Primi principi di una estetica futurista /

Mode of access: Internet.

El futurismo /

Mode of access: Internet.

The new tendency in art; post impressionism, cubism, futurism,

Mode of access: Internet.

In the intersection of the angles of a table, there is more truth than in all the tangle of muscles: Futurism as anti-humanist critique

The recent celebrations of the centenary of the publication of the Futurist manifesto led to a renewed discussion of the ideas and artworks of the Italian artists’ group. Jacques Rancière related the Futurist ethos with the modernist project of liberating art from representation. Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, in his post-Futurist manifesto, also identified a historical irony at play in the emptying out of Futurism’s promise: a liberated mechanical humanity did indeed materialize, in a global economic system premised on financial servitude to the future via debt. However, these models continue to assess Futurism against an unchallenged humanism, finding it either supporting ideals of freedom and human rights despite itself, or else lacking in these areas. But Futurism is potentially more relevant than ever not in spite of its anti-humanist agenda, precisely because of it. Tom McCarthy annexes not Futurist art but Futurist writing to an emerging object oriented ontology that seeks to challenge the primacy of the human. If Futurism is to be repurposed as a critical concept, it can only do so by countering the humanist myth the liberal subject that underlies the current cultural and political hegemony of neo-liberalism.

The nomenclature of style: Brutalism, Minimalism, art history and visual style in architecture journals

The naming of styles or movements is a basic mechanism of the architectural journals. The announcement of new tendencies, groups or philosophies, gives a journal its character as ‘news’, and if such terms are taken up in general discourse this demonstrates the prescience of the editor and enhances the repute of the journal. The announcement of phenomenon such as ‘critical regionalism’ or ‘deconstructivism’ referred architectural developments to a context in socio-politics or philosophy, and thus aimed to provide at least an initial resistance to their understanding as the formal styles which they quickly became. A different strategy, or occasion, which this paper will discuss, is where the name of an architectural moment is given in the traditional form of an art historical style. Here the nomenclature of style and a certain attitude to form is introduced as the starting point for a more open ended critical inquiry. Two examples of this strategy will be given. The first is Peter Reyner Banham and the Architecture Review’s promotion of ‘Brutalism’ as an anti-aesthetic which took its conceptual form from early twentieth century art movements, particularly Futurism. The second, identified with Architectural Design in the 1990’s is ‘Minimalism’, a term describing a strand of the visual arts of the 1960’s which can be understood as an attempt to nuance and add seriousness to the present rampant nostalgia for the style of the architecture of the 1960’s.

Elizabeth Bowen and the art of visuality

This thesis is the first sustained assessment of Elizabeth Bowen’s writing from a visual perspective. By first compiling a visual biography of the author, I argue that Bowen’s responsiveness to art, her relationships with artists, and her knowledge of modern and traditional aesthetics are formative influences on her work. Investigating her assertion that she was a “visual writer,” my discussion develops into an examination of her technique of “verbal painting” through which she reinvents traditional visual modes as a personal modernist idiom. Close textual analysis of Bowen’s fictions forms the dominant methodology of this thesis and facilitates my delineation of her engagement with the Futurist and Surrealist aesthetics in addition to broader aspects of her visuality, including her treatment of the “vividly visual” dream-state to the distinct ocularcentricity of her writing. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to advance our knowledge of Bowen’s visual method and to offer a new approach in which to nuance our understanding of her modernism

Autoethnography : critical appreciation of an emerging art

In this article, the author discusses how she applied autoethnography in a study of the design of hypermedia educational resources and shows how she addressed problematic issues related to autoethnographic legitimacy and representation. The study covered a 6-year period during which the practitioner’s perspective on the internal and external factors influencing the creation of three hypermedia CD-ROMs contributed to an emerging theory of design. The author highlights the interrelationship between perception and reality as vital to qualitative approaches and encourages researchers to investigate their reality more fully by practicing the art of autoethnography.

The lens of ludic engagement : evaluating participation in interactive art installations

Designers and artists have integrated recent advances in interactive, tangible and ubiquitous computing technologies to create new forms of interactive environments in the domains of work, recreation, culture and leisure. Many designs of technology systems begin with the workplace in mind, and with function, ease of use, and efficiency high on the list of priorities. [1] These priorities do not fit well with works designed for an interactive art environment, where the aims are many, and where the focus on utility and functionality is to support a playful, ambiguous or even experimental experience for the participants. To evaluate such works requires an integration of art-criticism techniques with more recent Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods, and an understanding of the different nature of engagement in these environments. This paper begins a process of mapping a set of priorities for amplifying engagement in interactive art installations. I first define the concept of ludic engagement and its usefulness as a lens for both design and evaluation in these settings. I then detail two fieldwork evaluations I conducted within two exhibitions of interactive artworks, and discuss their outcomes and the future directions of this research.

Microwave International Media Art Festival

An international festival that champions a pioneer role in promoting media/digital art in Hong Kong. Apart from organising international video screenings in which the latest media art with the most recent trend and development being introduced, a series of artist-in-resident workshops, exhibitions, seminars and symposiums were also hosted with a view to enhancing culture exchange and stimulating media art creation among overseas and local artists