Urban Commoning: An Assessment of Its Aesthetic Dimension

The practice of urban commoning continues to tickle the imagination of activists and academics alike. Urban commoning’s aesthetic dimension, yet, has not been fully understood. This contribution seeks to fill such gap and approaches aesthetics in the literal sense: That which presents itself to sense perception. The article thus asks: To what extent may commoning practices that are dedicated to the disclosure of unheard voices (hence having an aesthetic dimension) shift urban power relations? This contribution takes its cue in Jacques Rancière’s theory of aesthetics and has the commoning experiment of Pension Almonde as its central case. Pension Almonde constituted a commons‐based, temporary occupation of a vacant social housing complex in Rotterdam, aimed specifically to undo the subordinate position of urban nomads and orphaned cultural initiatives. The article finally develops the distinction between a particular‐aesthetic dimension (making unheard voices merely perceptible) and a universal‐aesthetic dimension (shifting power relations) of urban commoning. Given the case’s lack of collective agency and external resonance, urban power relations remained in place.

Creative AI and Musicking Robots

This article discusses the creative and technical approaches in a performative robot project called “Embodied Musicking Robots” (2018–present). The core approach of this project is human-centered AI (HC-AI) which focuses on the design, development, and deployment of intelligent systems that cooperate with humans in real time in a “deep and meaningful way.”1 This project applies this goal as a central philosophy from which the concepts of creative AI and experiential learning are developed. At the center of this discussion is the articulation of a shift in thinking of what constitutes creative AI and new HC-AI forms of computational learning from inside the flow of the shared experience between robots and humans. The central case study (EMRv1) investigates the technical solutions and artistic potential of AI-driven robots co-creating with an improvising human musician (the author) in real time. This project is ongoing, currently at v4, with limited conclusions; other than this, the approach can be felt to be cooperative but requires further investigation.

Rewriting Mansfield: Writing, Editing and Translation

<p>This thesis explores the notion, the process and the ethical implications of rewriting, drawing on insights from literary and translation theories, psychoanalysis and trauma studies. It analyses three major forms of rewriting: the author’s, the editor’s and the translator’s. While writing, editing and translation have their own specific norms of production, methodologies, possibilities and limits, all these textual practices are implicitly concerned with the meaning-making process of rewriting. Chapter One presents the central case study of the project: John Middleton Murry’s editing of Katherine Mansfield’s notebooks, which resulted in the publication of Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927). The chapter reviews relevant Mansfield scholarship and discusses textual, methodological and theoretical issues concerning the problem of rewriting. Chapter Two follows the ebb and flow of Mansfield’s own rewriting process by discussing the ways in which she ‘translated’ her notebook entries into her fiction. Chapter Three offers a re-reading of the Journal of Katherine Mansfield and sheds new light on Murry’s controversial editorial manipulation. Chapter Four examines the first Italian translation of the Journal – Diario di Katherine Mansfield, authored by Mara Fabietti in 1933 – and my own re-translation of ‘Life of Ma Parker’ – a 1921 Mansfield story that epitomizes the main themes and issues addressed in this study. This thesis demonstrates how deeply intertwined writing, editing and translating are, and presents an understanding of rewriting as a complex and fascinating process that simultaneously resists meaning and yearns for it.</p>

Rewriting Mansfield: Writing, Editing and Translation

<p>This thesis explores the notion, the process and the ethical implications of rewriting, drawing on insights from literary and translation theories, psychoanalysis and trauma studies. It analyses three major forms of rewriting: the author’s, the editor’s and the translator’s. While writing, editing and translation have their own specific norms of production, methodologies, possibilities and limits, all these textual practices are implicitly concerned with the meaning-making process of rewriting. Chapter One presents the central case study of the project: John Middleton Murry’s editing of Katherine Mansfield’s notebooks, which resulted in the publication of Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927). The chapter reviews relevant Mansfield scholarship and discusses textual, methodological and theoretical issues concerning the problem of rewriting. Chapter Two follows the ebb and flow of Mansfield’s own rewriting process by discussing the ways in which she ‘translated’ her notebook entries into her fiction. Chapter Three offers a re-reading of the Journal of Katherine Mansfield and sheds new light on Murry’s controversial editorial manipulation. Chapter Four examines the first Italian translation of the Journal – Diario di Katherine Mansfield, authored by Mara Fabietti in 1933 – and my own re-translation of ‘Life of Ma Parker’ – a 1921 Mansfield story that epitomizes the main themes and issues addressed in this study. This thesis demonstrates how deeply intertwined writing, editing and translating are, and presents an understanding of rewriting as a complex and fascinating process that simultaneously resists meaning and yearns for it.</p>

A Projective Site: Inhabiting the Metaphorical Interval between the Instrumental and Symbolic Meanings of Architecture

<p>Historically, there have been two ways of perceiving space that have been considered opposed to one another and that have significant implications for the way in which architecture is understood. The first is real space, which relates to the direct, sensory and embodied perceptions of architecture as built. This space generates the symbolic meanings of architecture and is understood as our primary way of understanding space. The Second is the analytical, measured space of representation - the drawings and models architects make, which have historically been called the instrumental as they are instruments in the description of architecture. This work challenges that these are independent and oppositional ways of understanding space. I argue that this perceived separation perpetuates the notion of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture to be held in a dichotomous relationship. The aim of this research is to reorient the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture toward a reciprocal relationship by examining their presence within both real and representational space. The research first explores the distinct characteristics of real and representational space that have perpetuated the notion they are distinct entities. Once these characteristics are identified, two central case studies explore ways in which they are translated through real and representational space in order to engender a more meaningful reciprocity. Referencing Michael Webb’s Temple Island (1966 - ongoing) and Guarino Guarini’s Santissima Sindone in Turin (1667-1694) as revealing examples, this thesis argues that the qualities of real and representational space are constantly permeating the assumed boundaries of each other, and that consequently, an architectural space exists between them. Indeed, this thesis aims to examine the existence of a metaphorical interval between a physical building, and its representation in drawings and modeling. This research proposes that pure instrumentality is an illusion, maintaining its legitimacy through a self-imposed autonomy. The research concludes in a design project that suggests a more complex form of inhabiting architecture may challenge the gap between real and representational space, and by extension the separation of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture. It sets out to achieve this through an allegorical investigation exploring a more complex way to occupy architecture - where both real space and the space of representation can be occupied simultaneously. The design research seeks to dissolve the distinctions between how architecture is designed and represented, and how it is understood experientially as built. The thesis concludes that by collapsing the sensory, embodied complexities of real space, with the abstract, analytical characteristics of representational space, the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture can be understood in a reciprocal relationship, where one gives structure and meaning to the other.</p>

A Projective Site: Inhabiting the Metaphorical Interval between the Instrumental and Symbolic Meanings of Architecture

<p>Historically, there have been two ways of perceiving space that have been considered opposed to one another and that have significant implications for the way in which architecture is understood. The first is real space, which relates to the direct, sensory and embodied perceptions of architecture as built. This space generates the symbolic meanings of architecture and is understood as our primary way of understanding space. The Second is the analytical, measured space of representation - the drawings and models architects make, which have historically been called the instrumental as they are instruments in the description of architecture. This work challenges that these are independent and oppositional ways of understanding space. I argue that this perceived separation perpetuates the notion of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture to be held in a dichotomous relationship. The aim of this research is to reorient the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture toward a reciprocal relationship by examining their presence within both real and representational space. The research first explores the distinct characteristics of real and representational space that have perpetuated the notion they are distinct entities. Once these characteristics are identified, two central case studies explore ways in which they are translated through real and representational space in order to engender a more meaningful reciprocity. Referencing Michael Webb’s Temple Island (1966 - ongoing) and Guarino Guarini’s Santissima Sindone in Turin (1667-1694) as revealing examples, this thesis argues that the qualities of real and representational space are constantly permeating the assumed boundaries of each other, and that consequently, an architectural space exists between them. Indeed, this thesis aims to examine the existence of a metaphorical interval between a physical building, and its representation in drawings and modeling. This research proposes that pure instrumentality is an illusion, maintaining its legitimacy through a self-imposed autonomy. The research concludes in a design project that suggests a more complex form of inhabiting architecture may challenge the gap between real and representational space, and by extension the separation of the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture. It sets out to achieve this through an allegorical investigation exploring a more complex way to occupy architecture - where both real space and the space of representation can be occupied simultaneously. The design research seeks to dissolve the distinctions between how architecture is designed and represented, and how it is understood experientially as built. The thesis concludes that by collapsing the sensory, embodied complexities of real space, with the abstract, analytical characteristics of representational space, the instrumental and symbolic meanings of architecture can be understood in a reciprocal relationship, where one gives structure and meaning to the other.</p>

Policy Signaling and Foreign Electoral Uncertainty: Implications for Currency Markets

This paper examines the effects of foreign electoral shocks on currency markets. I develop a theory of signaling and uncertainty to explain why elections in countries with close economic ties should affect exchange rates. Methodologically, this paper focuses on several case studies, with the 2016 US election as a central case. I utilize an event analysis framework to measure the impact of the election on the Mexican peso by exploiting the plausible exogeneity of Donald Trump's tweets. I also measure changes in the peso using Trump's predicted chance of winning the election and show that the peso is weakest when Trump has the highest chance of winning the election. In addition, I include a series of robustness checks and analyses of other notable recent cases when electoral uncertainty affected currencies in other countries, including the 2018 Brazilian election. The results quantify the effect of foreign elections on exchange rates, building on the existing literature that focuses on how domestic elections shape currency markets. I conclude with a discussion of the external validity of the phenomenon demonstrated by the cases in the paper, charting future research on the topic and outlining ways to extend the findings.

Aristotle’s Actual Infinities

In histories of thought about the infinite, Aristotle is constantly said to have rejected any form of actual infinite, and to have allowed quantities to be at most potentially infinite. Aristotle does reject actual infinites in spatial magnitude: nothing is infinitely big or infinitely small. But in the central case of plurality, the evidence for potentialism is much weaker. This paper argues that Aristotle had no principled objection to the idea that there are actually infinitely many things. One part of the argument concerns the distinction in Aristotle between plurality (πλῆθος‎) and number (ἀριθμός‎). Another part concerns the meaning of phrases like ‘infinite by division’, arguing that such phrases do not refer to how many times something has been divided, but rather to how small something is. The argument of this paper, if successful, affects how we should think about the metaphysics of parts in Aristotle’s theory of the continuum.

Bayeh, Jumana – Oleinikova, Olga (eds.): Democracy, Diaspora, Territory: Europe and Cross-Border Politics

This volume offers a profoundly new interpretation of the impact of modern diasporas on democracy, challenging the orthodox understanding that ties these two concepts to a bounded form of territory. Considering democracy and diaspora through a deterritorialised lens, it takes the post-Euromaidan Ukraine as a central case study to show how modern diasporas are actively involved in shaping democracy from a distance, and through their political activity are becoming increasingly democratised themselves. An examination of how power-sharing democracies function beyond the territorial state, Democracy, Diaspora, Territory: Europe and Cross-Border Politics compels us to reassess what we mean by democracy and diaspora today, and why we need to focus on the deterritorialised dimensions of these phenomena if we are to adequately address the crises confronting numerous democracies. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in migration and diaspora, political theory, citizenship and democracy.

The Question To Be Faced Is One of Fact: H.L.A. Hart’s Legal Theory Through His View of International Law

H.L.A. Hart says that The Concept of Law is focused on municipal or domestic law because that is the “central case”1 for the usage of the word ‘law.’ At the beginning of the book he states that “at various points in this book the reader will find discussions of the borderline cases where legal theorists have felt doubts about the application of the expression ‘law’ or ‘legal system,’ but the suggested resolution of these doubts, which he will also find here, is only a secondary concern of the book.”2 Yet among those borderline cases there is one that is rather intriguing, since Hart closely discusses a particular instance of them: it is international law, to which he devotes an entire chapter—the final one—of The Concept of Law. My goal in this article is therefore to make clear why the ‘resolution’ of the borderline case of international law is not entirely ‘secondary’ to Hart’s overall project in The Concept of Law and, in so doing, to show that Chapter X is not as unhappy as many think it is.