The politics of art/Art of politics

Author Toni Morrison said, “All good art is political! There is none that isn’t”. Perhaps this is why the arts and artists throughout history have been positioned as dangerous, troubling and on the margin. Art works can ask questions of us, challenge assumptions and name the un-nameable. Art works challenge hegemonies and the status quo – they trouble politics. So what happens when arts meets politics when it comes to the entitlement for young Australians to an arts-rich education? How do we navigate the tricky waters of the political ebb and flow to champion the agenda for arts education in contemporary classrooms so that our young people can be cultural navigators, cultural auteurs and culture makers?

A right of resale? Indigenous art under the hammer

This week, Sotheby's sold the late Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's painting, Warlugulong. The auction-house's spokesman, Tim Klingender, was enthusiastic about the high price commanded by the art work: "The painting was a really great painting and it deserved to make a really fantastic price, and it made that price."

Four stories about copyright law and appropriation art

This article considers copyright law and the art of appropriation in an Australian context. It tells four stories about Australian artists - Imants Tillers, Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila and Tracey Moffatt. The stories examine the postmodern critique of copyright law, indigenous copyright and self-determination, the introduction of moral rights, and copyright, photography and film. The article concludes that the work of such contemporary artists has practical implications for the reform of copyright law.

Rehabilitation of individuals with bone-anchored prosthesis: State-of-the-art and challenges

Individuals with limb amputation fitted with conventional socket-suspended prostheses often experience socket-related discomfort leading to a significant decrease in quality of life. Bone-anchored prostheses are increasingly acknowledged as viable alternative method of attachment of artificial limb. In this case, the prosthesis is attached directly to the residual skeleton through a percutaneous fixation. To date, a few osseointegration fixations are commercially available. Several devices are at different stages of development particularly in Europe and the US.[1-15] Clearly, surgical procedures are currently blooming worldwide. Indeed, Australia and Queensland in particular have one of the fastest growing populations. Previous studies involving either screw-type implants or press-fit fixations for bone-anchorage have focused on fragmented biomechanics aspects as well as the clinical benefits and safety of the procedure. However, very few publications have synthetized this information and provided an overview of the current developments in bone-anchored prostheses worldwide, let alone in Australia. The purposes of the presentation will be: 1. To provide an overview of the state-of-art developments in bone-anchored prostheses with as strong emphasis on the design of fixations, treatment, benefits, risks as well as future opportunities and challenges, 2. To present the current international developments of procedures for bone-anchored prostheses in terms of numbers of centers, number of cases and typical case-mix, 3. To highlight the current role Australia is playing as a leader worldwide in terms of growing population, broadest range of case-mix, choices of fixations, development of reimbursement schemes, unique clinical outcome registry for evidence-based practice, cutting-edge research, consumer demand and general public interest.

Surface materials and aspects of care: A study in modes of being in a visual art practice

Through creative practice and written research, this thesis explores the peculiar qualities of surface materials, revealing a broader ethos of practice which I identify as care. I propose that care arises as a mode of being between artist and work, work and beholder, and between the parts of the work. The thesis situates the art practice within an ethical framework, premised on, but extending, Heidegger's ontological equation of care with being. The original contribution is in the claim that the particular qualities of worldly matter generate the terms for care as a particular mode of engagement that is reciprocal and intransitive.

Cosmopolitan tendencies in recent intersubjective art

This thesis uses cultural studies approaches to ask in what ways can intersubjective art act on the disparities brought about by late capitalism through the auspices of cosmopolitanism? How do the same processes that oppress others allow the artist to be mobile and self-reflexive while accruing and deploying a broad range of knowledges and competencies? The answer is paradoxical: those oppressed by the processes of late capitalism become the focus, theme, and content of the intersubjective artwork while the artists benefit from a system they seek to problematise and critique. Three case study chapters highlight these complex and disconcerting politics.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centers in experiencescapes

Art museums are playing an important role is attracting cultural tourists to global cities and regions. Traditionally, art museums were primarily known for their didactic role. In a post-avant-garde era however museums are more focused on appealing to a broader clientele that want art to be novel and entertaining. Art museums have also come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. This is because they are ideally suited for tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences, and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure platforms. These "experiencescapes" include Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Shanghai Bund, and the Broad project in Los Angeles. The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart Australia is a boutique player in the global market for experiencescapes. It is smaller than many of its competitors and is situated in a remote part of the world, yet it has made an important contribution to Tasmania’s tourism industry.

Genetic determinants of bone density and fracture risk: State of the art and future directions

Context: Osteoporosis is a common, highly heritable condition that causes substantial morbidity and mortality, the etiopathogenesis of which is poorly understood. Genetic studies are making increasingly rapid progress in identifying the genes involved. Evidence Acquisition and Synthesis: In this review, we will summarize the current understanding of the genetics of osteoporosis based on publications from PubMed from the year 1987 onward. Conclusions: Most genes involved in osteoporosis identified to date encode components of known pathways involved in bone synthesis or resorption, but as the field progresses, new pathways are being identified. Only a small proportion of the total genetic variation involved in osteoporosis has been identified, and new approaches will be required to identify most of the remaining genes.

Vermicular graphite cast iron current state of the art

Vermicular graphite cast iron is a new addition to the family of cast irons. Various methods for producing vermicular graphite cast iron are briefly discussed in this paper. The mechanical and physical properties of cast irons with vermicular graphite have been found to be intermediate between those of gray and ductile irons. Other properties such as casting characteristics, scaling resistance, damping capacity and machinability have been compared with those of gray and ductile irons. Probable applications of vermicular graphite cast irons are suggested.

Shooting from the Wild Zone : A Study of the Chicana Art Photographers Laura Aguilar, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and Kathy Vargas

The dissertation analyzes and elaborates upon the changing map of U.S. ethno-racial formation from the vantage point of North American Studies, multi-disciplinary cultural studies, and the criticism of visual culture. The focus is on four contemporary Mexican American (Chicana) women photographers, whose art production is discussed, on the one hand, in the context of the Euro-American history of photographic genres and, on the other hand, in the context of so-called decolonizing cultural and academic discourses produced by Mexican Americans themselves. The manuscript consists of two parts. Part I outlines the theoretical and methodological domain of the study, positioning it in the interstices of American studies, European postmodern criticism, postcolonial feminist theory, and the theories of visual culture, particularly of art photography. In addition, the main issues and paradigms of Chicano Studies (Mexican American ethnic studies) are introduced. Part II consists of seven essays, each of which discusses rather independently a particular photographic work or a series of photographs, formulating and defending arguments about their meaning, position in the history of photographic genres, and their cultural and socio-political significance. The study closes with a discussion about ethno-racial identity formation and the role of Chicana photography therein - in embodying and reproducing new subjectivities, alternative categories of knowledge, and open ended historical narratives. It is argued that, symbolically, the "Wild Zone" of gendered and race-specific knowledge becomes associated with the body of the mother, a recurrent image in Chicana art works under discussion. Embedded in this image, the construction of an alternative notion of a family thus articulates the parameters of a matrifocal ethno-racial community unified by the proliferation of differences rather than by conformities typical of nationalistic ideologies. While focusing on art photography, the study as a whole simultaneously constructs, from a European vantage point, a "thick" description of Mexican American history, identities, communities, cultural practices, and self-representations about which very little is known in Finland.

Abductive translation studies : The art of marshalling signs

This dissertation contributes to the fields of theoretical translation studies, semiotic translation theory, and the semiotics of translation. The aim of this work is to explore the alternative and potential which the semiotic approaches to translation entail from the viewpoint of contemporary translation studies. The overall objective is thus to show that a general semiotic translation theory, and in particular, a Peircean translation theory, are possible and indispensable. Furthermore, this study contributes to the semiotranslational approach and to its theory-building by developing the concept of abductive translation (studies). The specific theoretical frame of reference adopted in this study is provided by the semiotranslation introduced by Dinda L. Gorlée. This approach is primarily based on the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914), and aims at a fusion of semiotics and translation studies. A more general framework is provided by the threefold background and material: the published and unpublished writings of Peirce, Peirce scholarship and Peircean-semiotic publications, as well as the translation-theoretical literature. Part One of this study concentrates on the justification, existence, and nature of the semiotic approaches to translation. This part provides a historical survey, a status report, and a discussion of this area of research, by employing the findings in a boundary-clearing that is multilayered both conceptually and terminologically. Part Two deals with Peircean semiotranslation. Here Gorlée s semiotranslational research is examined by focusing on the starting points, features, and development of semiotranslation. Attention is also paid to the state-of-the-art of semiotranslation theory and to the possibilities for future elaborations. Part Three focuses on the semiotranslational claim that translation is an abductive activity. The concept of abductive translation is based on abduction, one of Peirce s three modes of reasoning; at the same time Firstness, the category of abduction, becomes foregrounded. So abductive translation as a form of possibilistic translation receives here an extensive theoretical discussion by citing examples in which abduction manifests itself as (scientific) reasoning and as everyday contemplation. During this treatise, translation is first equated with sign action, then with interpretation and finally with reasoning. All these approaches appear to embody different facets of the same phenomenon Peirce s ubiquitous semiosis, and they all suggest that translation is inherently an intersemiotic activity in which a sign is inferred from another sign. Translation is therefore semiosis, semiosis is translation and interpretation, interpretation is reasoning, and so on ad infinitum all being manifestations of the art of marshalling signs. The three parts of this study are linked by the overall goal of abductive translation studies: investigation into abductive translation develops the theory of semiotranslation, and this enrichment of semiotranslation in turn constructs a semiotic paradigm within translation studies.

The Art of Sympathy : Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion in Fiction

"The Art of Sympathy: Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion" in Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that looks closely at the ways that stories evoke sympathy, and the significance of this emotion for the development of moral attitudes and awareness. By linking readers' emotional responses to fiction with the potential impact of such responses on "the moral imagination," the study builds on empirical research conducted by literary scholars and psychologists into the emotional effects of reading fiction, as well as social psychological research into the connections between empathy/sympathy and moral development. I first investigate the dynamics of readers beliefs regarding characters in fictional narratives, and the nature of the emotions that they may experience as a result of those beliefs. The analysis demonstrates that there are important similarities between real emotions and emotions generated by fiction. Recognizing these similarities, I claim, can help us to conceptualize the nature of sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Building on these assertions, I then draw on research from social psychology and philosophy to develop a comprehensive definition of sympathy and to clarify the ways in which sympathy operates, both in people s daily lives and in readers sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Having established this definition and delineated its practical implications, I then examine how particular stories, through a variety of narrative techniques, persuade readers to feel sympathy for characters who are unsympathetic in certain ways. In order to verify my claims about the impact of these stories on readers emotions, I also review the results of tests that I conducted with nearly 200 adolescent readers. Through these tests, which were constructed and scored according to methods prevalent in social psychological research, it was determined that a majority of readers felt sympathy for the protagonists in two of the stories included in the study. These results were combined with data from an additional test, a standard measure of empathy and sympathy in the field of social psychology. The cross-tabulation of these results suggests that there was not a strong connection between readers responses and their general tendencies to feel sympathy for others. This finding would appear to support my hypotheses regarding the sympathetic persuasiveness of the stories in question. In light of these results, finally, I consider the potential contribution that fiction can make to adolescent emotional and moral development and the implications of that potential for future language arts curricula in the schools. In particular, I suggest the pedagogical importance of providing adolescents with opportunities to engage with the lives of fictional characters, and especially to experience feelings of sympathy for individuals towards whom they ordinarily might feel aversion.

Encounters with the Virtual : The Experience of Art In Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy

My thesis concerns the notion of existence as an encounter, as developed in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (1925 1995). What this denotes is a critical stance towards a major current in Western philosophical tradition which Deleuze nominates as representational thinking. Such thinking strives to provide a stable ground for identities by appealing to transcendent structures behind the apparent reality and explaining the manifest diversity of the given by such notions as essence, idea, God, or totality of the world. In contrast to this, Deleuze states that abstractions such as these do not explain anything, but rather that they need to be explained. Yet, Deleuze does not appeal merely to the given. He sees that one must posit a genetic element that accounts for experience, and this element must not be naïvely traced from the empirical. Deleuze nominates his philosophy as transcendental empiricism and he seeks to bring together the approaches of both empiricism and transcendental philosophy. In chapter one I look into the motivations of Deleuze s transcendental empiricism and analyse it as an encounter between Deleuze s readings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This encounter regards, first of all, the question of subjectivity and results in a conception of identity as non-essential process. A pre-given concept of identity does not explain the nature of things, but the concept itself must be explained. From this point of view, the process of individualisation must become the central concern. In chapter two I discuss Deleuze s concept of the affect as the basis of identity and his affiliation with the theories of Gilbert Simondon and Jakob von Uexküll. From this basis develops a morphogenetic theory of individuation-as-process. In analysing such a process of individuation, the modal category of the virtual becomes of great value, being an open, indeterminate charge of potentiality. As the virtual concerns becoming or the continuous process of actualisation, then time, rather than space, will be the privileged field of consideration. Chapter three is devoted to the discussion of the temporal aspect of the virtual and difference-without-identity. The essentially temporal process of subjectification results in a conception of the subject as composition: an assemblage of heterogeneous elements. Therefore art and aesthetic experience is valued by Deleuze because they disclose the construct-like nature of subjectivity in the sensations they produce. Through the domain of the aesthetic the subject is immersed in the network of affectivity that is the material diversity of the world. Chapter four addresses a phenomenon displaying this diversified indentity: the simulacrum an identity that is not grounded in an essence. Developed on the basis of the simulacrum, a theory of identity as assemblage emerges in chapter five. As the problematic of simulacra concerns perhaps foremost the artistic presentation, I shall look into the identity of a work of art as assemblage. To take an example of a concrete artistic practice and to remain within the problematic of the simulacrum, I shall finally address the question of reproduction particularly in the case recorded music and its identity regarding the work of art. In conclusion, I propose that by overturning its initial representational schema, phonographic music addresses its own medium and turns it into an inscription of difference, exposing the listener to an encounter with the virtual.