Image in the Making

Author(s):  
Katherine Thomson-Jones

Human beings have always made images, and to do so they have developed and refined an enormous range of artistic tools and materials. With the development of digital technology, the ways of making images—whether they are still or moving, 2D or 3D—have evolved at an unprecedented rate. At every stage of image making, artists now face a choice between using analog and using digital tools. Yet a digital image need not look digital; and likewise, a handmade image or traditional photograph need not look analog. If we do not see the artist’s choice between the analog and the digital, what difference can this choice make for our appreciation of images in the digital age? Image in the Making answers this question by accounting for the fundamental distinction between the analog and the digital; by explicating the technological realization of this distinction in image-making practice; and by exploring the creative possibilities that are distinctive of the digital. The case is made for a new kind of appreciation in the digital age. In appreciating the images involved in every digital art form—from digital video installation to net art to digital cinema—there is a basic truth that we cannot ignore: the nature and technology of the digital expands both what an image can be as an image and what an image can be for us.

Author(s):  
Katharine Dommett ◽  
Luke Temple ◽  
Patrick Seyd

Abstract Over recent decades, scholars have explored political parties’ adoption of digital technology. Tracing successive eras of change, scholarship has examined the degree to which digital disrupts or embeds traditional power structures—with many studies finding evidence of ‘controlled-interactivity’. In this article, we revisit debates around the adoption of digital tools from a bottom-up perspective. Moving beyond attempts to categorise elite strategies for digital adoption, we consider practices on the ground to document how, in practice, digital technology is being taken up and used. Using a case study of the UK Labour Party, we categorise a range of different practices, highlighting and theorising the presence of digital adherents, laggards, entrepreneurs, renegades and refuseniks. Discussing the drivers of these practices, we offer new insight into variations in digital adoption and consider the significance of these trends for our understanding of party organisation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-252
Author(s):  
Funda Bilgen Steinberg

Abstract Jeanette Winterson, in her novel “The Stone Gods” that consist of three parts that look like different novellas within actually deals with three main themes that are repeated in three of them which are that the universe is an imprint, human kind’s incapability to learn from its mistake and therefore its destiny to be doomed, and the representation of love of different kinds as the only way human soul could be rescued in this futurist dystopia. In parallel with Donna Harraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” which denies the distinctions such a male and female, human and non-human, Winterson suggests a ‘homo sapiens’ , a humanoid that is more human than human beings and that become more effective in expressing human feeling than humans themselves. In addition to the thematic connection of the novel, the repetition of the characters in different representations also underlines the interconnectedness among species and thus represents the ecosystem in the novel and universe. This study looks at how evolving trans-humans of our digital age can be seen as alternatives to show the contrast between the materializing, discriminating, capitalizing, stereotyping and opportunist thinking that has taken over the humanity. To do so, setting and characters, the assignment of gender roles as well as the exploitation of nature and female will be of focus via the Cyborg Theory with references to the Ecofeminist theory.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Roberts

The notion that the Earth has entered a new epoch characterized by the ubiquity of anthropogenic change presents the social sciences with something of a paradox, namely, that the point at which we recognize our species to be a geologic force is also the moment where our assumed metaphysical privilege becomes untenable. Cultural geography continues to navigate this paradox in conceptually innovative ways through its engagements with materialist philosophies, more-than-human thinking and experimental modes of ontological enquiry. Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, this article contributes to these timely debates by articulating the paradox of the Anthropocene in relation to technological processes. Simondon’s philosophy precedes the identification of the Anthropocene epoch by a number of decades, yet his insistence upon situating technology within an immanent field of material processes resonates with contemporary geographical concerns in a number of important ways. More specifically, Simondon’s conceptual vocabulary provides a means of framing our entanglements with technological processes without assuming a metaphysical distinction between human beings and the forces of nature. In this article, I show how Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction intersect with this technological problematic through his far-reaching critique of the ‘hylomorphic’ distinction between matter and form. Inspired by Simondon’s original account of the genesis of a clay brick, the article unfolds these conceptual challenges through two contrasting empirical encounters with 3D printing technologies. In doing so, my intention is to lend an affective consistency to Simondon’s problematic, and to do so in a way that captures the kinds of material mutations expressive of a particular technological moment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Cordelois

In this article, we use digital technologies (the Subcam and Webdiver) to capture, share and analyze collectively specific user experience. We examine the transition between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ when people come home, and the steps needed to build the ‘being-at-home’ feeling. Understanding what ‘being at home’ means for the subject is part of our larger project of analyzing the impact of home automation. We provide a model which describes the relation between the home and its inhabitant as instrumental ‘functional coupling’, which, when achieved, provides the ‘at home’ feeling. This article illustrates how digital tools can make the ethnographic approach a collaborative analysis of human experience.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
Damian Gascoigne

My drawn animation practice has always focused on the gestural mark and messy materiality. This article is about what happened to that practice in the transition from analogue to digital animation, questioning what was lost forever and what might still be worth fighting for. This practitioner’s account of a ‘before digital, after digital’ career describes the experience of making work, as work itself changed forever. Ushered in with little reflection or resistance in the mid-1990s, the new digital doctrine slowly consumed hand-drawn 2D animation production to the point where few but the most determined independent makers keep this vital practice alive. My contention is that a reckoning on why and how we engage with digital technology is long overdue. The article will set out why – after working with digital tools for more than twenty years – I have now abandoned all but the most cursory engagement with new media tools and taken the long walk back to a material analogue practice. The ideas under discussion here can be traced back to one overriding concern – the unsolvable relationship between movement in drawing and drawing for movement. This dichotomy is unique to 2D animation, because freedom of gesture in drawing does not produce continuity of movement in animation. Mining this seam drives my independent animation practice as I try to reconcile the page and the frame.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rekret

This article seeks to examine the political connotations of a recent ‘material turn’ in social and political theory and its implications for theorizations of political agency. ‘New materialist’ theories are premised upon transcending the limits which social constructivism places upon thought, viewed as a reification of the division of subject and object and so a hubristic anthropocentrism which places human beings at the centre of social existence. Yet new materialist theories have tended to locate the conditions of the separation of mind and world they seek to overcome upon the terrain of epistemic or ethical error. By taking the work of Quentin Meillassoux, Jane Bennett and Karen Barad as exemplary, this article contends that new materialist theories not only fall short of their own materialist pretensions insofar as they do not interrogate the material conditions of the separation of the mental and material, but that the failure to do so has profound repercussions for the success of their accounts of political agency. This essay seeks to offer a counter-narrative to new materialist theories by situating the hierarchy between thought and world as a structural feature of capitalist social relations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Kajsa Kuoljok

Through a story about a reindeer that wandered off from its grazing area, this article explores the emotional effects mediated by digital technology. It concerns the way in which reindeer movements are made visible through the use of digital tools. As reindeer movements are documented by GPS (Global Positional Systems) technology and transformed into inscriptions, the movements become easier to observe. It makes a difference when herders can follow reindeer movements from above, instead of from the ground. New knowledge emerges with increased amounts of information. As GPS data makes reindeer movement visible, it creates a new, partial relation between seeing and knowing. The strong emotional effects that are induced by this relation on the herder are observed and described through a narrative of the reindeer that wandered into another Sámi community.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Reilly ◽  
◽  
Ian Dawson

The term Virtual Archaeology was coined 30 years ago when personal computing and the first wave of digital devices and associated technologies became generally available to field archaeologists (Reilly 1991; 1992). The circumstances that led to the origin of Virtual Archaeology have been recounted elsewhere. Put briefly, Virtual Archaeology was intended for reflexive archaeological practitioners “to be a generative concept and a provocation allowing for creative and playful improvisation around the potential adoption or adaptation of any new digital technology in fieldwork; in other words to explore how new digital tools could enable, and shape, new methodological insights and interpretation, that is new practices” (Beale, Reilly 2017). Digital creativity in archaeology and cultural heritage continues to flourish, and we can still stand by these aspirations. However, in 2021, the definition and extent of this implied “archaeological” community of practice and its assumed authority seems too parochial. Moreover, the archaeological landscape is not under the sole purview of archaeologists or cultural heritage managers. Consequently, experimentation with novel modes and methods of engagement, the creation of new forms of analysis, and different ways of knowing this landscape, are also not their sole prerogative. This applies equally to Virtual Archaeology and digital creativity in the realm of cultural heritage more generally. We assert that other affirmative digitally creative conceptions of, and engagements with, artefacts, virtual archaeological landscapes and cultural heritage assemblages – in their broadest sense – are possible if we are willing to adopt other perspectives and diffract them through contrasting disciplinary points of view and approaches. In this paper we are specifically concerned with interlacing artistic and virtual archaeology practices within the realm of imaging, part of something we call Virtual Art/Archaeology.


Author(s):  
Stefanie Evelyn ◽  
Sutrisnowati Machdijar

BSD City is an area that is planned to be a pioneer of the Integrated Smart Digital City, triggered by the population of BSD which is dominated by millennials and alpha generations who grow up following technological developments. Millennials have a high level of anxiety, stress and depression. To reduce high levels of stress art has an important role where art can change one's emotions and behavior, have a positive impact on stress management, reduce anxiety levels and improve mood. Digital technology has allowed art to go beyond existing boundaries, so that art in the present and in the future will be more dynamic, flexible in accordance with the character of the millennials generation. Therefore, this design aims to provide a forum for interaction between art and humans and among fellow human beings from various groups by utilizing technological advances to maximize the interactions that occur and foster creative thinking and self-expression through digital art. The design is done by survey method and shape grammar. A museum where visitors can explore digital art and interact directly with the artwork and express their emotions freely into a museum, is needed by the Millennials at this time. AbstrakKota BSD merupakan suatu kawasan yang direncanakan akan menjadi pionir Integrated Smart Digital City, dipicu oleh penduduk BSD yang didominasi oleh generasi milenial dan generasi alfa yang tumbuh dengan mengikuti perkembangan teknologi. Generasi  milenial memiliki  tingkat kecemasan, stress, dan depresi yang tinggi. Untuk mengurangi tingkat stress yang tinggi itu seni memiliki peran yang penting dimana seni dapat mengubah emosi dan perilaku seseorang, memberi dampak positif pada manajemen stress, mengurangi tingkat kecemasan dan meningkatkan mood.[1] Teknologi digital telah memungkinkan seni untuk melampaui batasan-batasan yang ada, sehingga seni di masa sekarang dan di masa yang akan datang menjadi lebih dinamis, fleksibel sesuai dengan karakter generasi millennials. Oleh karena itu, perancangan ini bertujuan untuk menyediakan wadah interaksi antara seni dengan manusia dan antara sesama  manusia dari berbagai golongan dengan memanfaatkan kemajuan teknologi untuk memaksimalkan interaksi yang terjadi serta menumbuhkan pemikiran kreatif dan ekspresi diri melalu seni digital. Perancangan dilakukan dengan metode survei dan shape grammar. Museum dimana pengunjung dapat mengeksplorasi seni digital dan berinteraksi langsung dengan karya seni tersebut serta mengekspresikan emosinya secara bebas menjadi museum yang dibutuhkan generasi milenial di masa ini.[1] Sabine C. Koch & Fuchs T, Embodied Arts Therapies, (Arts Psychother, 2011)


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 227-231
Author(s):  
Palle Manohar ◽  
G. Chenna Reddy

The postmodern phenomenon of globalization has launched digitalization as an outcome and the part of communication technologies by which the world has been brought together transcending the barriers of countries and cultures. The increase of global trade and the necessity of close and interlinked association among the nations at various stages of development have become imperative today as a historical necessity for future survival. Communication skills, especially in English, have become a crucial ingredient in all most all activities of life as communication channels are the arteries through which information flows and circulates to sustain any activity without disruption. Besides, to that the growth of coordination and collaborative activities in all spheres of life both public and private. Acquisition of and master over communication skills are the intellectual tools by which one’s competence is measured and career is enhanced. In the age of specialization and hierarchal structures of large organizations, communication is the link connecting and synergizing all activities and ability to communicate clearly and effectively is of immeasurable significance, to assume an important place in any organization. Every field of activity has its own specific vocabulary, specialized jargon and modes of communication which should be mastered by all participants to maintain the overall activity, especially in the age of digitalization. To rise effectively in one’s career and contribute satisfactorily and successfully, special packages of communication skills should be designed and imparted to all potential candidates who are ambitious of to rise high in one’s career. The inauguration of digital age made it both convenient to choose ones place and time for learning and also challenging as to how to utilize the recent technologies to enhance and extend ones communicative reach to become successful in one’s career. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the various programs and strategies of communication necessary to enhance ones career prospects by training the participants to equip themselves with right competitive communication skills in tandem with contemporary digital technology available.


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