The artist is a thief: A book review

Stephen Gray is a writer and law lecturer who has been living in Darwin since 1989. He started out writing formal legal pieces about how copyright law had unsuccessfully sought to accommodate Aboriginal art. Such work led him to further investigate the philosophical questions underlying the legal issues affecting both traditional and urban Indigenous people. Gray has also explored matters of bioprospecting in relation to Indigenous biological resources. He has investigated the introduction of a label of authenticity into Australia. Gray has also published a number of articles about other legal issues affecting Indigenous people. He has explored such topics as native title, customary law, alternative dispute resolution, and criminal law. Gray has recently been awarded The Australian/ Vogel Literary Award for his novel The Artist is a Thief. He was inspired to write a book after being sent out to a community on a possible copyright claim as part of his job in the law faculty of Northern Territory University: "I wrote an academic article and then a more philosophical piece talking about the copyright act and the way it doesn't really protect traditional artists who have a very different view of the place of their art. The pieces were interesting, but I felt there was something more there that needed a fictional expression as well." It is ironic that such a self-conscious and sophisticated meditation upon appropriation and authenticity should win The Australian/ Vogel Literary Award. The inaugural award in 1980 was won by Paul Radley, who later revealed his books were mostly written by his uncle, and in 1993 it was won by Helen Demidenko, aka Darville, who had lied about her Ukrainian background and family history.

Review and evaluation of mindfulness-based iPhone apps

Background There is growing evidence for the positive impact of mindfulness on wellbeing. Mindfulness-based mobile apps may have potential as an alternative delivery medium for training. While there are hundreds of such apps, there is little information on their quality. Objective This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of mindfulness-based iPhone mobile apps and to evaluate their quality using a recently-developed expert rating scale, the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). It also aimed to describe features of selected high-quality mindfulness apps. Methods A search for “mindfulness” was conducted in iTunes and Google Apps Marketplace. Apps that provided mindfulness training and education were included. Those containing only reminders, timers or guided meditation tracks were excluded. An expert rater reviewed and rated app quality using the MARS engagement, functionality, visual aesthetics, information quality and subjective quality subscales. A second rater provided MARS ratings on 30% of the apps for inter-rater reliability purposes. Results The “mindfulness” search identified 700 apps. However, 94 were duplicates, 6 were not accessible and 40 were not in English. Of the remaining 560, 23 apps met inclusion criteria and were reviewed. The median MARS score was 3.2 (out of 5.0), which exceeded the minimum acceptable score (3.0). The Headspace app had the highest average score (4.0), followed by Smiling Mind (3.7), iMindfulness (3.5) and Mindfulness Daily (3.5). There was a high level of inter-rater reliability between the two MARS raters. Conclusions Though many apps claim to be mindfulness-related, most were guided meditation apps, timers, or reminders. Very few had high ratings on the MARS subscales of visual aesthetics, engagement, functionality or information quality. Little evidence is available on the efficacy of the apps in developing mindfulness.

Èto i to v povesti Staruha Daniila Harmsa

This dissertation focuses on the short story Starukha (The Old Woman), one of the last works of the Russian writer Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). The story, written in 1939, is analysed using the Kharmsian concepts èto and to (this and that) as a heuristic interpretative model. The first chapter gives a detailed analysis of this model, as well as a survey of the critical work done to date on Kharms and Starukha. In the second chapter the model is applied to study the different states of consciousness of the male protagonist. This is significant, because he is the "I" of the work, from whose point of view everything is being told. The third chapter takes a closer look at the reality of the world that exists independently of the consciousness of the protagonist. Physical objects can be said to bear - besides their everyday meaning - a hidden symbolic meaning. Similarly, the characters can be considered as representatives of everyday reality and otherworldliness. The fourth chapter deals with the narrative devices of Starukha. The problematics of the relation between fact and fiction plays an essential role in the story. Kharms's use of Ich-Erzählung and different tenses, which contributes to achieving a complicated elaboration of this kind of problematics, is examined in detail. The fifth chapter provides an intertextual reading of Starukha, based on its allusions to the Bible and the Christian tradition. As a result, the whole story can be seen as a kind of meditation on the Passion of Christ. The final chapter examines how the important Kharmsian concepts of the grotesque and the absurd manifest themselves in Starukha. The old woman represents in a grotesque way two opposite systems: the religious and the totalitarian. The absurdity of Starukha can be claimed to be illusory. Therefore, it is better to speak about paradoxicality. Starukha itself is a kind of paradox, in the sense that it tries to say something of the ultimate truth of reality, which inevitably remains ineffable.

Temporal: The artwork

The interactive artwork Temporal arose from a series of art-science investigations with some of Australia’s leading flying fox ecologists. It was designed as a gently evolving meditation upon the complex, periodic processes that mark Australia’s often irregular seasonal changes. In turn these changes directly govern the migratory movements of Australia’s keystone pollinating mammals - the mega bats (Flying Foxes). Temporal further called attention to our increasing capacity to profoundly disturb these partners within Australia’s complex, life-supporting systems

Catacoustics

'Catacoustics' was an exhibition of sculptural assemblages and photographs that continues my exploration of self-portraiture and the sculptural object. The exhibition was presented as part of the 2015 MetroArts curated exhibition program (Curator: Amy-Clare McCarthy). The work specifically extends the formal vocabulary of my studio practice to incorporate a replica casting of the Ian Fairweather memorial rock at Bribie Island, Queensland. The resulting casts are combined with a series of heptagonal forms derived from the memorial plinth and other sundry components taken from previous exhibitions.,The final arrangement of this diverse field of elements are determined in part by their formal properties (e.g. their capacity to nest, prop, balance, support each other) frequently also taking the horizontal/vertical and the orientation of surrounding walls as formal cues. In so doing, the body of work acts as a manifestation of object-agency. Within this studio methodology, practice is theorised as a site for the interplay of non-human agents. The resulting exhibition thus acts a meditation on the ontology of art practice, conceived as a 'topology' - a fluid network of relationships forged largely by objects.

15 Artists 2014

15 Artists 2014 was a group exhibition of 2D and 3D works held at the Redcliffe City Art Gallery between October 23 - December 6, 2014. My contribution to the group show was a collective series of 10 soft sculptures entitled Organs Without Bodies. These works were composed of latex, plaster, wool, thread, wax and rosin. I seek through my art practice to transform bodily affect into concrete knowledge. My primary motivation can be described as a relational and ethical attempt to find balance between the erotic and the aggressive. These objects are outcomes from an ongoing creative meditation of the simultaneity of dichotomies: inside and outside, cognition and emotion, past and present, connection and differentiation, the erotic and the aggressive. Each of these can be perceived separately with a penetrating focus of attention, yet all are contained within the 'space' of an expansive bodily-felt sense of awareness.

Esteettinen kokemus kulttuurisiltana : Soile Yli-Mäyryn taide kiinalaisen, japanilaisen ja suomalaisen yleisön kokemana

AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE AS A BRIDGE ACROSS CULTURES Soile Yli-Mäyry s art as experienced by Chinese, Japanese and Finnish audiences This study focuses on surveying and analysing experiences of Soile Yli-Mäyry s art in eleven different countries. Questionnaires were translated into nine different languages. In addition, interviews were conducted on the experiences of Chinese, Japanese and Finnish art audiences concerning a painting called Sun Wind . The study was mainly inspired by John Dewey s ideas of art as an interactive communication where the artist, the piece and those who experience it make up an interactive process. In this process experience is a meeting point with both individual and communal characteristics. The data was collected in conjunction with exhibitions in 1997−2005. The survey was carried out in eleven countries (Finland, United States, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Israel, Argentina, Germany and Switzerland). The survey data was made up of 2,563 returned questionnaires. The interviews in China, Japan and Finland were about the same painting Sun Wind , which was transported from Finland to Japan (Tokyo) and China. A total of 89 people were interviewed in Shanghai Art Museum, 30 people in Port-Ginza Gallery, Tokyo and 45 people in Soile Yli-Mäyry s Gallery in Finland. Three hypotheses that were turned into research questions directed the study: 1. Are there differences/ similarities between culturally different communities in the meanings attributed to experiences, e.g. according to emotional dimensions, or do experiences focus more on reflecting on one s own life or meanings attributed to the world around us? What kinds of experiential dimensions are there in different countries? Do similar, analogous experiences that transcend cultural barriers emerge in culturally different countries such as China, Japan and Finland? 2. Does the data display different types of experiencing subjects which are typical to a subject s own country or are they experiences that can be compared to those generated by an ideal landscape , where the art touches the subconscious and collective selfhood, being thus transnational and timeless? Closer analysis focuses on audience experiences in China, Japan and Finland (interviews, textual survey data). 3. Are the experiences and interpretations of experts similar/different to those of larger audiences? The survey data has been analysed with the help of cross-tabulation. After content analysis of the interviews and textual survey data, different ways of experiencing subjects were sketched by country (China, Japan, Finland). The types were both similar and dissimilar. The most important types were social/ecological (China), therapeutic/reserved (Japan) and narrative/projecting (Finland). There were differences in how experiences were emphasised: the Chinese public approached their experiences from the viewpoint of pragmatism and utility, where they could obtain new ideas for their own work or experiencing the exhibition gave courage to approach their own lives from a new perspective. In turn, the Japanese public experienced the art from a therapeutic angle and from a very reserved perspective, which Dylan Evans (2001, 13−17) has described as typical to Japanese culture. The experiences of the Finnish audience were strongly therapeutic and narrative. The people projected their emotions onto the piece and in a concrete manner forged them into a story. The partly similar results of this study in China, Japan and Finland demonstrate that the art displayed in the exhibitions contain images of the beginning or elements connected to the beginning of life, which touch the subconscious in the way an ideal landscape would. Experiencing the meaningfulness of one s own life through art is a common thread and a bridge across cultures that unites the experiences of the audiences of this study, be they Taoists, Confucians, Buddhists or Maoists in China, Shinto followers, Zen Buddhists in Japan or Evangelist-Lutherans in Finland. Keywords: experience, reception, bridge across cultures, types of experiencing subjects, experiential process, ideal landscape, elementality

El lenguaje místico en Santa Catalina de Siena

Resumen: El lenguaje místico posee características propias, una de ellas es la inefabilidad. En este artículo la autora, basándose en los conceptos elaborados por M. De Certeau, analiza en primer lugar los rasgos que posee este lenguaje en la obra de Santa Catalina de Siena. En segundo lugar el artículo explora la matriz epistolar que posee Il Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza, la obra más importante de la santa. Aquí se observa de qué manera una gramática hablada conserva las entonaciones propias de la meditación que le da origen. Teniendo su origen en una carta Il Dialogo no sólo manifiesta el lenguaje oral usado en su época sino su estatuto privado y público a la vez.

Viandar de Sota: Dibersifikazioak kontrolatu edo areagotu egiten du enpresa-arriskua?

Duración (en horas): De 11 a 20 horas. Nivel educativo: Grado

Genero eta nazio identitateak Katalina Eleizegiren antzezlanetan

383 p. ; P.315-383: "Erauso Kateriñe" antzezlanaren edizioa dago.

La pena de muerte en la Corona de Castilla en la Edad Media

[ES]A lo largo de este artículo se pasan revista a cinco cuentiones que muestran la evolución de la pena de muerte en la Corona de Castilla a lo largo de la Edad Media. En primer lugar, se presta atención al paso de la ejecución privada de la justicia a la pública y en qué casos se mantuvo la venganza, aunque con la autorización judicial. En segundo lugar, se pasa revista a las formas de aplicar la pena de muerte, privilegiando los siguientes tipos: el ahorcamiento por los pies, el asaeteamiento, el empozamiento y el encubamiento. En tercer lugar, se expone el ritual de ejecución de las penas capitales desde que el reo sale de la cárcel y es conducido al cadalso, hasta que el cuerpo es sepultado o queda expuesto a perpetuidad. En cuarto lugar, se reflexiona sobre la incidencia de la rebeldía o contumacia del acusado ante los requerimientos de la justicia en la imposición de la pena de muerte. En quinto y último lugar, se analizan las circunstancias que llevaron a la Corona de Castilla, a partir del último tercio del siglo XV, a relegar la pena de muerte entre el elenco punitivo y preferir castigos que tuvieran utilidad pública.