assemblages, dissolutions and transformations of gender and class.They delight in hybridity – an extravagant imaginary of social and sexual reproduction, joyfully rendered with absurdist, deflationary humour. It is a world of absurd and inventive beings, rich with humour, dissent, subversion, delight, hilarity, titillation, surprise. Recent theories have sought to attribute ‘personality’ to the dominance of dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and oestrogen in the brain, and designate subjects as ‘temperament’ types – reminiscent of the mediaeval theory of the four humours. Such projections coincide with new technologies of high definition electron micrography that can now image hormones and neurotransmitter crystals with extraordinary detail – their polarising filters bathing their structures with polychromatic spectral hues. The badges are found always tarnished and monochrome, but would originally have been shiny, enamelled, augmented with coloured glass. Jackson has redrawn and reimagined the figures as an assembly, reinstating their spectral effect with ink and pigment: a sparkling of yellows, pinks and greens underlaid with flashes of gold and umber, creating a spectrum of a-subjective and affect-laden opportunity. Using the badges a kind of collective commons from which to add in the present, new narratives of dissent and empowerment around sexual and reproductive bodies are revealed. The work opens up an important lineage of visual methods and vocabularies of resistance and ways of imagining alternative power structures for self determination, as well as challenging ways images may be used to uphold violences of control and exclusion
The masses 2024
No full textExhibition at Galerina: 'Anti-Paintings'. The Masses' 1999, 'Pool' 1999, 'Mandala' 1999 with sculptures, 'Burger Tower' 2002 and 'Chrome Burger' 200
Executing realistic earthquake simulations in unreal engine with material calibration
Get PDFEarthquakes significantly impact societies and economies, underscoring the need for effective search and rescue strategies. As AI and robotics increasingly support these efforts, the demand for high-fidelity, real-time simulation environments for training has become pressing. Earthquake simulation can be considered as a complex system. Traditional simulation methods, which primarily focus on computing intricate factors for single buildings or simplified architectural agglomerations, often fall short in providing realistic visuals and real-time structural damage assessments for urban environments. To address this deficiency, we introduce a real-time, high visual fidelity earthquake simulation platform based on the Chaos Physics System in Unreal Engine,specifically designed to simulate the damage to urban buildings. Initially, we use a genetic algorithm to calibrate material simulation parameters from Ansys into the Unreal Engine’s fracture system, based on real-world test standards. This alignment ensures the similarity of results between the two systems while achieving real-time capabilities. Additionally, by integrating real earthquake waveform data, we improve the simulation’s authenticity, ensuring it accurately reflects historical events. All functionalities are integrated into a visual user interface, enabling zero-code operation, which facilitates testing and further development by cross-disciplinary users. We verify the platform’s effectiveness through three AI-based tasks: similarity detection, path planning, and image segmentation. This paper builds upon the preliminary earthquake simulation study we presented at IMET 2023, with significant enhancements, including improvements to the material calibration workflow and the method for binding building foundations
More-Than-Human Care
Get PDFThe evolution of care within a more-than-human realm is a fascinating journey, intricately woven with diverse providers and elements that cater to the needs of ecological liveability. This timeline explores the dynamic interplay of care through four main providers —human, flora, fauna, and digital — and the essential elements they contribute to the well-being of their recipients
Immaterial design histories: Learning and teaching design history from its borders
No full textHow do we research and write design histories of things with important qualities that we cannot see or touch –- such as an electronic voice assistant, virtual fabric, or a modified gene? This paper is about an experiment in learning and teaching what we call ‘experimental’ design history. ‘Immaterial Design Histories’ was a 2024 RCA/V&A History of Design class that explored narrative, historiography and methodology in design history from the perspective of topics that have received little attention in the field, all of which were bound by their seeming associations with the 'immaterial': the sonic, the digital and the microscopic. As digital and biological technologies and developments in sensory histories push notions of the ‘designed object’ beyond the tangible, how might we rethink the field’s interdisciplinary and ontological borders? This paper is authored by the class’s tutor and its six students, who present on the live experiments and dialogue that comprised the act of learning and teaching about design history while actively experimenting with how it could be different. Our encounters with so-called ‘immaterial’ artefacts invited interdisciplinary excursions via sound studies, digital anthropology and the history of science. Methodological experiments included testing the uses of ‘soundwalking’ as a design history method of listening, and experimental writing that blurred the boundaries between designed and scientific objects. The ‘immaterial’ thus acted as a provocation to challenge conventional methods and the borders around what ‘counts’ as a design history object of study. A vision of experimental design history emerged. It enlists the senses as methodological tools to challenge institutional narratives and binaries between objectivity and subjectivity in historical research; it draws on the existing facets of design history that make it particularly well placed to investigate dissolving boundaries between the material and immaterial; and, simultaneously, embraces porosity as a methodology
Art & the critical medical humanities: Confabulations X health and care at the RCA (co-convenor) + Flight as method: A sick women exchange in material encounters, and the time it takes to care
Get PDF"Art & the Critical Medical Humanities: Confabulations X Health & Care at the RCA" was an invitation only, three-day workshop aimed at fostering dialogue, creating connections and activating new entanglements between art-led practices and the critical medical humanities, with the workshopping of an edited volume to be published by Bloomsbury Academic at the core of the curation. The event was a collaboration between "Confabulations" (Fiona Johnstone, Allison Morehead, and Imogen Wiltshire) and the RCA's Health and Care Research Cluster (Alice Butler and Gemma Blackshaw)
Peripheral visions
No full text“Before it all seemed so simple, things cast shadows. But now it turned out that shadows cast things, or perhaps things didn’t exist at all” Peripheral Visions, as the shadows start to lengthen we turn our minds to the place where the street lights end. Out here on the periphery, flickering visions and half heard noises scuff our logic with their insistent truancy. Fragments of things unbound by our narrow grasping. “On cold winter nights we would occasionally perceive a strange glimmering of lights, a marked pulsating luminosity in the very edges of our vision accompanied by a vibrant oscillating frequency of sound, taking in certain cases, the form of bright circular waves, which seem to move from the periphery towards the centre, but if we tried to look directly at them to see them more clearly they evaded us, seeming to drift and fade, dissipating like so much smoke." The Spectral Transmissions Research Unit is a collaboration between Ben Branagan Luke Pendrell dedicated to the theoretical and practical construction, dissemination, transmission, observation and analysis of spectral emanations. Comprising a diverse spectrum of entities of various degrees of stability and tangibility. In as much as linear time can be applied, members of the STRU could, have, and or will include(d): Ludd Püca, JohnFrum, Kay Jackson, T-J.Cut, Dr. Ray Power, Proff. Jock Moxter, EKA-Francium, Dr. Tinkerpaw, Kaspar Brøcken, and The Coincidence Sprite
Generative Nishijin weaving with and for the body
Get PDFNishijin textiles possess a distinctive quality that is indigenous to Japan, exemplified by a diverse range of materials, weaving techniques, loom variations, and design methods. Recently the Japanese kimono industry has been facing a decline, primarily attributed to the growing influence of Western lifestyles in Japan (Cassim et al, 2017). Simultaneously, there is a global shift in textile design towards more intelligent and sustainable directions, driven by societal needs and technological advancements, including the utilisation of eco-friendly fibres and electronically enhanced textiles. The present abstract serves as an introduction to a collaborative research project in Japan & UK, focusing on material technologies and pattern creation. The study investigates both traditional kimono fabric production and the exploration of new materials, such as high-twist yarns, utilising contemporary techniques facilitated by Processing and Clo3D software. By employing forward-thinking production methods and exploring the intersection of digital and physical material-making processes, the research aims to develop body-fit materials and patterns. Specifically, the research poses the question of how to approach the design of complex and three-dimensional woven textiles by employing a diverse range of digital and physical tools, enabling the creation of intricate woven structures. Through the initial phase of this research, the study successfully achieved the creation of multidimensional and shape-changing cloth structures using zero-waste patterns as a construction method. The research primarily focuses on the transformative capabilities of materials and their role in supporting the design process for the (re)creation of sensory materials. By interpreting the traditional technique of weaving with multiple technologies, it is possible to create advanced materials
Design, democracy, power, and care in Thailand: Designing and delivering collaborative local community services in the deep south region
Get PDFThis research aimed to explore the interplay between democracy, power and design, it focused on the design and delivery of a specific type of public service known as Collaborative Local Community Service (CLCS). It is a relational service (Cipolla and Manzini, 2009) designed, developed and delivered by and for people in the community, with or without support from other entities (e.g. the central government and the LAO). The primary objective is to achieve a common goal and enhance collective well-being. Examples of CLCSs include a service for reusing school uniforms, a community garden, and a neighbourhood watch, recognised as community-led social innovations by Thai scholars in the field of social science and political science. For this reason, existing studies often overlook the public administration system, power structure, available mechanisms for public participation, and the roles of the LAO and community leaders in facilitating or hindering such initiatives. This research, therefore, aimed to provide new perspectives by positioning CLCS as a form of public service and a means of public participation in local affairs, and applying design as an approach to knowledge. Designing and delivering CLCS is situated at the intersection of design for public service, design for social innovation and Participatory Design (PD). The concept of collaborative service is not new. It was proposed and extensively developed by the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) network as a type of social innovation that would lead to sustainable development (Jégou and Manzini, 2008; Cipolla, Melo and Manzini, 2015; Manzini, 2015). This study sought to contribute further knowledge to this area by examining how local communities and designers/researchers design and deliver CLCS in Thailand and examining various types of power manifest throughout the process. To conduct the research, I grounded my study in the constructivist research paradigm and first study examined existing CLCSs in the Thai context through case study research, while the second centred on a collaborative design process between a local community and designers/researchers through Participatory Action Research (PAR) informed by Research through Design (RtD). By applying the concept of care and power as a lens to analyse the data, the findings suggest that CLCS can be recognised as a form of care practice and a means of providing care for specific groups and the entire community. It allows community members to care about certain issues within their community, enables them to care for one another, and engages them in creating alternative possibilities for new ways of communal living. Additionally, I proposed processes for designing and delivering CLCS with care as an alternative approach to design with local communities and outlined the various types of power that manifested throughout the process, especially in relation to designers/researchers and objects of design