Stillness: A meditation in new media art

While technology is often seen as a noisy, impatient and pervasive aspect of our lives, this practice-led research project investigated the counter proposition–that we might be able to evoke sensations of stillness through technology-mediated artworks. Investigations into stillness were informed by Buddhism, phenomenology, and experiences of meditation and the practice of archery. By combining visual art, performance, installation, video and interaction design, a series of experimental, interdisciplinary artworks were produced and exhibited to evoke a sense of stillness and to impel audiences to consider the form and nature of stillness in relation to time, space and motion.

Slow horizon

“Slow Horizon” is comprised of six lenticular panels hung in an even, horizontal sequence. As the viewer moves in front of the work, each panel alternates subtly between two vertical colour gradients. From left to right, the panels move through yellow, orange, magenta and violet to ‘midnight blue’. Together, the coloured panels comprise an abstract horizon line that references the changing nature of light at sunset. The scale, movement and chromatic qualities of the panels also allude to the formal characteristics of the screen technologies that pervade contemporary visual culture. “Slow Horizon” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with the relationships between abstraction, colour, signification and perception. Since early Modernity, debates concerning representation and the formal qualities of the picture plane have been fundamental to art practice and theory. These debates have often dovetailed with questions of art’s capacity to generate shifts in thought and perception. Practitioners such as Ellsworth Kelly, James Turrell and Ed Ruscha have variously used block and blended colour to engage in these formal, symbolic and perceptual potentials of colour. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Slow Horizon” furthers this creative inquiry. By conflating the reductive visual logics of abstraction and minimalism with the iconic, romantic evocations of sunset imagery, it questions not only the contemporary relationship between abstraction and image-making, but also art’s ability to create moments of stillness and contemplation in a context significantly shaped by screen technologies. “Slow Horizon” has been exhibited internationally as part of “Supermassive” at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013. The exhibition was reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Mindfulness-meditation on the move : implementation of an ACT-based mindfulness practice intervention and training within a University Dance program

As part of the introduction of a broader dance medicine and science related health and wellbeing program, a 9 week mindfulness-meditation ACT-based program was delivered to all students undertaking full-time University dance training (N = 106). The aim of the program was to assist students in the further development of performance psychology skills that could be applied in both performance and non-performance settings. Participant groups were comprised of both male (N = 12) and female (N = 94) students from across all three year levels of two undergraduate dance courses, divided into three groups by mixed year levels due to timetable scheduling requirements. Pre- and post-testing was undertaken utilising the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS-15), a uni-dimensional measure of mindfulness, in addition to qualitative questions checking the current level of awareness and understanding of mindfulness practice and its application. Weekly sessions were conducted by qualified sport and exercise psychologists and covered key practices such as: Mindfulness of Body, Mindfulness of Breathing, Mindfulness of Sounds, ACT-based and general Imagery exercises, Developing Open Awareness, Mindfulness of Emotions, and Developing Inner Stillness. Students were required to maintain a reflective journal that was utilised at the end of each weekly session, in addition to completion of a mid-Semester reflective debrief. Teaching staff additionally attended the weekly sessions and linked the mindfulness practice learnings into the student’s practical dance and academic classes where appropriate. Anecdotal feedback indicates that participation in the mindfulness-meditation sessions and the development of these mental skills has resulted in positive performance and personal outcomes. Observations collated from staff and students, results from the data collection phases and recommendations regarding future applications within dance training settings will be discussed within the presentation.

The book of revelations

"Nihilistic act embraces doomsday The Age – December 2012 By Rebecca Harkins-Cross For The Book of Revelations A WOMAN stumbles backwards through the audience, burdened by an overflowing backpack, muttering about the home she’s left behind. When she reaches the mountain onstage, she looks upon its cloud-swirled peak with awe. This stillness is ruptured by an involuntary outburst as she begins spitting out the scourges of the modern world – “nuclear explosion… war… car salesman”, she yells. This is the final show in La Mama’s explorations season, which allows performers to stage works still in development. Devised and performed by theatre maker and academic Alison Richards, it questions our eschatological paranoia that the end times are upon us. It is fitting then that it is premiered on the eve of the Mayan’s prophesised doomsday. Like many pilgrims before her, Ada (Richards) ascends the mountain in search of salvation, but her journey evokes sublime terror; she speaks in tongues, collapses into fitful sleeps. Richards combines operatic singing with an ethereal score by Faye Bendrups, her eruptions into song apparently brought on by the mountain’s ecstatic pull. Richards’ seraphic voice is haunting, the lyrics evoking visions of birth and death. But when Ada finally converses with the heavens, she does not receive the revelations she hopes for: the voice of the divine is nihilistic, urging her to accept the universe’s chaos. While the work is still fragmentary, unfolding like a dream, this is a powerful performance by Richards. Its striking imagery fails to cohere yet in narrative terms, but it is promising nonetheless."

Shifting intimacies

Our world is literally and figuratively turning to ‘dust’. This work acknowledges decay and renewal and the transitional, cyclical natures of interrelated ecologies. It also suggests advanced levels of degradation potentially beyond reparation. Dust exists both on and beneath the border of our unaided vision. Dust particles are predominantly forms of disintegrating solids that often become the substance or catalyst of future forms. Like many tiny forms, dust is an often unnoticed residue with ‘planet-size consequences’. (Hanna Holmes 2001) The image depicts an ethereal, backlit body, continually circling and morphing, apparently floating, suggesting endless cycles of birth, life and death and inviting differing states of meditation, exploration, stillness and play. This never ending video work is taken from a large-scale interactive/media artwork created during a six-month research residency in England at the Institute of Contemporary Art London and at Vincent Dance Theatre Sheffield in 2006. It was originally presented on a raised floor screen made of pure white sand at the ICA in London (see). The project involved developing new interaction, engagement and image making strategies for media arts practice, drawing on the application of both kinetic and proprioceptive dance/performance knowledges. The work was further informed by ecological network theory that assesses the systemic implications of private and public actions within bounded systems. The creative methodology was primarily practice-led which fomented the particular qualities of imagery, generated through cross-fertilising embodied knowledge of Dance and Media Arts. This was achieved through extensive workshopping undertaken in theatres, working ‘on the floor’ live, with dancers, props, sound and projection. And eventually of course, all this dust must settle. (Holmes 2001, from Dust Jacket) Holmes, H. 2001, The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things, p.3

Not so not-for-profit

To address the sub-theme of the journal: Artistic Practices in a Time of Crisis, the author discusses the context of economic cuts and recent international crises on his PhD interactive and visual design research project undertaken in Australia. Identifying an apparent root-cause of current global crises, the author in reply, has structured a research plan and created a suite of new media, interactive, technology artworks, and installation art. Notions of Zen Buddhism, and stillness through meditation, are applied in the research and context of the artworks to support awareness of wellbeing, in response to the root-cause condition. The discussion will focus on the overarching question: how can one obtain value through the arts during current times of economic reduction conditioning?

Legacies of War--[Ten percent terror]

Ten Percent Terror brings together leading creatives from the fields of contemporary theatre, contemporary dance, music theatre, circus and digital arts in the first collaboration of its kind. Commissioned by Brisbane Powerhouse, with support from the Anzac Centenary Arts and Culture Fund and in partnership with Dancenorth and Company 2, this is an inter-disciplinary work that combines theatrical narrative with eloquent physicality, through circus and dance, to express certain truths of the soldiers' experience. This production will be a circus-narrative that uses the form and language of circus to express the key themes of risk, panic and brotherhood. Ten Percent Terror is intended to be a work of scale, yet also intimacy: of stillness and panic, inertia and chaos. Project partners, Dancenorth and Company 2, share the vision to use contemporary artistic disciplines to connect younger and modern audiences to the ANZAC legacy, perhaps offering a connection for those audiences that they may not find through more traditional art forms. The development process has included a community research project in Townsville, conducted by Shane Pike, which explored contemporary Australians’ stories through interviews with serving military personnel and the local community, as well as collecting photographic documentation and other artefacts from around Townsville. This was followed by an archival research project in Brisbane, where Pike reviewed letters, photographs and personal accounts of soldiers from WW1. The results of these projects will be used by the creative team to inform the development of Ten Percent Terror. Given Townsville’s reputation as Australia’s ‘garrison’ city, the project partners plan to deliver the world premiere performance of Ten Percent Terror in Townsville in late 2015. It is intended that Ten Percent Terror will receive its Brisbane premiere in November 2015 at Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of a four-performance season. This expert panel included discussion of the project and its place in analysing key aspects of Australia's wartime history.

From One Segment to a Segment of One - The Evolution of Market Segmentation Theory

The purpose of this study was to deepen the understanding of market segmentation theory by studying the evolution of the concept and by identifying the antecedents and consequences of the theory. The research method was influenced by content analysis and meta-analysis. The evolution of market segmentation theory was studied as a reflection of evolution of marketing theory. According to this study, the theory of market segmentation has its roots in microeconomics and it has been influenced by different disciplines, such as motivation research and buyer behaviour theory. Furthermore, this study suggests that the evolution of market segmentation theory can be divided into four major eras: the era of foundations, development and blossoming, stillness and stagnation, and the era of re-emergence. Market segmentation theory emerged in the mid-1950’s and flourished during the period between mid-1950’s and the late 1970’s. During the 1980’s the theory lost its interest in the scientific community and no significant contributions were made. Now, towards the dawn of the new millennium, new approaches have emerged and market segmentation has gained new attention.

Corpo como superfície: fazer-se imagem

Dissertação que pesquisa o desdobramento de espetáculos teatrais em imagens de potencial plástico fecundo na interação entre a cenografia e as artes visuais. Estudos de caso de obras de Robert Wilson que elaboram as questões da tensão entre a ficção e a biografia, além de abordar imagem, corpo, movimento e espacialidade. Desenvolve-se em análise das posturas do espaço quando atravessado por trabalhos que promovem o pensamento acerca da imobilidade e de seu contrário. A reprodutibilidade esteticamente explorada é observada enquanto elemento fundamental na proposta que trata a disponibilidade do corpo justaposta à imagética que este é capaz de produzir. Na análise aparecem alguns materiais - imagens - resultantes de processos artísticos de Robert Wilson bem como de outros artistas como Marina Abramovic e Rineke Djcstra. Estruturado no encadeamento de imagens partícipes de processos de construção e condução de performances artísticas que abrangem as perspectivas da colaboração imagética incorporada ao pensamento criativo que recondiciona o corpo no campo da superficialidade enquanto abrangência poética

Zein-Based Nanoparticles Improve the Oral Bioavailability of Resveratrol and Its Anti-inflammatory Effects in a Mouse Model of Endotoxic Shock

Resveratrol offers pleiotropic health benefits including a reported ability to inhibit lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cytokine production. The aim of this work was to prepare, characterize and evaluate a resveratrol nanoparticulate formulation based on zein. For this purpose, the oral bioavailability of the encapsulated polyphenol as well as its anti-inflammatory effects in a mouse model of endotoxic shock was studied. The resveratrol-loaded nanoparticles displayed a mean size of 307±3 nm, with a negative zeta potential (-51.1±1.55 mV), and a polyphenol loading of 80.2±3.26 μg/mg. In vitro, the release of resveratrol from the nanoparticles was found to be pH independent and adjusted well to the Peppas-Sahlin kinetic model, suggesting a mechanism based on the combination of diffusion and erosion of the nanoparticle matrix. Pharmacokinetic studies demonstrated that zein-based nanoparticles provided high and prolonged plasma levels of the polyphenol for at least 48 h. The oral bioavailability of resveratrol when administered in these nanoparticles increased up to 50% (19.2-fold higher than for the control solution of the polyphenol). Furthermore, nanoparticles administered daily for 7 days at 15 mg/kg, were able to diminish the endotoxic symptoms induced in mice by the intraperitoneal administration of LPS (i.e., hypothermia, piloerection and stillness). In addition, serum TNF-α levels were slightly lower (approximately 15%) than those observed in the control.

Diferencias en la experiencia subjetiva entre depresión unipolar y bipolar

En la depresión unipolar el estado de ánimo predominante es la tristeza y la experiencia corporal es de un cuerpo que se siente más cómodo con la quietud que con la actividad, parecido a la pereza de la vida cotidiana. En la depresión bipolar el estado de ánimo predominante es de apagamiento emocional. La experiencia corporal es de un cuerpo pesado, cansado, un elemento que se interpone entre los deseos de actuar y la realización de las acciones y que se vuelve un obstáculo para el movimiento. Además, en la depresión bipolar hay mayor bradipsíquia, dificultad para concentrarse y desesperanza que en la unipolar. Se realizó una investigación de tipo cualitativo, exploratorio, de las experiencias subjetivas (de primera persona) de un grupo de pacientes con depresión unipolar y bipolar. Se utilizó entrevistas en profundidad de orientación fenomenológica.

Eye candy for the blind: re-introducing Lyotard's Acinema into discourses on excess, motion and spectacle in contemporary Hollywood

Jean-François Lyotard's 1973 essay ‘Acinema’ is explicitly concerned with the cinematic medium, but has received scant critical attention. Lyotard's acinema conceives of an experimental, excessive form of film-making that uses stillness and movement to shift away from the orderly process of meaning-making within mainstream cinema. What motivates this present paper is a striking link between Lyotard's writing and contemporary Hollywood production; both are concerned with a sense of excess, especially within moments of motion. Using Charlie's Angels (McG, 2000) as a case study – a film that has been critically dismissed as ‘eye candy for the blind’ – my methodology brings together two different discourses, high culture theory and mainstream film-making, to test out and propose the value of Lyotard's ideas for the study of contemporary film. Combining close textual analysis and engagement with key scholarship on film spectacle, I reflexively engage with the process of film analysis and re-direct attention to a neglected essay by a major theorist, in order to stimulate further engagement with his work.

'Eden Cinema' by Marguerite Duras

Duras’s theatre work has been profoundly neglected by UK theatre academics and practitioners, and Eden Cinema has almost no performance history in Britain. My project asked three interconnected research questions: how developing the performance contributes to understanding Duras’s theatre and specifically Eden Cinema’s problems of performability; how multimedia performance emphasising mediated sound and the live body reconfigures memory, autobiography, storytelling, gender and racial identity; how to locate a performance style appropriate for Durasian narratives of displacement and death which reflect the discontinuous and mutable form of Duras’s ‘texte/film/théâtre’. Drawing on my research interests in gender, post-colonial hybridity and performed deconstruction, I focused my staging decisions on the discontinuities and ambivalences of the text. I addressed performability by avoiding the temptation to resolve the strange ellipses in the text and instead evoked the text’s imperfect and fragmented memories, and its uncertain spatial and temporal locations, by means of a fluid theatrical form. The mise-en-scène represented imagined and remembered spaces simultaneously, and co-existing historical moments. The performance style counterpointed live and mediated action and audio-visual forms. A complex through-composed soundscape, comprising voice-over, sound and music, became a key means for evoking overlapping temporalities, interconnected narratives and fragmented memories that were dispersed across the performance. The disempowerment of the mother figure and the silent indigenous servant in the text was demonstrated through their spatial centrality but physical stillness. The servant’s colonial subaltern identity was paralleled and linked with the mother’s disenfranchisement through their proxemic relationships. I elicited a performance style which evoked ‘characters’, whose being was deferred across different regimes of reality and who ‘haunted’ the stage rather than inhabited it. I developed the project further in the additional written outcomes and presentations, and the subsequent performance of Savannah Bay where problems of performability intensify until embodiment is almost erased except via voice.

The absent body: representations of dying early modern women in a selection of seventeenth-century diaries

This article seeks to explore the absence of the body in the depiction of dying women in a selection of seventeenth-century diaries. It considers the cultural forces that made this absence inevitable, and the means by which the physical body was replaced in death by a spiritual presence. The elevation of a dying woman from physical carer to spiritual nurturer in the days before death ensured that gender codes were not broken. The centrality of the body of the dying woman, within a female circle of care and support, was paradoxically juxtaposed with an effacement of the body in descriptions of a good death. In death, a woman might achieve the stillness, silence and compliance so essential to perfect early modern womanhood, and retrospective diary entries can achieve this ideal by replacing the body with images that deflect from the essential physicality of the woman.