Future Monument

Based on a series of collage made from images of mega yachts, the Future Monument looks at the possibility of taking late capitalism more seriously as an ideology than it takes itself seriously. The project asks whether the private display of wealth and power represented by the yacht can be appropriated for a new language of public sculpture. The choreographed live performance of the construction of the large scale monument was scripted to a proposed capitalist manifesto and took place in a public square in Herzliya, Israel. It aimed to articulate the ideology latent in capitalism’s claims to a neutral manifestation of human nature. The Future Monument project was developed through reading seminars taking place at Goldsmiths College, as part of a research strand headed by Pil and Galia Kollectiv on irony and overidentification within the Political Currency of Art research group. This research has so far produced a series of silk screen collage prints, a sculpture commissioned by the Essex Council and a live performance commissioned by the Herzliya Biennale. However, the project is ongoing, with future outputs planned including a curated exhibition and conference in 2012, in collaboration with Matthew Poole, Programme Director of the Centre for Curatorial Studies at the University of Essex.

Modern lovers

Modern Lovers was a survey show of contemporary art practices in dialogue with modernism, bringing together established and emerging artists based in London and international artists from Berlin, Jerusalem and Zagreb. The show features video, film, installation, sculpture, music and performance work that addresses the legacy of the avant garde and the survival of its aesthetics within contemporary culture. In 1976, as punk rock was busy smashing the cultural rubble left behind by the second world war and rejecting the consumer society that had emerged from the ruins, one band bravely announced that it wanted no part in this destruction. Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers sang about how they still loved the old world. Neither parents nor girlfriends could understand, but the decaying inner city with its false promises of progress still held a fascination for Richman, who claimed he wanted to keep his place in this arcane landscape. Punk's assault on culture was the logical conclusion of modernism's linear narrative of art as a force of innovation that must reject preceding artistic movements to establish new ones. Echoing the negations of Dada, it set out to put an end to this narrative, an end to culture. It is partly because of this inherently destructive and totalising side of Modernism that it has come under harsh critique in the post modern era. Nevertheless, we are still caught up in the same dialectic of progress, revolution and destruction. Post modernism has failed to unseat our desire for the revolutionary moment, even as it has been co-opted to the degree of meaninglessness by the discourses of marketing and Capitalism. But, like Jonathan Richman, the artists in the exhibition "Modern Lovers" keep returning to modernism for something else. Instead of taking it at its word when it proffers revolution, they turn to it in search of reform. Still loving the old world and desiring a dialogue with the past, perhaps as an antidote to the eternal present of Capitalism, they are willing to engage with its aesthetics and ideas on equal ground. Leaving behind the ironic deconstructions of post modernism, they find perspectives worth salvaging and juxtapose them with contemporary visual productions. Trading in the grand narratives of modernity for a more personal approach, they don't seek the purity of form that drove the avant garde movements that inspire them but rather revel in adulteration, dilution and contamination of the past by the present". A live performance by sala-manca was sponsored by the British Council and took place May 26th, 19:00. MODERN LOVERS was accompanied by a catalogue (14.80 cm x 14.80 cm) including essays by Avi Pitchon, the sala-manca group and the curators. A discussion panel about the exhibition themes, as well as the catalogue launch,took place at Goldsmiths College's cinema on the 27th of May at 14:00, chaired by Dr. Suhail Malik (Senior Lecturer & Course Leader Postgraduate Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths College) and with the participation of Tom Morton (curator, Cubitt Gallery, and regular contributor to Frieze magazine), sala-manca (artist group), Dr. Amanda Beech (artist, curator and senior lecturer at the Wimbledon School of Art), Matthew Poole (course director of MA Gallery Studies, dept. of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex).

Performance as social practice

Starting point for these outputs is a large scale research project in collaboration with the Zurich University for the Arts and the Kunstmuseum Thun, looking at a redefinition of Social Sculpture (Joseph Beuys/ Bazon Brock, 1970) as a functional device re-deployed to expand the art discourse into a societal discourse. Although Beuys‘ version of a social sculpture involved notions of abstruse mysticism and reformulations of a national identity these were never-the less part of a social transformation that shifted and re-arranged power relations. Following Laclau and Mouffe in their contention that democray is a fundamentally antagonistic process and contesting Grant Kester’s understanding of a ethically based relational practice, this work is alignes itself with Hirschhorn’s claim to an aesthetic practice within communities, following the possibility to view a socially based practice from both ends of the ethics debate, whereby ethical aspects fuels the aethetic to “create situations that are beautiful because they are ethical and shocking because they are ethical, thus in turn aesthetic because they are ethical” (O’Donnell). This project sets out to engage in activities which interact with surrounding communities and evoce new imaginations of site, thereby understanding site as a catalysts for subjective emergences. Performance is tested as a site for social practice. Archival research into local audio/visual resources, such as the Swiss Radio Archive, the Swiss Military Film Archives and zoological film archives of the Basel Zoo, was instrumental to the navigation of this work, under theme of crisis, catastrophy, landscape, fallout, in order to create a visual language for an active performance site. Commissioned by the Kunstmuseum Thun in collaboration with the University for the Arts in Zurich as part of a year long exhibition programme, (other artists are Jeanne Van Heeswijk (NL) and San Keller (CH), ) this project brings together a series of different works in a new performace installation. The performance process includes a performance workshop with 30 school children from local Swiss schools and their teachers, which was conducted publicly in the museum spaces. It enabled the children to engage with an unexpected set of tribal and animalistic behaviours, looking at situations of flight and rescue, resulting in a large performance choreography orchestration without an apparent conductor, it includes a collaboration with renowned Swiss zoologist, Prof Klaus Zuberbühler(University of St Andrews) and the Colonal General Haldimann commander of the military base in Thun. The installation included 2 static video images, shot in an around spectacular local cave site (Beatus Caves) including 3 children. The project will culminate in an edited edition of the Oncurating Journal, (issue no, tbc, in 2012) including interviews and essays from project collaborators. (Army Commander General, Thun, Jörg Hess, performance script, Timothy Long, and others)

Public Art Commission, Where is Heidenheim? Tina O'Connell and Neal White

Research undertaken through significant public art commission. The researchers were both artists were selected separately by Dr Penelope Curtis of Tate and then the shortlist was awarded through competition (peer reviewed by Critics and Artist in Germany) part of the Heidenheim Sculpture Biennial, Germany (€18K). The work was realised by two companies in Heidenheim. Where is Heidenheim? was based within the Heidenheim Zietung newspaper[HZ] and drew together a site of a local paper in a small town in Germany with other local International papers; Wendover Times – Utah, USA;, Limerick Leader, Ireland; Free Imphal Press, Manipur, India; Hibr, Lebanon; Namibia Times, Namibia and The Countryman, Tasmania, Australia. Each of these papers ran a story showing a sign erected onto HZ in Heidenheim, which was subsequently printed inside HZ itself – linking together sites and local voices. Project research identifying global partners was conducted through the management of a PhD research student from the BU Media School - Venkata Vermuri. The work for both artists expands the context of their research into the impact of global networks on public art, and the traditions and norms of public art being confined to single ‘geographical’ sites. This research indicates the potential for media as a common public space that can also be used.

Public Art Commission Rung by Rung, Tina O'Connell

Research based on a significant public art commissions awarded through competition (peer reviewed) – Pearse Street Clinic Public Art Commission (€20K). Research was examining issues of the relationship between sculpture, exchange and communication, health and well-being. The research used an approach to question the aspirations and dreams of those who were visiting the health centre as part of a routine of daily life. Based on the aspirational concerns of individual visitors, and secondary research of positive effects of light, the final output draws on ideas based around the language of physical signage to occupy a space concerned with visitor health and wellbeing – a Health Clinic. The output has had an impact both at the site and more broadly in the context of examining sculpture and fine art as a social catalyst - based on work of socially-engaged historical practices. The installation at Pearse Street work in Dublin in Nov 09 has received critical and local acclaim. Further commissions within the public arena have been forthcoming despite difficult local economic landscape.

Provenance of marbles from Naxos based on microstructural and geochemical characterization

A detailed quantitative microstructural study coupled with cathodoluminescence and geochemical analyses on marbles from Naxos demonstrates that the analysis of microstructures is the most sensitive method to define the origin of marbles within, and between, different regions. Microstructure examination can only be used as an accurate provenance tool if a correction for the second-phase content is considered. If second phases are not considered, a large spread of different microstructures occurs within sample sites, making a separation between neighbouring outcrops difficult or impossible. Moreover, this study shows that the origin of a marble is defined more precisely if the microstructural observations are coupled with cathodoluminescence data.

‘The Making of the Book’: Roy Fisher, the Circle Press and the poetics of book art

Between 1972 and 2001, the English late-modernist poet Roy Fisher provided the text for nine separate artist's books produced by Ron King at the Circle Press. Taken together, as Andrew Lambirth has written, the Fisher-King collaborations represent a sustained investigation of the various ways in which text and image can be integrated, breaking the mould of the codex or folio edition, and turning the book into a sculptural object. From the three-dimensional pop-up designs of Bluebeard's Castle (1973), each representing a part of the edifice (the portcullis, the armoury and so on), to ‘alphabet books’ such as The Half-Year Letters (1983), held in an ingenious french-folded concertina which can be stretched to over a metre long or compacted to a pocketbook, the project of these art books is to complicate their own bibliographic codes, and rethink what a book can be. Their folds and reduplications give a material form to the processes by which meanings are produced: from the discovery, in Top Down, Bottom Up (1990), of how to draw on both sides of the page at the same time, to the developments of The Left-Handed Punch (1987) and Anansi Company (1992), where the book becomes first a four-dimensional theatre space, in which a new version of Punch and Judy is played out by twelve articulated puppets, and then a location for characters that are self-contained and removable, in the form of thirteen hand-made wire and card rod-puppets. Finally, in Tabernacle (2001), a seven-drawer black wooden cabinet that stands foursquare like a sculpture (and sells to galleries and collectors for over three thousand pounds), the conception of the book and the material history of print are fully undone and reconstituted. This paper analyses how the King-Fisher art books work out their radically material poetics of the book; how their emphasis on collaboration, between artist and poet, image and text, and also book and reader – the construction of meaning becoming a co-implicated process – continuously challenges hierarchies and fixities in our conception of authorship; and how they re-think the status of poetic text and the construction of the book as material object.

Monuments should not be trusted exhibition

Monuments Should Not Be Trusted brings together over 30 leading artists and groups from the “golden years” of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - the period between the early 1960s and the mid 1980s. Over 100 artworks and artefacts illuminate the key contradictions of this single party state – built after WWII on socialist principles, yet immersed in “utopian consumerism.” This is the first time in the UK that the art of this period, which has attracted increasing attention, has been shown in the context of the social, economic and political conditions that gave rise to it. It draws on new and innovative research on this period, and features many of its most celebrated artists. The exhibition begins with the rise of consumerism, midway through President Josip Broz Tito’s 37 year presidency, and ends a few years after his death in 1980. As well as artists’ works in moving image, collage, photography, sculpture and painting, the exhibition encompasses music, TV clips and fascinating artefacts, such as gifts made by workers for President Tito’s birthday, and relay batons which were carried across the country and ceremonially presented to him.

Analysis and risk estimates to workers of Brazilian granitic industries and sandblasters exposed to respirable crystalline silica and natural radionuclides

Occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica and to radiation emitted by natural radionuclides present both in rocks and sands was studied in the Brazilian extractive process and granite product manufacture. Respirable airborne dust samples were collected in working environments, where workers perform different tasks with distinct commercial granites types, and also in places where sandblasters work with sands from different origins. The free crystalline silica contents were determined using X-ray diffraction of the respirable particulate fraction of each sample. Dust samples from granite cutting and sandblasting ambient had the natural radionuclides concentrations measured by gamma spectrometry. Dust concentrations in the workplaces were quite variable, reaching values up to 10 times higher than the respirable particle mass threshold limit value (TLV) set by the American Conference for Governmental Industrial Hygienists of 3 mg m(-3). Also the free crystalline silica concentrations were high. reaching values up to 48 times the TLV of 0.025 mg m(-3). Additionally, our results suggest that the risk of radiation-induced cancer in the granite or marble industries is negligible. However, the combined exposure to dust, gamma radiation, and radon daughter products could result in the enhancement of lung cancer risks associated to sandblasting activities. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of hardwood, softwoodand fractionated pulp in a stratifiedthree-layered fine paper : Lövved, barrved och fraktionerad massa ochdess inverkan på ett treskiktat finpapper

Four different trials of stratified three-layered fine paper, of sulphate pulp, were performed to investigate if stratified fine fraction or fibres from birch can improve the properties of a paper compared to a reference sheet. All trials had five different scenarios and each scenario was calendered with different linear load. All sheets had a grammage of 80 g/m2.In the first trial, the paper contained birch, pine and filler of calciumcarbonate (marble), and was manufactured with the pilot paper machine XPM and the stratified headbox Formator at RCF (Stora Enso Research Center in Falun). The furnish consisted of 75% birch and 25% pine.The second trial contained coated sheets with paper from trial one as the base paper. The coating slip contained calciumcarbonate and clay and the amount was approximately 10-12 g/m2.The third trial, also with birch and pine but without filler, was performed at STFI (Skogsindustrins Tekniska Forskningsinstitut in Stockholm) with the laboratory scaled paper machine StratEx and the stratified headbox AQ-vanes. The furnish consisted of 75% birch and 25% pine, except for one scenario which contained of 75% pine and 25% birch.The last trial contained fractionated pulp of birch and pine and was performed at STFI. 50% was fine fraction and 50% was coarse fraction.This test does not show any clear benefits of making stratified sheets of birch and pine when it comes to properties such as bending stiffness, tensile index and surface smoothness. The retention can be improved with birch in the surface plies. It is possible that the formation can be improved with birch in the surface plies and pine in the middle ply. It is also possible that fine fraction in the surface plies and coarse fraction in the middle ply can improve both surface smoothness and bending stiffness. The results in this test are shown with confidence intervals which points out the difficulties of analysing sheets manufactured with a pilot paper machine or a laboratory scaled paper machine.

Sculptural abstraction of landscape

The purpose of my Senior Scholar project was to create a series of sculptures that are based on the interaction of natural forms within a selected landscape setting. I hope to convey a sense of how I view and interpret the landscape and to create works that stimulate a sense of wonder in the mind of the viewer. This fascination, perhaps even obsession, with the power of the landscape has kept me going throughout the year. As a source of ideas and imagery, the landscape can never be depleted. There will always be new combinations of landscape elements, different light conditions, and changing seasons to provide me with fresh ideas. Research for the project took me to many different places, be it my trip to Monhegan Island or driving to New York City to study the cityscape. I began the year working in steel and plaster, combining the two in works that explore the interaction between living tree roots and inanimate rocks. This led to a series entitled Landscape Recollections, comprised of welded steel forms housed in protective wooden boxes and lit from inside. After visiting New York City, architecture began to playa role in my work, as seen in the two Roadcut pieces and the Cathedral Woods series. Roadcut #1 and Roadcut #2 explore the relationship between a man-made road and the landscape that lies beneath and around it. The Cathedral Woods pieces incorporate architecture in a more abstract manner, using imagery derived from Gothic cathedrals to convey a sense of quiet peacefulness. The soaring verticality of Gothic architecture integrates with the tall tree forms in each piece, enabling me to intertwine these two elements into one another and create a harmonious relationship between architecture and nature. Throughout the year I have kept a sketchbook in which I draw from life, jot down ideas, and take notes on how the project is progressing. I have also completed several large charcoal drawings of my sculptures in which I explore different ways of viewing the steel forms. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to undertake this project, as it has been a very difficult but rewarding process of observing, interpreting, and manifesting the landscape according to my personal vision and experiences.

Análise da segurança no trabalho no setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo: proposição de ação para reunião do índice de acidentes no trabalho

O setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo constitui-se no maior pala industrial brasileiro do setor, sendo líder na comercialização dos produtos dele derivados, tanto no mercado interno como externo. Apesar do crescimento significativo observado nas exportações nos últimos anos, em peso e valor, bem como de estar comercializando a cada ano, produtos com maior valor agregado, convive com problemas de naturezas diversas, os quais se solucionados, proporcionarão maior participação nos mercados em que atua. Em termos sociais o reflexo será imediato, pois com os investimentos decorrentes, haverá geração de quantidade considerável de novos postos de trabalho, visto que trata-se de atividade altamente geradora de empregos. Por outro lado, os benefícios decorrentes do aumento de produção, proporcionarão a geração de renda e divisas para o país. Entre os problemas a serem solucionados encontra-se o alto índice de acidentes ocorridos no setor, conforme mostram as estatísticas apresentadas na presente dissertação. O estabelecimento de ações que visem a redução desses índices constitui o objetivo deste trabalho, tendo como meta principal, proporcionar a preservação da saú- de e segurança do trabalhador, e a implementação das mesmas, trarão como conseqüência natural, ganhos de produtividade e redução de custos, na medida que os acidentes implicam no surgimento de custos adicionais. A globalização da economia e a política econômica vigente no país, impuseram aos setores econô- micos uma competição cada vez mais acirrada, obrigando-os a buscarem alternativas que os viabilizem. A redução de custos por meio da prevenção de acidentes Vll no trabalho se constitui numa das alternativas. Esta dissertação, apresenta a partir de diagnóstico realizado nas diversas atividades do setor, ou seja, extração, serragem e beneficiamento, as tendências das ocorrências dos acidentes, caso não haja no futuro, nenhum tipo de intervenção. É estabelecida uma comparação com os demais setores da economia capixaba, através das respectivas curvas de tendências, na qual fica caracterizada a gravidade da situação e a importância da redução dos acidentes no setor de mármore e granito do Espírito Santo. Em fun- ção da dimensão com que o problema se apresenta, surge a necessidade de intervenções, as quais são classificadas como imediatas e de médio prazo. A observância à legislação vigente, representada pelas Normas Regulamentadoras, proporcionará maior segurança aos trabalhadores, possibilitando a esses, exercer suas atividades em ambiente onde os riscos referentes a lesões, com ou sem afastamentos, e morte, sejam minimizados, na medida que eles são inerentes ao setor e sempre existirão. Como metodologia é utilizado pesquisa de campo, através de entrevistas com empresários, trabalhadores, sindicatos patronal e dos trabalhadores, representantes da DRT e INSS, com as quais é possível o levantamento estatístico, consultas a revistas especializadas, jornais, Internet, disserta- ções e Normas Regulamentadoras. É ainda utilizado referencial teórico de diversos autores, na busca de dar sustentação conceitual ao tema abordado. Como resultado, é apresentado proposta que se constitui em uma série de ações a serem implementadas, para o atingimento do objetivo procurado.

Predicting and breaking sedentary behaviour at work

This thesis aimed at designing and developing a system that can a) infer individuals’ need for a break from sedentary behaviour in the workplace, and b) persuade them to take a break through the use of different techniques from persuasive psychology. We postulated three variables, namely, individuals’ posture, stress levels and involvement in their computer mediated activity. We developed and field-studied a system that could infer these using a web camera and a key presses and mouse clicks log. We found that the system could predict posture from viewing depth and stress from the movement detected. We then created a general formula that predicts individuals’ need for a break using only the posture and stress predictors. Once the first objective was set, we built and field-studied a system that used three ways to communicate a recommendation for a break to a user: implicit, just-in time and ambient feedback. The implicit feedback was operationalized through changes in the users’ computer wallpaper that provided subtle visual cues. The just-in time feedback employed prompting at the bottom right side of the user’s screen. In addition, we implemented an intuitive behind-screen interaction technique where people can snooze a notification using simple gestures. The ambient feedback mechanism employed an origami sculpture sitting on the user’s desk. This prototype was continuously reflecting the user’s posture and performed rhythmic movements when to recommend breaks. A field study demonstrated the overall success of the system, with 69% of the break recommendations received by users were accepted. The study further revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the three persuasive mechanisms.