6,041 research outputs found
Audiomobiles, Sculptures and Conundrums
No full textRoberto Gerhard was a pioneer of electronic music in England creating a number of substantial concert, theatre and radio works from as early as 1954. Gerhard’s electronic music is one of the richest repositories for understanding the development of the composer’s late compositional technique. Apart from the Symphony no.3, ‘Collages’, none of Gerhard’s electronic music is published. This paper will discuss aspects of Gerhard’s electronic music, focusing on Audiomobiles (1958-59) and Sculptures (1963)
Roberto Gerhard’s Sound Compositions: A Historical-Philological Perspective. Archive, Process, Intent and reenactment
No full textThis research advances the current state of knowledge in the field of early tape music both empirically and methodologically. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact that the electronic medium exerted in the musical thinking of Roberto Gerhard, one of the most outspoken, prolific and influential composers in the Spanish diaspora whose musical legacy, for the most part unknown, is a major landmark in the early history of electroacoustic music. Gerhard’s personal tape collection, one of the largest historical archives of its kind reported in the literature, is exceptional for both its antiquity (50+-year-old tapes) and its abundance of production materials. Through the digitisation and analysis of the composer’s tape collection this research argues that the empirical study of audio documents sets out a basis for a broader understanding of textual processes. More specifically, the research demonstrates that the reconstruction of works based on magnetic tape sketches is a powerful method to advance the understanding of early tape music. This research also examines Gerhard’s sound compositions in relation to the post-war context in which they were composed. Finally, this research presents performance documentation that proposes an approach to the electroacoustic music repertoire in which creativity is not at odds with rigor and critical discernment demonstrating that archival study can be closely aligned to the concept of re-enactment
Unseen fearful faces facilitate visual discrimination in the intact field
No full textImplicit visual processing of emotional stimuli has been widely investigated since the classical studies on affective blindsight, in which patients with primary visual cortex lesions showed discriminatory abilities for unseen emotional stimuli in the absence of awareness. In addition, more recent evidence from hemianopic patients showed response facilitation and enhanced early visual encoding of seen faces, only when fearful faces were presented concurrently in the blind field. However, it is still unclear whether unseen fearful faces specifically facilitate visual processing of facial stimuli, or whether the facilitatory effect constitutes an adaptive mechanism prioritizing the visual analysis of any stimulus. To test this question, we tested a group of hemianopic patients who perform at chance in forced-choice discrimination tasks of stimuli in the blind field. Patients performed a go/no-go task in which they were asked to discriminate simple visual stimuli (Gabor patches) presented in their intact field, while fearful, happy and neutral faces were concurrently presented in the blind field. The results showed a reduction in response times to the Gabor patches presented in the intact field, when fearful faces were concurrently presented in the blind field, but only in patients with left hemispheric lesions. No facilitatory effect was observed in patients with right hemispheric lesions. These results suggest that unseen fearful faces are implicitly processed and can facilitate the visual analysis of simple visual stimuli presented in the intact field. This effect might be subserved by activity in the spared colliculo-amygdala-extrastriate pathway that promotes efficient visual analysis of the environment and rapid execution of defensive responses. Such a facilitation is observed only in patients with left lesions, favouring the hypothesis that the right hemisphere mediates implicit visual processing of fear signals
Filologia editoriale, Roberto Calasso in dialogo con Paola Italia e Francisco Rico
No full textPaola Italia e Francisco Rico intervengono sul libro di Roberto Calasso, presidente e fondatore di Adelphi Edizioni, L'impronta dell'editore, e discutono di problemi di filologia delle forme editoriali, dal punto di vista dell'autore, del lettore e dell'editore.Paola Italia and Francisco Ricos interview Roberto Calasso, Publisher, Writer, and Founder of Adelphi Edizioni, about his book: L'impronta dell'editore, talking about philology, publishing and editing, from the author, the reader and the publisher's point of view
Crossmodal enhancement of visual orientation discrimination by looming sounds requires functional activation of primary visual areas: A case study
No full textApproaching or looming sounds are salient, potentially threatening stimuli with particular impact on visual processing. The early crossmodal effects by looming sounds (Romei, Murray, Cappe, & Thut, 2009) and their selective impact on visual orientation discrimination (. Leo, Romei, Freeman, Ladavas, & Driver, 2011) suggest that these multisensory interactions may take place already within low-level visual cortices. To investigate this hypothesis, we tested a patient (SDV) with bilateral occipital lesion and spared residual portions of V1/V2. Accordingly, SDV[U+05F3]s visual perimetry revealed blindness of the central visual field with some residual peripheral vision. In two experiments we tested for the influence of looming vs. receding and stationary sounds on SDV[U+05F3]s line orientation discrimination (. orientation discrimination experiment) and visual detection abilities (. detection experiment) in the preserved or blind portions of the visual field, corresponding to spared and lesioned areas of V1, respectively. In the visual orientation discrimination experiment we found that SDV visual orientation sensitivity significantly improved for visual targets paired with looming sounds but only for lines presented in the partially preserved visual field. In the visual detection experiment, where SDV was required to simply detect the same stimuli presented in the orientation discrimination experiment, a generalised sound-induced visual improvement both in the intact and in blind portion of the visual field was observed. These results provide direct evidence that early visual areas are critically involved in crossmodal modulation of visual orientation sensitivity by looming sounds. Thus, a lesion in V1 prevents the enhancement of visual orientation sensitivity. In contrast, the same lesion does not prevent the visual detection enhancement by a sound, probably due to alternative visual pathways (e.g. retino-colliculo-extrastriate) which are usually spared in these patients and able to mediate the crossmodal enhancement of basic visual abilities such as detection. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd
Roberto Tibau and the process of making architecture
No full textEste estudo documenta a vida e a obra de Roberto José Goulart Tibau (1924-2003), arquiteto brasileiro. O objetivo fundamental - e mais importante - é reunir informações sobre os projetos e obras mais significativos desenvolvidos durante sua atividade profissional, tornando-os acessíveis através dessa pesquisa. O trabalho baseou-se em pesquisa bibliográfica, levantamento e registro das obras e projetos realizados, currículo profissional, e depoimento de Tibau, concedido ao autor, em 1998. Em Roberto Tibau e o fazer arquitetura são descritos os caminhos percorridos pelo arquiteto; o contexto histórico de sua formação e atuação profissional; a relação de sua produção arquitetônica com outras obras da época; e eventuais referências projetuais utilizadas na criação dos seus projetos. Este trabalho vem preencher uma lacuna bibliográfica considerável, trazendo à luz, a obra deste significativo arquiteto, que dedicou sua vida ao trabalho na prancheta, na qual deixou sua marca de humanista.This study documents the life and work of Roberto José Goulart Tibau (1924-2003), a Brazilian architect. It aims to collect information about the most significant projects developed during the years of his professional career, which will become available through this research. The present study based on bibliographical research, examination and registration of the projects executed by the architect, his resumé, and his testimonial to the author of this research, in 1998. In Roberto Tibau and the process of making architecture there is a description of the ways in which his projects were conceived; the historical context through his professional activity since graduation, the relation between his own production and the production of other architects of the same period, and the projecting references used for his creations. This research is also an attempt to fill a signicant bibliographical gap of architecture history in Brazil by bringing to light the work of this relevant architect, who dedicated his life to working on his drawing table, leaving to us his humanistic style
Individual differences in alpha frequency drive crossmodal illusory perception
No full textPerception routinely integrates inputs from different senses. Stimulus temporal proximity critically determines whether or not these inputs are bound together. Despite the temporal window of integration being a widely accepted notion, its neurophysiological substrate remains unclear. Many types of common audio-visual interactions occur within a time window of ∼100 ms [1-5]. For example, in the sound-induced double-flash illusion, when two beeps are presented within ∼100 ms together with one flash, a second illusory flash is often perceived [2]. Due to their intrinsic rhythmic nature, brain oscillations are one candidate mechanism for gating the temporal window of integration. Interestingly, occipital alpha band oscillations cycle on average every ∼100 ms, with peak frequencies ranging between 8 and 14 Hz (i.e., 120-60 ms cycle). Moreover, presenting a brief tone can phase-reset such oscillations in visual cortex [6, 7]. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that the duration of each alpha cycle might provide the temporal unit to bind audio-visual events. Here, we first recorded EEG while participants performed the sound-induced double-flash illusion task [4] and found positive correlation between individual alpha frequency (IAF) peak and the size of the temporal window of the illusion. Participants then performed the same task while receiving occipital transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), to modulate oscillatory activity [8] either at their IAF or at off-peak alpha frequencies (IAF±2 Hz). Compared to IAF tACS, IAF-2 Hz and IAF+2 Hz tACS, respectively, enlarged and shrunk the temporal window of illusion, suggesting that alpha oscillations might represent the temporal unit of visual processing that cyclically gates perception and the neurophysiological substrate promoting audio-visual interactions
Between Trade and Religion: Three Florentine Merchants in Mamluk Cairo
No full textThe “religious side” of Italian trade in Medieval Egypt remains largely unexplored, especially from the viewpoint of the history of mentalities. This paper presents a case study, by comparing three different reports of the same voyage. In 1384, Florentine merchants Lionardo Frescobaldi, Simone Sigoli and Giorgio Gucci sailed from Venice to make the great pilgrimage overseas, beginning from Alexandria and ending at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. In Egypt, they visited several churches and Christian holy places in Alexandria and Cairo as well as in Mount Sinai area, and also met foreign consuls and local political authorities. After their return to Florence, each of them wrote his own travelogue. This paper focuses on the authors’ attitudes towards Muslims and on their perceptions of the latter’s attitudes towards Christians. The three merchants’ viewpoints are replaced in their travel’s historical context. On the one hand, special attention is given to the religious and legal framework of interactions between Muslim and Latin Christians in Medieval Egypt, on the background of theoretical rules and actual practices governing trade and social intercourse with “Infidels”. On this issue, acomplex attitude of economic need and religious execration towards the “other” emerges on both sides of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, the authors’ attitudes are compared to the new visions of the “other” emerging in Florentine proto-Renaissance culture, in connection with the rise of the bourgeoisie. These new visions are epitomized in a novel of the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio showing a quite open-minded towards religious diversity and presenting Jews, Christians and Muslims as somehow all legitimate heirs of the same “father”. In fact, all the three Florentine travelers prove quite far from the tolerant view expressed in Boccaccio’s novel. Though one of them, that is Giorgio Gucci, shows something of the pragmatic and worldly mind that characterizes ideal merchants in Boccaccio’s Decameron, he nevertheless exhibits as a fierce Crusader spirit as his fellows. All of them share a sharp hostility towards Islam and a deep aspiration to religious-spatial re-appropriation of Egypt. In a theoretical framework which remained largely unfavorable, both on Christian and Muslim side, to transcultural cooperation, subduing the “Infidel” would often appear as the only way to solve the inner tensions between economic need and religious execration of the "other"
Roberto Bolaño, la memoria antiheroica del exilio chileno
No full textThis article discusses the personality and the work of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño in an attempt to expand on the relationship between the author and his homeland Chile. Even though Bolaño left Chile at an early age and lived in many countries throughout his life, he tried to regain his roots as reflected in the novels about the Chilean dictatorship, Estrella distante and Nocturno de Chile. The author also attempts to vindicate his own origin in his literary alterego Arturo Belano. Thus, this article will highlight and analyse the relation between Roberto Bolaño and Chile through the antiheroic vision given not only to the characters but also to the settings of the narratives.Este artículo se centra en la personalidad del escritor chileno Roberto Bolaño y su obra para profundizar en la relación existente entre el autor y Chile, su país de origen. Pese a haber abandonado el país siendo muy joven y a haber residido en otros países a lo largo de su vida, Bolaño nunca perdió el interés por recuperar sus raíces chilenas tanto como lo reflejan las novelas que dedica a la dictadura chilena, Estrella distante y Nocturno de Chile sobre todo, así como por reivindicar su propio origen a través de su álter ego literario Arturo Belano. En este artículo se señalarán y analizarán estas relaciones entre Roberto Bolaño y Chile a través de la visión antiheroica que el autor confiere tanto a los ambientes como a los personajes que articulan su narrativa
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