Museum robots: multi-robot systems for public exhibition

Mobile robots provide a versatile platform for research, however they can also provide an interesting educational platform for public exhibition at museums. In general museums require exhibits that are both eye catching and exciting to the public whilst requiring a minimum of maintenance time from museum technicians. In many cases it is simply not possible to continuously change batteries and some method of supplying continous power is required. A powered flooring system is described that is capable of providing power continuously to a group of robots. Three different museum exhibit applications are described. All three robot exhibits are of a similar basic design although the exhibits are very different in appearance and behaviour. The durability and versatility of the robots also makes them extremely good candidates for long duration experiments such as those required by evolutionary robotics.

Pil and Galia Kollectiv: solo exhibition at Te Tuhi Art Centre, Auckland, New Zealand.

The exhibition presents the full Future Trilogy which was completed in 2009. The trilogy is based on the opening of a new IKEA store in Edmonton, London in November 2005. IKEA celebrated with a twenty-four hour launch accompanied by significant price reductions on leather sofas. But when six thousand people arrived to compete for the discount a riot ensued which injured sixteen shoppers and required the store to be closed after just thirty minutes. The Future Trilogy takes this event as the starting point to speculate on a future where the popular fascination with modern designer furniture has morphed into state religions underpinned by the ideals of the early twentieth century avant-garde. The exhibition also presents their 2010 work Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management which narrates a fictional story of a company that adopts highly experimental approaches to achieving worker productivity. The project investigates the place of creativity in efficiency management and the operation of bureaucratic systems in a post-industrial work environment. The Kollectiv's pseudo documentary creates a careful blend of fact and fiction through the combination of a distinctive BBC narrator's voice with imagery sourced from an online photographic archive for an early computing company. The story becomes increasingly provocative as more and more of the bizarre antics of the company employees are revealed, leading to the members of the company eventually forming a religious cult.

Vernacular poetry and the spiritual Franciscans of the Languedoc: the poems of Raimon de Cornet

This chapter, in a book devoted to examining the importance of heresy in the construction of cultural identities in Europe, examines the evidence from recent historical studies of the Spiritual Franciscans for the further contextualisation, and better understanding, of the autobiographical allusions and ideological remarks of the 14th-c. troubadour Raimon de Cornet

The Vida of Queen Fredegund in Tote Listoire de France: vernacular translation and genre in thirteenth-century French and Occitan literature

This article examines the role that translation may have played in the development of medieval vernacular literature. It analyses an extract of an early 13th-c. translation into a hybrid French-Occitan vernacular of an 8th-c. historical text, the 'Liber Historiae Francorum'. The translation coincides with the adoption of narrative prose both in Old French and in Occitan literature, which reflects a growing interest in historical writings. The second half of the article compares the anecdote with the narrative structures and content of one of the troubadour 'vidas' and 'razos' - biographical texts in prose that emerged in the same period and regions as this translation. The article concludes by suggesting that the new vernacular genre shares narrative features with the early medieval Latin text that are preserved in its translation.

Family, locality and nationality: vernacular adaptations of the Expugnatio Hibernica from late medieval Ireland

This paper examines two late medieval abridgements of Gerald of Wales’ Expugnatio Hibernica, one in Hiberno-English and one in Irish. The manuscripts in which these adaptations survive all date from the late fifteenth century and appear to bear witness to a sudden and pronounced interest in Gerald’s text. Drawing on evidence from the extant manuscripts, this paper explores the readerships of, and the nature of their interest in, these adaptations. A key conclusion is that the Expugnatio, which gives prominence to Gerald's own relatives, the Fitzgeralds, was valued as a family history by the Fitzgerald Earls of Kildare and their allies. The Earls were at the height of their power in the period in which these manuscripts were produced. Examination of this neglected evidence of the adaptation and readership of the Expugnatio in late medieval Ireland suggests that, for some medieval readers at least, the primary identities Gerald’s text expressed were familial and local rather than colonial or national.

Thin place exhibition

Thin Place is an interdisciplinary project which aims to find connections between the fields of art, archaeology, astrophysics, astrology, alternative therapy, poetry and theology. The nature of this project goes beyond the exhibition and incorporates a symposium, catalogue and education programme which will attempt to dissolve the boundaries that separate fields of knowledge and, in so doing, create a thin place at Oriel Myrddin. The five exhibiting artists and the other contributors to this project have produced work that is concerned with or responds to two particular locations: West Wales and the West of Ireland. In ancient times it was believed that the West was where departed souls easily entered Otherworlds. This is because the delineation between worlds was more permeable along these coasts. Archaeological excavations reveal that West Wales and the West of Ireland were thought by some to be ‘thin places.’ In considering the notion of a ‘thin place’, this exhibition addresses the ways in which we value our relationship with Place, particularly in landscapes where human and non-human relationships are well established.

Buckets, baskets and boots: exhibition event at MERL

Launch event part of Universities Week on Monday 9th Co-researchers from Reading College Learners with Learning Difficulties/Disabilities dept will present their Sensory Objects research in the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL)