To the very ground of meaning, to vary the ground of meaning

Parody may be understood as the absorption of a revolutionary impulse into the everyday production of meaning as continuous variation and soft subversion. Considered in this way, parody is transformative because it operates on the components within a system of meaning and/or the context, logic or spatial perspective that grounds the possibility of meaning. It is the conditions under which shared meaning, sense and sensation depend that I aim to unpack in order to suggest the ways in which parody can alter a person’s relationship to the world. By approaching parody as a mode of lived abstraction and as an embodied approach to affective self-organisation, body-environment co-construction and a challenge to identity, it becomes possible to move from formal concerns that have characterised parody to a set of transformative practices. Thus parody indicates where the anchors of embodied, embedded, extended, enacted and affective are dug in and hold identity and the ground of meaning in a steady state. This paper will examine how parody moves from the impulse to overthrow and invert — ‘Beneath the street, The beach’—to a collective impulse that moves the ground of meaning into a reconfigurative process that is allows totalised systems of meaning to collide and intersect. What is left is not the rubble and ruins of meaning but revitalised fragments, stems cells of meaning ready-to-be-remade.A lineage of parodic works will be paraded and discussed that directly address the tacit relation of ground, horizon, orientation and position. This parody parade will form the basis of a critique and the analysis of the ontological orientations that for example, opposing systems of perspective insert as the very ground of meaning. The implication of this line of inquiry leads to the assertion that all descriptions of the world, universe and the cosmos are parodies in search of an origin. Totalised or unified images of the ground of meaning are already parodies of a/the set of conditions by which meaning operates that also produce a trajectory that as a lived-abstraction directs or hijacks subsequent productions of meaning

Distributed cognition and IT support for knowledge work in breakdowns : match or mismatch?

Knowledge is instrumental in organisational problem solving and is embedded in organisational processes and routines. We explore the application of IT in breakdowns (forms of interruptions from normal organisational work routines) and illustrate the application of distributed cognition theory (DCT) as a useful lens to explain the exchange of knowledge in breakdowns. DCT also allows for a rich analysis of the role that information technology (IT) can play to foster knowledge exchange in breakdown situations. We use two cases to illustrate that DCT is useful in identifying the matches and mismatches in IT support for exchanging knowledge in breakdowns.

The pedagogy of activism : learning to change the world

Much of the theorisation regarding radical adult education in Australia has concentrated on activists' pedagogy in the context of critical learning. Learning in social action is largely seen as taking place informally; it is tacit and implied and not always identified or articulated as knowledge or learning. This paper argues how activists' learning is embodied; the whole person is central to how meaning is made. A person's learning is embedded in significant identity change as they 'learn to be and become an activist'. Activists use their emotions, cognition and their physical body to make meaning. The symbolic use of the body is particularly important in the processes of direct action. Activists' learning is mainly informal, social and situated in practice, and they learn from one another by socialisation in a community of practice. Central to the paper is there is much to be learned from the important pedagogy of these activists, I argue that learning in radical adult education should be more prominent in the current discourses of lifelong learning and adult education in general.

Embodied dispositions or experience? Identifying new patterns of professional competence

Aim. This paper is a report of a study to explore nurses' competence as revealed during an admission assessment. Background. Studies of nursing competence and of models of competence have become virtually synonymous with the five-stage developmental model applied to nursing by Benner. However, the model has been criticized for its interpretation of intuition and also for the exclusion of the social elements and context of nursing practice. Method. The study was conducted in 2004. This paper draws on data from 12 structured non-participant observations of admission assessments in an orthopaedic ward by four nurses: two with <1 year' experience and two with more than 5 years' experience. Defined variables were observed using instantaneous and event sampling. The analysis was guided theoretically by the assumptions embedded in Benner's competence model and Bourdieu's theory of practice. Findings. Each nurse had unique patterns of practice that did not correspond to the level of competence expected in relation to their length of experience as a nurse. Nurses' competence seems to be situational rather than related to levels in the developmental model: in some observed variables, inexperience nurses acted as experts, while experienced nurses acted as advanced beginners, contrary to the expectations of Benner. Conclusion. The five-stage developmental competence model could not be verified empirically in this study. The findings suggest that further empirical research is needed to clarify the apparent links between situation and competence.

From the 'mad' poet to the 'embodied' poet: reconceptualising creativity through cognitive science paradigms

 Written by the author of three collections of poetry, this paper contests the enduring stereotype of the ‘mad’ poet, present in Romantic, psychoanalytic and psychological theories of creativity. Mobilising theories of embodied cognition, it offers a demystified and de-pathologised vision of poiesis and poetry. The paper focuses on three traits typically associated with the ‘mad’ poet in popular representations and theoretical understandings of that figure: extreme emotionality; divergent thinking; and a tortured unconscious. Using findings in the cognitive sciences, the essay demonstrates how emotional experience, divergent thinking, and the unconscious are integral parts of brain functioning, rather than traits exclusive to psychopathology. Poiesis is not informed, in any essential way, by madness but rather by the normal conditions of embodied cognition.

Using national input-output data for embodied energy analysis of individual residential buildings

Embodied energy (EE) analysis has become an important area of energy research, in attempting to trace the direct and indirect energy requirements of products and services throughout their supply chain. Typically, input-output (I-O) models have been used to calculate EE because they are considered to be comprehensive in their analysis. However, a major deficiency of using I-O models is that they have inherent errors and therefore cannot be reliably applied to individual cases. Thus, there is a need for the ability to disaggregate an I-O model into its most important 'energy paths', for the purpose of integrating case-specific data. This paper presents a new hybrid method for conducting EE analyses for individual buildings, which retains the completeness of the I-O model. This new method is demonstrated by application to an Australian residential building. Only 52% of the energy paths derived from the I-O model were substituted using case-specific data. This indicates that previous system boundaries for EE studies of individual residential buildings are less than optimal. It is envisaged that the proposed method will provide construction professionals with more accurate and reliable data for conducting life cycle energy analysis of buildings. Furthermore, by analysing the unmodified energy paths, further data collection can be prioritized effectively.

An analysis of embodied energy of office buildings by height

Aims to compare the energy embodied in office buildings varying in height from a few storeys to over 50 storeys. The energy embodied in substructure, superstructure and finishes elements was investigated for five Melbourne office buildings of the following heights: 3, 7, 15, 42 and 52 storeys. The two high-rise buildings have approximately 60 percent more energy embodied per unit gross floor area (GFA) in their materials than the low-rise buildings. While building height was found to dictate the amount of energy embodied in the “structure group” elements (upper floors, columns, internal walls, external walls and staircases), other elements such as substructure, roof, windows and finishes seemed uninfluenced.

Validation of the use of input-output data for embodied energy analysis of the Australian construction industry

This paper evaluates a recently developed hybrid method for the embodied energy analysis of the Australian construction industry. It was found that the truncation associated with process analysis can be up to 80%, whilst the use of input-output analysis alone does not always provide a perfect model for replacing process data. There is also a considerable lack in the quantity and possibly quality of process data currently available. These findings suggest that current best-practice methods are sufficiently accurate for most typical applications, but this is heavily dependant upon data quality and availability. The hybrid method evaluated can be used for the optimisation of embodied energy and for identifying opportunities for improvements in energy efficiency.

Embodied energy analysis of the refurbishment of a small detached building

Energy efficient design principles and the minimisation of operational energy requirements have been demonstrated in the refurbishment of a small existing residential building. Significant thought has been given to these areas, together with an emphasis on the minimisation of resource consumption and material wastage. However, less consideration has been given to the embodied energy of the additional materials, components and systems required to meet these aims. The additional embodied energy may reduce the advantages of minimising the operational energy consumption by extending the energy payback period beyond the life of the building. In general, the embodied energy of buildings and their products has been found to be significant, when national average input-output data is used to fill gaps in traditional life-cycle assessment inventories. Through the use of an input-outputbased hybrid embodied energy analysis, the embodied energy of this refurbished building has increased by 63% compared to the existing building, showing the impact that filling the gaps in traditional inventories can have on energy payback periods.

Mathematical and pedagogical understanding as situated cognition

One mathematics lesson was planned by two Grade 2 teachers together. TheirSeparate teaching of it was videotaped. and each teacher was interviewed before and after her lesson. The "same" lesson resulted in different sets of worthwhile learning outcomes. In this research report. the notion of situated cognition is used as a tool for analysis of how this divergence seemed to happen. It is agued that the teachers' development and uses of mathematical concepts were mediated by the social situations.