Counterpublic Goods in Interesting Times: Transitional Subjectivities Onstage at Highways Performance Space, 1989–1993

A raging global pandemic handled inadequately and indifferently by the Republican-led US federal government, with Dr. Anthony Fauci in a featured role; an antiracist uprising in response to police brutality; a resurgent political Right fomenting and stoking culture wars; activists’ demands for a diverse and equitable art world; increasing fiscal precarity for small, innovative live art spaces; a looming recession; and an escalating housing crisis fueled by accelerating income inequality: welcome to Los Angeles between 1989 and 1993. In this period, AIDS became the leading cause of death for US men ages 25–44; ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)/LA called public health infrastructure to account and successfully fought for an AIDS ward at Los Angeles County Hospital. A widely circulated video of Los Angeles Police Department officers viciously beating Black motorist Rodney King, and their subsequent acquittal of criminal charges by a suburban jury, ignited five days of antiracist rebellion. The rising number of unhoused people in Los Angeles was becoming difficult to ignore, though not for the city's, state's, or federal government's lack of trying. “Multiculturalism” became a widely embraced—if sometimes cynically deployed—aesthetic and programming imperative.

Beyond the Aural: Towards an Intermodal Framework for the Creation and Analysis of Performed Music

<p>A music performance is an environment inhabited by an ecology of modalities, and music composed for performance should be discussed in terms of the various modalities and their interdependencies. Composition and analysis have traditionally prioritised the aural and the formal and tended to ignore performance space politics, corporeality, architecture, the objecthood of instruments and the subjecthood of instrumentalists, and other non-aural elements which contribute to the concert experience. This exegesis outlines a framework for the intermodal discussion of multimodal music for performance: Post-Aural Music. In Post-Aural Music the hierarchy of elements becomes fluid, the ‘aural’ no longer being the assumed authority. The framework is modelled after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre, an examination of modern theatre tendencies resulting from the dethroning of ‘drama’. It looks to Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner’s book Composed Theatre, an observation on how ‘compositional thinking’ is being applied to these other disciplines; and is illustrated by an analysis of Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression from the Post-Aural perspective. I reflect on the process and presentation of my own performance event Fish in Pink Gelatine, a ‘performed installation and staged concert’, as the creative project this exegesis supports.</p>

Beyond the Aural: Towards an Intermodal Framework for the Creation and Analysis of Performed Music

<p>A music performance is an environment inhabited by an ecology of modalities, and music composed for performance should be discussed in terms of the various modalities and their interdependencies. Composition and analysis have traditionally prioritised the aural and the formal and tended to ignore performance space politics, corporeality, architecture, the objecthood of instruments and the subjecthood of instrumentalists, and other non-aural elements which contribute to the concert experience. This exegesis outlines a framework for the intermodal discussion of multimodal music for performance: Post-Aural Music. In Post-Aural Music the hierarchy of elements becomes fluid, the ‘aural’ no longer being the assumed authority. The framework is modelled after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre, an examination of modern theatre tendencies resulting from the dethroning of ‘drama’. It looks to Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner’s book Composed Theatre, an observation on how ‘compositional thinking’ is being applied to these other disciplines; and is illustrated by an analysis of Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression from the Post-Aural perspective. I reflect on the process and presentation of my own performance event Fish in Pink Gelatine, a ‘performed installation and staged concert’, as the creative project this exegesis supports.</p>

instance: Soma-based multi-user interaction design for the telematic sonic arts

The telematic work instance is a performance for viola and dance that digitally connects performers in Vancouver and Cape Town. The network interface enables a violist and a dancer to simultaneously play multi-user digital music-dance instruments over the internet with music and dance. The composition, design and performance interaction of instance draw from acoustic multi-user instrument paradigms and music-dance interactions in the African performing arts to explore the idiosyncrasies of the telematic performance space. The iterative design process implements soma-based research methods to inspire sonic compositional material with the body and to explore the performers’ embodied experience of sonic aesthetics during their interaction.

Women of the Twilight: The Narrative Spaces of Women in the Icelandic Rural Community of the Past

The article deals with some of the spatial features of women’s storytelling traditions in rural Iceland in the late nineteenth century and early 1900s. The study is based on audiotaped sources collected by folklore collector Hallfreður Örn Eiríksson in the 1960s and 1970s from informants born in rural Iceland in the later part of the nineteenth century. The main focus of the article is on 200 women that figure in these sources and their legend repertoires, although a small sample group of 25 men and their repertoires will also be examined to allow comparison. The article discusses what these sources tell us about women’s mobility and the social spaces they inhabited in the past. It goes on to consider the performance space of the Icelandic turf farm in which women’s storytelling took place from the perspective of gender. After noting how the men and women in the sources incorporated different kinds of spaces into their legends, it takes a closer look at how the spatial components of legends told by the women reflect their living spaces, experiences, and spheres of activity. The article underlines that while women in the Icelandic rural community were largely confined to the domestic space of the farm (something reflected in the legends they told), they were neither socially isolated nor immobile. They also evidently played an important part in oral storytelling in their communities, often acting as the dominant storytellers in the performance space of the old turf farm.

Comparative Study of Electric Machines for Stirling Generator Application

The choice of a machine for an application and a given specification remains a complex problem. This will involve, for example, bringing together criteria such as: performance, space saving, economical, reliable, little acoustic noise and others. The best machine selection to fulfill all constraints is an important step for the project to be realized. This work focus on Stirling Engine based Generator and study all types of rotating machines that can be employed for maximum electric power production. Analytical electromagnetic models where developed for all types of rotating machines that satisfied minimum requirement for the project by solving Maxwell equations. The purpose is to develop the design model and combine electromagnetic and thermal study of the machines. Finite Element Method is used to compare the performances of the generators for the best choice. Results show that for applications not requiring bigger output power, the major criteria for the selection is the optimal magnetic induction created by the inducer in the stationary part of the machine. For application such as Stirling generators, permanent magnet (PM) machine satisfy many comparison criteria such as maximum power at low speed, torque density, high efficiency. Beyond exposing a selection method for a project, this work lay down a step-by-step method for engineers and scientists for the crucial stage of design and conception work

Activating Intangible Heritage

<p>Laurajane Smith argues that traditional approaches to heritage tend to conform to ideas of preservation; privileging tangible and physical connections between past and present. This thesis explores heritage as an experience that can be facilitated by, but not limited to these physical remains; proposing an approach in which intangible characteristics are privileged. This alternative approach to heritage employs themes of memory, performance and intangibility in order to establish a means of architectural intervention. Within this multi-sensory approach to heritage, reminiscence is achieved by formalising a historical narrative of space, visually evoking feelings in regard to memory of the site. The site of this investigation is the Fever Hospital in Mount Victoria, Wellington, an abandoned heritage building purpose built as an isolation hospital in 1919. Through multiple architectural interventions, this thesis designs the integration of this neglected, forgotten, and isolated site as a significant element of the city. Historical narrative is engaged as a tool to distil intangible conditions and preserve the sites heritage value that would not otherwise be considered. The method of this architectural investigation uses iterative design and critical reflection to test ideas of form, scale, and program. Throughout these tests light, shadow, material, and narrative are employed as mechanisms to accentuate these less tangible elements. Informed by the history of the site, this investigation explores the programs of a bath-house and public performance space. The result being a mixed-use public space that activates the site as a component within the social context of the city, while embodying a sense of reminiscence to intangible heirtage; experienced through the spatial narrative.</p>

Activating Intangible Heritage

<p>Laurajane Smith argues that traditional approaches to heritage tend to conform to ideas of preservation; privileging tangible and physical connections between past and present. This thesis explores heritage as an experience that can be facilitated by, but not limited to these physical remains; proposing an approach in which intangible characteristics are privileged. This alternative approach to heritage employs themes of memory, performance and intangibility in order to establish a means of architectural intervention. Within this multi-sensory approach to heritage, reminiscence is achieved by formalising a historical narrative of space, visually evoking feelings in regard to memory of the site. The site of this investigation is the Fever Hospital in Mount Victoria, Wellington, an abandoned heritage building purpose built as an isolation hospital in 1919. Through multiple architectural interventions, this thesis designs the integration of this neglected, forgotten, and isolated site as a significant element of the city. Historical narrative is engaged as a tool to distil intangible conditions and preserve the sites heritage value that would not otherwise be considered. The method of this architectural investigation uses iterative design and critical reflection to test ideas of form, scale, and program. Throughout these tests light, shadow, material, and narrative are employed as mechanisms to accentuate these less tangible elements. Informed by the history of the site, this investigation explores the programs of a bath-house and public performance space. The result being a mixed-use public space that activates the site as a component within the social context of the city, while embodying a sense of reminiscence to intangible heirtage; experienced through the spatial narrative.</p>