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Topic Review
Placing Critical Pressure on Creative Holography
In her seminal PhD thesis, submitted to the Royal College of Art, London, in 1994, Margaret Benyon, MBE, postulated the question “How is holography Art?”. (Benyon 1994) Within her 226 pages, she attempted to put pressure on the ‘How’ not the ‘Why’ or the ‘If’, using the lens of her own, considerable, research in the field. The broad issues surrounding this area of critical debate have not been extensively or continuously explored, either from within the field of practising artists investigating holography as a process, medium and methodology or through broader discursive platforms within the visual arts. The medium remains, for most, a curious optical innovation that lacks critical consideration. Perhaps, almost 25 years later, Benyon’s question is somewhat redundant, or too blunt an instrument to accurately pressurise the extensive research which has taken place over this period. Artists have actively extended the vocabulary of holographic imaging, not only through disrupting the technology, which makes it practical, but also through an attempt to investigate its visual, conceptual and practical vocabularies.
  • 513
  • 23 Jun 2020
Topic Review
Plaçage
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children and, in some cases, gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was widely practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; St. Augustine and Pensacola, Florida; as well as Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti). Plaçage became associated with New Orleans as part of its cosmopolitan society. In recent years, at least three historians (viz. Kenneth Aslakson, Emily Clark, and Carol Schlueter) have challenged the historicity of plaçage and have referred to many of its features, including quadroon balls, as "a myth".
  • 527
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Pixar Universe Theory
The Pixar universe theory, or simply Pixar theory, proposes the existence of a "shared universe" in which every film that is created by Pixar takes place, sharing characteristics and an internal logic. Media discussion about a "Pixar Universe" has existed since at least 2003, and has been referred to in disparate sources such as SlashFilm, Washington Times, Reno Gazette-Journal, and MTV News. In To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, the companion book to documentary The Pixar Story, Karen Paik states that there are many internal references between various films in The Pixar Universe. In 2009, CityNews Toronto made comparisons between nine "Pixar Universe" films. In his 2013 thesis entitled "The Pixar Theory", Jon Negroni wrote that all fourteen Pixar movies released at the time took place in a single fictional universe. He acknowledges that the concepts behind his thesis were derived from an episode of the Cracked.com video series After Hours, written by Daniel O'Brien. In his post, Negroni discusses all of the films and how they relate in a timeline of events. The character of Boo in Monsters, Inc. is said to create a time loop, and consequently is the same character as the Witch in Brave. As Pixar released new movies, Negroni wrote new posts to fit each new plotline in the whole theory: in June 2015, he published an article on moviepilot.com and another one on his website explaining how Inside Out also fits into his theory; on December 3, 2015, he wrote another post expanding his theory to The Good Dinosaur and on June 17, 2016 another article explaining how the timeline encompasses Finding Dory as well. Negroni had also fit the Cars spin-off series, Planes, into the theory, even though it was not made by Pixar. The blog io9 described Negroni's work as "a crazy read, one that Negroni has been annotating as readers point to corrections or flaws in his theory. But even as a tinfoil hat theory, it makes some clever connections—and, of course, contains plenty of Pizza Planet trucks." Speaking in an informal 2013 interview, Cars "franchise guardian" Jay Ward rejected the idea that the films take place in the same universe, saying: "It's almost like the 9/11 conspiracy theories... it's like, really? No, the movies were sort of made in a different order by different directors in different times, in different places. It's cool that it all worked out that way, but it probably was not intentional." At the 2015 D23 Expo, during the "Pixar Secrets Revealed" panel, director Mark Andrews also rejected the theory, and Inside Out co-director Ronnie del Carmen said: "Do you know what kinds of meetings we'd have to have to make sure all our movies line up?!"
  • 16.8K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Biography
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (/ˈpruːdɒn/;[1] French: [pjɛʁʒozɛf pʁudɔ̃]; 15 January 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French politician, philosopher and the founder of mutualist philosophy. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist,[2][3] using that term, and is widely regarded as one of the ideology's most influential theorists. Proudhon is even considered by many to be the "fa
  • 2.3K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Biography
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (French: [pjɛʁ gasɛ̃di];[1] also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a France philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician.[2][3][4] While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational sc
  • 651
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Picrolite Raw Material on Cyprus
Picrolite is a soft, green massive, banded or crudely fibrous metamorphic rock with a hardness of 3.5, a waxy feel and a conchoidal to subconchoidal fracture (massive), whilst crudely fibrous varieties splinter easily. Picrolite artefacts comprise some of the most distinctive material remains in the prehistory of the island of Cyprus, in the Eastern Mediterranean. Picrolite exploitation dates from at least 12,000 years ago for the manufacture of personal ornaments and items with a symbolic function.
  • 1.7K
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Physical Law
A physical law or a law of physics is a statement "inferred from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments and observations over many years and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. The production of a summary description of our environment in the form of such laws is a fundamental aim of science. These terms are not used the same way by all authors. The distinction between natural law in the political-legal sense and law of nature or physical law in the scientific sense is a modern one, both concepts being equally derived from physis, the Greek word (translated into Latin as natura) for nature.
  • 10.8K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Physical Body
In physics, a physical body or physical object (or simply a body or object) is an identifiable collection of matter, which may be constrained by an identifiable boundary, and may move as a unit by translation or rotation, in 3-dimensional space. In common usage, an object is a collection of matter within a defined contiguous boundary in 3-dimensional space. The boundary must be defined and identified by the properties of the material. The boundary may change over time. The boundary is usually the visible or tangible surface of the object. The matter in the object is constrained (to a greater or lesser degree) to move as one object. The boundary may move in space relative to other objects that it is not attached to (through translation and rotation). An object's boundary may also deform and change over time in other ways. Also in common usage, an object is not constrained to consist of the same collection of matter. Atoms or parts of an object may change over time. An object is defined by the simplest representation of the boundary consistent with the observations. However the laws of Physics only apply directly to objects that consist of the same collection of matter. Each object has a unique identity, independent of any other properties. Two objects may be identical, in all properties except position, but still remain distinguishable. In most cases the boundaries of two objects may not overlap at any point in time. The property of identity allows objects to be counted. Examples of models of physical bodies include, but are not limited to a particle, several interacting smaller bodies (particles or other), and continuous media. The common conception of physical objects includes that they have extension in the physical world, although there do exist theories of quantum physics and cosmology which may challenge this. In modern physics, "extension" is understood in terms of the spacetime: roughly speaking, it means that for a given moment of time the body has some location in the space, although not necessarily a point. A physical body as a whole is assumed to have such quantitative properties as mass, momentum, electric charge, other conserving quantities, and possibly other quantities. A body with known composition and described in an adequate physical theory is an example of physical system.
  • 3.2K
  • 12 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Photovoltaics on Landmark Buildings
This study, framed in the Work group 4 “Photovoltaic in built environment” within the COST Action PEARL PV, CA16235, aims to examine applications of integrated and applied photovoltaic technologies on ten landmark buildings characterised by distinctive geometries, highlighting the aesthetics of their architecture and quality of PV integration based on a proposed set of seven criteria.
  • 1.5K
  • 24 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Philosophy of Technology
The philosophy of technology is a sub-field of philosophy that studies the nature of technology and its social effects. Philosophical discussion of questions relating to technology (or its Greek ancestor techne) dates back to the very dawn of Western philosophy. The phrase "philosophy of technology" was first used in the late 19th century by German-born philosopher and geographer Ernst Kapp, who published a book titled Elements of a Philosophy of Technology (German title: Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik).
  • 931
  • 14 Oct 2022
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