• "The National Anthem", terrorism and digital media

      Pheasant-Kelly, Frances; McSweeney, Terence; Joy, Stuart (Palgrave, 2019-12-31)
    • Sound objects: Towards procedural audio for and as theatre

      Whitfield, Sarah; Dalgleish, Mat (Innovation in Music Conference 2019/University of West London, 2019-12-05)
      Procedural audio has been the subject of significant contemporary interest, but prior examples in relation to theatre sound are limited. After providing background to theatre sound and procedural audio, we introduce two artefacts, RayGun and INTERIOR, that explore issues around theatre sound. RayGun is an augmented prop prototype that uses sensor driven, procedurally generated and locally diffused sound to address prior deficiencies. INTERIOR reimagines Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1895 play Interior as an embedded, generative and largely procedurally generated audio play housed in a shortwave radio-like artefact. Intended to provide an accessible experience, the listener uses a single knob interface to scan through a soundscape of simulated radio stations and ‘find’ the play. We present some initial findings and conclude with suggestions for future work.
    • #Vaccineswork: Recontextualizing the content of epidemiological reports on Twitter

      Orpin, Deborah; Luzon, Maria Jose; Perez Llantada, Carmen (John Benjamins, 2019-12-04)
      This study examines the ways in which information originating in epidemiological reports is recontextualized in the @ECDC_VPD account, the Twitter account of a European health agency. Using a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach complemented with multimodal analysis, this study compares the strategies used to achieve proximity (Hyland 2010) in the space-constrained genre of Twitter with those used in the source texts. The study finds that the macro-structural properties of the @ECDC_VPD tweets have become more complex over time and the use of images to enhance meaning-making has increased. The drive to present claims as newsworthy, coupled with the 140/280-character constraint, results in the tweets containing greater relative use of stance markers and lower use of epistemic modals than is observed in the source texts. The @ECDC_VPD tweets display a greater range of engagement strategies than is seen in the source texts.
    • Jesus

      Gregg, Stephen; Gregg, Stephen; Chryssides, George (Bloomsbury, 2019-11-14)
      It should come as no surprise that a volume on Christians requires a chapter on Jesus, called the Christ by his earliest followers in the movement that would later be labelled Christianity, and upon whom much of Christian scholarship and identity rests. However, in keeping with the Lived-Religion approach of this work, I shall be exploring the diversity of interpretations of Jesus that have impacted upon everyday Christians’ lives, rather than the grand historical or theological narratives that have been preferenced in previous generations of scholarship. Jesus matters to Christians. Interpretations of his life, teachings, death and resurrection sit at the heart of many individual Christians’ daily lives, and their relationship with God and each other. It is not for nothing that many Christians ask, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ when making decisions in their everyday lives. But to which Jesus are we referring? Whilst this volume moves beyond the theological paradigms of previous approaches to Christianity, we may still learn from this body of scholarship. In his seminal chapter, originally published in 1972, Don Cupitt outlined the diversity of Christian responses to Jesus using the famous title ‘One Jesus, Many Christs?’ Intriguingly formulated as a question, Cupitt was arguing for a liberalization of theological approaches, not to the historical figure, but to the myriad interpretations of that figure through a diversity of social, political and religious contexts. In this chapter, I wish to continue in the spirit of Cupitt, not to write theology as he was doing, but to unpack the Lived Religion-in-action of numerous Christian individuals and communities that represent this broad spectrum of interpretations of Jesus – indeed, Jesuses – so as to understand the lived realities of relationships with Jesus for everyday Christians.
    • Vernacular Christianity

      Gregg, Stephen; Chryssides, George; Gregg, Stephen; Chryssides, George (Bloomsbury, 2019-11-14)
      One of the authors used to begin his Christianity classes by inviting students to consider two statements and to decide which provided a more appropriate description of the Christian faith. The two statements were: (1) Christians believe that Jesus Christ is of one substance with the Father. (2) Christians in Britain eat Christmas puddings on 25 December. By far the majority of students voted for the first statement. It is an important doctrine, defining the Incarnation, which is a central tenet of Christian theology, and it is part of the Nicene Creed, which many Christians recite weekly during congregational worship. By contrast, the second seems frivolous. Christianity purports to offer salvation, teaching that it is brought about through God becoming human, and dying on the cross to redeem humankind from sin; this is certainly not achieved by eating a Christmas pudding. One might also point out that, historically, the Church has excommunicated those who have denied the full deity or the full humanity of Jesus Christ, whereas there is no compulsion for any Christian to observe popular Christmas customs. However, it remains true that there are more Christians who erect Christmas trees and hang up stockings than understand what it means for Jesus Christ to be of one substance with the Father, or indeed most of the other doctrines defined in the traditional creeds.
    • Vilnius memoryscape: razing and raising of monuments, collective memory and national identity

      Moore, Irina (John Benjamins Publishing, 2019-11-12)
      This article attempts to analyse collective memory formation (the study of monuments, memory, and public space) through the lens of semiotic landscape. A theoretical focus on power relations in “monumental politics” (Czepczyński, 2008; Forest, Johnson & Till, 2004; Gordon, 2001; Kaufman, 2001), the concept of memoryscape (Clack, 2011) and Van Gennep’s sociological concept of liminality (Van Gennep, A., 2004) and a methodological approach that “treats space as a discursive as well as physical formation” (Jaworski, A., Thurlow, C., 2010) are combined to examine the process of monument destruction, creation, and alteration in post-Soviet Vilnius.
    • Talking textiles, making value: Catalysing fashion, dress, and textiles heritage in the Midlands

      Hackney, Fiona; Bloodworth, Jo; Baines, Emily; Howard, Catherine; Anderson, Claire (Taylor & Francis, 2019-11-11)
      There are hundreds of small museums, archives, and collections in the English Midlands, United Kingdom (UK), many of which are the legacy of the region’s rich industrial heritage. A surprising number of these include dress and textiles in various forms, from the costume collection of Charles Paget-Wade at Berrington Hall (Leominster) to intricately stitched smocks made by local needlewomen in Herefordshire, and the wealth of manufacturers’ samples that comprise the silk ribbon trade archive at the Herbert Museum, Coventry. These are challenging times for many such organisations as they face cutbacks in staff and local authority funding. Yet they offer a unique and largely unexploited resource for staff, students, and researchers in art and design higher education (HE), not only for primary research but also as a catalyst for design innovation. The discussion here, which takes the format of group research practitioner interview, builds on a Knowledge Exchange event that was held December 2017 at the Fashion Lab, University of Wolverhampton (UoW). The event brought together a diverse group of fashion and textiles professionals to talk, exchange ideas, take part in object handling sessions, mind-map, and brain-storm how to catalyse connections between heritage collections and higher education and build value. With seed funding from the Museum-University Partnership Initiative (MUPI) (see National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement - NCCPE 2019), the day built on a series of scoping visits to collections in the region undertaken by Professor Fiona Hackney and Dr Emily Baines. The group involved staff, students and museum professionals including those from UoW, De Montfort University (DMU), Hereford College of Arts (HCA), Nottingham Trent University (NTU), artist Ruth Singer who leads the Arts Council-funded Criminal Quilts project in association with Staffordshire Record Office (Singer 2019), and representatives from Herefordshire Museum Service, the Herbert Gallery (Coventry), Walsall Museums Service, the Lace Guild Stourbridge, and Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The following conversation reflects themes that emerged in the project including: the need to embed archival work and primary research in fashion and textiles curricula at all levels, the development of hubs to connect university research with museum practice, the added value of artist-led projects, and the significance of place-based textiles heritage as a catalyst for new business and sustainable design practice.
    • Loneliness and social media: A qualitative investigation of young people's motivations for use and perceptions of social networking sites

      Fox, Bianca; Fox, Bianca (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019-11-09)
      The democratisation of Internet access has incrementally changed every domain of activity and has created new business and economic models. From answering work emails to learning a new language, shopping, booking medical appointments or managing one’s finances, almost everything is attainable at the click of a button. The added implications of the rapid rise of social networking websites (SNSs), such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, have further contributed to changing the way we communicate and build new friendships. Indeed most of our social relationships are now being ‘increasingly developed and maintained online’ (Nowland, Necka & Cacioppo, 2017: 1). Ostensibly, despite improved Internet access and enhanced social connectedness, modern societies are struggling to combat loneliness. It is reported to affect people of all ages, especially young adults (16-24 and 25-34 years old) who are avid Internet and social media users (see Office for National Statistics, 2018).
    • Theatre and Performance

      Black, Daisy; Capern, Amanda L (Routledge, 2019-11-08)
    • Jack’s Jumper: designing a sensibility for sustainable clothing communities

      Hackney, Fiona; Hill, Katie; Saunders, Clare (IFFTI, 2019-11-04)
      Jack’s Jumper is a short film co-produced by an emergent community of participant researchers and film-makers R&A Collaborations as part of S4S Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing, an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research project. The need to improve the sustainability of fashion has been widely noted by academics (Black 2012; Fletcher 2008 and 2016), activist campaigns (Greenpeace and Fashion Revolution) and policy makers (Environmental Audit Committee Report on the Sustainability of the Fashion Industry, 2019). In this project the authors combine arts and social science methods, including film making, to develop a methodology for pro-environmental behaviour change and sustainable fashion through, literally and metaphorically, making a new relationship with clothes. The paper outlines the aims and purpose of the project and its methods, which include fashion design workshops designed to mimic phases of the lifecycle of clothing (making fibre and fabric, pattern cutting, mending, modifying, repurposing and clothes), films, wardrobe audits, clothing diaries and surveys. It focuses on the series of over twenty short films, including Jack’s Jumper, to consider how they might function not only as reflective devices for those involved in the project and emotional prompts for future action, but also as an affective means of building and developing a sustainable fashion sensibility among wider audiences, and the role of aesthetics and emotion in this. As such, we argue that creative participatory fashion design practices are potentially an important tool for generating a sensibility of sustainability and therefore for informing policy on behaviour change.
    • Supernatural surveillance and blood-borne disease in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Reflections on mesmerism and HIV

      Pheasant-Kelly, Frances (Intellect Publishers, 2019-11-01)
      While the relationship between surveillance and/or voyeuristic viewing, control and horror is central to certain horror productions, including Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), My Little Eye (Evans, 2002) and District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009), it is less obvious in the vampire film. However, the vampiric gaze exerts a more immediate and absolute form of power, causing its victims to fall prey to inevitable death and an extended afterlife. Although all vampire films tend to exploit these mesmeric aspects of Victorian culture, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), directed by Frances Ford Coppola, progresses the notion of ‘supernatural surveillance’. Coppola uses numerous creative visual techniques to accentuate the attention to eyes, notably in scenes that are linked to sexual desire and promiscuity. If the original novel implicitly reflected contemporaneous fears of venereal infection, namely syphilis, then Coppola’s film is preoccupied with AIDS. This article argues that the film’s attention to eyes and the gaze not only reflects the mesmerism associated with Victorian culture but also resonates with new forms of sociocultural watchfulness emerging in the AIDS era of the twentieth century.
    • Always on: Capitalist continuity and Its discontents

      Penzin, Alexei; Kholeif, Omar; Sarkisov, Karen (Prestel Publishing, 2019-09-03)
      Why should we critically reflect on continuity today? To immediately address the central point, it suffices to invoke the issues and standpoints that occupy radical theorists today, such as the direct, impassionate question, When and how will capitalism finally end? Another widespread articulation of the same concern would range from the different obscure claims about “living in the end times,” stemming from politico-eschatological perspectives of capitalism’s self-destructiveness, to hard evidence of disaster capitalism’s devastation and destabilization of the natural world. In a less theoretical but more pointed form, this central concern has been echoed in people’s responses to the greedy, cynical warmongering of recent times, new right-wing populist deceptions of the dispossessed masses, and the incredible burgeoning of inequality worldwide. These versions of desperate wondering could be summed up in the question, When will this massive, repetitive absurdity end? Today, this end is imagined in less utopian, inspiring shapes than before, ranging from explosive, unpredictable technological acceleration, random catastrophes, and ecological disaster to more sober discussions about the opportunities for a renewed radical politics.
    • Associations between balance ability and dance performance using field balance tests

      Clarke, Frances; Koutedakis, Yiannis; Wilson, Margaret; Wyon, Matthew (Science & Medicine, 2019-09-01)
      Purpose: Although balance is a key element of dance, it remains to be confirmed which balance components are associated with dance performance. The aim of this study was to assess the associations between different balance field tests and dance performance in an in-house measure in ballet, contemporary and jazz genres. Methods: 83 female undergraduate dance students (20±1.5 years; 163.04±6.59 cm; 60.97±10.76 kg) were subjected to the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), the Airplane test, a dance-specific pirouette test, the modified Romberg test, and the BioSway Balance System (Biodex, USA). The results from these balance tests were compared to the participants’ technique and repertoire performance scores in ballet, contemporary, and jazz genres. Results: Ballet scores were best predicted by SEBT 90˚ and Romberg for technique (r = 0.4, p = 0.001, SEE ±2.49) and Romberg, SEBT 90˚, and SEBT 225˚ for repertoire (r = 0.51, p = 0.001, SEE±1.99). Contemporary data indicated SEBT 90˚ and Romberg for technique (r = 0.37, p = 0.001, SEE±2.67) and SEBT 225˚ for repertoire (r = 0.27, p = 0.015, SEE±2.29). Jazz indicated SEBT 90˚, Romberg, SEBT 315˚, and SEBT 225˚ for technique (r = 0.51, p = 0.001, SEE±2.28) and SEBT 225˚ and Romberg for repertoire (r = 0.41, p = 0.001, SEE±2.29). Conclusion: The present study suggests that balance ability has a limited influence on dance performance, with existing field balance tests demonstrating low to moderate associations with dance technique and repertoire.
    • Thermogenic capacity of human white-fat: the actual picture

      Dinas, Petros C; Krase, Argyro; Nintou, Eleni; Georgakopoulos, Alexandros; Granzotto, Marnie; Metaxas, Marinos; Karachaliou, Eleni; Rossato, Marco; Vettor, Roberto; Georgoulias, Panagiotis; et al. (MDPI AG, 2019-08-29)
      Cold exposure and exercise may increase thermogenic capacity of white adipose tissue (WAT), which could subsequently enhance energy expenditure and body weight loss. We aimed to identify possible alterations in uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1)—the main biomarker of thermogenic activation—in human WAT due to both cold exposure and exercise, as well as the link between environmental temperature and thermogenic capacity of human WAT. MATERIAL & METHOD: We conducted four human experimental studies and two systematic reviews and meta-analyses—PROSPERO registration CRD42019120116, CRD42019120213. RESULTS: UCP1 mRNA was higher in winter than in summer [t(30) = 2.232, p = 0.03] in human WAT and our meta-analysis showed a main effect of cold exposure on human UCP1 mRNA [standard mean difference (Std-md) = 1.81, confidence interval (CI) = 0.50–3.13, p = 0.007]. However, UCP1 mRNA/protein expressions displayed no associations with %fat mass or BMI (p > 0.05, Cohen’s f2 < 0.20). Both a 2-hour cooling and a non-cooling protocol preceding the positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) measurements revealed no association between environmental temperature and standardised uptake value (SUVmax) of human WAT, as well as no mean differences in SUVmax-WAT-activity between winter and summer. An 8-week exercise program had no effect on UCP1 of human WAT or on body composition. Our meta-analysis also revealed: (a) no effect of chronic exercise on human UCP1 mRNA, (b) a main effect of chronic exercise on UCP1 protein concentrations (Std-md = 0.59, CI = 0.03–1.16, p = 0.04) and UCP1 mRNA (Std-md = 1.76, CI = 0.48–3.04, p = 0.007) in WAT of normal diet animals, c) a main effect of chronic exercise on UCP1 mRNA (Std-md = 2.94, CI = 0.24–5.65, p = 0.03) and UCP1 protein concentrations (Std-md = 2.06, CI = 0.07–4.05, p = 0.04) of high-fat diet animals. CONCLUSIONS: Cold exposure represents a main stimulus for increased thermogenic capacity in human white adipocytes; however, this may have no impact on body weight loss. Chronic exercise may represent no major stimulus for UCP1 induced in human white adipocytes, while in animals it increases UCP1 gene independently of their diet. Therefore, evidence from animal studies regarding UCP1 gene activation in white adipocytes may not be applicable in humans. Finally, the identification of human WAT thermogenic capacity via PET/CT examination may be optimal with both a cooling and a non-cooling protocol.
    • Toward meaningful algorithmic music-making for non-programmers

      Bellingham, Matt; Holland, Simon; Mulholland, Paul (Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG), 2019-08-29)
      Algorithmic composition typically involves manipulating structural elements such as indeterminism, parallelism, choice, multi-choice, recursion, weighting, sequencing, timing, and looping. There exist powerful tools for these purposes, however, many musicians who are not expert programmers find such tools inaccessible and difficult to understand and use. By analysing a representative selection of user interfaces for algorithmic composition, through the use of the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations (CDN) and other analytical tools, we identified candidate design principles, and applied these principles to create and implement a new visual formalism, programming abstraction and execution model. The resulting visual programming language, Choosers, is designed to allow ready visualisation and manipulation of structural elements of the kind involved in algorithmic music composition, while making minimal demand on programming ability. Programming walkthroughs with novice users were used iteratively to refine and validate diverse aspects of the design. Currently, workshops with musical experts and teachers are being conducted to explore the value of the language for varied pragmatic purposes by expressing, manipulating and reflecting on diverse musical examples.
    • The influence of Christian Orthodox thought on Stanislavski’s theatrical legacy

      Curpan, Gabriela (Informa UK Limited, 2019-08-01)
      Expressed through many Orthodox concepts, such as ‘soul’, ‘heart’, ‘love’, ‘beauty’ and ‘truth’, scattered throughout all his writings, Stanislavski’s personal religious feelings seemed constantly to have shaped his life-long sense of an artistic spirituality. Yet, in spite of this presence, the Orthodox connections appear to be neither properly analysed nor fully explained. Therefore, this paper strives to identify and reflect upon how such generally ignored but key Orthodox ideas might have had a crucial influence on shaping Stanislavski’s ‘system’.
    • Drums sound in Hackensack: Agnes de Mille and the Jooss Ballet

      Lidbury, Clare (Taylor & Francis, 2019-07-29)
      In 1941 Agnes de Mille created Drums Sound in Hackensack for the Jooss Ballet. There is no film of the work and few photographs but the work is documented in her choreographic notes, letters to and from de Mille, dancers’ recollections, and reviews. From these can be learned why and how de Mille created the work, what it was like, and why it was significant to the Jooss Ballet. With its American theme, historical setting, dream sequence, and a female character at the center of the work it may be seen as a forgotten stepping stone in de Mille’s choreographic development.
    • Interview with Margret Meagher

      Prior, Ross W (Intellect, 2019-07-01)