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.

Dancing, skating and sex: action and text in the digital age

This paper explores the relationship between discourse and action in practices involved in making and consuming texts. Texts are produced through the process of ‘entextualization’ in which strips of action and discourse are extracted from their original contexts and recontextualized into other situations. Different technologies for turning actions into texts affect the kinds of social actions and social identities that are made possible both at moments of entextualization and at future moments of recontextualization. In particular, I focus on how digital technologies affect the practices and participation structures around entextualization. Digital photography and video have had a profound effect on social practices and relationships around the making of texts. Specifically, they have made processes of entextualization more immediate, more contingent and more communal. Implications of these features of digital text making are discussed in light of previous work on literacy and orality.

Aesthetical and narrative uses of the trench in the Hollywood cinema of 1918-1930

Throughout history of painting, the representation of landscape has been considered a laboratory for the human gaze on the world. The First World War and its new approach to the battlefield altered deeply the classical forms of representation, and replaced them with a mechanised and fragmentary vision, which was related with the development of photography and cinema. As Vicente J. Benet has analysed, Hollywod cinema used these deep changes in its filmic versions of the conflict, although it organised them following a narrative logic. In this text we intend to study how the battlefield and, particularly, the trench, are inserted in this logic of the history of landscape painting. We do so through some Hollywood films from the period 1918-1930. Firstly, we approach the trench as a composition value which can structure the image and guide the camera movement. In the second place, we study how it creates a dialog between its inside, melodrama scenery, and the outside, battlefield and danger. In both cases, we conclude that the trench as a form and as a narrative element plays a structuring and integrative role with the storytelling logic.

An improved estimate of leaf area index based on the histogram analysis of hemispherical photographs

Leaf area index (LAI) is a key parameter that affects the surface fluxes of energy, mass, and momentum over vegetated lands, but observational measurements are scarce, especially in remote areas with complex canopy structure. In this paper we present an indirect method to calculate the LAI based on the analyses of histograms of hemispherical photographs. The optimal threshold value (OTV), the gray-level required to separate the background (sky) and the foreground (leaves), was analytically calculated using the entropy crossover method (Sahoo, P.K., Slaaf, D.W., Albert, T.A., 1997. Threshold selection using a minimal histogram entropy difference. Optical Engineering 36(7) 1976-1981). The OTV was used to calculate the LAI using the well-known gap fraction method. This methodology was tested in two different ecosystems, including Amazon forest and pasturelands in Brazil. In general, the error between observed and calculated LAI was similar to 6%. The methodology presented is suitable for the calculation of LAI since it is responsive to sky conditions, automatic, easy to implement, faster than commercially available software, and requires less data storage. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A photographic journey through Vietnam

This degree project consists of “A photographic journey through Vietnam”. One month was spent in Vietnam where the different aspects of the Vietnamese life were documented in images. The journey began in Hanoi and descended down the country to Ho Chi Minh City.The report describes the compositional elements of photography and makes an attempt to describe what a “good” image is. Furthermore it explains what equipment that is necessary for such a journey and how you can interact with the local population.When the journey came to an end, a photographic book consisting of 200 images was created. The report details the used workflow step by step. Finally the author has commented 20 of the selected images regarding their photographic composition.

Fotografers och föräldrars attityder kring skönhetsretuschering i skolfotografier : En semistrukturerad intervjustudie

Through semi-structured interviews with 8 school photographers and 10 parents,this study attempted to clarify what photographers and parents of children(aged 1–5) in preschool think of photography business in the current situationprovides retouching children’s school photographs and what they considers tobe acceptable. The result shows that companies do not offer photo retouchingfrequent, but performs this service at the direct request of the customer. Themajority of parents agreed that dirt and food was accepted to be removed fromthe photograph, and that this does not affect the child's self image. The photographersbelieve that one should be very careful when it comes to children andretouching, and that the debate is important.

Retusch av landskapsfoto i annonser för turistmål : En kvantitativ undersökningkring den accepterade nivån av retusch

Etik kring bilder i annonser har diskuterats mycket, speciellt modell-, ochproduktbilder har kritiserats. Det tycks dock saknas forskning om acceptanskring efterbehandling av landskapsfotografier som ofta används vidmarknadsföring av turistmål. En webbenkätundersökning genomfördes medbildexempel för att undersöka vilken nivå av efterbehandling som ansågsverklighetstrogen, tilltalande och accepterbar i sådana annonser. Slutsatsenblev att fotografier där exponeringen korrigerats för att skapa en tydligare bildvar det mest accepterade. Skillnader i åsikter mellan åldrar, kön, de som haroch inte har tidigare erfarenhet av fotografi och retuschering diskuterades ochdet visade sig att kvinnor och de utan tidigare erfarenhet var lite mer kritiskatill efterbehandling. Det framkom att en del betraktare kan accepteraytterligare efterbehandling om den genomförs för att sälja en specifik känslaoch så länge inte betraktaren kan känna sig vilseledd.

L’image comme outil didactique dans l’enseignement du français dans des collèges et des lycées en Suède

Le travail actuel a été rédigé dans le but d’éclaircir en quoi consiste le rôle de l’image comme outil didactique aux cours de français aux collèges et aux lycées suédois. Nous avons abordé notre thème sous des perspectives différentes : d’un côté, nous avons analysé les images dans deux livres, puisque les manuels font souvent partie de chaque leçon de français ; de l’autre côté, nous avons fait un questionnaire que nous avons distribué aux professeurs à travers les médias sociaux et par email. Nous avons également étudié les données récoltées aux cours des entretiens avec trois professeurs de français au lycée suédois, pour savoir comment les professeurs intègrent des images dans la pratique. Selon les résultats de notre étude, il nous a été possible d’affirmer que l’image est un outil qui n’est pas omniprésent, mais qui est parfois utilisé afin de rendre les leçons plus variées. La photographie est le type d’image le plus répandu dans la pratique des professeurs et dans les manuels ; le format numérique est le plus fréquent en tenant en compte de la révolution technologique et de l’habitude des jeunes à travailler avec les ordinateurs. Cependant, l’image n’est pas un outil indépendant. Elle est très souvent complétée par d’autres outils didactiques et sert principalement à accompagner la lecture, à développer l’expression orale et le vocabulaire et aussi à illustrer des phénomènes culturels. En conclusion, il ressort de notre mémoire, qu’il est important que le professeur accompagne le travail avec des images avec des instructions et des commentaires, afin de rendre l’apprentissage plus efficace.

Researching a whole-year EE program: some methodological issues

A P-12 school in regional Victoria has an environmental theme throughout its Year Four program with classes located in a purpose- built Environmental Centre in a separate location within the school’s grounds. The authors report here on a one-year case study of the grade four thematic integrated curriculum at the school. They reflect on and describe some of the methodological issues that arose during the interviews, direct observations, photography and video-recording. Some of the practical considerations associated with case-study methodology are discussed. The paper concludes with a summary of emerging substantive issues and a prospective view to further research.

Hope : metaphorically speaking

In a recent Gadamerian hermeneutic study, photographyand in-depth interviews were used as key methods to explicate the phenomenon of hope. Whilst using photography within qualitative research has become increasingly popular over the last decade, little has been written about how to introduce photographs as conversation enhancers or how photographs have the capacity to unleash both conceptual and linguistic metaphors.This article gives insights into the experience of using photographs to illuminate the phenomenon of hope and identifies metaphors that were revealed through the participants' photographs.

Hope seen through the eyes of 10 Australian young people

Aim. The aim of this paper is to report the findings of a phenomenological study that explored hope in 10 young people in Australia.

Background. Evidence suggests many Australian young people are in crisis. Examination of key reports that detail the incidence of suicide, early drug-taking behaviours, homelessness, self-harm behaviours, joblessness, depressive disorders, crime statistics and alcohol abuse suggest that many of today's young people have lost resilience as well as vital connections to their community.

Method. Two methods were employed to encourage the participants to reflect on their experiences of hope – what it is and what it meant to them. The first was to supply participants with a disposable colour film camera and ask them to take pictures that, in their view, showed hope. The second was participation in an in-depth interview that was prompted in part, by their photographs. Interview audiotapes were transcribed verbatim and analysis of the text used the Turner method. The data were collected in 2002.

Findings. Four horizons of hope were revealed: at-one-with; a driving force; having choices; and connecting and being connected. These horizons are discussed, showing how, or if, the literature treats these dimensions of hope. Perspectives are offered on how they might be considered by nurses who are charged with caring for today's young people.

Conclusion. Registered Nurses who work with young people must understand the phenomenon of hope from their unique perspective before they can offer appropriate hope-facilitating strategies.

Faking it for real

Jean Baudrillard suggests that the supremacy of the simulacra is a modern development, reality a construction of the U.S. His argument, given the U.S. penchant for breaking and remaking the world in its own image (it is, in the language of Baudrillard, both iconoclast and iconolater), is strong. However, writers, artists, and philosophers have been pondering the reign of illusion for millennia. Plato described the world as a place of simulations that left us wanting. For Shakespeare, the world was a stage of fools; the play was that of an idiot. Goya presented the world as a dream of reason that gave birth to the monsters he painted. Borges (like Shakespeare and also perhaps Goya and Plato) was obsessed with what he refers to in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" as the "atrocious or banal" idea that reality, as we know it (which is, of course, the only perspective of it that we can have), is fake. The three books under review here, Ian Miller's Faking It, Penny Cousineau-Levine's Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination, and Paul Matthew St Pierre's A Portrait of the Artist as Australian: L'Oeuvre bizarre de Barry Humphries, can be considered additions to the oeuvre fascinated and troubled by what Borges calls the "phantasmagorias" of our world

Through the frame & beyond the gaze

In Fiction in the Age of Photography[i], Nancy Armstrong examines the impact of photography on the way in which the nineteenth century novelists represented society. In particular she asks 'But what do we make of the fact that the novel's turn to pictorialism coincided with the sudden ubiquity of photographic images in the culture at large? Why did pictures begin to speak louder than words?

Anticipating the uptake and possible implication of digital imaging within the construction industry

Photography within the construction industry is merging into a new form of image capture and output that is a mix of conventional photography and digital imagery. As this transition takes place it is anticipated that the credibility of the image may also change within in the communication chain that links the various disciplines within the building industry. The following paper presents the development and results of a pilot survey of building professionals, which addresses the quality, content and authenticity of both conventional photography and digitally produced images used within the construction industry.