The Kaon’CPT Collective: Building a musical culture of not-in-real-life performance through conducted live comprovisation

In this article we describe a Networked Music Collective for online live performance events. Four characteristics of live performance (bodies, space and time, musical culture and social process) are identified as the conceptual and technological basis of our approach. Our recent distributed comprovisation, Perripplayear, is used to illustrate these concepts and to describe the technology stack we employed. The Kaon’CPT collective uses diverse instrumentation including acoustic and electronic instruments, voice and digital musical instruments (DMIs). Its members span 12 time zones and their comprovisation is conducted via a custom distributed score.

Community-Driven Curating in Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women of Louisiana

The exhibition Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women of Louisiana (2019) developed community-driven and co-productive curatorial practices through a partnership with directly impacted stakeholders. This article presents three characteristics that made the partnership between the Newcomb Art Museum and consultants from a community of formerly incarcerated women and activists in New Orleans a success: an understanding of the politics of both the issue and the site, a sharing and collective building of power, and a polyvocal exhibition format. Within the context of the role of curating in struggles for social justice, this article outlines the importance of working with external actors, such as movement leaders and activists, to ensure accountability, equity and reciprocity in exhibitions that address social issues.

Self-organized biotectonics of termite nests

The termite nest is one of the architectural wonders of the living world, built by the collective action of workers in a colony. Each nest has several characteristic structural motifs that allow for efficient ventilation, cooling, and traversal. We use tomography to quantify the nest architecture of the African termite Apicotermes lamani, consisting of regularly spaced floors connected by scattered linear and helicoidal ramps. To understand how these elaborate structures are built and arranged, we formulate a minimal model for the spatiotemporal evolution of three hydrodynamic fields—mud, termites, and pheromones—linking environmental physics to collective building behavior using simple local rules based on experimental observations. We find that floors and ramps emerge as solutions of the governing equations, with statistics consistent with observations of A. lamani nests. Our study demonstrates how a local self-reinforcing biotectonic scheme is capable of generating an architecture that is simultaneously adaptable and functional, and likely to be relevant for a range of other animal-built structures.

Die Zeitgenossenschaft des Alten im Engadin

The Engadinerhaus is a typical historic Engadine collective building that combines all the functions of a farm and a residence into a single housing system. It is characterized by a distribution and structural scheme organized according to certain principles that give the artifacts an imposing and severe external appearance. These are very old buildings whose matrix can be placed between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries and which have undergone numerous transformations over time in order to adapt them to the changing needs of the agricultural world. The historical and documentary value of these important testimonies is already recognized at the beginning of the twentieth century and in 1905 the “Bündner Heimatschutz” is already promoting their protection in order to preserve their architectural and building features. The architect Hans-Jörg Ruch has recently worked on some projects for the re-functioning and restoration of these extraordinary buildings, which in some cases have kept their residential use, while in other cases they have been converted into exhibition spaces and art galleries. The buildings presented in this essay – such as the Chesa Andrea in Madulain, the Chesa Büsin in Silvaplana, the Chesa Madalena in Zuoz, the Chesa Merleda in La Punt, the Chesa Not in Tschlin and the Chesa Perini in S-Chanf – are just one selection of the works realized in Engadine by Ruch. New interior volumes, such as a “house in the house”, or even veils and walls with shapes and materials that strongly reveal their contemporaneity, are inserted in the original spaces of the old building left unaltered. These interventions show an unprecedented and original dialectic between the preservation of the materic character of the historical artifact and the unveiling of new meanings and spatiality, through architectural, constructive and material solutions affected by contemporary artistic procedure.

Towards sustainable public FM: collective building of capabilities

Purpose Public facilities management (FM) is in the unique position of aligning building projects and FM with the policies of sustainable development at societal level. However, sustainable facilities management (SFM) is an emergent profession, and there is a need to build a code of conduct for SFM in FM organisations. The purpose is to develop and test a workshop based concept for collective building of capabilities targeting in-house FM organisations, in particular public in-house FM organisations. Design/methodology/approach This research explores the role of public facilities managers and examines how an empowerment process can help FM employees develop collective competences for SFM. The methodologies used are literature review, and a 3–year-long action research process in the Danish local authority, Albertslund, which is internationally recognised for its innovative and green profile. Findings This paper describes the phenomenon of public SFM imbedded in societal steering paradigms and suggests a framework for a sustainable FM code of conduct. The suggested “Next generation SFM code of conduct” support the employees in taking a proactive strategic position in which translation between politics, strategy, tactics and daily practice becomes the basis for prioritisation and decision-making. The capabilities needed is FM knowledge (including FM know-how, understanding of technologies for sustainability and public governance); it is the FM code of conduct, and it is control of own practice to be obtained through strategies and planning, collaboration and education. Research limitations/implications This study is based on findings in a single local authority, why the findings are primary valid for concept development to be further developed and tested. However, the local authority of Albertslund is recognised as a front runner in green FM, why this case, compare to other cases, represents a relatively mature thinking in terms of FM contribution to sustainability at societal level. When this FM organisation express a need for developing collective competences for sustainability in FM, it can be assumed that less mature FM organisations needs it even more. The findings seem relevant beyond public FM organisations. Practical implications The produced framework for a sustainable FM code of conduct is useful for educational purposes as well as for strategic decision about FM organisations collective competence profile. The use of workshops for the building of collective competences might be useful for many other organisations and not only public FM organisations. Social implications Public FM organisations manage significant shares of existing buildings and can be a driver for societal change if they have the capabilities. This paper provides an answer to how these collective capabilities can be build within an organisational development process, through dialogue and collective reflections. Originality/value This paper is a pioneer in understanding the capabilities needed in FM organisations to take leadership in an integration of sustainability in FM processes.

Emergence of intercolonial variation in termite shelter tube patterns and prediction of its underlying mechanism

Building behaviours occur in various organisms from bacteria to humans. Social insects build various structures such as large nests and underground galleries, achieved by self-organization. Structures built by social insects have recently been demonstrated to vary widely in size and shape within a species, even under the same environmental conditions. However, little is known about how intraspecific variation in structures emerges from collective behaviours. Here we show that the colony variation of structures can be generated by simply changing two behavioural parameters of group members, even with the same building algorithm. Our laboratory experiment of termite shelter tube construction demonstrated clear intercolonial variation, and a two-dimensional lattice model showed that it can be attributed to the extent of positive feedback and the number of individuals engaged in building. This study contributes to explaining the great diversity of structures emerging from collective building in social insects.

Cultura, memória e curadoria digital na plataforma SNIIC | Culture, memory and digital curation in SNIIC platform

RESUMO O Sistema Nacional de Informações e Indicadores Cultural (SNIIC) é uma plataforma convergente e colaborativa que reúne objetos e recursos digitais, com o objetivo de agregar em uma única base de dados informações referentes à cultura e possibilitar o monitoramento das metas e implementação do Sistema Nacional de Cultura (SNC). O objetivo deste trabalho é refletir sobre a atualização dos conceitos de memória em suas instâncias individual, coletiva e, finalmente, digital considerando:(a) quais as possibilidades que a plataforma digital SNIIC pode oferecer para a promover de discursos plurais, dar voz e visibilidade à diversidade cultural; e (b) qual o seu papel na construção, preservação e disseminação da memória coletiva e do patrimônio cultural. A metodologia da pesquisa qualifica-se por sua natureza bibliográfica, descritiva e exploratória, concentrando-se na abordagem temática da ciência da informação acerca da web colaborativa e seus reflexos para a cultura e memória sociais. Muitos desafios e questionamentos surgem a respeito da participação e colaboração do usuário, assim como dos novos fluxos informacionais por meio de aplicações web, da preservação dos inúmeros registros de atividades e patrimônios culturais, para que sirvam de subsídios na composição da memória individual e social brasileira. Resta-nos conhecer, fazer uso efetivo e disseminar a existência da plataforma cultural, enfatizando sua importância e funcionalidades, estimulando a participação das pessoas a atuarem na construção coletiva da cultura, por meio da apropriação social da informação cultural e mediante as múltiplas formas de interação daí surgidas.Palavras-chave: Memória na Internet; Cultura; Informação e Tecnologia; WebColaborativa; Plataforma Digital.ABSTRACT The Brazilian National System of Cultural Information and Indicators (Sistema Nacional de Informações e Indicadores Cultural - SNIIC) is a convergent and collaborative platform which unites digital resources meant to aggregate in one single data base the information regarding cultural matters in order to monitor the System's goals and implementation. The aim of this article is to reflect on the concept of memory in its individual, collective and digital instances considering (a) the means that the SNIIC digital platform can offer to promote plural speech, to give voice and visibility to cultural diversity and (b) the role it plays in the construction, preservation and dissemination of memory and cultural heritage. The research methodology used is bibliographic, descriptive and exploratory, concentrating on the thematic approach of Information Science regarding the collaborative web and its effects on culture and social memory. Many challenges and issues regarding individual participation and collaboration arise, as well as on new information flows and preservation of the numerous records of activities and cultural heritage in order to subsidise the construction of individual and social Brazilian memory. It is important to explore, to use effectively, and to publicize the existence of the cultural platform, highlighting its importance and functionalities, stimulating people's participation in the collective building of culture through social appropriation of the cultural information in multiple interaction forms.Keywords: Memory on the Internet; Culture; Information and Technology; Collaborative Web; Digital Platform.