On medium specificity and discipline crossovers in modern art : An interview with Jacques Ranciére on Medium-Specificity and Discipline Crossovers in Modern Art

Jacques Ranciere's work on aesthetics has received a great deal of attention recently. Given his work has enormous range – taking in art and literature, political theory, historiography, pedagogy and worker's history – Andrew McNamara and Toni Ross (UNSW) seek to explore his wider project in this interview, while showing how it leads to his alternative insights into aesthetics. Rancière sets aside the core suppositions linking the medium to aesthetic judgment, which has informed many definitions of modernism. Rancière is emphatic in freeing aesthetic judgment from issues of medium-specificity. He argues that the idea of autonomy associated with medium-specificity – or 'truth to the medium' – was 'a very late one' in modernism, and that post-medium trends were already evident in early modernism. While not stressing a simple continuity between early modernism and contemporary art, Ranciere nonetheless emphasizes the ethical and political ramifications of maintaining an a-disciplinary stance.

An interview with Jacques Rancière : on medium-specificity and discipline crossovers in modern art

Jacques Rancière's work on aesthetics has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Given his work has enormous range – covering art and literature, political theory, historiography, pedagogy and worker's history – Andrew McNamara and Toni Ross (UNSW) explore his wider critical ambitions in this interview, while showing how it leads to alternative insights into aesthetics. Rancière sets aside the core suppositions linking the medium to aesthetic judgment, which has informed many definitions of modernism. Rancière is emphatic in freeing aesthetic judgment from issues of medium-specificity. He argues that the idea of autonomy associated with medium-specificity – or 'truth to the medium' – was 'a very late one' in modernism, and that post-medium trends were already evident in early modernism. While not stressing a simple continuity between early modernism and contemporary art, Ranciere nonetheless emphasizes the on-going ethical and political ramifications of maintaining an a-disciplinary stance.

Activism, art and social practice : a case study using Jacques Ranciere’s framework for analysis

The question can no longer just be whether “art and social practice” or creative forms of activism are part of larger neo liberal agenda nor if they are potentially radical in their conception, delivery or consumption. The question also becomes: what are the effects of social practice art and design for the artists, institutions, and the publics they elicit in public and private spaces; that is, how can we consider such artworks differently? I argue the dilution of social practices’ potentially radical interventions into cultural processes and their absorption into larger neo liberal agendas limits how, as Jacques Rancière might argue, they can intervene in the “distribution of the sensible.” I will use a case study example from The Center for Tactical Magic, an artist group from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Space and culture: Tradition verses culture

This paper proposes to examine contemporary culture, through communication and technology, in an attempt to expose some of these new or altered spatial concepts evident in film and built form, such as ratefaction and saturation

Fast reconstruction of aerodynamic shapes using evolutionary algorithms and virtual Nash strategies in a CFD design environment

This paper compares the performances of two different optimisation techniques for solving inverse problems; the first one deals with the Hierarchical Asynchronous Parallel Evolutionary Algorithms software (HAPEA) and the second is implemented with a game strategy named Nash-EA. The HAPEA software is based on a hierarchical topology and asynchronous parallel computation. The Nash-EA methodology is introduced as a distributed virtual game and consists of splitting the wing design variables - aerofoil sections - supervised by players optimising their own strategy. The HAPEA and Nash-EA software methodologies are applied to a single objective aerodynamic ONERA M6 wing reconstruction. Numerical results from the two approaches are compared in terms of the quality of model and computational expense and demonstrate the superiority of the distributed Nash-EA methodology in a parallel environment for a similar design quality.

Evolutionary optimisation methods with uncertainty for modern multidisciplinary design in aeronautical engineering

One of the new challenges in aeronautics is combining and accounting for multiple disciplines while considering uncertainties or variability in the design parameters or operating conditions. This paper describes a methodology for robust multidisciplinary design optimisation when there is uncertainty in the operating conditions. The methodology, which is based on canonical evolution algorithms, is enhanced by its coupling with an uncertainty analysis technique. The paper illustrates the use of this methodology on two practical test cases related to Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). These are the ideal candidates due to the multi-physics involved and the variability of missions to be performed. Results obtained from the optimisation show that the method is effective to find useful Pareto non-dominated solutions and demonstrate the use of robust design techniques.

The phenomenology of utopia : reimagining the political

This thesis argues that the end of Soviet Marxism and a bipolar global political imaginary at the dissolution of the short Twentieth Century poses an obstacle for anti-systemic political action. Such a blockage of alternate political imaginaries can be discerned by reading the work of Francis Fukuyama and "Endism" as performative invocations of the closure of political alternatives, and thus as an ideological proclamation which enables and constrains forms of social action. It is contended that the search through dialectical thought for a competing universal to posit against "liberal democracy" is a fruitless one, because it reinscribes the terms of teleological theories of history which work to effect closure. Rather, constructing a phenomenological analytic of the political conjuncture, the thesis suggests that the figure of messianism without a Messiah is central to a deconstructive reframing of the possibilities of political action - a reframing attentive to the rhetorical tone of texts. The project of recovering the political is viewed through a phenomenological lens. An agonistic political distinction must be made so as to memorialise the remainders and ghosts of progress, and thus to gesture towards an indeconstructible justice which would serve as a horizon for the articulation of an empty universal. This project is furthered by a return to a certain phenomenology inspired by Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Ernesto Laclau. The thesis provides a reading of Jacques Derrida and Walter Benjamin as thinkers of a minor universalism, a non-prescriptive utopia, and places their work in the context of new understandings of religion and the political as quasi-transcendentals which can be utilised to think through the aporias of political time in order to grasp shards of meaning. Derrida and Chantal Mouffe's deconstructive critique and supplement to Carl Schmitt's concept of the political is read as suggestive of a reframing of political thought which would leave the political question open and thus enable the articulation of social imaginary significations able to inscribe meaning in the field of political action. Thus, the thesis gestures towards a form of thought which enables rather than constrains action under the sign of justice.

UAS mission path planning system (MPPS) using hybrid-game coupled to multi-objective optimiser

This paper presents the application of advanced optimization techniques to unmanned aerial system mission path planning system (MPPS) using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). Two types of multi-objective optimizers are compared; the MOEA nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II and a hybrid-game strategy are implemented to produce a set of optimal collision-free trajectories in a three-dimensional environment. The resulting trajectories on a three-dimensional terrain are collision-free and are represented by using Bézier spline curves from start position to target and then target to start position or different positions with altitude constraints. The efficiency of the two optimization methods is compared in terms of computational cost and design quality. Numerical results show the benefits of adding a hybrid-game strategy to a MOEA and for a MPPS.

Uncertainty based MDO of UAS using HAPMOEA

CFD has been successfully used in the optimisation of aerodynamic surfaces using a given set of parameters such as Mach numbers and angle of attack. While carrying out a multidisciplinary design optimisation one deals with situations where the parameters have some uncertain attached. Any optimisation carried out for fixed values of input parameters gives a design which may be totally unacceptable under off-design conditions. The challenge is to develop a robust design procedure which takes into account the fluctuations in the input parameters. In this work, we attempt this using a modified Taguchi approach. This is incorporated into an evolutionary algorithm with many features developed in house. The method is tested for an UCAV design which simultaneously handles aerodynamics, electromagnetics and maneuverability. Results demonstrate that the method has considerable potential.

UAS Mission Path Planning System, (MPPS) using hybrid-game coupled to multi-objective optimizer

This paper presents the application of advanced optimization techniques to unmanned aerial system mission path planning system (MPPS) using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). Two types of multi-objective optimizers are compared; the MOEA nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II and a hybrid-game strategy are implemented to produce a set of optimal collision-free trajectories in a three-dimensional environment. The resulting trajectories on a three-dimensional terrain are collision-free and are represented by using Bézier spline curves from start position to target and then target to start position or different positions with altitude constraints. The efficiency of the two optimization methods is compared in terms of computational cost and design quality. Numerical results show the benefits of adding a hybrid-game strategy to a MOEA and for a MPPS.

Active flow control bump design using hybrid Nash-game coupled to evolutionary algorithms

In this paper, the optimal design of an active flow control device; Shock Control Bump (SCB) on suction and pressure sides of transonic aerofoil to reduce transonic total drag is investigated. Two optimisation test cases are conducted using different advanced Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs); the first optimiser is the Hierarchical Asynchronous Parallel Evolutionary Algorithm (HAPMOEA) based on canonical Evolutionary Strategies (ES). The second optimiser is the HAPMOEA is hybridised with one of well-known Game Strategies; Nash-Game. Numerical results show that SCB significantly reduces the drag by 30% when compared to the baseline design. In addition, the use of a Nash-Game strategy as a pre-conditioner of global control saves computational cost up to 90% when compared to the first optimiser HAPMOEA.

Design Optimisation of UAVs Systems achieved on a Framework Environment via Evolution and Game Theory

Over recent years, Unmanned Air Vehicles or UAVs have become a powerful tool for reconnaissance and surveillance tasks. These vehicles are now available in a broad size and capability range and are intended to fly in regions where the presence of onboard human pilots is either too risky or unnecessary. This paper describes the formulation and application of a design framework that supports the complex task of multidisciplinary design optimisation of UAVs systems via evolutionary computation. The framework includes a Graphical User Interface (GUI), a robust Evolutionary Algorithm optimiser named HAPEA, several design modules, mesh generators and post-processing capabilities in an integrated platform. These population –based algorithms such as EAs are good for cases problems where the search space can be multi-modal, non-convex or discontinuous, with multiple local minima and with noise, and also problems where we look for multiple solutions via Game Theory, namely a Nash equilibrium point or a Pareto set of non-dominated solutions. The application of the methodology is illustrated on conceptual and detailed multi-criteria and multidisciplinary shape design problems. Results indicate the practicality and robustness of the framework to find optimal shapes and trade—offs between the disciplinary analyses and to produce a set of non dominated solutions of an optimal Pareto front to the designer.

The coming

Through an exploration of representations of metamorphosis and the creation of a body of written work, this thesis uses a critical examination of theoretical approaches to metamorphosis in combination with textual analysis of representations of metamorphosis and creative practice as research to arrive at the beginnings of an ethic of writing. The creative work, The Coming, consists of a collection of short fiction, The Coming, and two collections of poetry, Orison and Milagros. The exegesis, Transhuman Change: towards an ethic of writing, explores theories about metamorphosis as a figure for writing, as a trope, and as a motif for exploring identity to contextualise the analysis of representations of metamorphosis from which the ethic is developed. With reference to the psychosexual development theory of Jacques Lacan and Elaine Scarry’s philosophy of the body, pain, language and creativity, the exegesis examines existing approaches to metamorphosis and uses supplementary textual analysis of influential representations of metamorphosis from Ovid to Pygmalion, X-Men and Extreme Makeover to explore assumptions about the body, language, the self, gender in western culture. The limitations of the performance of representations of metamorphosis as a figure for the self’s survival of death are considered in the light of voice as metonym for self to propose an ethic which valorises life. The experience of sex and the construction of gender in representations of metamorphosis are considered in the light of Lacan’s theory of desire and Scarry’s theory of the body and language to propose an ethic of representing gender ironically. The motif of the faithless lover and the Pygmalion myth are considered in the light of the (m)other’s role in language to propose an ethic in which indeterminacy constitutes the condition for being aware of oneself among selves. Each of the three proposals is discussed in relation to the short fiction, memoir and poems produced in the course of this research to test their limits and possibilities as the foundation of an emerging ethic of writing.