text:
Research Approach
This research exposition presents the process and results of my doctoral research at the Performing Arts Research Centre of the Theatre Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki. My artistic research is crafted around Body Weather, a comprehensive approach to training and performance developed by the Japanese avant-garde dancer/choreographer Min Tanaka and his entourage from the late 1970s. Initially, the aim of my investigation was to articulate the impact and epistemic potential of the so-called Manipulations, a duo hands-on practice based on yoga, shiatsu and acupuncture, and one of the core elements of the training. In the course of my research, my focus shifted, however, from the Manipulations to the main practical method of my investigation, the so-called 'research score'. The research score is a modified solo version of the original duo practice, and combines the physical re-creation of the experience of receiving the Manipulations with the concurrent expression of thoughts and observations.
The focus in this commentary is on tracing the evolution of the research score, from a method of embodied reflection in and on the Manipulations into a medium of artistic research. This account is a necessarily partial and fairly idiosyncratic (re-)construction of a process of research and knowledge-making that inevitably leaves open many questions. For example, despite the fact that up to now there is still relatively little scholarly research about Body Weather,1 from the outset the aim of my research was not to take an art historical approach and to make a contribution to the field of dance history, but to focus on a specific part of the training, the Manipulations, and to explore the epistemic potential of this practice from the perspective of artistic research.
For this reason, I have dedicated some attention to the origins and philosophical foundations of Body Weather (Chapter One) and to the Manipulations (Chapter Two and Chapter Three) in order to contextualize my undertaking. My proposed contribution, however, consists less in creating knowledge about Body Weather, than in indicating the knowledge potential of continued experimentation and artistic research with this particular approach to performer training. The subject of my research, and of this commentary, is thus not Body Weather per se, but the exploration and unfolding of the Manipulations' epistemic potential in the course of its transformation from an artistic medium into a medium of artistic research (Chapter Four). Furthermore, for reasons that are discussed in Chapter Five and Chapter Six, the approach that I have taken towards the research was not to first create a coherent theoretical framework and then to apply a pre-fabricated system of concepts to my own practice as a method of knowing, but instead to draw on diverse theoretical resources as a means to further my understanding of the practice.
This eclectic approach resembles more a kind of tinkering (Spatz 2017) with concepts than a systematic building of a robust theoretical method as a tool for analysis. Some readers may find it irritating that concepts are taken up and dealt with rather pragmatically, and often without the more detailed analysis they would surely receive and deserve in a more theoretical context. However, my take on artistic research does not strive for the same conceptual rigour as one would expect in the humanities or philosophy. In my understanding, the core task of artistic research is to create a medium of reflection, which also, but not predominantly, operates on a conceptual level of thinking in and through artistic practice. A medium of artistic research offers contact points (Elo 2014) for concepts to change and transform (Badura & Dubach 2015).
The aim of this commentary is to trace the evolution of the research score into a medium of artistic research, and to indicate its epistemic and performative potential in relation to concepts, rather than turning the practice into an object of conceptual thought. Concepts are considered mainly in terms of their capacity to connect to, and to co-articulate with, physical practice as a means of generating a kind of thinking that is unfinished (Borgdorff 2010).
Artistic Research into Performer Training
In the context of research into performer training, the duality between 'practice' and 'reflection' is seen as one of the central challenges. Being engaged and immersed in the training is typically understood to be incompatible with the action of documenting or reflecting on the training (Pitches 2011). By pausing and stepping back, the critically reflecting practitioner-researcher inevitably has to separate him- or herself from the practice, turning the latter into an object of thought that comes to be represented through language. On the other hand, the bracketing of language during practice is often seen as necessary in order to attain, and maintain, a state of immersion in the world of sensing. Thus, the action of non-verbal bodily reflection in and through practice is conceived as virtually incompatible with the action of critical linguistic reflection on practice. This separation of verbal and non-verbal modes of reflection into different action complexes (Brown et al. 2011) reaffirms the often-bemoaned gap between practice and language, and by extension the division between theory and practice, which artistic research is committed to challenge and overcome.
The epistemic proposition that I want to make with this research exposition is to consider the research score as a practice that questions the logics of this division. The research score is constituted by techniques that foreground the connectivity and relationality between modalities of reflection that are typically divided into separate action complexes. It explores how to co-articulate conceptual and non-conceptual modes of thinking without subordinating one to the other. It is a practice, I want to suggest, that has the capacity to bring thought to expression in a way that is sensitive to the ecology of experience from which language emerges, and which allows for the expression of the ineffable as that which also has its say in the articulation of discursive thinking and writing.
The research score is a proposition that addresses the problem of the separation between modes of doing and thinking, yet without making any claim to give a definite answer. Different from a statement, the question raised towards the proposition of the research score is not whether it is the 'right' or 'wrong' way to tackle this problem, nor is it a question of whether my account of it is 'true' or 'false', but whether the proposition of the research score as a practice of unfinished thinking is more or less well-articulated (Latour 2004) – a question whose answer needs to be left to the reader.
Dissertation Writing and the Institutional Framework
A substantial part of the framework, within which this articulation has been able to find its written form, is provided by the official degree requirements of the Performing Arts Research Centre of the Theatre Academy at the University of the Arts (Uniarts) Helsinki, in which the written part that is required to obtain the doctoral degree is called the 'commentary'. According to these requirements, the commentary is "aligned with the artistic parts, and it justifies the aims and methods of the doctoral research with respect to the research and practices of the field explored". The commentary is further expected to "demonstrate an ability to analyze, articulate, conceptualize and theorize the artistic designs of research, and to contextualize these in ways that are characteristic of artistic research". The degree requirements offer a range of possibilities for how the writing of the commentary can be realized. One of the options that are given is the format of "a web publication or other multimedial form".2
The subject of 'writing' has been at the forefront of discussions in and about artistic research in recent years. Over time, there has been a shift in the debate from establishing the epistemic qualities of art to the question of how these qualities can be made known (Schwab 2012). Parallel to this shift, there have been attempts to re-define the frame of academic writing in the field of artistic research, and to extend the possibilities for exposing art as research (Schwab & Borgdorff 2014). With the development of the Research Catalogue (RC) as a platform for publishing artistic research, the horizon for writing research has been expanded, giving artist-researchers the possibility to re-negotiate the frame of academic writing in ways that suit the specific necessities of their projects. I happily accept the invitation articulated by the degree requirements, and embrace the opportunity offered by the RC, to write the commentary in the form of a multi-medial research exposition. At the time when I was deciding about how to write and publish my doctoral research, in spring 2017, I was speculating that this format would be more appropriate to the specific qualities and needs of my research than the format of a book. I took the opportunity to write the commentary in the form of a research exposition as an incentive to continue, if only in a modest way, to experiment with the potential of the research score as it becomes transposed into the ecology of an enhanced digital publication format.
While I do not regret my decision, I must admit that the feeling of exposure that comes with this particular publication format makes me a little uneasy. I do not at all consider myself an expert in web design, and my technical means and skills continue to be very limited. The main reason for justifying the decision to work towards a web-based publication format has been my conviction, and a clear intuition, that this is what the artistic research process needs. The only way to be faithful to my own research, and to what I consider to be the goals of artistic research, is to allow myself to not know, and to bear the feelings of doubt and failure concomitant with the process of writing, and finally publishing, my doctoral research in the web-based format of a research exposition.
Body Weather
Chapter One outlines the points of departure for my research, and consists of two parts. The first part traces the origins of Body Weather's formation in the late 1970s and the foundation of Body Weather Laboratory in Tokyo in 1979. Drawing mainly on Drive On (Body Weather Laboratory 1978-1980), a bi-monthly and bi-lingual (English/French) newsletter that served as the mouthpiece of Min Tanaka and his group, as well as on the recollections of practitioners who joined Body Weather Laboratory in Japan during the 1980s and 1990s, the chapter provides an outline of what I consider to be some of the main ideas that inform the philosophy of Body Weather, and which underlie its development into an approach to training and performance practice.
The notion of Body as a medium of Weather3 takes a foundational place in Body Weather's thinking, and it plays an important role, likewise, in the practice of the Manipulations, whose inception in the late 1970s is closely connected to the formation of Body Weather. Bodies are conceived as open and constantly changing entities. Weather, in this sense, can be understood as the potentially infinite influences that occur inside and outside a body. These influences may occur at any scale, from small to large, from short-term to long-term, from micro to macro, from the past to the future, from real to imagined. They might be related to other—human or non-human—bodies, sensations, thoughts, memories, objects, things, processes, events, etc. Becoming a 'medium' is to render bodies open and receptive to these influences, and the Manipulations are a practice that foregrounds and fosters the capacity of bodies to change and transform by becoming Weather(ed).
The second part of this chapter briefly outlines my time of training with Body Weather Amsterdam as a practitioner from 2002 to 2009, and as a performer in the performance project Something Here That Is Not There (SHTINT) from 2005 to 2009. I situate my engagement with Body Weather Amsterdam and SHTINT in the wider context of research-oriented dance in the Netherlands, and briefly sketch my first experiments with the Manipulations while undertaking the Artistic Research Master program at the University of Amsterdam from 2007-2009. In my graduation project for the MA, there remained a gap between theory and practice, which became one of the departure points for my doctoral studies at the Performing Arts Research Centre (Tutke), which I began in 2011.
The Manipulations
Chapter Two zooms in on the Manipulations, as I was introduced to this practice during my time with Body Weather Amsterdam. I highlight in particular those aspects of the practice that I consider to be crucial with regard to the further course of my doctoral research: its transmission; its bracketing of language and the associated tendency to exclude thinking (in the medium of words); the techniques of breathing, of attending to bodies, of releasing muscular tension, and of reflecting; the relationship between the 'giver' and the 'receiver' of the Manipulations; and the shift from inter-subjective relationship between two bodies to the foregrounding of the material relations of their inter-corporeality. I discuss at more length the issues that I see in the bracketing of language, and in the underlying understanding of the relationship between language and embodiment.
While I recognize the pedagogical motivation behind suspending verbal communication between the two partners during the practice, I also see the risk that the ongoing exclusion of language could eventually become tacitly embodied as a division between words and the world. Against the idea of language as framing and fixing experience, I emphasize its generative and performative potential. The chapter concludes by considering the Manipulations through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's (1987) notion of the 'Body without Organs', and by indicating some of the ethical implications and possible pitfalls of this practice, which has been described as a path towards killing the body-ego (Cardone 2002).
The third chapter further opens and develops the discussion of the practice on a conceptual plain by considering the Manipulations as a knowledge-practice, and by relating it to different notions of knowledge. Drawing on Bruno Latour's (2004) notion of 'articulation' and Ben Spatz's (2015) notion of 'technique as knowledge' that structures practice, I propose conceiving of the Manipulations as a practice that is structured by techniques to articulate bodies in order to activate and enhance their capacity to affect and be affected. In line with Jaana Parviainen and Maija Eriksson (2006), I suggest that the knowledge constituted by the Manipulations is created in the overlap between 'positive' and 'negative' knowledge, i.e. it is equally constituted by a linear and constructive process of accumulating knowledge of how to do things, as well as of knowing what is better not to do.
Whereas Spatz considers the automatisation of technique to be the hallmark of advanced training, in my understanding, precisely the opposite is the case in the Manipulations: the aim of repetition is not the embodiment of movement to the point of its automatisation, but its reflective re-articulation in order to proliferate (the perception of) difference, instead of minimizing it. In the Manipulations, reflection both in as well as on the perception of movement is key to the performativity of this practice – which consists in its capacity to produce difference by not repeating movement and its perception either automatically or habitually.
Reflection is typically considered to be a key method in the transformation and making explicit of practitioners' tacit knowledge. However, we will see that there are differing views concerning the modality of reflection in which this transformation is accomplished. Robin Nelson (2013) argues that critical reflection on and about the practitioner's practice in the medium of language and concepts creates knowledge of what works ('know-what') in the doing of a given practice. For Parviainen (2002), on the other hand, bodily knowledge is created via non-linguistic modes of kinaesthetically reflecting in and through the body; according to her, the knowledge engendered through bodily reflectivity cannot be translated into verbal language. In line with Susan L. Foster (1995) and Leena Rouhiainen (2003), I question Parviainen's disjunction between experience and conceptual reflection, and suggest instead to foreground the productive and performative potential that is activated in the encounter between dance and language.
Language is involved both in learning and in making dance. The fact that language becomes tacit, as it were, in the process of embodiment should not lead us to think that it does not have a say in it, or that it has become absent. In the process of embodiment, language becomes implicit. The (back-)translation of corporeal writing into discursive writing is therefore very well possible, but it requires a heightened sensitivity to the particular requirements of bodily discourse. Writing about the body has to take place in dialogue with the body, and it must be aware of the traditional hegemony of language. Foster (1995) proposes creating an interdisciplinary space in which both modes of writing are at eye level. I understand the research score as a practice that creates such a space on a corporeal (micro-)level, and artistic research as a trans-disciplinary field that cultivates the (macro-)relations, connections and transitions between the conceptual and the corporeal.
Reflexive Dance
A further problem of Parviainen's conception of bodily knowledge is its tendency to bind knowledge in dance to movement. André Lepecki (2006) has criticized an ontology of dance that is tied to movement, because such an approach belongs to a political ontology that subjects bodies to an economy of mobility and thereby sustains late capitalist modernity. Next to Lepecki's critique, profound changes in (European) contemporary dance since the 1990s have made it more than questionable whether the knowledge that is created in the medium of dance can be reduced to non-propositional forms of knowing in and through movement.
While there may have been a time when it was important to establish the dancer's tacit knowledge in and through the body as a mode of knowing in its own right, and to push back language as the dominant medium of knowledge- and meaning-making, it seems to me that in the current situation, a non-essentialist and up-to-date epistemology of dance needs to account for the close entanglement between conceptual and more-than-conceptual modes of knowing.
Rudi Laermans (2015) has proposed the term 'reflexive dance' when referring to the work of a new generation of dance artists that began to emerge in the 1990s, who started to question the traditional parameters of dance, such as movement, and who shared instead an affinity with reflexive, collaborative and discursive modes of working. While certainly not all contemporary dance artists in Europe whole-heartedly adopted the principles and values of reflexive dance, this movement unquestionably has had a broad and lasting impact – indeed, today, reflectivity and discursive knowledge play a crucial role in learning and creating dance.
Peter Snow (2002) points out that the researcher's task is to translate a body's experience into verbal language, and that for this reason it is vital for the researcher to engage corporeally with the practice that he or she is writing about. But how to approach the act of translation? Typically, in the context of (academic) research in the arts, the methodological problem of transposing a non-linguistic mode of embodied knowing into a discursive language is solved by the application of 'method': the researcher pauses and steps back in order to critically reflect on the practice by applying a (prefabricated) conceptual framework that is imposed onto the practice. This application of critical reflection as a method of knowledge-making not only implies a division between practice and reflection (Pitches 2011), but it typically also goes hand-in-hand with a subordination of the practice to the needs of theory and the production of discursive knowledge (Massumi 2002, Cull 2012).
Employed as a method that is applied to practice, reflection maintains the dichotomy between theory and practice, and reaffirms the hegemony of language. Against this division, Snow (2002) emphasises the productive connections between practice and language, and the performativity of practitioners' rhetoric in the training as well as the artistic process. The words that are used make two things happen: first, they create new realities; second, they articulate the deep corporeal insights that are the result of years of extensive practice, which otherwise remain hidden to those who are not initiated. Thus, the possibility of language to create shortcuts can bring the uninitiated nearer to practice – and practice nearer to them. Furthermore, it can help to demystify practice, open the door to participation, and create a kind of accessibility that is vital in a research context.
The Research Score
Chapter Four tries to accomplish this task through a double articulation of the practice of the research score with two modes of writing. One is a more analytic and descriptive mode of writing about the research score, the other is a performative mode of experimental writing with the research score. The descriptive articulation of the research score starts out by briefly reiterating what I consider to be the key aspects of the Manipulations, in order to create a basis for understanding what is at stake with the research score: the alteration of (self-)perception; a body becoming a medium; the activation of techniques as modes of knowing how to articulate bodies. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the research score, which not only carves out the differences between the research score and the Manipulations, but also emphasizes the continuities between the two. Whereas the re-creation of the sensation of receiving the Manipulations aims to restore the ecology of experience brought forth by the original practice, the undoing of the bracketing of language marks a significant change and aligns the altered version of the Manipulations to the specific needs and goals of artistic research, driving its transformation from an artistic medium into a medium of research.
Parallel to the descriptive articulation of the research score runs another thread of writing, which was created on the basis of writing with the research score over a period of several years during the course of my research. This second thread of experimental writing offers a specific articulation of the concepts and notions that activate, and are activated by, the research score – but this time from within its practice. In this way, a representational mode of writing about practice and a performative mode of writing with practice touch on each other. By bringing into contact two modes of writing that emerge from different practices—and materialities—of language-making, the chapter prepares the ground for an expanded mode of academic writing – towards a kind of experimental writing in which the research score itself is given the opportunity to show its mettle.
First Artistic Part
In the structure of the doctorate at the Performing Arts Research Centre at Uniarts Helsinki, the so-called 'artistic parts' take a central place. According to the degree requirements, an artistic part is expected to "display profound understanding of the research topic, and ability to approach the research problem in a mode that critically renews the particular field of art". In principle, a doctorate includes between one and three externally-examined artistic parts, which can be "performances, demonstrations, experiments, workshops or other kinds of performative arrangements".4 Whereas most of the regular coursework of the program focuses on theoretical subjects, the research that is accomplished in and through the artistic parts is crafted on the researcher's artistic practice.
As outlined in Chapter Five, the aim of my first artistic part was to create a written articulation of the impact of the Manipulations, and of the modes of knowing that are embodied and activated by this practice. The way I approached this task was by creating a glossary. The idea behind the making of a glossary was to source language by drawing on the vocabulary from inside the practice, rather than by imposing a conceptual framework from the outside. The Glossary created in the course of the first artistic part thus offers a glimpse at the language of instruction that was employed in directing the training, for example in the process of transmitting the Manipulations.
While it may not seem very original to make recourse to Body Weather's 'own' language in order to articulate the (bodily) knowledge created by this practice, the main advantage of drawing on the lingo of Body Weather is that it maintains a certain continuity in the movement from the physical articulation of a body to its verbal articulation, and it keeps intact what Latour (1999) calls the 'chain of transformation'. In addition to this, the Glossary makes explicit the language that becomes embodied in Body Weather training, and which then tacitly shapes the practitioner's experience and perception of the practice, thus problematizing the notion of 'non-conceptual content' that is embodied in the artist's practice. Instead of postulating such a notion, I think it is more appropriate from the perspective of artistic research to speak of more-than-conceptual content, thus emphasizing the connectivity and intertwinement of the physical and the conceptual rather than the division between the two.
The Evolution of the Research Score
The research score was one of the main practical methods that I used to think through the Manipulations and to create the Glossary. By embedding linguistic reflection on the practice within the practice itself, rather than creating a division between the two, the research score, like the Glossary, preserves the continuity between practice and its linguistic translation. It places linguistic articulation in the middle of the relations that are constituted and activated by the practice, instead of working from opposite ends. The research score thus creates the inter-disciplinary (micro-)space called for by Foster (1995), which affords the dialogue between discursive language and corporeal writing, without subordinating one to the other.
Besides the Glossary, another outcome of the second artistic part was the establishment of the research score as a method of embodied reflection. In the further course of my research, I used this method not only to think through the Manipulations, but I also started to regularly employ it as a means to reflect on possibly any concept that I would come across in my theoretical research. The process of writing two articles about my research in 2015 and 2016 further advanced the research score's detachment and differentiation from the Manipulations. It forced me to closely examine my main practical method, made me more aware of the distinctions between the two practices, and created a healthy distance—though not a separation—between the committed Body Weather practitioner and the artist-researcher who follows different research goals and interests.
The Research Score as a Medium of Artistic Research
As a result of continued practice in combination with critical reflection, the research score gradually evolved into a practice in its own right, and it became the main epistemic subject/object of my research. In line with Esa Kirkkopelto (2015), I consider this process in terms of the transformation of an artistic medium into a medium of artistic research. Kirkkopelto argues that a medium of artistic research not only performs a change, but enacts this change in such a way that the materiality and the techniques that mediate the change can become experientially perceptible, and therefore intelligible and accessible, to us. Through the transformation of the artistic medium—the Manipulations—into a medium of research—the research score—the former becomes available for its discursive re-negotiation and critical re-assessment.
In the case of the research score, its evolution into a medium of artistic research was further driven by two small but significant changes in its practice. The first change is related to the impact of alteration on the practitioner's body and (self-) perception, and concerns the subject/object relations in the research score. Whereas, typically, a knowing subject reflects on an object to be known, in the altered ecology of the research score, the mode of intentionally reflecting on a word or concept is superseded by a relational modality of reflecting with.
The second change has to do with a technical adjustment of the research apparatus. At the beginning of 2015, I changed my way of working, from immediately writing my thoughts out on paper to making a recording of their verbal expression. The recording of my voice interfered much less with the process of re-creation than the act of physically isolating my right arm in order to note down my thoughts. As a result of this technical adjustment, and by using the voice as a recorded writing tool, it became easier to negotiate the precarious balance between the different modes of verbal and non-verbal reflection. Both of these changes in combination enabled the shift from reflecting on to reflecting with.
With this shift from on to with, the conventional relationship between a knowing subject and a known object—mediated by language—becomes transformed. In the research score, the knower is not separated from the known, standing outside of the practice and reflecting upon it, but is an 'exteriority within'. With Karen Barad (2003, 2014), I came to consider the research score as a 'diffractive' way of thinking and writing that questions deeply-sedimented dichotomies. As a practice, the research score has the capacity to make felt, and intelligible, the shift from a representational model of knowing to a post-humanist performative model.
Second Artistic Part
Chapter Six opens with a presentation of the aims and objectives of the collaborative research for my second artistic part. My main concern was to put my research to the test by working with a group of artists and artist-researchers, and to explore the epistemic potential of the research score as a medium of artistic research. As an effect of the collaborative work, the research score evolved from a solo practice into a collective practice. I elaborate on the implications of this expansion of the practice, and I suggest that it brings forth a different kind of thinking—and writing—that exists in its own right, and which is difficult to put into words.
In starting to approach a conceptual re-articulation of the research score, I draw on Erin Manning's (2012, 2013) exploration of the writings of people with autism, on the basis of which she theorizes about the making of language. Trying to follow her theory of language brings my ability to think to its limits. In the endeavour to reach towards, and to connect with, the complexity of her philosophical thinking, I draw on the research score as a tool of writing with the concepts proposed by Manning, instead of writing about them. For the reader, this part of the commentary may be the most difficult and challenging. It may even be perceived as presumptuous, lacking a thorough discussion that would help the reader to better understand the relations between Manning's thinking and the research score. However, my intention is neither to run over nor to frustrate the reader, but to test another strategy of creating relations to Manning's concepts through the research score.
Following on from Manning's ideas, as developed in her book The Minor Gesture (2016), I re-consider the research score as a system of techniques that open up a field of experimentation and of knowing – techniques which are in themselves not (yet) art. According to Manning, it is by going beyond the mere re-enactment of technique—what she calls the 'outdoing of technique'—that the ineffable more-than of technique—what she refers to as 'technicity'—can be brought to expression. The challenge and difficulty in the process of writing about my research, then, is to articulate the ineffable more-than of the research score's techniques, and the knowledge that is engendered by its technicity, through words.
In academic arts research, the default solution is the application of 'method'. However, in line with Manning, and further elaborating on the discussion in Chapter Three, I consider method to be a problem, and not the solution: by aligning knowledge to reason, method not only creates hierarchies between modalities of knowing, but it also fails to account for knowledge that occurs outside of existing registers and in the ineffable more-than of technicity.
This problem of method leads me to discuss the question of what other options exist to approach the writing and publication of (doctoral) research, other than the standard format of dissertation writing; a kind of writing that is able to accommodate the performative mode of knowing within a more conventional model of representational knowledge-making. Following Borgdorff (2010), the task of artistic research is not so much the production of formal propositional knowledge, but providing a specific articulation of the non-conceptual content of art, its 'unfinished thinking'. Nevertheless, some strands of artistic research are—more or less firmly—tied to the tradition of academic research, as is the case with the doctoral program at the Performing Arts Research Centre of the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. These strands of artistic research are therefore expected to meet certain criteria of 'research' set by academia, such as the appropriate documentation and dissemination of research outcomes. The question is therefore how to negotiate the tension between the singularity of artistic modes of knowing and academic modes of knowledge production (Rouhiainen 2017).
Propositions for Unfinished Thinking
Michael Schwab (2012) observes that the requirement to meet the standards of academic research has often meant that the essential qualities of the artwork are lost in the process of translating the non-propositional knowledge embodied in the artwork into language. With the creation of the Research Catalogue (RC) and the launch of the Journal for Artistic Research (JAR), there exist novel and, it seems to me, much more appropriate opportunities for artist-researchers to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and to publish their art as research.
Chapter Seven accepts the invitation to negotiate the limits of academic writing and to extend the performative research into experimental exposition writing, by articulating seven propositions for unfinished thinking. Propositions One, Two and Three were created based on recordings made during the first phase of the collaborative research for my second artistic part, with Paula Kramer and Josh Rutter; Propositions Four, Five, Six and Seven were composed with material recorded during the second and third phases, together with Outi Condit, Riikka T. Innanen, Tashi Iwaoka, Paula Kramer and Josh Rutter.
All audio material used in this chapter was created through the collective practice of the research score, with the exception of Propositions One and Four. The material for Proposition One was generated by a trio of practitioners: one practitioner alternately gave the Manipulations to two other receiving practitioners; while one of the receiving practitioners was silently experiencing the touch-applications, the other receiver was doing the research score reflecting with 'diffraction'. The material for Proposition Four was created by three couples doing the Manipulations simultaneously, with the receivers reflecting with 'difference'. Proposition Two draws on recordings from a research score reflecting with 'know-how', while Proposition Three is based on two sessions in which we practiced the research score together, yet each of us reflected with a different concept: 'alteration', 'touch', 'giving', 're-creation', 'connection' and 'self'. Proposition Five was edited with audio material drawn from collectively practicing the research score with 'difference', Proposition Six with the concept 'research score', and Proposition Seven with 'translation'.
All seven propositions were edited and composed at the beginning of the process of writing this commentary, and before all of the other chapters had been written. One crucial link between the second artistic part and this commentary is the research exposition To Call That 'Writing'? (Hug 2017b), published in an issue of the online journal Nivel that is dedicated to the 'poetics of form'. In making this piece, I took up the work previously commenced in the collaborative research for the second artistic part. In the absence of my collaborators, I conducted my own series of research scores, reflecting with 'writing'. Each time I practiced, I imagined being given the Manipulations by one of my previous collaborators. In this manner, I created five tracks, as well as an additional sixth, where I worked with an unknown imaginary giver. With only a few additional supplements, I put these six tracks of writing with the research score together into one piece.
The Research Catalogue functioned as a test bed for the creation of To Call That 'Writing'?, which in turn became a sample for the composition of Chapter Seven and the creation of the seven Propositions for Unfinished Thinking. In the course of my doctorate, other occasions, similarly, provided ground for experimentation and for developing my research: conferences, festivals, workshops, publications, etc., all of which had their share in the activation of the research and in the evolution of the research score, from a method of embodied reflection into a medium of artistic research.
Traditionally, a thesis ends with a conclusion that summarizes the findings of the research, points out the contribution to the knowledge of a specific field, and indicates the open questions that could be the subject of further research. For the purposes of this commentary, however, and of the approach that I have taken, I do not see the advantage of closing the work in such a conventional way. This thesis is conceived and realized as a research exposition that re-negotiates and expands a traditional mode of academic dissertation-writing. It would be clearly against the concept and objectives of this approach to complete the work by returning to a type of academic writing that ultimately aims only to harness the performative potential of the research by claiming its possible contribution to knowledge. More than a fixed product, the research outcome is an ongoing process. By remaining open to the changing influences of Weather, each iteration of the research score has the potential to bring forth something new and different.
The InConclusion, therefore, strives not for a definite summary of the commentary, but continues to explore the performative potential of experimental writing with the research score, and to bring it to expression in the particular (digital) ecology of a multi-media research publication. It draws on fragments that are extracted from the Propositions in Chapter Seven, and which are re-composed and re-mixed with material created at the final stage of writing the commentary, which happened at a studio and at my home in Berlin-Weißensee. The InConclusion rounds off this commentary without making any final statements, thus gesturing at the open-endedness and the future of unfinished thinking with the research score.
[1] Notable exceptions, and important references in my research, are the PhD theses by Snow 2002 and Fuller 2016. For a concise introduction to Tanaka's work, see Fuller 2018.
[2] Degree Requirements of the Doctoral Programme of Artistic Research in Performing Arts (2015-2020), University of the Arts Helsinki/Theatre Academy.
[3] I capitalize Body and Weather whenever I refer to these terms in a specific Body Weather sense, either as a concept (of body) or as a metaphor (of weather). In all other cases, for example when speaking of concrete bodies and of weather in the proper sense, I use the lower case.
[4] Degree Requirements of the Doctoral Programme of Artistic Research in Performing Arts (2015-2020), University of the Arts Helsinki/Theatre Academy.
Joa Hug
Propositions for Unfinished Thinking: The Research Score as a Medium of Artistic Research
Acta Scenica 59, 2020
PUBLISHER: University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy, Performing Arts Research Centre
© 2020 University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy, Performing Arts Research Centre and Joa Hug
Workshop/Artistic Research Lab:
Manipulate Me!
Theatre Academy Helsinki
Open Studio
Performing Alteration:
On the Relationship Between Sensing, Perceiving, and Reflecting in Dance Performance
Journal Launch/Symposium
School of Theatre and Professorship in Performative Processes,
Utrecht University of the Arts (HKU), 9 – 12th of March 2017
Second Artistic Part
"Reflecting with Practice: The Research Score
as a Medium of Artistic Research?"
4th annual research symposium of the Hollo Institute
Art and knowledge: Making sense of the sensible
University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy
Concept: Joa Hug
in collaboration with Paula Kramer
and Katja Münker
Colloquium on Artistic Research in Performing Arts
28th February - 2nd March 2013
Society of Artistic Research Conference
Please Specify!
"Sharing Artistic Research Across Disciplines"
Philosophical Journal 2015 (1)
The Future of Unfinished Thinking
with the Research Score
Klick here to enter a different page on the RC that exposes
the postdoctoral life of the research score.
(The contents of this page are NOT part of the commentary)
Collaborative Session:
Body-based research and Dissemination – a Collective exploration & participatory Methodology lab
by Paula Kramer
(assisted by Joa Hug)
Video version of Proposition Seven:
Touching Touch


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hong Kong's top official Carrie Lam issued a rare apology Sunday for her management of an extradition bill, but stopped short of withdrawing the proposal as protests coursed through the city.
A government spokesman said Lam's handling of the bill had caused "substantial controversies and disputes in society, causing disappointment and grief."
Lam "apologized to the people of Hong Kong for this and pledged to adopt a most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements in serving the public," the statement added.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters dressed in black marched through Hong Kong, demanding that Lam withdraw the bill and then step down.
The demonstrators held signs that read, "Hong Kong stand firm" and "Hong Kong say no," as they passed under palm trees and high-rise buildings.
The protests came after Lam suspended a bill that would allow criminal suspects to be tried in China. Demonstrators say pausing the bill is not enough. They insist the bill be scrapped instead. They say an extradition agreement with China would undermine Hong Kong's independence and free speech.
"If you press the pause button, you can actually press the play button anytime you want," said a woman who asked to be identified only as Felicia for fear of retribution. "I wanted the government to press the stop button and just forever stop this."
When Great Britain relinquished its control over Hong Kong in 1997, China agreed to uphold Hong Kong's independent system for 50 years. But Beijing has gradually eroded that separation.
NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports that China's Communist Party has a starkly different philosophy than Hong Kong's common law system.
"The party often rails against Western notions of judicial independence and separation of powers. Forced confessions and torture are a persistent problem, despite legal reforms. Police have huge powers, compared to the courts. And China's ancient legal culture has emphasized the law as a tool for rulers to punish wrongdoers, rather than a way to protect individual rights."
Opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo told reporters she was protesting because "there is no fair trial, there is no humane punishment guaranteed on the mainland."
Kuhn says Hong Kong residents have protested China's moves to exert more influence several times over the past two decades. Kuhn notes that in 2003, residents protested national security legislation. In 2014, Hong Kong demonstrators tried unsuccessfully to resist Beijing's vetting of all candidates for Hong Kong's top post.
That 2014 "Umbrella Revolution" drew protesters to the streets for two months, but eventually sputtered as authorities ignored their demands, NPR's Frank Langfitt reported. Hong Kong authorities arrested hundreds of demonstrators and convicted organizers for unlawful assembly.
The extradition bill triggered protests that organizers say drew as many as a million people to the streets last week. On Wednesday demonstrators clashed with riot police and some 80 people were injured.
Lam had been on the defensive following those protests. At a press briefing Saturday, Lam announced her administration would rework the legislation.
"The government has decided to suspend the legislative amendment exercise, restart our communication with all sectors of society, do more explanation work and listen to different views of society," she said.
That was not enough to cancel Sunday's protest. It began in Hong Kong's Victoria Park and flowed to government offices. Mourners piled flowers at the site of a man who fell to his death after hanging a protest banner.
China has accused the U.S. of fomenting the protests, a charge the U.S. and demonstrators reject.
Protester Iris Chan brought her 8-year-old son to the march.
"Some people suggest that we opponents of the bill are brainwashed, or instigated by outsiders," Chan told NPR. "In fact, we have initiated these protests by ourselves."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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How Public Policy Impacts Racial InequalityPosted in Anthologies, Books, Communications/Media Studies, Economics, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Law, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Justice, Social Science, United States on 2019-06-01 22:29Z by Steven |
How Public Policy Impacts Racial Inequality
Louisiana State University Press
May 2019
208 pages
5.50 x 8.50 inches
12 graphs
Paperback ISBN: 9780807170700
Edited by:
Josh Grimm, Associate Professor; Associate Dean of Research and Strategic Initiatives
Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University
Jaime Loke, Assistant Professor
Bob Schieffer College of Communication, Texas Christian University
How Public Policy Impacts Racial Inequality, edited by Josh Grimm and Jaime Loke, brings together scholars of political science, sociology, and mass communication to provide an in-depth analysis of race in the United States through the lens of public policy. This vital collection outlines how racial issues such as profiling, wealth inequality, and housing segregation relate to policy decisions at both the local and national levels. Each chapter explores the inherent conflict between policy enactment, perception, and enforcement.
Contributors present original research focused on specific areas where public policy displays racial bias. Josh Grimm places Donald Trump's immigration policies—planned and implemented—in historical perspective, identifying trends and patterns in common between earlier legislation and contemporary debates. Shaun L. Gabbidon considers the role of the American justice system in creating and magnifying racial and ethnic disparities, with particular attention to profiling, police killings, and reform efforts. Jackelyn Hwang, Elizabeth Roberto, and Jacob S. Rugh illustrate the continued presence of residential segregation as a major fixture defining the American racial landscape. As a route to considering digital citizenship and racial justice, Srividya Ramasubramanian examines how race shapes media-related policy in ways that perpetuate inequalities in media access, ownership, and representation. Focusing on lead poisoning, tobacco, and access to healthy foods, Holley A. Wilkin discusses solutions for improving overall health equity. In a study of legal precedents, Mary E. Campbell and Sylvia M. Emmanuel detail the extent to which measures aimed at addressing inequality often neglect multiracial individuals and groups. By examining specific policies that created wealth inequality along racial lines, Lori Latrice Martin shows how current efforts perpetuate asset poverty for many African Americans. Shifting focus to media reception, Ismail K. White, Chryl N. Laird, Ernest B. McGowen III, and Jared K. Clemons analyze political opinion formation stemming from mainstream information sources versus those specifically targeting African American audiences.
Presenting nuanced case studies of key topics, How Public Policy Impacts Racial Inequality offers a timely and wide- ranging collection on major social and political issues unfolding in twenty-first century America.


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Located between the Amalfi Coast and Cilento coast, the Hotel Olimpico is a 4-star hotel in Pontecagnano, near Salerno.
Located right on the seafront, the hotel is an exclusive destination for a relaxing holiday, exploring the beauties of the area. Indeed, the structure has a very favorable position because it is distant by crowding of the Amalfi Coast (which comes alive with tourists from all over the world during the summer season), and at the same time provides its customers with a shuttle service to reach all places of interest: Salerno downtown, Naples, the most picturesque locations in the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Pompeii, Paestum and Sorrento.
For those who want to spend quiet and relaxing days without moving from the hotel, the Hotel Olimpico has an outdoor swimming pool with Jacuzzi corner and private beach as well.
In short, a true oasis of calm away from the bustle of the town but closer to Salerno and Amalfi Coast. Ideal for families with children, the hotel is 10 minutes far from Salerno airport, making it easily accessible.
The Hotel Olimpico, recently renovated, is suitable for both families and business customers.
Among the many services offered: free high speed wifi, free shuttle to the station and for the ports, organizing tours and excursions, tennis court and children's play park facilities and a large tropical garden available for light candle dinners.
Inside the Hotel Olimpico is also possible to find the restaurant overlooking the garden and large outdoor terrace for the summertime, where you can taste all our typical dishes, prepared with genuine products and attention to detail.
We provide free shuttle service to and from Salerno. With our comfortable minibus, we'll have you at Salerno's center in just 10 minutes, where you can depart for Amalfi and the Amalfi Coast hotel, Positano or Capri, by ferryboat or hydrofoil; or for Pompeii, Herculaneum and Naples by train.
The minibus operates throughout the day and evening, so you can also enjoy downtown Salerno's fantastic restaurants, bars and shopping.
It's a great value if you want to save on car rentals and still be able to enjoy our fabulous region. And remember the shuttle service is FREE OF CHARGE!
Description of the Amalfi Coast, Italy
About two kilometres after the Lone junction you will reach Piazza Flavio Gioia, the centre of Amalfi. The car park is a little further on and once you have parked your car you walk along the sea front to the piazza. Go back up the street which follows the shoreline and when you get to the top take a rest in front of two large ceramic panels. The panel on the right is called Beauty Will Save the World, it's the work of the Portuguese artist Manuel Calgaleiro. The one on the left is the panel of Diodoro Cossa. Created in 1968 this piece depicts the most outstanding moments in Amalfi's history. Starting from the top and looking at it from left to right, you can see in succession: the Roman refugees who settled on the high grounds of the Scala in the 4th Century, following is the scene of the foundation of the city, then the building of the ships and the beginning of trade and, lastly, the legislative and diplomatic activities of the people of Amalfi within the Mediterranean area.
At the bottom of the panel the age of opulence is portrayed by the building of the cloister and the citizens' halls, the transfer of the Apostle St. Andrea's mortal remains from Constantinople in 1208, the decline, Amalfi's inventions represented by Flavio Gioia's compass, the production of hand-made paper and the cultivation of lemons. The story-board draws to a close with the traditional journey through the city of a newly-wed young couple in horse-and-carriage….
Amalfi's origins are a mixture of history and legend. A tale tells that the city was founded by Hercules in the place chosen by Amalfi, the nymph with eyes the colour of the sea. Actually Amalfi was founded around the 4th Century by the survivors of a Roman expedition who were shipwrecked in the Adriatic on their way to Constantinople. After many wanderings they arrived firstly in Melfi and then on the Amalfi Coast where they founded Scala, then Amalfi, Atrani and Ravello. Faithful to Rome (in reality threatened by the Longobards in the land of the Saracens along the coast) Amalfi and the other settlements were subjected to the protector Bisanzio until, making the most of the war between the Byzantines and the Longobards of Capua (Benevento and Salerno), they proclaimed themselves autonomous and elected Amalfi as the capital.
An independent state from 839 to 1096, the (Maritime) Republic of Amalfi was united under "the silver shield with a red stripe"; it was an area which went from Gragnano to Chiunzi inland and from Cetara to Capri along the coast, all of the inhabitants of this area (apart from the people of Atrani) were recognized as "Amalfitans". In this alliance each city had its own mercantile activity but, at the same time, they bore a precise roll at the service of the federation. Amalfi was the seat of the archbishopric and of the central government, supported first by comes, then by giudici, by prefetti (all elective charges) and lastly by a Duke, who transformed the Republic in an hereditary Dukedom.
In less than two Centuries Amalfi and its Dukedom became the greatest commercial and military power of the Tyrrhenian Sea, a cosmopolitan centre in which, according to Guglielmo of Puglia, towards the end of the 11th Century "…lived the best of the navigators of that era, and where merchants from every part of the known world arrived…"
Wherever their trading took them the Amalfitans founded colonies and embassies; in Alessandria in Egypt, Cairo, Cyprus, Ptolemaide, Beirut, in Byzantine a whole district, complete with church and cemetery; in Jerusalem an hospital with 1000 beds, run by the war-faring friars of San Giovanni, later known as the Sovran Military Order of the Cavaliers of Malta. In these regions the currency of the bronze or gold Amalfitan Tarì was used, the rules of the Tabulae Amalphitane were used for navigation, as well as the Chinese Compass and the Egyptian astrolabe, both introduced to the Western world by the Amalfitans. They went as far as to invent a style of construction: the "Amalfitan style" mixed elements of the Byzantine and Moorish culture of Sicily to the rigour of the Romanic. The churches of Ravello, the basilica of Sant'Eustachio in Pontone, the bell-tower of the Annunziata in Minori and the Amalfitan cloisters date back to this period. Towards the middle of the year 1000 A.D. the Norman Robert the Giuscardo invaded the South of Italy and subjected the Dukedom of Amalfi, which was stripped of its castles, most of its fleet and, with the deposition of Marino Sebaste in 1096, of its title of Dukedom. Successively the dispute between the Papacy and the Empire prepared the way for the Angioins, whose rule was revealed to be profitable for the
Amalfitans. In fact, in the course of 13th Century a series of public works and monuments were realised, the production of paper was introduced and also many innovations in the maritime, economic and judicial sectors. After the house of Angiò an alternation of various rulers began and the Dukedom of Amalfi, reduced to a feudal territory, was passed from one owner to another.
The title of "Duke of Amalfi" was alternated between the Sanseverino, the Del Balzo Orsini, the Colonna and the Piccolomini, until the 28th December 1583 when the coastal villages surrendered their autonomy and joined the Royal Demanio….
Who soon ended up under the Spanish dominion. The rest is the history of the Coast, although through the course of time Amalfi continued playing the role of "first lady" with respect to the other neighbouring localities….
Civic Museum
The first work of art you come across is l'Apocalisse di San Giovanni (the Apocalypse of St. John) or rather the sketches used by Domenico Morelli in 1891 in order to realise the mosaics on the facade of the Cathedral. Along the walls are some paintings by Pietro Scoppetta (1864 – 1927), an Amalfitan artist from "the School of Posillipo" and a number of nautical instruments. At the other end of the room, enclosed within a large wooden showcase, it is possible to see a few examples of tarì, the antique coin of Amalfi and a copy of the Pandette by Giustiniano. The original, pillaged by the Pisans in 1135, is presently safe-guarded in a library in Florence, the Laurenziana. Another treasure guarded in the showcase is the very precious Codice Foscariniano, drawn up around the 17th Century and donated to the city of Amalfi by Benito Mussolini, who bought it in Vienna in 1929. The volume includes the Chronicon Amalfitanum, the Chronica omnium Archiepiscoporum Amalphitanorum, the Consuetudines Civitatis Amalfie, and, moreover, the Tabula de Amalpha, the first international maritime code; it contains 66 chapters and was written up by the people of Amalfi between the 11th and the 14th Centuries…..
Other particulars to be seen are the ancient city banner which portrays Amalfi as a "lady seated on a throne, dressed in lavish brocade" and, enclosed in glass cabinets, the costumes of the Ancient Marine Republic, these are shown off during the "Regatta of the Ancient Marine Republics"…..
Upon leaving the building go to the other side of the square, then turn left and follow the Supportico Sant'Andrea until you get to a little widening where you will find the entrance to the Centre of Amalfitan History and Culture.
Continue along the Supportico Sant'Andrea which comes out onto Via dei Prefetti. After the opening turn right and go up towards the Cathedral of Amalfi.
The visit begins at the Chiostro del Paradiso (Paradise Cloister). The cloister was built between 1266 and 1268 in perfect "Amalfitan style" on request of the Archbishop Filippo Augustariccio who invented it to be the cemetery for Amalfi's nobility. Once inside proceed from left to right in order to see the Roman sarcophaguses, some mosaic covered altar pieces and the frescos in the side chapels. In the first chapel on the right –hand side is a Cristo Pantacreatore, in the next is a Crucifixion by one of Giotto's students, Roberto d'Oderisio.
From the cloister you pass into the Basilica del Crocifisso. Built in the 9th Century on the ruins of a Palaeochristian temple, it was the first Cathedral of Amalfi and was restored in its original style in 1994.
The Cathedral's treasure is guarded in safe receptacles, it is best to take time to visit the area in order to make the most of the embroidered pearls on the Angioini mitre dating back to 1297, the fine engravings on the golden-silver chalice which dates back to the first half of the 14th Century, an 18th Century Chinese litter, a collar belonging to the Toson d'Oro Order, the Napolitan style silverware and, lastly, the falca (or baluster) of a 15th Century Venetian Galleon. The vessel from which the fragment had been taken was part of the Saracen fleet that was commandeered by Kairen Din, also known as "Barbarossa" (Red beard) and attacked Amalfi on 27 June 1544. The fleet was utterly destroyed by a terrible storm which, according to legend, was unleashed by Sant'Andrea (St. Andrew) in order to defend the city……
Along the left hand side nave you can see two chapels which were part of the original Palaeochristian temple; they are frescoed with scenes of miracles, effigies of saints, the blessed Gerardo Sasso, founder of the Military Order of the Cavaliers of Malta. On the wall of the presbytery an altar piece depicting the Madonna on the throne is hung. On the first pillar of the nave on the right-hand side there is a lovely 16th Century Madonna with Child. The stairs to the right lead to the Crypt of Sant'Andrea Apostle.
On the altar is the statue of Sant'Andrea, sculpted by Michelangelo Naccherino, and also the statues of the Saints Stefano and Lorenzo, which are the work of Pietro Bernini, father and master of the more famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Behind the altar, low down, you can see a sort of silver pot which contains a piece of the skull of the Saint.
A profound devotion ties the people of Amalfi to Sant'Andrea and his holy remains; this is renewed each year, both on 27 June and 30 November, through solemn celebrations and the "Miracle of the manna". The manna, a mysterious whitish liquid with wonder-working, miraculous qualities, is contained in an ampoule within the urn; its first appearance was in 1304, on 29 November.
The abundance of the liquid has a propitiatory value for the people and little pieces of cotton impregnated in the sacred essence are given to them by the Bishop at the end of the solemn ceremony. On the wall to the right of the choir stalls is a fresco by Aniello Falcone which is a representation of the Cathedral prior to its modern renovation. The stairs to the left lead to the actual Cathedral.
Upon entering it is best to go straight to the central nave and to position yourself with your back to the main entrance so as to obtain a full panorama of the entire building. A 13th Century crucifix dominates the area for public worship; a canvas representing the Martyr of St. Andrew, painted by Andrea Dell'Asta (1715) is on the principal altar; the Altar of the Holy Communion is made with elements of the funeral monument of Pietro Capuano. Other things to be admired are: two pulpits, the caisson ceiling (1702) adorned with three great works of art once again by Dell'Asta, depicting the Flagellation of St. Andrew, his Crucifixion and the Miracle of the Manna.
At the end of the left-hand side nave you will find a mother-of-pearl cross hanging on the wall, it comes from the Holy Land. In the first chapel is a baptistery in Egyptian porphyry which was originally housed in the Basilica of San Vito in Positano, in the other chapels there are some canvases from the school of Silvestro Mirra. In the first chapel of the right-hand nave you will find a 15th Century marble bass-relief depicting the three saints Giovanni Evangelista, Benedetto and Giovanni Battista; following is the statue of the Dead Christ which is carried in procession on Holy Friday, then the silver bust of Sant'Andrea. The bronze doors bring your visit to the end; they were the earliest bronze doors to appear in Italy, made in Constantinople around 1060 by Simone di Siria and donated to the church of Amalfi by one of its rich merchants, Pantaleone Orso.
After returning to Via dei Prefetturi carry on up-hill until you reach the next little square where you will find the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, founded by the Amalfitan Duke Mansone I in 986. Next door is the church of Santa Maria Addolorata. Built around the end of the 18th Century it is home to a 16th Century statue of the Virgin with Child, and a late gothic bas-relief depicting the Crucifixion. The church is seat of the arch brotherhood that organizes the Vespers during the Holy Week and also the evocative "Corteo dei Battenti" which carries both the statue of the dead Christ and that of the Madonna Addolorata in procession.


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Design Notes
August 14, 2012
What's Going On?
You know we've got to find a way...
Hey guys, it's been a while since I've done a Design Notes and I haven't even had a lot of time to read the forums or Twitter. You know that we've had our hands full with the war but there's a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes which is why I haven't been able to work on the Mid-Week Releases for what seems like forever to me.
First off, we have a tutorial in the works. A real one.
With very rare exceptions, every game SHOULD have a fun way that gets you into the game while seamlessly teaching you how to play. AQW has NEVER had a tutorial before and considering that we get several thousands of brand new players signing up every day, it's something that we have desperately needed for as long as the game has been active.
You need a subtle hand when developing a tutorial that gets you into the story and teaches you how to play without making it seem like school work. I've written three different plots for this tutorial and finally got one that I feel will do the trick. I've balanced out the sense of importance with the silly that is AQW's life's blood and I've got a short questline that will teach you everything you need to know to play AQW.
This is Serval and you know Twilly. You will meet Serval right after you fall off the mountain at the very start of the game and help this pair fight their way through Sepulchure's undead army (remember? He was invading Swordhaven when the game began) in order to get safely to Battleon where you will gear up before heading off to Swordhaven.
Warlic has already done some brand new music for this area and Samba is currently animating the cutscenes when she finds time between her work on AQW's animation needs and her work on the Legend of Lore monsters. Once that is done Yorumi and I will go through and code all the special one-time functions that you won't need anywhere else in the game.
All new characters will play through this and if existing characters would like the Character Page Badge and Book of Lore check-mark, you will be able to play through it too.
We have no deadline for when this will release because as much as we need this, it's a secondary project to the more important things going on like the weekly releases and Yorumi's ongoing war on lag.
But now that we will have a nice clean tutorial at the start of the game, we thought we would need a cleaner way to find your way through the story in the Book of Lore, and while we're at it how about a way to add quest areas dynamically to the book, and how about a better layout for badges. Maybe while we're at it we could add an alert to your Book of Lore every time you get a new badge that takes you directly to the badge as soon as you open the book...
So eventually that snowballed into another project that I've been working on which is the Book of Lore redesign.
It's getting a complete overhaul. I went through pages of sketches and hours of tweaking with Artix and Dumoose to find an efficient and user-friendly layout that will guide a new or even an old player thought large portions of the game in a simple graphic fashion.
The new Story area will actually feature all 13 Chaos Zones plus the Tutorial and the Swordhaven War.
Mouseovers will tell you how close you are to completing the main storyline in each area and even give you a level suggestion for that area (since you can do them in any order you like). As you complete each storyline your silver frame will turn into an ornate gold frame with a big check-mark to let you know that you've completed the main story in that area. Of course each portrait is a button that will take you where you need to go.
The new Quests section will feature things like the DoomWood, Etherstorm and Skyguard zones and all the mid-week releases. Pretty much everything that ISN'T a Chaos Zone will be in this section and we'll be able to update it dynamically from the database so we can add new stuff without literally re-writing the Book of Lore every time. Once again, each one of the listings will tell you how much of the questline that you've completed, if it is Member Only and serves as a button to take you there either way.
The new Badges Area will have a new cleaner layout. It is broken up into three sections: Achievement Badges for those you earn through gameplay, HeroMart for those you unlock by purchasing AE swag from HeroMart or other stores that carry out stuff and Other Badges for promotional items that you get from AE Upgrade Cards, Crossover achievements for DragonLords, Guardian and Star Captains and other misc. badges.
The new Badge Page will pull a lot from HeroSmash's badge layout. You will be able to scroll through the badges in each section, select one to see a larger version, read the description and either access the shop or find out how to.
The other two sections are the Upgrades and Lorepedia sections. The Upgrades will tell you when your membership expires and how many ACs you have currently and (hopefully, when we get this running) you will be able to purchase upgrades and ACs right from your Book of Lore.
The Lorepedia section explains a bit about classes and opens Itzachi's shop from anywhere in the game. The Lorepedia Button will link you to the Lorepdeia that Beleen has been fiendishly working on for months.
The new and improved Book of Lore is also a secondary project that will be released as soon as we can find time but it requires a lot of coding. Unfortunately Yorumi has been so diligently working on improving the game lag that even guilds have taken a back-seat for now. If I could get the clone-o-mat working then we could make copies of Yorumi and Samba and the rest of the team and get everything done all at once.
I've been working with the art team and Draven from the web team on projects like the Artix.com redesign and the AQW payment page changes (those buttons don't make or post themselves)and the redesign of AQW's landing page.
I've also been working with Mido on fliers, buttons and booth ribbons for DragonCon, and other projects. I've been working with Diozz trying to help him with his BILLION projects such as the AQW 2013 Calendar etc.
I've been trying to keep up with Faith and her constant stream of HeroMart merch to make sure that all of their in-game items have badges and shops set up correctly and securely in the Book of Lore.
And of course I've been working on AQW. Helping where I can with the new releases, making art, working with Dage on his concept for the Dark Caster class and testing that, animating monsters when Samba is too overloaded to breathe, staying here 12-16 hours beside Alina to help her fix the seemingly endless waterfall of bugs that we've gotten from each war release, doing database entries and trying to help a handful of players with in-game issues when I catch a second to look at Twitter.
These are only the projects that I can TELL you about. There are surprises and top secret stuff that I can't even discuss with you. All of this is not counting my out-of-work life AND the fact that I've gone and broken my right elbow a few weeks ago while trying to get a slice of pizza in the middle of the night. As you can see, I'm pretty busy but I feel that I should point out that EVERYONE AT AE is exactly as busy as I am except for Artix who is busier than any three of us.
Why not hire more team members? We can't. We're a moderately successful indie game web game company and almost all of the money that we get FROM the game is already going back INTO the game.
Why not take on skilled volunteers? Because while most people willing to volunteer are very passionate about helping out they simply don't have the necessary skill level to actually provide any of the help we need. For those who ARE able to help out on a volunteer basis... Aranx, Veneeria, Aegis, Hizu, Mods, AQW Forum Staff, I'm talking to you guys... Thank you. Your skill and work are VERY appreciated.
So now you know what I've been working on. In light of all this I HOPE that those of you who are still on summer break go out and HAVE FUN. Enjoy every second of your relative freedom and tell Summer Vacation that I miss her so badly that it hurts.
Coming Soon
Looks like the war will be ending soon. Friday we've got more Span and Quibble is coming back.
128 days until Just Another Day.


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Orders from Fraternal organizations already having an account will only be accepted from the Secretary/Recorder or Presiding Officer. We must be notified in writing of any changes in the person(s) authorized to purchase in the name of the Fraternal organization. Indivduals placing an order can pay by MONEY ORDER, CASHIERS CHECK, or CREDIT CARD. We accept: VISA, MASTERCARD, DISCOVER, AMERICAN EXPRESS.
Sorry, NO PERSONAL CHECKS
Terms to recognized Fraternal organizations who have established credit with us are: NET 10 DAYS following monthly stated meeting or NET 30 DAYS. Past due accounts will be charged a 1-1/2 % percent per month late charge (18 % annually).
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We regret we cannot allow returns or offer refunds on custom or personalized items. Stock items being returned after 30 DAYS are subject to a 15 % restocking charge. ALL RETURNS ARE SUBJECT TO OUR INSPECTION.
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We endeavor to maintain our prices for a period of one year, however, due to conditions beyond our control,
prices are subject to change without notice. If there is a price increase of 10 % or more, you will be notified
before your order is started. We are not responsible for delays due to material shortages, work stoppages, strikes by suppliers or any other causes beyond our control.


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1300.1.55.001 - Statistics News NSW, Mar 2008
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 07/03/2008
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ABS NSW is offering a wide variety of high quality courses throughout 2008. Limited places are still available for all courses listed below. Making Quality Informed Decisions Making Quality Informed Decisions is a popular ABS course running on 26 March. This course will increase participants' skills and understanding on:
The course is useful for anyone who uses statistics in decision making, or is involved in producing statistics and wants to ensure that statistics are used appropriately. Turning Data Into Information Another popular ABS course is Turning Data Into Information on 16-17 April. The course develops skills in interpreting and analysing data and communicating information clearly and effectively. On completion of the course participants will be able to more confidently and accurately:
This an informative course for people who need to draw conclusions based on data and present them to a variety of audiences. ABS Website Seminar A complimentary ABS Website Seminar will be held at the NSW Office of the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday 23 April 2008. This seminar will increase participants' ability to access ABS online publications and free data from the ABS website, and will be suitable for both new and existing ABS Website users. Please forward this invitation to your staff and others in your organisation who may also be interested in attending. Other courses run this year are:
Please click this link to download full course descriptions and registration form. For further information about the NSW Statistical Training Program, contact Imogene McKinnon on (02) 9268 4651, or email email@example.com. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window. |


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Frahs, Theodore
Relocation file for Emanuel Hospital Expansion urban renewal project as recorded by Portland Development Commission. Statements about individuals, neighborhoods, or the condition of homes were the opinion of the caseworker and may have been motivated by the City of Portland's goal to relocate or compensate affected residents. Views expressed in these files are not the views of the City of Portland Archives. In adherence with Oregon Public Records law, the following information has been redacted from the relocation files for the Emanuel Hospital Expansion urban renewal project: social security numbers, juvenile police reports, and medical information made by a health professional (physician, nurse, etc.). Some files in the Emanuel Hospital Expansion urban renewal project records have been further redacted beyond what is legally required to protect the privacy of affected families, many of whom are still alive and living in Portland today. Because these files are public record, the information redacted due to privacy concerns can still be viewed onsite in the research room at the Portland Archives and Records Center.
Friday, January 1, 1971


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TEL AVIV, Israel — Hamas is holding Israeli hostages. Israel is holding Hamas militants. On both sides, many of those captives are dead.
In the current Israel-Hamas war and in previous conflicts, both sides have adopted a policy of keeping the dead bodies of their enemies, often for years, so they can be used as bargaining chips.
"The basic assumption in Israel is that Hamas will hold on to hostages, living or dead, as an insurance policy," says Gershon Baskin, an Israeli who has worked as a hostage negotiator. He has served as a go-between for the Israeli government and Hamas — which don't talk to each other.
Israel also has a tradition of withholding Palestinian bodies, says Issam Aruri, a Palestinian who runs the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center.
"Sometimes we feel it is arbitrary," Aruri says in an interview at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "If Israel feels that this guy is of value for Hamas, that they may pay a price for him or her, Israel will keep the body for sure."
His group has worked on this issue for years, filing multiple court cases seeking the release of Palestinian bodies. It has put together an 83-page booklet on this practice of withholding the dead as bargaining chips. The group even has a name for it: "necropolitics."
Rallying for a return of all hostages, living and dead
A large plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is now known as Hostage Square. The encampment has become a round-the-clock gathering point for those seeking the return of Israelis seized by Hamas in the group's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israel says that Hamas is still holding more than 130 hostages in Gaza and that at least 31 of them are dead, probably more.
Israel tries to determine who's alive and who isn't in multiple ways. Israel's security forces debrief hostages who've been released, asking whom they saw alive. Israel also analyzes injuries suffered by those who were taken captive, trying to determine who likely survived and who didn't.
It's a painfully slow process, says Udi Goren, 42, who has become one of the leaders of the hostage families that are lobbying the government to make a deal to win the hostages' release.
Sitting in the shade on the edge of Hostage Square, Goren recounts how his cousin Tal Chaimi, 41, tried to defend the kibbutz where he had spent his whole life. He vanished in the Oct. 7 attack, and the family was unsure of his fate.
"It took two months until the army gave us confirmation that they could identify for sure some of his remains," says Goren, adding that his cousin left behind a pregnant wife and three children. "So now Tal is still a hostage — only he's coming back in a coffin."
Meanwhile, Israel has said that its military has killed about 1,000 Hamas militants who stormed into southern Israel and slaughtered 1,200 civilians on Oct. 7.
The Israeli military declined to provide details such as where those Palestinian remains are being kept or when they might be sent back to Gaza.
In a temporary cease-fire last November, Hamas released more than 100 Israeli hostages, and the Israelis freed some 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel and Hamas are now trying to negotiate another truce with additional releases by both sides. But it's proving to be a protracted process, and the living are likely to be set free before the dead are exchanged.
Digging up bodies in Gaza
Meanwhile, Israel is also trying to get its dead back on its own.
According to Israeli media, the military has collected 350 bodies in Gaza since launching a ground invasion last October. Many were dug up in Palestinian cemeteries, and all were brought to Israel.
The bodies are examined at forensic labs in Israel to determine whether any are the dead Israeli hostages. So far, no hostage has been identified.
Israel has subsequently returned some of those bodies to Gaza, wrapped in blue shrouds for Palestinians to rebury.
Anas Baba, NPR's producer in the Gaza Strip, witnessed a truck delivering the bodies for reburial last month in southern Gaza.
"I was wearing a face mask. But the smell was beyond any description. Eighty bodies, some of which had decomposed," says Baba.
At the scene, he spoke with Palestinians looking for loved ones.
"I saw a grieving father. He was wishing for only one thing: finding his son, so that the father could be relieved of the torment of losing his son," Baba says.
Israel says the dead hostages held by Hamas include two Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza in 2014, during a previous round of fighting.
Baskin, the hostage negotiator, has tried many times to get those two Israeli bodies back.
"Israel has held up to hundreds of Palestinian bodies over the years and tried to negotiate," says Baskin. "Initially, the Israeli plan was bodies for bodies. And Hamas never took that bait. They were never interested in it."
Baskin asked Hamas why it rejected a lopsided exchange in its favor.
"They said to me, 'According to our faith, their souls are already in paradise. They're already in heaven. It doesn't matter where there remains are — they're buried,'" he recalls.
Also, Baskin explains, Hamas considers all of Israel to be part of historical Palestine. Therefore, he says, "wherever they are buried on the land, it's Palestine. It's not like they're buried in a foreign country, which is how Israel relates to soldiers who are in Gaza."
The "cemeteries of numbers"
Standoffs like this date back several decades. Israel has built several cemeteries exclusively for Palestinians and other Arab militants who died during attacks against Israel.
The simple gravesites do not have names on them — just numbers. Palestinians call them the "cemeteries of numbers."
Aruri, the Palestinian human rights lawyer, says his group has documented 256 bodies in these cemeteries. He first began this work in 2008.
"The first case actually was a cousin of mine," says Aruri. "The argument we used in the court was, 'His mother was 80. His father was 85. And their last wish was to bury their son before they die.' And we succeeded in getting the release of the body."
But in many cases, Palestinians haven't been able to get the bodies back.
Six years later, his mother, Suheir Barghouti, still doesn't know where her son's body is.
"I know that he can be in the cemetery of numbers, or he could still be in the morgue," she says. "As a mother, I would like to know where, because I'm boiling inside, not knowing where the dead body of my beloved son is."
Her living room in Ramallah is a shrine filled with posters of her sons and her late husband, all involved to varying degrees in the conflict and linked to Hamas.
The 64-year-old widow says the Israeli military arrested her at her home in October, though she was not charged with any crime. She was released five weeks later as part of the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for some of the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Many Israelis and Palestinians see the withholding of their dead as insults to both Jewish and Islamic traditions. Both religions seek swift burials, often on the day of death.
"Muslims want to bury in the same day, before sundown. Jews will bury before midnight," says Baskin. "Islam and Judaism are so similar in so many aspects, and this is one of them."
Back at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Udi Goren accepts the priority of getting the living hostages released first. But he says his cousin Tal Chaimi still deserves a proper funeral.
"We want to get my cousin's body back to be buried at home," he says, "in his kibbutz, where he was born and raised, and where he chose to raise a family, and where he died defending the kibbutz."
The family has no idea when that day might come.
Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent who was based in Jerusalem from 2000 to 2007. Follow him: @gregmyre1.
Copyright 2024 NPR


text:
ONA Mist comes conveniently packaged in aerosol cans for use wherever odors occur. The ONA Mist cans hold 170 grams or 6 ounces of ONA, and are small enough to store practically anywhere. ONA is very powerful and will neutralize odors in garages, restaurants, bathrooms, hotel rooms, kitchens, smoking rooms, or any place in your home or small business facility.
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text:
I would want to put forward my case in detail.
My website www.thehardtackle.com receives around 5000-10000 pageviews every day since 4th August. The server was a VPS with 1 GB memory, 800 GB Bandwidth. I have not installed any cache plugins and that is why used to get DB error at times when the website experienced spikes.
25th August onwards, the rate of DB errors increased and my host told me that the memory is very low and Ishould upgrade and optimise. So I upgraded to 1.5 Gb Memory, 1 TB Bandwidth.
I optimised my database tables and removed one particluar post that was too heavy. Removed the revioion history as well.
After this the website did get up, but went down any time (even with low traffic conditions)
I upgraded to latest WP version, deactivated any plugin that I installed around 25th or even before.
The problem still persisted. I had installed phpwiki for testing purpose near 25th, so I thought that could be a problem and removed the whole phpwiki installation from the server.
In the mean time (2 days back) my host informed me that someone is using my server to send spam emails. My email's I previously shifted to Google APPs and none of the WP users had the email id the host provided me.
I am still facing the breakdowns due to out of memory! And I donot even know whether the spamming is the reason or something is wrong with wordpress. I have increased the memory limit in php.ini to 256(writing this after changing the limit), it was 128 previously.
I have facebook Iframes on Sidebars as well as homepage, I dont know what to do. Installing cache is an option but that would not correct the root cause of the problem.
UPDATE: The host says that the spamming is not a problem, either that got solved due to phpwiki deletion or it was never really there.
Anyways, I still get out of memory errors 2-4 times a day. With 6000 page views.
While researching on the internet, I found this issue, which looks like close to my problem. It basically says that large databases face problems in WP; slow queries etc. I have a relatively small database, but I am facing DB errors after upgrading to 3.1 (right now I am on 3.2.1)
I have disabled almost all the plugins that are not compatible with WP 3.2.1, and installed WP Super Cache (I still got one out of memory error and had to restart).
The current memory usage is
'total used free shared buffers cached `
` 1536 954 581 0 24 208`
TOP processes with memory utilization -
3276 mysql 15 0 590m 78m 3024 S 0.0 **5.1** 0:30.31 mysqld
1496 root 15 0 112m 33m 2120 S 0.0 **2.2** 0:04.38 spamd


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The OTUS-U170 gyro stabilised micro gimbal provides outstanding performance in one of the smallest form factors available.
The two axis gimbal reach a new level of stabilisation performance thanks to purpose-built high-bandwidth torque motors implementing active vibration attenuation. All electronics required for the advanced digital control fits within the unit shell. The user only have to connect an external power supply, a video monitor and a joystick, to have the system up and running.
A three dimensional micro-mechanical IMU and a laser range finder mounted directly on the optical bench, allows for advanced features like geo-location and geo-positioning, provided an external heading source is connected to the OTUS-U170.
The powerful digital servo controller of the OTUS-U170 is even capable of providing enough computational power to drive optional features like vehicle control and navigation.
Datasheets |
OTUS-U170 datasheet [English] |
Drawings |
OTUS-U170 mechanical drawing [English] |
OTUS-U170 mount instruction [English] |


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Pink Gold with Ruby Necklace
MATERIAL | Pink Gold |
STONE | Ruby |
The weight, size and carat weight of each piece can vary slightly from one creation to another.
Measure your finger
Finger size changes depending on the time of the day and the weather. For best results measure your finger size at the end of the day. Do not measure your finger when it is hot or cold. Make sure that the chosen size leaves enough room for the ring to pass easily along the entire length of the finger.
How to measure your finger
- Please have a tape measure at hand.
- Wrap the tape measure around your finger, note the measurement and consult our ring size table below to determine your ring size.
- If you are hesitating between two sizes, choose the larger one.