Re-framing the Crusades: The Representation of Space, Landscape and Architecture in the Comics Series Croisade

In both medieval and contemporary culture, defamiliarization in space frames the imagined relationship with the other in fantasized views of the East. This paper addresses ways the creative imagination functions in the contemporary four-volume Belgian comics series Croisade by Dufaux and Xavier (vol I-IV). They foster a self-reflexive vision of competing universes, from the Celtic to the ancient Roman, from the Moorish to the Gothic. The cultural relativism of our contemporary era seems more relevant than any attempt to historicize faithfully the fictional plot. These comic books exploit the visual evidence of space as emblematic natural sites of heterotopias like the desert, and architectural space like Jerusalem, some burial sites, the sultan’s oriental palace and the Crusaders’ fortress, while assessing the changing representation of space from the medieval era to the present.

Sospeso tra due mondi: il velo di San Giusto tra Bisanzio e Trieste

This article aims to a preliminary reassessment of the silk veil preserved in the Treasury of Trieste cathedral. The cloth is unparalleled in Byzantine as well in western medieval art, in that it is painted with tempera on both sides. It depicts a youthful martyr in a court costume, and bears an inscription that identifies the saint as St. Just. Since its alleged recovery from a reliquary in the early nineteenth century, the cloth has been often addressed by the scholars, who ascribed it either to a Byzantine or to a local master and dated it between the eleventh and the fourteenth century. Despite being referred to in several more general studies, it has been rarely considered individually. In this paper I address the many questions that the Trieste veil raises, including problems of chronology, provenance, function, and iconography. After careful observation and based on both primary sources and visual evidence, I argue that it was produced in Byzantium, possibly at an early date, to serve as a liturgical implement; later, it was brought to the West, where the saint was given a new identity and the cloth was reused as a banner after being painted on the reverse.

“Place Making” and “Place Attachment” as Key Concepts in Understanding and Confronting Contemporary Urban Evictions: The Case of Givat-Amal, Tel Aviv

This article expands on the usability of the concepts of “place making” and “place attachment” as recently developed in urban studies research in the context of housing insecurity of marginalized communities in today’s neo-liberal city. Particularly, against the growing threat of urban evictions, the article utilizes a transdisciplinary approach, showing the relevance of both concepts for (a) a better understanding of bottom-up processes of spatial production and attempts to create a sense of place on the part of such communities, and (b) offering an innovative legal strategy for doing justice to these communities in terms of their compensation rights, especially where a title to land has not been registered on a private basis. These issues are critically examined on the site-related case of the Givat-Amal quarter in Tel Aviv, Israel. This district is now under actual final threat of forced evictions following seven conflicted decades with the state, municipal authorities and private entrepreneurs. Our transdisciplinary study is based on qualitative methodologies in human geography such as fieldwork, visual evidence, and interviews, with a glimpse into philosophy. It is equally based on revisiting “traditional” legal property rights through the lens of post-liberal human rights analysis. The argument can apply to many situations of forced evictions across Africa, Latin America, and the West itself.

Evidence and gap maps: Using maps to support evidence-based development

Evidence mapping began in the early 2000s and has taken off in the last ten years, notably with the innovation of an online interactive visual Evidence and Gap Map by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and the different types of maps produced by the Campbell Collaboration. In the CEDIL Methods brief, ‘Evidence and gap maps: Using maps to support evidence-based development’, Howard White, Research Director, CEDIL, describes what evidence and gap maps are, what sort of evidence is being mapped, and the various ways in which these maps are being used and how you can commission one.

Are We There Yet?

<p>This research will address American gender theorist Butler's assertion of third wave feminism and gender ethics and advocate that despite education and modernization, a duplicity still exists in the way gender has been depicted in western culture as well as in indigenous culture. This investigation seeks to acknowledge this duplicity by performing a comparative study of the western superhero Wonder Woman and the indigenous Indian Goddess Durga. Ultimately, this study challenges the contemporary terminologies and the interpretations concerning gender roles within the society to show the duplicity inherent in these contrasting renditions. Through a theoretical and practical framework and with the help of academic works and social media, the study conveys more visually empathetic ways to define the feminine gender as being powerful and multifaceted. These investigations will include traditional and contemporary examples of visual illustrations that contain their own social and cultural narratives and offer visual evidence of the perceptions and preconceptions that Butler refers to in her ‘Undoing Gender’ as “social and sexual constraints” (Butler, 2004, p. 10-15). The findings include visual responses that explore the personal counter-reaction towards duplicity that I argue is rife within social constructions of the feminine gender in both the Western and Eastern cultures. The illustration techniques in this research will provide more in-depth representations of the multifarious feminine characteristics. The study concludes that the sense of gender inequality still exists in contemporary society and only acceptance of this fact can resolve the issue.</p>

Are We There Yet?

<p>This research will address American gender theorist Butler's assertion of third wave feminism and gender ethics and advocate that despite education and modernization, a duplicity still exists in the way gender has been depicted in western culture as well as in indigenous culture. This investigation seeks to acknowledge this duplicity by performing a comparative study of the western superhero Wonder Woman and the indigenous Indian Goddess Durga. Ultimately, this study challenges the contemporary terminologies and the interpretations concerning gender roles within the society to show the duplicity inherent in these contrasting renditions. Through a theoretical and practical framework and with the help of academic works and social media, the study conveys more visually empathetic ways to define the feminine gender as being powerful and multifaceted. These investigations will include traditional and contemporary examples of visual illustrations that contain their own social and cultural narratives and offer visual evidence of the perceptions and preconceptions that Butler refers to in her ‘Undoing Gender’ as “social and sexual constraints” (Butler, 2004, p. 10-15). The findings include visual responses that explore the personal counter-reaction towards duplicity that I argue is rife within social constructions of the feminine gender in both the Western and Eastern cultures. The illustration techniques in this research will provide more in-depth representations of the multifarious feminine characteristics. The study concludes that the sense of gender inequality still exists in contemporary society and only acceptance of this fact can resolve the issue.</p>

Developing Accurate Visual Conventions?

Five articles about pictorial materials that were published in Visual Anthropology Review were read with an aim to compare the research approaches of anthropology and visual communication design. This text focuses on three themes in the five articles that relate to pictorial materials: processes, terminology, and the objectivity of visual evidence. Several questions and uncertainties are very similar in both disciplines. It might be beneficial for investigations into visual communication design practices to consider the level of detail, a critical theory base, and reflexive positions that form the basis for the five anthropology articles. Both disciplines need to look at terminology and investigate the motivations and impact of pictorial materials.

Visualisation of Naturally Ventilated House in Tropical Hilly Area of Indonesia, Case Study: Vatutela Village, Tondo Hills, Palu

The settlement of Vatutela village’s in Tondo hills Palu has only one road access with a linear residential pattern following the topography. This situation affects the pattern of wind flowing through the settlement areas, which is undoubtedly affecting the house’s temperature and humidity profile and influencing thermal comfort of the occupants. The research was conducted to visualise the pattern of the wind flow entering the house through openings in the perspective of building’s thermal performance. The method used to visualise the air movement was the smoke decay method. The method was performed in two scaled dwelling Models representing brick-constructed houses and wood-constructed raised floor houses in Vatutela village. The smoke decay result is elaborated with the results of microclimate measurements using Hobo data loggers to analyse the thermal condition in the houses. The results showed that a design strategy is needed to achieve a thermal comfort zone in both types of houses. The design strategy can be in the form of the arrangement of openings and additional building elements, such as adding ceilings, fins, sunscreens. Additionally, the opening placement, width, and type should be reconsidered for the houses in the area according to houses’ plan and section. This study is expected to give a visual evidence of wind pattern in a naturally ventilated house with a three-layers plan.

Physical modeling of sand columns application in recharge reservoir to prevent seawater intrusion

This study aims to provide visual evidence by the physical simulation to demonstrate the sand column performance of a recharge reservoir to control seawater encroachment and confirm some previous studies. In this analysis, a two-dimensional sand tank illustrates the sand column's role in overcoming seawater intrusion. Besides using dyes, the sand tank is also fitted with sensors to observe the length of seawater penetration. Furthermore, the simulation using SEAWAT numerical modeling is used as a reference in this analysis. The criteria analyzed were the number of sand columns, the reservoir water level, and the isochlors concentration. The results revealed a reasonably close match between physical and computational modeling. It was also found that the more sand columns and the higher the reservoir water level, resulted in the decrease of seawater penetration length that occurred. Physical and computational modeling findings indicated that the optimal results are derived using three sand columns with an RMSE value of 0.76. The seawater infiltration length decreased to 84.72% relative to sand column-free conditions at a reservoir water level of 15.0 cm.

Touching heritage: embodied politics in children’s photography

Drawing on ethnographic research with children in Athens, the authors examine sensual, performative and embodied aspects of children’s photographic representations of a monument that is central in the Greek national, cultural and historical discourse, the Acropolis. Moving away from the hermeneutics of cultural domination, the focus of this article is on how the pictures depicted the monument and how they were used by the children. Assuming an analytical framework which incorporates aspects of sensual experience in the analysis of the photography, the authors discuss how the children’s pictures of the Acropolis not only make visual records of the monument, and thus are not simply visual evidence of the centrality of the mainstream Greek national and historical discourse, but also how they entail the children’s embodied relation to it, and what this relation might tell us about childhood expressions of heritage and belonging, and by extension about politics in childhood. The analytical focus on embodied aspects of children’s photography illuminates complexities of cultural representation and their gestural, discursive and political significance.