On the Borderlines of South-Eastern Europe : Migration in the Films of Aida Begić and Želimir Žilnik

This paper analyses recent works by Aida Begić and Želimir Žilnik— Never Leave Me (2017) and The Most Beautiful Country in the World (2018), respectively. These works narrate the evolving lives of migrants on the borderlines of the Balkan Anatolian region. Migrants’ aspiration to reach their “dream land” is interpreted as a journey towards unfolding “the virtual realities of consciousness” of both actors and directors. The reflections of both Begić and Žilnik on the issue of migration, filmed in an accented style, highlight their own post-Yugoslav perspectives, which allows us to analyse the two films in context of “return to homeland”—a concept present both in Naficy’s theories of an accented cinema and in Boym’s notion of “reflective nostalgia.”

inhabiting blue

<p>Architects by in large employ physical materials to generate and define space. Materials such as timber, stone, bricks, and mortar envelop and contain. Yet when described in a purely scientific sense, the visible world can be defined by light, or the absence of light and variations in between. Seminal author and investigator of the senses, Juhani Pallasmaa writes, ‘The experiences of matter, space and light are inseparable ... there is no true architectural experience without light’ (2016, p. 7). Extending this statement, the use of light generates space, creating an architectural experience. The research proposition becomes: Using a reductivist approach, and employing only hue, saturation, and brightness to replace physical materials, this creative body of work explores how colour can be used to evoke a response in mixed realities. The research methodology is Design-Led research, following similar beliefs to Peter Dowton, that by doing, knowing is enhancing knowledge. Literature reviews indicated that there are two main approaches to colour psychology and therapy. From this, the research aims to bridge the gap between popular culture claims and heavily scientific or psychology-based research, to explore the effects of colour through architectural design. Following this, colour theory was researched, followed by a feasibility study of design tests. In the sketch design phase, light at the wavelength frequency of blue was tapped into, and its effects researched. Unique blues were created from nature: flora and fauna were sourced and boiled into pigments. The final outcome is mixed media; Virtual Realities, physical works, and a unique experience. Throughout this project, tests were executed including reviews to gain an indication of whether a response was evoked. The results of this architectural portfolio, which leans into the artistic vein of architecture, show that various saturations and brightness of hues in the blue range can indeed evoke responses.</p>

inhabiting blue

<p>Architects by in large employ physical materials to generate and define space. Materials such as timber, stone, bricks, and mortar envelop and contain. Yet when described in a purely scientific sense, the visible world can be defined by light, or the absence of light and variations in between. Seminal author and investigator of the senses, Juhani Pallasmaa writes, ‘The experiences of matter, space and light are inseparable ... there is no true architectural experience without light’ (2016, p. 7). Extending this statement, the use of light generates space, creating an architectural experience. The research proposition becomes: Using a reductivist approach, and employing only hue, saturation, and brightness to replace physical materials, this creative body of work explores how colour can be used to evoke a response in mixed realities. The research methodology is Design-Led research, following similar beliefs to Peter Dowton, that by doing, knowing is enhancing knowledge. Literature reviews indicated that there are two main approaches to colour psychology and therapy. From this, the research aims to bridge the gap between popular culture claims and heavily scientific or psychology-based research, to explore the effects of colour through architectural design. Following this, colour theory was researched, followed by a feasibility study of design tests. In the sketch design phase, light at the wavelength frequency of blue was tapped into, and its effects researched. Unique blues were created from nature: flora and fauna were sourced and boiled into pigments. The final outcome is mixed media; Virtual Realities, physical works, and a unique experience. Throughout this project, tests were executed including reviews to gain an indication of whether a response was evoked. The results of this architectural portfolio, which leans into the artistic vein of architecture, show that various saturations and brightness of hues in the blue range can indeed evoke responses.</p>

Leaking at the Edges

This chapter continues thinking about the screen via its boundaries, where, despite strong associations of protection and partition, screens are also shown to be read as subject to rupture, breach and violation, whose violence, moreover, may be presented in gendered terms. Breaches of the screen also imbricate the virtual and the actual in (i) exposing the factual realness of the actual by the fictional realness of the virtual; and (ii) spillover, or “leakage,” of the virtual into the actual. With mobile and interactive media, screen boundaries diminish further as parties become virtually co-located and, as virtual worlds grow deeper and more complex, share them with algorithms. As demarcations between actual and virtual realities, screen boundaries grow increasingly unstable and fragile.

Ideals and Virtual Realities

Abstract—A main step for world’s progress is to keep sharing ever-present Ideals for science and education within today’s Virtual Realities. On-line education is transforming human society to new levels in the way people teach and learn during the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. There is an increasing interest in having more and more reliable, fast and simple apps to communicate and also to record, assemble and distribute videos and lectures in the fields of Physics & Maths still using traditional didactic methods. We describe here how to accurately reproduce chalkboard classes for the popular YouTube video platform using OpenEyA-YT. The audience can thus be expanded over continents to help mitigate the effects of physical isolation.

Intangible architectures: The post office in an age of speed

<p>The traditional post office is a confusing and lost character within our urban fabric . Once a central part of towns both rural and urban it is now ignored by the communities it once served, a stagnant figure as communities struggle to figure out what role it still holds. This shift in its role raises larger questions about the shift in the way we view and use communication to express identity. Present day communication is largely conducted over the internet, and we primarily do so through our personal devices. Yet this is not a stagnant shift, with modes of communication evolving and multiplying ever more rapidly. It is through this aspect of speed that begins to address the complexities of this shift. Paul Virilio’s writings on dromology discuss the connections between communication, geography and the virtual world. It offers a framework through which this shift can be viewed, looking at how these ever increasing speeds lead to a collapse of distance both temporally and physically. This results in a geographic disconnect that erodes our ability to engage in place identity. Architecture offers a way that this shift towards a virtual identity can be re-spatialised and authenticated, acknowledging the fractured identities we now hold in geographic and virtual realities. To address this dromological shift this thesis looks at aspects of authenticity and performativity within the post office, investigating how they might offer a way to explore the intersection between old modes of postal communication and new ways of communicating through our cellphones. Through these architectural interventions the new post office is found, one that grounds modern communication within the wider chronological narrative of the post office.</p>

Intangible architectures: The post office in an age of speed

<p>The traditional post office is a confusing and lost character within our urban fabric . Once a central part of towns both rural and urban it is now ignored by the communities it once served, a stagnant figure as communities struggle to figure out what role it still holds. This shift in its role raises larger questions about the shift in the way we view and use communication to express identity. Present day communication is largely conducted over the internet, and we primarily do so through our personal devices. Yet this is not a stagnant shift, with modes of communication evolving and multiplying ever more rapidly. It is through this aspect of speed that begins to address the complexities of this shift. Paul Virilio’s writings on dromology discuss the connections between communication, geography and the virtual world. It offers a framework through which this shift can be viewed, looking at how these ever increasing speeds lead to a collapse of distance both temporally and physically. This results in a geographic disconnect that erodes our ability to engage in place identity. Architecture offers a way that this shift towards a virtual identity can be re-spatialised and authenticated, acknowledging the fractured identities we now hold in geographic and virtual realities. To address this dromological shift this thesis looks at aspects of authenticity and performativity within the post office, investigating how they might offer a way to explore the intersection between old modes of postal communication and new ways of communicating through our cellphones. Through these architectural interventions the new post office is found, one that grounds modern communication within the wider chronological narrative of the post office.</p>

Potentials of the Three Spaces Theory for Understandings of Cartography, Virtual Realities, and Augmented Spaces

For about three decades, cartography has been (critically) studied from a theoretical perspective. This perspective has contributed to the recognition of the social preconditions and effects of cartographic representations, but little to their further development. From the theory of three worlds, a theory of three spaces or its special case of landscapes is derived, whose modes of construction are presented as well as the derivations from the different modes. The categories of material, virtual and their combination of augmented spaces as well as the media (such as painting, texts or models) of the construction of space/landscape are added. The formulas derived from this illustrate the different aspects and relations of the constructions of space on the different levels and against the background of the different categories. Thus developed, the theory of three spaces or landscapes provides a framework for neopragmatic exploration, here, of maps, virtual and augmented spaces.