Key figure of mobility : The pedestrian

Peer reviewed

Étude du syncrétisme de l’assiko à travers le geste et le foyer socioculturel d’un guitariste Bassa

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle du geste musical dans le développement de styles musicaux devenus syncrétiques. Il s’attarde à définir dans le détail le style de guitare populaire assiko propre aux Bassa du Cameroun du Sud lequel est représenté internationalement par le guitariste et percussionniste traditionnel Atna Njock. Grâce à une approche dialogique et participative, les techniques du jeu assiko sont explorées et comparées à des exemples de jeu de guitare européenne, afro-américaines et africaines. Les influences qui définissent le jeu d’Atna découlent de la culture Bassa et de son histoire marquée par l’influence coloniale et missionnaire, mais sont aussi alimentées par la «philosophie» (voire la spiritualité) et le passé musical de l’artiste. L’approche participative fournit une perspective émique, c’est-à-dire interne à la culture, de la gestuelle et de la structure du jeu assiko même si nous confrontons les propos du musicien à notre propre regard analytique. La comparaison avec divers instruments de percussion auxquels Atna a été initié montre comment ceux-ci ont forgé son jeu guitaristique. Son rôle de « garant » de la tradition musicale Bassa influence son approche et se manifeste par une préoccupation particulière pour l’« authenticité » dans la reproduction des rythmes d’un « langage » musical donné. Ses liens avec la culture Bassa, s’expriment notamment par le biais de sa reproduction du style de jeu de son maître, Jean Bikoko « Aladin ». La contribution particulière d’Atna à la technique de guitare de Bikoko est comprise comme un ajout à la lignée ancestrale. Une analyse d’un morceau du répertoire assiko issu du plus récent album d’Atna illustre d’ailleurs comment son incorporation de styles « modernes » reproduit les processus traditionnels en intégrant des éléments culturels étrangers.

La bioéthique, l’art et le syndrome des ovaires polykystiques: propos impressionniste visant à réhabiliter les corps tabous et les ovaires blâmés

Essai / Essay

Adieu New York, bonjour Paris ! : l es enjeux esthétiques et culturels des appropriations du jazz dans le monde musical savant français (1900-1930)

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris-Sorbonne et l'Université de Montréal. Composition du jury : M. Laurent Cugny (Université Paris-Sorbonne) ; M. Michel Duchesneau (Université de Montréal) ; M. Philippe Gumplowicz (Université d'Evry-Val d'Essonne) ; Mme Barbara Kelly (Keele University - Royal Northern College of Music) ; M. François de Médicis (Université de Montréal) ; M. Christopher Moore (Université d'Ottawa)

La bioéthique, l’art et le syndrome des ovaires polykystiques: propos impressionniste visant à réhabiliter les corps tabous et les ovaires blâmés

Essai / Essay

3D Navigation with Six Degrees-of-Freedom using a Multi-Touch Display

With the introduction of new input devices, such as multi-touch surface displays, the Nintendo WiiMote, the Microsoft Kinect, and the Leap Motion sensor, among others, the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) finds itself at an important crossroads that requires solving new challenges. Given the amount of three-dimensional (3D) data available today, 3D navigation plays an important role in 3D User Interfaces (3DUI). This dissertation deals with multi-touch, 3D navigation, and how users can explore 3D virtual worlds using a multi-touch, non-stereo, desktop display. The contributions of this dissertation include a feature-extraction algorithm for multi-touch displays (FETOUCH), a multi-touch and gyroscope interaction technique (GyroTouch), a theoretical model for multi-touch interaction using high-level Petri Nets (PeNTa), an algorithm to resolve ambiguities in the multi-touch gesture classification process (Yield), a proposed technique for navigational experiments (FaNS), a proposed gesture (Hold-and-Roll), and an experiment prototype for 3D navigation (3DNav). The verification experiment for 3DNav was conducted with 30 human-subjects of both genders. The experiment used the 3DNav prototype to present a pseudo-universe, where each user was required to find five objects using the multi-touch display and five objects using a game controller (GamePad). For the multi-touch display, 3DNav used a commercial library called GestureWorks in conjunction with Yield to resolve the ambiguity posed by the multiplicity of gestures reported by the initial classification. The experiment compared both devices. The task completion time with multi-touch was slightly shorter, but the difference was not statistically significant. The design of experiment also included an equation that determined the level of video game console expertise of the subjects, which was used to break down users into two groups: casual users and experienced users. The study found that experienced gamers performed significantly faster with the GamePad than casual users. When looking at the groups separately, casual gamers performed significantly better using the multi-touch display, compared to the GamePad. Additional results are found in this dissertation.

Race, Debt and the Welfare State

In this article I explore how the figure of debt illuminates the racial politics of welfare in neoliberal Britain. I begin by giving a reading of the simultaneous unfolding of post-war race politics and the Beveridgean welfare state, and then turn to consider the interpellative appeal of neoliberal debt to minoritiSed subjects who have, in certain respects, been de facto excluded from prevailing models of welfare citizenship. In particular, this article considers the ways in which household debt might, even as it increases social inequality, simultaneously produce ideas about equality and futurity, as well as gesture towards the possibility of post-national forms of identity and belonging. If we are to challenge the lowest-common-denominator logics of ‘capitalist realism’ it is necessary to develop orientations to the economic that are as convincing as the popular stories that circulate about the operations of the neoliberal marketplace, and which are as meaningful as the social relations they play a part in constituting. Rather than reproduce the racialized model of welfare citizenship that is implicit to the ‘defence’ of the postwar welfare state, I suggest that there are elements of prevailing neoliberal market relations that might themselves serve as a more substantial basis for expressions of racial equality. There is, in other words, something that we can learn from neoliberal debt regimes in order to develop a more egalitarian future-oriented politics of social welfare and economic redistribution.

Non-Verbal Categories. Analysis of an Galician Oral Narrative

Based on the concept of the triple basic structure of human communication by Poyatos (1994a, 1994b) and on the analytical and theoretical implications that derive from this, the present paper conceives the human communication as an indivisible whole in which verbal communication can not be separated from body behavior. This paper analyzes nonverbal categories used in oral communication. The corpus consists of an oral narration in Galician from which we highlighted certain kinemes (minimum units of body movement with meaning) by using the model proposed by Bouvet (2001), in order to explain the non-verbal categories with examples taken from said recordings.

Gestengestützte Schema- und Datenexploration

Der Zugang zu Datenbanken über die universelle Abfragesprache SQL stellt für Nicht-Spezialisten eine große Herausforderung dar. Als eine benutzerfreundliche Alternative wurden daher seit den 1970er-Jahren unterschiedliche visuelle Abfragesprachen (Visual Query Languages, kurz VQLs) für klassische PCs erforscht. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, eine generische VQL zu entwickeln und zu erproben, die eine gestenbasierte Exploration von Datenbanken auf Schema- und Instanzdatenebene für mobile Endgeräte, insbesondere Tablets, ermöglicht. Dafür werden verschiedene Darstellungsformen, Abfragestrategien und visuelle Hints für Fremdschlüsselbeziehungen untersucht, die den Benutzer bei der Navigation durch die Daten unterstützen. Im Rahmen einer Anforderungsanalyse erwies sich die Visualisierung der Daten und Beziehungen mittels einer platzsparenden geschachtelten NF2-Darstellung als besonders vorteilhaft. Zur Steuerung der Datenbankexploration wird eine geeignete Gestensprache, bestehend aus Stroke-, Multitouch- und Mid-Air-Gesten, vorgestellt. Das Gesamtkonzept aus Darstellung und Gestensteuerung wurde anhand des im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwickelten GBXT-Prototyps auf seine reale Umsetzbarkeit hin, als plattformunabhängige Single-Page-Application für verschiedene mobile Endgeräte mittels JavaScript und HTML5/CSS3 untersucht.

Fast and accurate hand pose detection for human-robot interaction

[EN]Enabling natural human-robot interaction using computer vision based applications requires fast and accurate hand detection. However, previous works in this field assume different constraints, like a limitation in the number of detected gestures, because hands are highly complex objects difficult to locate. This paper presents an approach which integrates temporal coherence cues and hand detection based on wrists using a cascade classifier. With this approach, we introduce three main contributions: (1) a transparent initialization mechanism without user participation for segmenting hands independently of their gesture, (2) a larger number of detected gestures as well as a faster training phase than previous cascade classifier based methods and (3) near real-time performance for hand pose detection in video streams.

Audio games: investigation of the potential through prototype development

This article discusses the potential of audio games based on the evaluation of three projects: a story-driven audio role-playing game (RPG), an interactive audiobook with RPG elements, and a set of casual sound-based games. The potential is understood, both in popularity and playability terms. The first factor is connected to the degree of players’ interest, while the second one to the degree of their engagement in sound-based game worlds. Although presented projects are embedded within the landscape of past and contemporary audio games and gaming platforms, the authors reach into the near future, concluding with possible development directions for this non-visual interactive entertainment.

Socio-economic aspects of the fisheries of Nabugabo lakes and implications for management

Fisheries are very important to Uganda's economy. The sector provides a vital source of food, recreation, trade and socioeconomic well being for the people and community globally. The fisheries of small lakes are important for producing fish for local populations who are not near the large lakes. These satellite lakes support important fisheries and other economic activities like fishing, water for domestic purposes and tourism, besides socio-cultural values. A number-of fish;- species, some of which were found only in Lake Victoria have been depleted through over-exploitation, introduction of exotics especiaily Nile perch and environmental degradation. Some of these fishes have been observed to survive in satellite lakes in the Victoria and Kyoga Lake basins. The Nabugabo satellite lakes (Manywa, Kayugi and Kayanja) contain endemic Cichlid fish species acting as reservoirs and therefore very important for conservation of fish biodiversity. Despite the socio-economic importance and uniqueness of these satellite lakes little research on socio-economic studies has been carried out. The sustainability of the lake is being threatened by increasing human activities. The fish stocks and species diversity are declining and this poses a threat to the livelihood of the people who depend on fish for food and income. Arising from this need a study was carried out to establish the socio-economic aspects of Nabugabo fisheries and implications for management, on which basis resource users would be made aware of the impacts of their activities. It was hoped that this would go further to ensure wise use and management of the resources by the users. The specific objectives were identifying activities around the lake, establishing socioeconomic values attached to the lake, identifying problems of the lake and resource users and examining existing local based management institutions. Results show that the activities taking place around the lakes include fishing, farming, watering of animals, deforestation and charcoal burning, brick making, resort beach development and food and refreshment. The major problem facing the lake was found to be encroachment of Hippo grass (Vossia) on the lake, which is decreasing the size of the lake, and limiting open waters for fishing (this only applied to Lake Nabugabo). Other important problems include use of illegal fishing methods, declining fish stocks and loss of cultural identity. The resource users are most pressed by the low incomes resulting from poor fish catches, theft of gears and lack of market. On examining the resource base for the lakes, it was only Lake Nabugabo that had a Landing Management Committee. The other three lakes did not have leadership institutions in place except the local councils for the respective villages. This was probably due to observed limited fisheries activities. Majority of the respondents agreed that Government and other service providers should work jointly to supplement local beach management committees in the management of the lakes resources. This is a good gesture because with increase in fishing effort and rampant use of illegal fishing methods, there is need to strengthen management institutions present on the lake. This would require Government, local community and other service providers to work together in a participatory way to control environment-degrading activities and stop the use of illegal fishing methods. Burning of vegetation on the lake should be stopped since it enhances growth of this grass. Finally, traditional taboos; which are present on some of the Nabugabo lakes, should be enhanced, as away of preserving them.

El lenguaje gráfico de Eduardo Chillida como aportación conceptual para la identidad tipográfica de la Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

El valor de la documentación especializada en las fases del diseño / The value of specialized documentation in the design process este proyecto de investigación financiado por la Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea UPV/EHU-PES 11/31, a través de su programa de investigación estratégica, tiene como objetivo la creación de la tipografía de identidad visual corporativa de la Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, cuyo inicio conceptual para dotar de unas características de identidad visual corporativa a la UPV/EHU, ha sido planteado desde las especulaciones estéticas sobre la forma, materializadas por Eduardo Chillida. En la producción gráfica de este artista encontramos una sutil coincidencia con principios vitales para la creación tipográfica, en cuanto al planteamiento de formas dinámicas y constructivas, en las que el rigor geométrico es vencido por una suerte de organicidad que parte del núcleo mismo de la estructura "cursus", por: la fuerza vital que imprime la acción modulada del gesto "ductus"; por la dialéctica entre lo lleno y lo vacío forma/contraforma, por el impulso y la espontaneidad carácter, o por la afirmación de un lenguaje plástico en la cultura diferenciada del medio en el que se vive la identidad.

O desenho que providencia um contexto

Com o presente artigo pretende-se mostrar a expressão da linha como elemento da linguagem do desenho e, simultaneamente, perceber a relação que a linha estabelece com o espaço. Toma-se como referência a obra do artista Lewitt enquanto marco de origem concetual do desenho na relação que ele estabelece com o espaço. Consideraremos as obras dos artistas Sandback, Gego, Derdyk e Grzymala, cujo trabalho usa o espaço como suporte do desenho e, a partir daí, procuraremos perceber que relações se estabelecem entre o espaço – que corporiza a obra - e o espectador. Com base neste pressuposto procuramos interpretar a obra como instalação ou site-specific, resultado da integração do desenho num determinado espaço. Para tal, abordaremos metodologicamente três momentos: 1. a contextualização, 2. a clarificação do conceito, 3. a experiência do artista e 4. o envolvimento e participação do espectador na obra. Procuraremos concluir acerca da presença instigadora do desenho quanto à participação do espectador na obra.