“There’s something very familiar about all this”: generic play and performance in the Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990)

The Back to the Future Trilogy incorporates several different generic elements, including aspects of the fifties teen movie, science fiction, comedy and the western. These different modes playfully intertwine with each other creating a complex world of repetitions, echoes and modulations. This essay seeks to interrogate the construction of generic elements and the play between them through a close analysis of a repeated performance. Genre is signalled through various strategies employed within the construction of mise-en-scène, a significant portion of this, as I would like to argue, is transmitted through performance. The material detail of a performance – incorporating gesture, movement, voice, and even surrounding elements such as costume – as well as the way it its presented within a film is key to the establishment, invocation and coherence of genre. Furthermore, attention to the complexity of performance details, particularly in the manner in which they reverberate across texts, demonstrates the intricacy of genre and its inherent mutability. The Back to the Future trilogy represents a specific interest in the flexibility of genre. Within each film, and especially across all three, aspects of various genres are interlaced through both visual and narrative detail, thus constructing a dense layer of references both within and without the texts. To explore this patterning in more detail I will interrogate the contribution of performance to generic play through close analysis of Thomas F. Wilson’s performance of Biff/Griff/Burford Tannen and his central encounter with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in each film. These moments take place in a fifties diner, a 1980s retro diner and a saloon respectively, each space contributing the similarities and differences in each repetition. Close attention to Wilson’s performance of each related character, which contains both modulations and repetitions used specifically to place each film’s central generic theme, demonstrates how embedded the play between genres and their flexibility is within the trilogy.

Arthur’s refusal to eat: ritual and control in the romance feast

Arthur's refusal to begin feasting before he has seen a marvel or heard a tale of adventure is a recurring motif in medieval romance. Previous comment on this ritual has suggested that the source for such a taboo on eating may be found in earlier narratives in the Celtic languages. This paper argues that, although the ritual almost certainly originates in pre-chivalric society, romance authors adapted and developed it to reflect the courtly-chivalric preoccupations of their own world. Arthur's ritual gesture may be seen as a means of containing and controlling both interior moral threats and exterior physical peril, and is intimately connected to the courtly conception of the feast. This study draws on the evidence of religious writing and courtesy manuals and explores some highly-developed treatments of the motif in romance in order to suggest that literary engagements with Arthur's refusal to eat have much to say about contemporary ideas of ritual and reality as mediated through the symbolically-charged arena of the medieval feast.

Exploration of the idea of the horse in graphics and sculpture

The exploration of the idea of the horse is a very complex and open quest. Primarily it entails some conception of what the idea of the horse is. In choosing to title the project as such, I was attempting to indicate that what was of major interest to me was the representation of those qualities of the horse which are abstract and intangible as well as the physical qualities of the horse. Because of this interest, much of my work is concerned with movement, gesture, and the effects of structure, or lack thereof, on movement and gesture.

Nhembo'e : enquanto o encanto permanece! : processos e práticas de escolarização nas aldeias Guarani

A escola nas aldeias Guarani do Rio Grande do Sul é um acontecimento recente. Algumas TEKOÁ decidiram não abrigá-la em seu meio, considerando que a educação tradicional, assentada na cosmologia Guarani, é suficiente para o seu viver e, portanto, prescindem dos saberes escolares. Outras, evidenciando a necessidade de saberes que se relacionam à escola – como a escrita, a leitura, a Língua Portuguesa e o sistema monetário, entre outros –, a solicitam e a acolhem, iniciando processos e práticas de escolarização que afirmam o desejo de se apropriar de instrumentos que permitam um diálogo mais eqüitativo com a sociedade não indígena. Num movimento de interlocução com os gestores das políticas públicas, tensionam a Secretaria de Estado da Educação para criar condições de implementar a Escola Específica e Diferenciada nas aldeias. No entanto, experimentam a ambigüidade de uma aproximação e de um afastamento, de um querer e um não querer a escola em suas aldeias, pois intuem as mudanças que poderá desencadear no modo de vida tradicional. Para compreender os processos de implementação da escola do povo Guarani, e os significados que atribuem à educação escolar, dirigi o olhar e aprofundei o estudo em três aldeias do Rio Grande do Sul: TEKOÁ JATAÍTY (Cantagalo, município de Viamão), TEKOÁ ANHETENGUÁ (Lomba do Pinheiro, Porto Alegre) e TEKOÁ IGUA´PORÃ (Pacheca, município de Camaquã). Os movimentos de aproximação com a cosmologia Guarani e com o universo das aldeias, constituído através de um estar-junto sensível, e o com-viver com a totalidade cosmológica de cada lugar pesquisado possibilitou a elaboração de um contorno antropológico etnográfico que busca dizer dos Guarani desde si. A perspectiva teórica, assentada principalmente na aproximação da Educação com uma Antropologia Filosófica latino-americana, possibilitou a compreensão do pensamento indígena e da ambigüidade do “ser” europeu e do “estar” americano, presente nas aldeias e fora delas também. A pesquisa mostra que há nos preceitos educacionais da cosmologia Guarani um admirável mundo a ser desvendado, em que os significados de cada gesto, de cada ação mostram a integridade de um povo que sobrevive e se recria e a escola na aldeia poderá se inserir nesse universo e dialogar com todos os princípios que compõem a educação tradicional e a cosmologia Guarani.

A Morte e o além : iconografia da pintura mural religiosa da região central do Rio Grande do Sul (século XX)

Este trabalho analisa pinturas murais religiosas sobre temáticas relacionadas à morte e ao além, encontradas em igrejas católicas da região central do Rio Grande do Sul. Pinturas realizadas ao longo do século XX e selecionadas com base em amostragem reunida em arquivos fotográficos representativos de 192 municípios. A partir de uma abordagem iconológica, busca entender: como os modelos iconográficos europeus foram retomados pelo muralismo religioso regional. Para tanto, identifica a origem dos principais temas escatológicos representados, bem como algumas das fontes visuais utilizadas, compostas, sobretudo, por gravuras que reproduzem temas religiosos de obras dos séculos XV ao início do século XX. Entre as formas evitadas pelo muralismo rio-grandense destacam-se: alusões à nudez, poses com pouco dinamismo, e gestos considerados constrangedores para os padrões morais da região. Nas formas incluídas, destacam-se as poses com expressão gestual mais acentuada, vestes moralizantes e detalhes zoomórficos na figuração de demônios. Enquanto que o conjunto das formas preservadas aponta para um predomínio dos gestos representativos de emoções intensas. Com base nos estudos de Aby Warburg sobre a influência da empatia no resgate de configurações emotivas, e a partir do resultado das análises formais, foi estruturada a proposição principal desta pesquisa. Proposição que procura evidenciar uma relação entre a eficiência empática dos antigos gestos de ações passionais e a conseqüente preservação desses no muralismo religioso escatológico regional.

Remote presence: supporting deictic gestures through a handheld multi-touch device

This thesis argues on the possibility of supporting deictic gestures through handheld multi-touch devices in remote presentation scenarios. In [1], Clark distinguishes indicative techniques of placing-for and directing-to, where placing-for refers to placing a referent into the addressee’s attention, and directing-to refers to directing the addressee’s attention towards a referent. Keynote, PowerPoint, FuzeMeeting and others support placing-for efficiently with slide transitions, and animations, but support limited to none directing-to. The traditional “pointing feature” present in some presentation tools comes as a virtual laser pointer or mouse cursor. [12, 13] have shown that the mouse cursor and laser pointer offer very little informational expressiveness and do not do justice to human communicative gestures. In this project, a prototype application was implemented for the iPad in order to explore, develop, and test the concept of pointing in remote presentations. The prototype offers visualizing and navigating the slides as well as “pointing” and zooming. To further investigate the problem and possible solutions, a theoretical framework was designed representing the relationships between the presenter’s intention and gesture and the resulting visual effect (cursor) that enables the audience members to interpret the meaning of the effect and the presenter’s intention. Two studies were performed to investigate people’s appreciation of different ways of presenting remotely. An initial qualitative study was performed at The Hague, followed by an online quantitative user experiment. The results indicate that subjects found pointing to be helpful in understanding and concentrating, while the detached video feed of the presenter was considered to be distracting. The positive qualities of having the video feed were the emotion and social presence that it adds to the presentations. For a number of subjects, pointing displayed some of the same social and personal qualities [2] that video affords, while less intensified. The combination of pointing and video proved to be successful with 10-out-of-19 subjects scoring it the highest while pointing example came at a close 8-out-of-19. Video was the least preferred with only one subject preferring it. We suggest that the research performed here could provide a basis for future research and possibly be applied in a variety of distributed collaborative settings.

Corpo e gestualidade :o jogo da capoeira e os jogos do conhecimento

In the direction of questing a sociology that considers the flesh dimension of the existence, that favors to think the body while place of the production of the knowledge, our itinerary of research is characterized for the reflection on the gesture of the body as power of life and production of knowledge, recognizing the precision of the gesture as a privileged breach of comment of the collective life, of the projection and registration of the culture, of the symbolic, of the sensitivity. Our problematic can be meet in the possibility to enhance an open and sensible rationality, tattooed in the body and accessible for the gestures, that its materialized in the relations of the human being with the other and the world, in singular and collective relations. Therefore, the gesture, constructed in the intention the experience of the body, can tell us about the human being, the society and the culture, therefore the sensed of the gestures is constructed from the established and recognized mutual actions for the citizens. It is in this field of production of the knowledge, of knowing of the meat that we direct our perception, in the challenge to immerge into the intention of the gesture in the capoeira game. Of the methodological point of view, for the analysis of the gestures of the capoeira, therefore, of the body as knowledge power, we consider registers of images as well as narratives registers of the universe of the capoeira, as well as my experience of more than seven years in the group of capoeira cordão de ouro1. A epistemological exercise has as support a qualitative research where parts of the quantity of images of the investigated group, as well as interviews, daily registers in of field and over all my experience of life next to the group and to the capoeira, in intention to recognize symbols tattooed in the body and for it produced in the inter subjectivists relations. We search therefore, to evidence sensible and meanings drawn for the gesture and evidenced by the look of the researcher. We presents as objectives of this inquiry to nuance ribbings around of the social and cultural elements in the production of the knowledge of the body, of the gesture, weaveeed for the sensible rationality

A dança dos monstros: corpo e estética na arte e na Educação Física

The speeches about the body in interface with the technology, that fulfill the contemporary discussions, have been a stage of innumerable ethical, epistemological, aesthetic and ontological reflections. These happened bodies of the biotechnological scene also invade the dance, making several possible dialogues, making old concepts instable, opening way to revealing explorations and bringing with it implications and reflections. In this context, this research has as objective to discuss relations between body and technology in the dance; to understand the aesthetic configurations of the monster in the dance as possibility to question the body; to establish relations between the monstrous body in the dance and the conceptions of body in the Physical Education. We believe to be able to contribute for the reflection in the field of the Physical Education, since the work visualizes to extend the field of the discussions on aesthetic body and, as well as evidencing dialogues between different areas of the knowledge, as the Art and the Physical Education. From the point of view of the method, the work follows orientation of the Phenomenology for an aesthetic image appreciation of the videos in the choreographies In'perfeito and Violência of Cena 11, Dance Group that has marked new aesthetic configurations in the brazilian dance. Thus, we took for us the reflections on the "significant scenes" proposed by Bicudo (2000), to appreciate the dance of Cena 11. We emphasize that, after the identification of the Significant Scenes, it was necessary to approach these scenes from close senses, from which we detach the appearance, the space and the gesture. We evidence that, the bodies revealed by the group Cena 11, show an aesthetic that it interlaces the beauty, the ugly and the grotesque. An aesthetic of the unharmony, capable to transgress the oppositions, dialoguing with multiple antagonisms and that it amplifies the apollonian aesthetic linear rules, so predominant in the history of the dance and the Physical Education. We identify some indicatives that take us to the problematizations on an affective and anarchic body, when questioning the tyranny of the perfect corporality; the naturalization of the pain; the closed gesture in a finished and unique grammar; the standardization of feminine and masculine roles and the negation of the feeling. From these indicatives, we discuss the aesthetic of the deformed bodies of Cena 11, approaching it of the conceptions of body in the Physical Education, sometimes criticizing the rationalists and naturalistic views, sometimes dialoguing with more recent perspectives studied by researchers of this area of knowledge, which point to a reflection on the body under the optics of the sensible

A estética da Commedia dell Arte: contribuições para o ensino das Artes Cênicas

Theatrical phenomenon borned in the Italy the Comedy dell Art concerned to it climax in the XVI century and spreading itself by the word than can be sight like the theatre base modern. Lasting parallel the conventional theatre since the three hundred years, this gender influenced significativly the making theatrical in the Europe graces the popular character of its simulation turned for the improvise. In spite of treat a theatric manifestation no more existing in the present time, we understand that the Comedy dell Art was constituted in one artistic language whose esthetics centralized in the popular fanciful and in the improvise permitted a rich possibility of verbal and not-verbal communication that today can to be taken again in contemporary productions theatricals. Departing of an approach of esthetics, this work has with purpose concentrate the references esthetics that configure that one artistic manifestation such that one references can contribute for the Arts teaches in the present times. We appeal the text and image of Comedy dell Art, such this historical reference that in context, with fountain investigated that mean and if complementary in one esthetic reflection for the creation of meaning diverse and news interpretations for the purpose investigated if having with base some analysis categories such as: the actor s body, the actuations spaces and the esthetics categories such the ugly, the comic and the absurd. To investigate the Comedy dell Art esthetic in the ambit of the teach of Arts Scenics is a manner of be understand the artistic universe of three century behind that can be meant, revived, in the marking possibilities of an art teach able to incentive the critical, the appreciation, the discussion and the transgression of instituted true. Having investigated the exhibition Comedy dell Art esthetic we rebound four stich that we judge significative for we think the Arts Scenics teach, they are: the articulation between actor s body, the text and the space actuation in the play; statement what it is given between actor s body and the on-looker and the every gesture that did share of scene in a popular scenic space; a conception actor s body that transgress with the true duty socially that is capable the to admit its dimension Dionysian, creative and ambiguous in the to do theatrical; the text conception that get beyond the ambit the word writing by the dramatist and talked by actors, if spreading the other elements significance in the scene like gesture, the parody, the recent news, the gags and the word used in the day-to-day; the scenic space like a statement symbolic between actors and on-looker that make a quality of amusement pact supported by the scenic true of artist that actuate in not usual spaces bid at an auctioning degrees of participation in the building the scenic phenomenon; and the importance of esthetics categories such as the ugly, the comic and the absurd, those categories that foundation like a do scenic transgressor make a possible exchange mutual between actor and appreciator. The statement of esthetics categories in joint continuous between the body, the text and the scenic space evident themselves in doing theatrical and in the its appreciation. We believe that the reflection esthetic about the Comedy dell Art in the arts class, consider the stich detached, can favor possibilities of to share discovery, ideas, feelings and attitudes, and can permit the observation of different stich of view, establishing the statement of individual with the group in a participative and democratic form

Esporte como experiência estética e educativaEsporte educativa: uma abordagem fenomenológica

This paper deals with sport as a possibility of disclosing the sensible, and defends the idea that being a sportsperson equals living an aesthetic and educative experience in which one can interacts with the sensible by the athletic body s reverberation of sensations in the dimension of the experienced. We try to answer, in our work, basically three questions: what moves the athlete when practicing a sport? Which are the meanings and motivations for the practice of sports? At what measure the athlete s experience gains an educational character? Sport is debated in this work as an extension of the living, as long as it tries to understand the meanings inherent to sport itself as well as to the sportive experience as a kind of education. In support of our argument, we give a theoretic and philosophical approach to our thesis, based on thinkers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Walter Benjamin, Marcel Mauss and Friedrich Schiller. For this purpose, we get support on the phenomenology of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Our reference is the living world of the athlete and his experience as a field of the sensible. Our point of departure is the analysis of the narratives of sport experiences, including five aesthetic elements; time and space of the body in the sports courts; the look on the sportive context; the contact with the adversary; victory and defeat; the technical gesture. Besides it, we worked out an aesthetic evaluation of the movies Olympia and Invictus , what let us discuss three thematic categories: sensibility, emotions and the play paradox. Subsequently, we point sport as an optimizer of the sensible education, present on the body s processes, like the body in movement. It was also made clear along this paper that we tried to accomplish an analysis on sports centered in the athlete s body as an outfit of the senses to things related to the sensible, whose aesthetic experience overpasses any deterministic conception that should sum up the sportive world to mercantilization, discipline practices and mechanicism. This approach franchises gateways to a Physical Education which, containing sports as one of its support, let pupils enjoy the pleasure of constructing common objectives, incorporating the capacity of replicating, re-making and playing as a field of possibilities offered by an education characterized as being moving, sensible and fitful to a body in movement

Inscrição discursiva da subjetividade homoafetiva na G Magazine

This thesis, which is entitled Registration discourse of subjectivity homo affective in G Magazine, is proposed to describe / interpret modes of subjectivity that is set in the discourse of homo affective confessions, recorded in letters addressed to G Magazine. The study is based on the theories of Discourse Analysis French, with a focus in the discussions Foucaultian remarkably discursive practices that produce meanings about the processes of subjectivity and sexuality. Methodologically, the research is of appreciative/qualitative character and falls in the field of Applied Linguistics (LA), at a press that the historical and cultural reality of the subject, establishing dialogues with many other fields of knowledge, which deal of the subject matter of speech and sexuality. Data analysis indicates that the magazine G Magazine works as a discursive space, where individuals on condition that homosexual, take it as the place that it gives security to talk to you, it's worrying, because the nature of the journal it suggests a belonging to the same discursive formation - that of homo affective . Thus, some of which are felt constructed for the investigation of the letters selected for this study showed that the forms of subjectivity of such homo affective are emerging in the game of the bans, the other is that as a subject of sexuality and to materialize in operation the confession. These homo affective, in a gesture of incessant registration of alternatives to be subject to its own truth of their sexuality, to seek his party in the case, the psychologist, a referral, a "light" that can guide them in an attempt to get rid of the forms of to subject. Installs itself in this way, as a point of resistance: the attempt to dissociate itself be of some states of submission, opening itself to other ways of being subject

Alterações posturais em atletas brasileiros do sexo masculino que participaram de provas de potência muscular em competições internacionais

Os esportes de alto nível determinam padrões corporais que extrapolam barreiras geopolíticas, sociais e culturais. Estas peculiaridades resultam em alterações posturais que estão associadas à eficiência do gesto desportivo, porém, em longo prazo, podem evoluir para processos mórbidos que limitam a prática de atividades físicas regulares. O objetivo da pesquisa foi descrever o perfil postural dos atletas que participam de provas de potência muscular e identificar processos anátomo-cinesiológicos responsáveis pelas principais alterações corporais. A casuística foi composta por 15 atletas do sexo masculino, especializados em provas de potência muscular. O protocolo para coleta de dados foi elaborado com base na proposta de: i) Kendall, para o exame físico e observacional, utilizando simetrógrafo e fio de prumo; ii) Souchard, para a análise postural em cadeia. As informações foram organizadas sob a forma de distribuição de freqüência absoluta e relativa. Os resultados apontaram que: i) o tornozelo em valgo (67%) foi a situação mais comum; ii) a rotação interna da pelve à direita (60%), seguida do lado oposto mais elevado (47%), pode estar relacionada com a corrida em curva que sobrecarrega a estrutura da pelve para a manutenção da velocidade com simultânea mudança de direção em função da força gravitacional; iii) a anteversão de pelve (73%) decorre da retração observada nos músculos flexores do quadril e extensores do joelho; iv) a alteração expressa no item iii contribui para a formação de hiperlordose lombar (73%) e desencadeia mecanismo compensatório de retração da cadeia posterior causando cifose torácica (53%) e cabeça em protrusão (73%). O diagnóstico precoce e a adoção de medidas profiláticas efetivas podem contribuir para o aumento da performance, bem como prevenir a ocorrência de lesões desportivas. Estudos envolvendo intervenção fisioterápica deverão avaliar se há redução dos efeitos crônicos que as alterações posturais decorrentes do treinamento causam ao atleta de alto nível.

A falta de ética e de espírito público na política brasileira

Unfortunately, the Brazilian politics has been characterized by lack of ethics. In a few exceptions, our representatives often behave in the exercise of power as if they were there to care for their own interests and not public affairs. Despite the dissatisfaction that the situation seems to trigger to society, the electorate does not get to transform their anger into effective gesture in order to withdraw from the public setting people who can not fulfill their mandate at the polls. Instead, the re-election of bad politicians has become commonplace fact. In this study, we proposed to discuss the matter in light of traditional philosophical theories, by selecting exponents of ethical thought from the Ancient Period to the Modern. We put special emphasis on behalf of amorality in Florentine thinker's ideas, to Machiavelli s political doctrine.

O gato doméstico (Felis catus) responde à sinais gestuais? possíveis implicações do convívio social

The cats (Felis catus) were domesticated about 9,500 years ago due to the advent of agriculture, being used to control the pests that devastated the food harvested. These animals went through an artificial selection and over generations and millennia had their behavior and morphology changed by humans. This process of domestication by man gave rise to a special ability, the understanding of human pointing gestures, clearly noticed while we feed our pets. Our goal in this study was to assess the comprehension of pointing gestures by cats and also verify the influence that social interactions exerts on the development of this ability. We found that experimental subjects from both groups, solitary animals and social animals, were able to follow human indication in order to find hidden food. However, social interaction had no effect on cats performances. The ability tested here probably evolved during the process of domestication of this species, and social interaction seems to exert little or no influence upon its expression

Caracterização dos enunciados de um aluno não-falante usuário de recurso suplementar de comunicação durante a construção de histórias

A narrativa pode conectar elementos diversos e, assim, promover a construção de sentenças verticais e horizontais, frente à mediação de interlocutor. Esta pesquisa visou analisar a extensão e a organização sintática dos enunciados de narrativas construídas por um aluno não-falante usuário de recurso suplementar de comunicação. Previamente à construção das narrativas, selecionadas de acordo com os centros de interesse, idade, grau de escolaridade e temáticas trabalhadas na escola do aluno, símbolos gráficos do Picture Communication Symbols eram confeccionados e adaptados para que, por meio destes e dos recursos verbais e não-verbais inerentes à atividade discursiva, a história pudesse ser contada, por acesso visual e auditivo, pelo interlocutor e recontada pelo aluno, após a estruturação e organização dos múltiplos signos em sentenças. Todas as interações foram filmadas e complementadas com anotações de um diário de registro contínuo. Após a análise das transcrições das fitas e das anotações do diário, foi possível determinar três estágios de unidades significativas: 1) Caracterização ou natureza dos elementos constituintes dos enunciados das narrativas em: a) objeto; b) símbolo gráfico; c) escrita; d) vocalização; e) gesto representativo; 2) Extensão dos enunciados das narrativas de 1 a 6 elementos, linearmente, e 7 ou mais elementos; 3) Organização sintática dos elementos constituintes das narrativas em sujeito, verbo e objeto isolados, em sentenças verticais, e associados, em sentenças horizontais. Ressaltou-se, assim, a ampliação e aprimoramento da organização e da estrutura sintática dos enunciados das narrativas construídas pelo aluno mediado pelo interlocutor.