The Fraternity of Metaphors: Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme

Since the 'completion' of Histoire(s) du cinema (1988-1998), Jean-Luc Godard's work has become increasingly mosaic-like in its forms and configurations, and markedly elegiac in its ruminations on history, cinema, art, and thought. While his associative aesthetic and citational method –including his choice of ‘actors’, and the fragmentariness of his ‘soundtracks’ – can combine to create a distinctive cinematic event, the films themselves refuse to cohere around a unifying concern, or yield to a thematic schema. Not surprisingly, Film Socialisme does not offer us the illusion of narrative or structural integrity anymore than it contributes to the quotidian rhetoric of political and moral argument. It is, however, a political film in the sense that it alters something more fundamental than opinions and points of view. It transforms a way of seeing and understanding reality and history, fiction and documentary, images, and images of images. If anything, it belongs to that dissident or ‘dissensual’ category of artwork capable of ‘emancipating the spectator’ by disturbing what Jacques Rancière terms ‘the distribution of the sensible’ in that it generates gaps, openings, and spaces, poses questions, invites associations without positing a fixed position, imposing an interpretation, or allowing itself to invest in the illusion of expressive objectivity and the stability of meaning. The myriad citations and fragments that comprise the film are never intended to culminate into anything cohesive, never mind conclusive. In one sense, they have no source and no context beyond their moment in the film itself, and what we make of that moment. This article studies the degree to which Godard allows these images and sounds to combine and collide, associate and dissolve in this film, arguing that Film Socialisme is both an important intervention in the history of contemporary cinema, and necessary point of reference in any serious discussion of the relations between that cinema and political reality.

Adapting musicology’s use of affect theories to contemporary theatre-making: directing Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life

Adopting and adapting musicology’s use of affect theories, specifically Jeremy Gilbert’s idea of an ‘affective analysis’ and David Epstein’s idea of ‘shaping affect’, this article looks at Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life from a practitioner’s perspective. It investigates the challenges and benefits of adopting an ‘affective approach’ to directing recent theatre texts which stress the musicality and corporeality of language along with, and at times above, their signifying roles. Rather than locating Aristotelian dramatic climaxes based on narratological or characterological progression, an affective approach seeks to identify moments of affective intensity, which produce a different sort of impact by working on a ‘body-first’ methodology rather than the directly cerebral. That this embodied impact is not ultimately meaningless is one of affect theories most vital assertions. This approach has resonance in terms of how directors, performers and critics/theorists approach work of this type.

The Ectocarpus genome and the independent evolution of multicellularity in brown algae

Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) are complex photosynthetic organisms with a very different evolutionary history to green plants, to which they are only distantly related(1). These seaweeds are the dominant species in rocky coastal ecosystems and they exhibit many interesting adaptations to these, often harsh, environments. Brown algae are also one of only a small number of eukaryotic lineages that have evolved complex multicellularity (Fig. 1). We report the 214 million base pair (Mbp) genome sequence of the filamentous seaweed Ectocarpus siliculosus (Dillwyn) Lyngbye, a model organism for brown algae(2-5), closely related to the kelps(6,7) (Fig. 1). Genome features such as the presence of an extended set of light-harvesting and pigment biosynthesis genes and new metabolic processes such as halide metabolism help explain the ability of this organism to cope with the highly variable tidal environment. The evolution of multicellularity in this lineage is correlated with the presence of a rich array of signal transduction genes. Of particular interest is the presence of a family of receptor kinases, as the independent evolution of related molecules has been linked with the emergence of multicellularity in both the animal and green plant lineages. The Ectocarpus genome sequence represents an important step towards developing this organism as a model species, providing the possibility to combine genomic and genetic(2) approaches to explore these and other(4,5) aspects of brown algal biology further.

Rotating Brains / Beating Heart:International collaborative performance with Stelarc, the virtual reality ensemble Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Pauline Oliveros, Martin Parker and saxophonist Franziska Schroeder.

The work ROTATING BRAINS / BEATING HEART was specifically developed for the opening performance of the 2010 DRHA conference. The conference’s theme ‘Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity explored collaborative relationships between the body and sensual/sensing technologies across various disciplines, looking to new approaches offered by various emerging fields and practices that incorporate new and existing technologies. The conference had a specific focus on SecondLife with roundtable events and discussions, led by performance artist Stelarc, as well as international participation via SecondLife.
The collaboration between Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (AOM) and myself as the DRHA2010 conference program chair was a unique occurrence for this conference.

Verwirklichende Raume - Poetik und Raumkonzeption bei Paul Celan und Martin Buber

This article with the conception of space in Paul Celan's poetics, comparing it to Martin Buber's and developing a notion of 'realisation', important to both Celan and Buber. Partant du concept du fantastique en tant qu'espace dans laquelle les phénomènes sont véritablement perçus au lieu de simplement se dérouler, l'article montre comment la rupture avec la réalité accoutumée peut mener à une sensation intense de l'être. Chez Martin Buber se trouve la description d'un telle espace, où l'unité est créée à partir de la polarité de tout ce qui est. Le poème peut représenter un exemple d'un tel espace « réalisant ». La conception de l'espace chez Buber est démontrée en dialogue avec le poème STEHEN de Paul Celan, afin de montrer comment le monde réifié est « réalisé » par la poésie. Ainsi sont mis en valeur le rapport mutuel et le lien indispensable entre réalités sociales et la réalité du non-espace.

Stereotypes of Age Differences in Personality Traits: Universal and Accurate?

Age trajectories for personality traits are known to be similar across cultures. To address whether stereotypes of age groups reflect these age-related changes in personality, we asked participants in 26 countries (N = 3,323) to rate typical adolescents, adults, and old persons in their own country. Raters across nations tended to share similar beliefs about different age groups; adolescents were seen as impulsive, rebellious, undisciplined, preferring excitement and novelty, whereas old people were consistently considered lower on impulsivity, activity, antagonism, and Openness. These consensual age group stereotypes correlated strongly with published age differences on the five major dimensions of personality and most of 30 specific traits, using as criteria of accuracy both self-reports and observer ratings, different survey methodologies, and data from up to 50 nations. However, personal stereotypes were considerably less accurate, and consensual stereotypes tended to exaggerate differences across age groups.

Stereotactic radiosurgery for arteriovenous malformations, Part 1:management of Spetzler-Martin Grade I and II arteriovenous malformations

The aim of this paper was to define the outcomes and risks of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for Spetzler-Martin Grade I and II arteriovenous malformations (AVMs).