Elaborate Chaos

Author(s):  
Mark Minett

Chapter 3 demonstrates that standard accounts mischaracterize Altman’s use of overlapping dialogue, his signature sound technique, and presents a history of formal elaboration intertwined with technological innovation. Critics have underestimated the multidimensionality and capaciousness of Altman’s practice, treating pragmatically executed innovation as a counterideology. The analysis offered here demonstrates that Altman’s sound design is both highly manipulated and highly conscious of narrative aims. Altman and his collaborators innovated solutions allowing them to simultaneously convey the impression of naturalism, provide a vehicle for overt narrational commentary, and ensure the intelligibility of essential narrative premises. Tracking Altman’s early 1970s trajectory demonstrates the consistently multifaceted nature of his aims, even with the move to 24-track recording technology on Nashville. Instead of ideologically virtuous audience-liberating chaos, what we actually find is functionally virtuosic orchestration that represents not a rejection of Hollywood but its vitalization.

Acoustics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-136
Author(s):  
John L. Drever ◽  
Aysegul Yildirim ◽  
Mattia Cobianchi

In a leading article by Sir Percival Philips in the UK popular newspaper, the Daily Mail, July 16, 1928, came the following headlines: “Millions Lost by Noise – Cities’ Worst Plague – Menace to Nerves and Health – What is Being Done to Stop it”. The article was supported by research from Prof Henry J. Spooner, who had been researching and campaigning on the ill-effects of noise and its economic impact. The article sparked subsequent discussion and follow-up articles in the Daily Mail and its international partners. In an era of rapid technological change, that was on the cusp of implementing sound pressure measurements, the Daily Mail, in collaboration with the Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd, experimented with sound recording technology and commentary in the field to help communicate perceived loudness and identify the sources of “unnecessary noise”. This resulted in the making of series of environmental sound recordings from five locations across central London during September 1928, the findings of which were documented and discussed in the Daily Mail at the time, and two recordings commercially released by Columbia on shellac gramophone disc. This was probably the first concerted anti-noise campaign of this type and scale, requiring huge technological efforts. The regulatory bodies and politicians of the time reviewed and improved the policies around urban noise shortly after the presentation of the recordings, which were also broadcast from the BBC both nationally and internationally, and many members of the public congratulated and thanked the Daily Mail for such an initiative. Despite its unpreceded scale and impact, and the recent scholarly attention on the history of anti-noise campaigning, this paper charts and contextualises the Daily Mail’s London Street Noise campaign for the first time. As well as historical research, this data has also been used to start a longitudinal comparative study still underway, returning to make field recordings on the site on the 80th and 90th anniversaries and during the COVID-19 lockdown, and shared on the website londonstreetnoises.co.uk.


Author(s):  
Michael Crock ◽  
Janet Baker ◽  
Skye Turner-Walker

This chapter analyses the history of, and future directions for, higher education studies undertaken through Open Universities Australia (OUA), Australia’s unique higher education conduit. Founded to provide open access to units that allow individuals to undertake individual units or achieve qualifications from leading Australian universities, and supported by a federal government student loans scheme, OUA’s experience and future plans provide significant insight into the potential and pitfalls of the technological innovation in both higher education distance, and increasingly, on-campus, teaching and learning. The need for an ongoing emphasis on innovation, adaptability, and cooperation in an extraordinarily rapidly changing environment is highlighted.


2015 ◽  
pp. 320-335
Author(s):  
Michael Crock ◽  
Janet Baker ◽  
Skye Turner-Walker

This chapter analyses the history of, and future directions for, higher education studies undertaken through Open Universities Australia (OUA), Australia's unique higher education conduit. Founded to provide open access to units that allow individuals to undertake individual units or achieve qualifications from leading Australian universities, and supported by a federal government student loans scheme, OUA's experience and future plans provide significant insight into the potential and pitfalls of the technological innovation in both higher education distance, and increasingly, on-campus, teaching and learning. The need for an ongoing emphasis on innovation, adaptability, and cooperation in an extraordinarily rapidly changing environment is highlighted.


2020 ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
Noah Kellman

Each video game has its own unique, visual aesthetic, and it’s up to the composer to complement this visual world by creating a sonic atmosphere. Many of the greatest games have incorporated musical elements into their sound effects and ambiences. As the field of game music continues to grow, so does the importance of sound design as part of the composer’s skill set. This chapter explores how music and sound effects have interacted throughout the history of game music, defining these relationships for the reader in understandable terms with clear distinctions and accessible examples. This chapter explores FEZ (2012) as an example, along with a variety of other examples in which the music and sound effects were conceived with different levels of interconnectivity.


Author(s):  
Beatrice Heuser

This chapter traces the history of the practice of strategy from Antiquity to Napoleon Bonaparte. It first considers various definitions of strategy before discussing episodes of European history since Antiquity for which historians claim to have found evidence of the practice of strategy. While focusing only on Europe, the chapter covers case studies over nearly 2,500 years, ranging from the wars of Ancient Greece, of the Romans to medieval warfare, the warfare of Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Frederick II of Prussia, the French Revolutionaries, and Napoleon. It also considers two sets of incremental changes that ultimately led to the transformation of warfare and of strategy: the growth, centralization, and diversifiation of the structure of European states; and technological innovation.


Author(s):  
Kyungmee Lee

This article reports eight distance teachers’ stories about teaching at two open universities over the past two decades with a focus on their perceptions and feelings about the changes in their teaching practice. This qualitative study employed a methodological approach called the autoethnographic interview, aiming to document more realistic histories of the open universities and to imagine a better future for those universities. As a result, the paper presents autobiographical narratives of distance teachers that dissent from the general historical accounts of open universities. These narratives are categorized into three interrelated themes: a) openness: excessive openness and a lost sense of mission; b) technological innovation: moving online and long-lasting resistance, and c) teaching: transactional interactions and feelings of loneliness. The paper then presents a discussion of useful implications for open universities, which can serve as a starting point for more meaningful discussions among distance educators in a time of change.


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