http://folksonomy.co/?rss=3382 Folksonomy.co is a structured repository of digital culture and creative practice. en-au Creative Commons License: (cc), Simon Perkins Sun, 12 May 2013 15:41:06 +1000 Sun, 12 May 2013 15:41:06 +1000 Constellations 2.0 http://folksonomy.co/?member=1000 60 http://folksonomy.co/Folksonomy.gif http://folksonomy.co/ http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3303 Narrativism as represented by Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit can fruitfully be analyzed as an inversion of two brands of positivism First narrativist epistemology can be regarded as an inversion of empiricism Its thesis that narratives function as metaphors which do not possess a cognitive content is built on an empiricist picture view of knowledge Moreover all the non-cognitive aspects attributed as such are dependent on this picture theory of knowledge and a picture theory of representation Most of the epistemological characteristics that White and Ankersmit attribute to historical narratives therefore share the problems of this picture theory The article s second thesis is that the theories of narrative explanation can also fruitfully be analyzed as inversions of positivist covering-law theory Ankersmit s brand of narrativism is the most radical in this respect because it posits an opposition between narrative and causal modes of comprehension while simultaneously eliminating causality from narrativist historical understanding White s brand of narrativism is more of a hybrid than is Ankersmit s as far as its theory of explanation is concerned nevertheless it can also be fruitfully interpreted as an inversion of covering-law theory replacing it by an indefinite multitude of explanatory strategies Most of the striking characteristics of both White s and Ankersmit s narrativism pre-suppose positivism in these two senses especially their claim that historical narratives have a metaphorical structure and therefore no truth-value These claims are had to reconcile with the factual characteristics of debates by historians this problem can be tracked down to the absence in metaphorical narrativism of a conceptual connection between historical narratives and historical research Chris Lorenz 1998 Wiley-Blackwell Lorenz C 1998 Can Histories Be True Narrativism Positivism and the MetaphoricalTurn History and Theory 37 3 309-329 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3303 Sun, 12 May 2013 15:41:06 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3297 Photographs by French photographer and poet Ren eacute Malt ecirc te 1930-2000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3297 Sat, 04 May 2013 15:19:46 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3294 This third method of user interface design solves the problems of both of the previous two I call it idiomatic because it is based on the way we learn and use idioms or figures of speech like beat around the bush or cool They are easily understood but not in the same way metaphors are There is no bush and nobody is beating anything We understand the idiom because we have learned it and because it is distinctive Pretty simple huh This is where the human mind is really outstanding mastering learning and remembering idioms very easily without having to depend on comparing them to known situations or understanding how they work It has to because most idioms don t have any metaphoric meaning at all Most of the controls on a GUI interface are idioms Splitters winders comboboxes and scrollbars are things we learn idiomatically rather than intuit metaphorically We tend to think that learning is hard because of the conditioning we have from the technology paradigm Those old user interfaces were very hard to learn because you also had to understand how they worked Most of what we know we learn without understanding things like faces social interactions attitudes the arrangement of rooms and furniture in our houses and offices We don t understand why someone s face is composed the way it is but we know their face We recognize it because we have looked at it and memorized it and it wasn t that difficult The familiar mouse is not metaphoric of anything but rather is learned idiomatically That scene in Star Trek IV where Scotty returns to twentieth-century Earth and tries to speak into a mouse is one of the few parts of that movie that is not fiction There is nothing about the mouse that indicates its purpose or use nor is it comparable to anything else in our experience so learning it is not intuitive However learning to point at things with a mouse is incredibly easy Someone probably spent all of three seconds showing it to you your first time and you mastered it from that instant on We don t know or care how mice work and yet we can operate them just fine That is idiomatic learning The key observation about idioms is that although they must be learned good ones only need to be learned once It is quite easy to learn idioms like cool or politically correct or kick the bucket or the lights are on but nobody s home or in a pickle or inside the beltway or take the red-eye or grunge The human mind is capable of picking up an idiom like one of the above from a single hearing It is similarly easy to learn idioms like checkboxes radiobuttons pushbuttons close boxes pulldown menus buttcons tabs comboboxes keyboards mice and pens This idea of taking a simple action or symbol and imbuing it with meaning is familiar to marketing professionals Synthesizing idioms is the essence of product branding whereby a company takes a product or company name and imbues it with a desired meaning Tylenol is a meaningless word an idiom but the McNeil company has spent millions to make you associate that word with safe simple trustworthy pain relief Of course idioms are visual too The golden arches of MacDonalds the three diamonds of Mitsubishi the five interlocking rings of the Olympics even Microsoft s flying window are non-metaphoric idioms that are instantly recognizable and imbued with common meaning Ironically much of the familiar GUI baggage often thought to be metaphoric is actually idiomatic Such artifacts as window close boxes resizable windows infinitely nested file folders and clicking and dragging are non-metaphoric operations-they have no parallel in the real world They derive their strength only from their easy idiomatic learnability Alan Cooper 1995 Alan Cooper 1995 The Myth of Metaphor Visual Basic Programmer s Journal http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3294 Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:09:28 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3196 Dying metaphors A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically dead e g iron resolution has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves Examples are Ring the changes on take up the cudgel for toe the line ride roughshod over stand shoulder to shoulder with play into the hands of no axe to grind grist to the mill fishing in troubled waters on the order of the day Achilles heel swan song hotbed Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning what is a rift for instance and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact For example toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line Another example is the hammer and the anvil now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer never the other way about a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase George Orwell George Orwell 1950 Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays Secker amp Warburg Publishers UK http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3196 Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:06:52 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3187 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3187 Sun, 10 Feb 2013 07:45:31 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3078 The visual rhetoric of ads is not then confined to the copy An ad is an argument a persuasive communication Every part of it must support the main argument must be persuasively suggestive A press ad for Retinol Activ Pur face cream used a clever visual metaphor to support a claim that the cream reduced facial wrinkles The ad featured two juxtaposed images of a beautiful Caucasian woman She was wearing what seemed to be a white robe folded over one shoulder like a Roman toga In the background was a pure blue sky and a suggestion of white pillars of the kind found in a Greek temple One picture was cracked like the surface of an old oil painting The other was smooth The metaphoric reference was clear the cracks suggested wrinkles but in an elegant way that was complimentary not demeaning to age Old paintings are things of classical beauty but the paint does tend to crack with age The ad was designed to draw the eye across aesthetically appealing images while giving the reader heavy hints about the classic beauty they might aspire to if they were to consume the brand However the levels of meaning in advertisements are theorized Acknowledging their presence lends a new dimension to the analysis of advertising as persuasive communication It brings to light some of the subtlety and complexity of advertising design while also allowing us to draw an intellectual connection between the various artificially differentiated categories of marketing communication Chris Hackley 2010 Chris Hackley 2010 Advertising and Promotion An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach Second Edition SAGE Publications Ltd http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3078 Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:09:13 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3047 Spot hecho en stop motion utilizando alimentos Producci oacute n realizada entre Can Can Club y JPZtudio para la feria Tecn oacute polis a traves del Instituto de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales INCAA Juan Pablo Zaramella 2010 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3047 Thu, 22 Nov 2012 22:54:43 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3033 John Baldessari s 1987 work titled The Fallen Easel is made up of nine framed panels containing fragmentary images that seem to add up as a complex non sequitur The lone diagonal panel shows a grayscale screen print of an easel laying on the ground while other panels show faces and hands that are sometimes obscured by ovals of bright flat colors Clearly we see a rebus of sorts but its substitution of picture-fragments for a syllogistic circuit remains just outside of the grasp of routine readability Mentally reassembling them does not help and the narrative context that would enable the work to be analyzed in the manner of a dream is missing We can only conclude that the relationship between the work s diverse elements is one of an evocative and visually stylish provisionality but we remain haunted by it for it keeps us coming back in search of the key that will unlock its beguiling mystery of allegorical displacements and substitutions Yes this is an update of a kind of surrealism but there is something else going on here as well something pertaining to the typical psychological distance created by mass media imagery striped of its pretense of narrative coherence All at once the linked histories of Surrealism Pop Art Conceptual Art and Postmodernism flash before our eyes We are not in Kansas anymore but is unclear exactly where we are or where anything else is for that matter Mark Van Proyen November 2009 art ltd magazine Fig 1 John Baldessari 1987 The Fallen Easel colour lithograph and screenprint in five parts printed on paper and aluminium plates Collection of Jordan D Schnitzer Photo courtesy of Legion of Honor Museum http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=3033 Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:05:28 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2976 Date 29 May 2013 - 30 May 2013 Location venue Thistle Brighton King s Road Brighton England BN1 2GS The Higher Education Academyos second annual learning and teaching Arts and Humanities conference Storyville Exploring narratives of learning and teachingo will take place on 29 e 30 May 2013 in Brighton At the heart of the Arts and Humanities disciplines sit stories e stories which create and recreate worlds distant and present stories which inspire and engage stories which grow imaginations and expand what is thinkable Stories are everywhere and our second annual conference seeks to explore the intersections between narrative and learning and teaching Higher Education Academy UK http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2976 Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:21:49 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2826 Lukasa or memory boards are hand-held wooden objects that present a conceptual map of fundamental aspects of Luba culture They are at once illustrations of the Luba political system historical chronicles of the Luba state and territorial diagrams of local chiefdoms Each board s design is unique and represents the divine revelations of a spirit medium expressed in sculptural form While many lukasa utilize a system of denotation based on masses of shells and beads affixed to their wooden surfaces this example communicates its content through incised designs and images carved in relief The Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig 1 Memory Board Lukasa Democratic Republic of Congo Luba 1977 467 3 In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000e http www metmuseum org toah works-of-art 1977 467 3 October 2006 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2826 Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:52:49 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2808 This paper presents a rational model developed to make sense of various elearning platforms currently in use in Australian universities The conceptualisation and organisation of the elearning platforms is underpinned by an educational psychology framework of social construction of meaning data visualisation and story telling for meaning making The model explains how various elearning platforms can be integrated to represent a threedimensional hierarchical construct that has the potential to aid understandings about the utility of information systems IS for learning and teaching The model shows that LAMS which has gained increasing popularity in Europe Laurillard amp Masterman 2010 is usefully depicted as a middle groundo system successfully bridging conventional LMSs and more advanced IS referred here as MU VLEs Multi-User Virtual Learning Environments The model has important implications on how university lecturers classroom teachers and students come to engage with an increasingly complex elearning environment Eva Dobozy amp Patricia Reynolds LAMS Conference Sydney 2010 Dobozy E amp Reynolds P 2010 From LMS to VLE or from supermarkets to airports Classifying elearning platforms using metaphors Proceedings of the 5th International LAMS Conference 2010 http lamsfoundation org lams2010sydney papers htm http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2808 Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:14:48 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2791 Terms like Internet caf eacute or cybercaf eacute bring us right back to the 90s along with phrases like web page or digital divide which were invented to describe new hybrids involving analog and digital virtual and real as well as the present and near future It s not that these terms have grown obsolete It s rather that these 20th-century phenomena they once described have outgrown their terminology They were born as metaphors but over time turned into idioms and their analog parts were the first to lose their original meanings People who did not witness the emergence of the web do not fully understand why browser content is still called a page It s has also become unclear what public internet access facilities have in common with caf eacute s yet we continue calling them internet caf eacute s or cybercaf eacute s Olia Lialina 2012-01-10 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2791 Sat, 30 Jun 2012 11:54:50 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2752 With their evocative multidimensional camera the designers have attempted to embody Hugh Everett s many-worlds theory in an object that adds to the cinematic tradition of The Matrix 1999 Lost 2004-10 Fringe 2008-ongoing and Source Code 2011 to name just a few With researchers working to harness the the peculiar workings of our subatomic world we as designers were given an opportunity to explore the implications of one of its more concrete and immediate applications quantum computing Working with EPSRC NESTA the RCA and a group of scientists from the Quantum Information Processing Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration QIPIRC the 5th Dimensional Camera was produced for the 2010 IMPACT exhibition as a metaphorical representation of quantum computation - a fictional device capable of capturing glimpses of parallel universes Superflux Ltd http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2752 Sat, 12 May 2012 20:11:43 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2733 As it happens designing Future Interfaces For The Future used to be my line of work I had the opportunity to design with real working prototypes not green screens and After Effects so there certainly are some interactions in the video which I m a little skeptical of given that I ve actually tried them and the animators presumably haven t But that s not my problem with the video My problem is the opposite really - this vision from an interaction perspective is not visionary It s a timid increment from the status quo and the status quo from an interaction perspective is actually rather terrible I m going to talk about that neglected third factor human capabilities What people can do Because if a tool isn t designed to be used by a person it can t be a very good tool right Do you see what everyone is interacting with The central component of this Interactive Future It s there in every photo That s right - HANDS And that s great I think hands are fantastic Hands do two things They are two utterly amazing things and you rely on them every moment of the day and most Future Interaction Concepts completely ignore both of them Hands feel things and hands manipulate things Go ahead and pick up a book Open it up to some page Notice how you know where you are in the book by the distribution of weight in each hand and the thickness of the page stacks between your fingers Turn a page and notice how you would know if you grabbed two pages together by how they would slip apart when you rub them against each other Go ahead and pick up a glass of water Take a sip Notice how you know how much water is left by how the weight shifts in response to you tipping it Almost every object in the world offers this sort of feedback It s so taken for granted that we re usually not even aware of it Take a moment to pick up the objects around you Use them as you normally would and sense their tactile response - their texture pliability temperature their distribution of weight their edges curves and ridges how they respond in your hand as you use them There s a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body This is how we experience the world close-up This is how our tools talk to us The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called work for millions of years Now take out your favorite Magical And Revolutionary Technology Device Use it for a bit What did you feel Did it feel glassy Did it have no connection whatsoever with the task you were performing I call this technology Pictures Under Glass Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands offering instead a hokey visual facade Bret Victor 8 November 2011 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2733 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:29:56 +1000 http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2700 Ji Lee is a designer and frequent contributor to the New York Times whose work has been featured on ABC World News and in Newsweek Wired the Guardian the Huffington Post and Boing Boing among others A former creative director at Google he is now a creative director at Facebook Amazon com Inc Fig 1 Ji Lee Bran Dougherty-Johnson and Joel Pickard http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2700 Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:11:22 +1000