The Dark Monarch: magic and modernity in British art

This major curated exhibition, publication and events builds on Rowlands’ curatorial research. Working in collaboration with co-curators Martin Clark, Artistic Director, Tate St Ives and Michael Bracewell, cultural historian, the exhibition sought to explore new narratives within British art. The innovative curatorial methodology developed from a fiction found in the infamous novel, The Dark Monarch by Sven Berlin, Gallery Press 1962. The research sought specific archival and collection work that allowed thematic strands to emerge that represented influences across generations. The exhibition features two-hundred artworks, from the Tate Collection, archives and other significant British public and private collections. It examines the development of early Modernism, in the UK, as well as the reappearance of esoteric and arcane references in a significant strand of contemporary art practice. Historical works from Samuel Palmer, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Paul Nash are shown alongside contemporary artists including Derek Jarman, Cerith Wyn Evans, Eva Rothschild, Linder and John Russell. The exhibition includes a key work by Damien Hirst ¬ the first time he has been shown at Tate St Ives and a number of contemporary commissions. The Dark Monarch publication extended the discourse of the research critically examining the tension between progressive modernity and romantic knowledge, the book focuses on the way that artworks are encoded with various histories - geological, mythical and magical. Essays examine magic as a counterpoint to modernity’s transparency and rational progress, but also draw out the links modernity has with notions such as fetishism, mana, totem, and the taboo. Often viewed as counter to Modernism, this collection of essays suggest that these products of illusion and delusion in fact belong to modernity. Drawing together 15 different writers commissioned to explore magic as a counterpoint of liberal understanding of modernity, drawing out links that modernity has with notions of fetish, taboo and occult philosophy. Including essays by Marina Warner, Ilsa Colsell, Philip Hoare, Chris Stephens, Jennifer Higgie and Morrissey.

Knowledge sharing: Context, confusion and controversy

Project managers in the construction industry increasingly seek to learn from other industrial sectors. Knowledge sharing between different contexts is thus viewed as an essential source of competitive advantage. It is important therefore for project managers from all sectors to address and develop appropriate methods of knowledge sharing. However, too often it is assumed that knowledge freely exists and can be captured and shared between contexts. Such assumptions belie complexities and problems awaiting the unsuspecting knowledge-sharing protagonist. Knowledge per se is a problematic esoteric concept that does not lend itself easily to codification. Specifically tacit knowledge possessed by individuals, presents particular methodological issues for those considering harnessing its utility in return for competitive advantage. The notion that knowledge is also embedded in specific social contexts compounds this complexity. It is argued that knowledge is highly individualistic and concomitant with the various surrounding contexts within which it is shaped and enacted. Indeed, these contexts are also shaped as a consequence of knowledge adding further complexity to the problem domain. Current methods of knowledge capture, transfer and, sharing fall short of addressing these problematic issues. Research is presented that addresses these problems and proposes an alternative method of knowledge sharing. Drawing on data and observations collected from its application, the findings clearly demonstrate the crucial role of re-contextualisation, social interaction and dialectic debate in understanding knowledge sharing.

The lion and the ox: Oakeshotts engagement with Leo Strauss on Hobbes

Recent studies of Michael Oakeshott have stressed the mutually constitutive importance of Hobbes to Oakeshott, arguing in part that Oakeshott’s Hobbes largely reflected his own concerns and broader philosophical project. This paper does not dispute this, but proposes a complementary account: Oakeshott’s interpretation of Hobbes was also formed in large measure by both his sympathy for Leo Strauss’s account and by his perception of it as the principal rival to his own. To demonstrate the existence of such a formative engagement, a close reading of Oakeshott’s essay The moral life in the writings of Thomas Hobbes is undertaken. Not only is Oakeshott found to have absorbed much of Strauss’s interpretation (surprisingly including Strauss’s distinction between esoteric and exoteric doctrines), the key impetus of the essay is shown to be a refutation of Strauss’s characterization of Hobbes as a ‘moralist of the common good’.

Transmission of wireless power by magnetic resonance

The work involves investigation of a type of wireless power system wherein its analysis will yield the construction of a prototype modeled as a singular technological artifact. It is through exploration of the artifact that forms the intellectual basis for not only its prototypical forms, but suggestive of variant forms not yet discovered. Through the process it is greatly clarified the role of the artifact, its most suitable application given the constraints on the delivery problem, and optimization strategies to improve it. In order to improve maturity and contribute to a body of knowledge, this document proposes research utilizing mid-field region, efficient inductive-transfer for the purposes of removing wired connections and electrical contacts. While the description seems enough to state the purpose of this work, it does not convey the compromises of having to redraw the lines of demarcation between near and far-field in the traditional method of broadcasting. Two striking scenarios are addressed in this thesis: Firstly, the mathematical explanation of wireless power is due to J.C. Maxwell's original equations, secondly, the behavior of wireless power in the circuit is due to Joseph Larmor's fundamental works on the dynamics of the field concept. A model of propagation will be presented which matches observations in experiments. A modified model of the dipole will be presented to address the phenomena observed in the theory and experiments. Two distinct sets of experiments will test the concept of single and two coupled-modes. In a more esoteric context of the zero and first-order magnetic field, the suggestion of a third coupled-mode is presented. Through the remaking of wireless power in this context, it is the intention of the author to show the reader that those things lost to history, bound to a path of complete obscurity, are once again innovative and useful ideas.