Academic literature on the topic 'Strange half-metals'

ResumenLa Carrera Panamericana, celebrada en México entre 1950 y 1954, significó para el automovilismo mexicano un importante paso en su proceso de institucionalización dentro del país. El evento contribuyó al desarrollo de la industria de los espectáculos deportivos masivos, generó un punto de reunión para la comunidad automovilística nacional e internacional, pero también desarrolló a los pilotos que edificaron sobre sí mismos la narrativa fundacional del automovilismo deportivo mexicano.Entre sus participantes se encontraba la actriz británica Jacqueline Evans, quien ya residía en México desde los años cuarenta. Alrededor de ella, se tejió una narrativa que contrastó los elementos nacionalistas de la sociedad mexicana, así como el contenido simbólico y cultural de la muerte a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX en México. Evans fue, en la historia de la Carrera Panamericana, la mujer extranjera (y extraña) “infiltrada” en una actividad peligrosa, que para la sociedad mexicana poco se vinculaba con su género: derivado de ello enfrentó una resistencia que se alcanza a apreciar nítidamente en los escritos periodísticos de la época. A pesar de ello, se convirtió en la única mujer (y una de las pocas personas) que participó en todas las ediciones de la Carrera Panamericana entre 1950 y 1954.Por eso mismo, es importante recuperar y analizar su experiencia como parte de una serie de transformaciones en el fenómeno deportivo y automovilístico. Ello es más latente si consideramos la escasez de estudios académicos sobre este evento deportivo, pero también la falta de testimonios escritos que detalles sus participaciones en la Carrera Panamericana. De esta manera, el legado de Jacqueline Evans fue sepultado por una narrativa predominantemente machista y que debe rescatarse para la historia de la mujer dentro del deporte motor. AbstractThe Carrera Panamericana, held in Mexico between 1950 and 1954, meant for Mexican motorsports an important step in its process of institutionalization within the country. The event contributed to the development of the mass sports entertainment industry, generated a meeting point for the nationaland international automotive community, but it also developed the drivers who built upon themselves the foundational narrative of Mexican motorsport.the foundational narrative of Mexican motorsport.Among its participants was British actress Jacqueline Evans, who had been living in Mexico since the 1940s. Around it, a narrative was woven that contrasted the nationalist elements of Mexican society, as well as the symbolic and cultural content of death from the second half of the 20th century in Mexico. Evans was, in the history of the Carrera Panamericana, the foreign (and strange) woman “infiltrated” into a dangerous activity, which for Mexican society was little linked to her gender: As a result, she faced a resistance that was clearly seen in the journalistic writings of the time. Despite this, she became the only woman (and one of the few people) who participated in all the editions of the Carrera Panamericana between 1950 and 1954.For this reason, it is important to recover and analyze her experience as part of a series of transformations in the sport and automobile phenomenon. This is more latent if we consider the shortage of academic studies on this sporting event, but also the lack of written testimonies that detail their participation in the Carrera Panamericana. In this way, the legacy of Jacqueline Evans was buried by a predominantly macho narrative that must be rescued for the history of women within the motorsport.

The magnate’s residence at Lisbjerg Church In 1989, Moesgård Museum excavated part of a magnate’s farm at Lisbjerg, seven kilometres north of Århus. The excavated farm buildings surrounding the present church had been enclosed with a fence. What made this find especially interesting was the fact that here it seemed to be possible to find traces of the builders of the first church in this area. The theory that there was a connection between the Viking Age farm and the church was confirmed in 1994, when the museum undertook an excavation inside the church, in collaboration with the National Museum, and found traces of a wooden predecessor of the present church.The excavations of 1989 did not establish the southern boundary of the farm. However, in 2002, new construction work immediately south of the church presented an opportunity to investigate this further (Fig. 1). As shown by Fig. 2, the fence surrounding the farm buildings had three phases. During the 2002-excavation, two phases of the fence were identified because of their similarity with the two later fence phases established during the 1989-excavation, and the southern boundary was thus established (fig. 2-3). Fence 2, with a 3-m wide gate, was found in the southernmost part of the uncovered area. Fence 3 could be followed across the whole of the building site as a line of distinct plank traces identical to those found during the 1989-excavation. In this way the parallel displacement which applied to the two fences of the northern farm boundary repeated itself to the south. Because of this, it was possible to conclude that the fenced-in Viking Age farm had measured 170 metres from north to south. Although only part of the fence was uncovered, the regularity of the identified fences has made it possible to estimate the outline of the farm area, and so to establish that the area within the fence probably measured c.19,000 square metres.The investigated area was divided in two. The two fences mentioned were found in the southern area. Fence BP (Figs. 3-4) was uncovered in the northern area as a distinct line of dressed planks, each 30-40-cm wide and around 7-cm thick (Fig. 5) and dug about one metre into the ground. The similarity with fence 3 was so striking that the two fences should be considered contemporary. Fence BP was situated in the middle of the farm area, and in order to understand this, we must return to the excavation undertaken in 1994 by the National Museum and Moesgård Museum inside Lisbjerg Church. As already mentioned, on that occasion a wooden predecessor to the present church was identified, but the archaeologists also found traces of an older building on the same spot. This house was interpreted as the main farmhouse. Other excavations of Viking Age farms have established that the main building had a central position, and that it was often provided with a special small fence (Fig. 6). It has been suggested that this area – the main farmhouse surrounded by a fence – may in fact be the “sheltered yard” mentioned in medieval laws from the time around 1200. Exactly what this term relates to is unknown today, but the fact that the old laws laid down punishments for any assault within this area shows that the “sheltered yard” had a special status. Waste pits found in the southern part of the excavation threw light on the activities that took place within the large yard (see Fig. 3). Pit AW was especially interesting, as it contained waste from metal crafts such as iron processing, bronze and silver casting, and glass making. This material has been analysed by Arne Jouttijärvi of Heimdal-archaeometry. The analyses show that around half the iron is of Danish origin, whereas the rest is imported. Waste from iron purification dominates the material, but there is also evidence of forging and welding, and so all the steps of a blacksmith’s work are represented. The waste from other metal crafts includes fragments of crucibles and moulds, and drops of bronze. There are fragments from several crucibles (Fig. 7), three of which contained metal remnants, in each case silver, except for one drop containing both silver and gold. Analyses of the other drops, however, showed no precious metals, just copper and bronze. A strange, oblong, almost boat-shaped crucible (?) contained the uncommon alloy of antimony bronze, a material characterized by its hardness. Only one other example of antimony bronze is known from the Viking Age, a piece of 10th century scrap metal found at Netherton in England. The crucible fragments amounted to around 100 pieces (Fig. 8). Analyses of these showed no evident metal remnants. The relatively poor occurrence of metal traces in both crucibles and moulds indicate that they were used for silver casting. The pit also contained a couple of minor bronze items (Fig. 9). One is a fragment of a plate with ring ornaments. It has been riveted onto some organic material, probably leather. The other piece also seems to have been used for decoration. It is a pyramid-shaped object with an unusually high tin content (22% as opposed to the normal 5-12% for bronze).A total of eight “glass pieces” and two bead fragments and a glass ball from pit AW were analysed. Four clear and faintly green glass pieces were all sodium glass. One fragment of a layered bead created from yellow and green glass is also made from sodium glass. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, glass of this type is thought to stem from the melting of Roman glass items. Viking Age sodium glass is primarily known from beakers found in England and Scandinavia. Most likely, the production of sodium glass continued to some extent in Byzantium, but Byzantine glass usually has a higher content of magnesium oxide (MgO). This particular glass of Eastern origin was identified in a blue glass ball. The glass ball in question (Fig. 10) has a diameter of a little less than two centimetres, and is made from clear greenish glass. The analysis showed that we are dealing with a very special type of glass with low sodium (Na2O) and potash (K2O) contents, but a rather large content of magnesium oxide (MgO). This glass type is unknown in the reference material used by Heimdal-archaeometry, which comprises 3000 analyses. Four reddish-brown “glass fragments” turned out to be garnet. The pottery finds from pit AW are all of Viking type pottery (Fig. 11-12). Pits AT and BA near AW contained iron slag. Pit J may also be connected to the Viking Age farm, as it contained a piece of pottery of the west Slav pottery type so popular in the Viking Age (Fig. 13). Earlier, it has been pointed out that the Viking Age farm may have had a special status. Not only was it involved in the first building of a church here; it also had an important situation within the main settle­ment of the district. As for traffic, Lis­bjerg had a strategically favourable position at the time, as it was situated close to the main north-south road in eastern Jutland. It is thus tempting to conclude that the large fenced-in farm was the local administration centre. A recent find may support this theory: in connection with the archaeological excavations of the planned motorway between Søften and Skødstrup, a moat running along the Egå River – the old district border – was identified in the valley just below Lisbjerg (Fig. 14). The 2-m wide and 1.5-m deep moat was followed across an almost two-kilometre long stretch (Fig. 15). There has thus been a very substantial blockade running across the old road to Lisbjerg (Fig. 16). The length of the moat points towards it being used to reinforce the traffic control by forcing travellers to use the river crossing just below Lisbjerg. The archaeologists did not succeed in dating the moat, but since its construction must have been a very significant undertaking it is tempting to connect it with the powerful Viking magnate residing on the Lisbjerg farm. Jens JeppesenMoesgård MuseumTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

AbstractLandau suggested that the low-temperature properties of metals can be understood in terms of long-lived quasiparticles with all complex interactions included in Fermi-liquid parameters, such as the effective mass m⋆. Despite its wide applicability, electronic transport in bad or strange metals and unconventional superconductors is controversially discussed towards a possible collapse of the quasiparticle concept. Here we explore the electrodynamic response of correlated metals at half filling for varying correlation strength upon approaching a Mott insulator. We reveal persistent Fermi-liquid behavior with pronounced quadratic dependences of the optical scattering rate on temperature and frequency, along with a puzzling elastic contribution to relaxation. The strong increase of the resistivity beyond the Ioffe–Regel–Mott limit is accompanied by a ‘displaced Drude peak’ in the optical conductivity. Our results, supported by a theoretical model for the optical response, demonstrate the emergence of a bad metal from resilient quasiparticles that are subject to dynamical localization and dissolve near the Mott transition.

In rejoinder to a New York Times’s article claiming, “the value of used pianos, especially uprights, has plummeted … Instead of selling them … , donating them … or just passing them along … , owners are far more likely to discard them” (Walkin), artists Kathleen Irwin (scenography) and Jeff Morton (sound/composition) responded to this ignoble passing with an installation playing with the borders delineating music, theatre, digital technology, and economies of value using two upright red pianos, sound and video projection—and the sensibility of relational aesthetics. The installation was a collaboration between two artists who share a common interest in the performative qualities of public space and how technological augmentation is used in identificatory and embodied art processes as a means of extending the human body and enhancing the material space of person-to-person interaction. The title of the installation, PLAY, referenced the etymology of the word itself and how it has been variously understood over time, across artistic disciplines, and in digital and physical environments. Fundamentally, it explored the relative value of a material object (the piano) and how its social and cultural signification persists, shifts, is diminished or augmented by technology. The installation was mounted at the Dunlop Art Gallery, in the Regina Public Library (Saskatchewan, Canada, 14 June - 25 August 2013) and, as such, it illustrated the Library’s mandate to support all forms of literacy through community accessibility and forms of public outreach, social arrangements, and encounters. Indirectly, (as this was not the initial focus), it also exemplified the artists’s gentle probing of the ways, means, claims, and values when layering information and enhancing our visual experience as we interact with (literally, walk through) our physical landscapes and environments—“to see the world for what it is,” as Matt Turbow says “and to see the elements within” (Chapeau). The installation reflected on, among other things, the piano as a still potent cultural signifier, the persistent ability of our imagination to make meaning and codify experience even without digital overlay, and the library as an archive and disseminator of public knowledge. The artists questioned whether old technologies such as the piano will lose their hold on us entirely as technological augmentation develops the means to enhance or colonize the natural world, through graphics, sounds, haptic feedback, smell and, eventually, commodified experiences. This paper intends to reflect on our work and initiate a friendly (playful) interdisciplinary discussion about material objects in the age of physical and digital interactivity, and the terms of augmentation as we chose to understand it through our installation. In response to the call proposed by this journal on the subject of augmentation, we considered: 1. How audio/visual apparatuses in the gallery space augmented the piano’s expressivity; 2. How the piano augmented the social function of its physical situation; 3. How the technology augmented random and fragmentary musical phrases, creating a prolonged musical composition; 4. How each spectator augmented the art through his/her subjective engagement: how there is always meaning generated in excess of the artists’s intention. Image 1: Piano installed outside Dunlop Gallery/ Regina Public Library (photo credit: Jeff Morton) To begin, a brief description of the site of the installation is in order. The first of the red pianos was installed outside the main doors of the Central Library, located in the city’s downtown. The library’s entrance is framed within a two-story glass atrium and the red piano repeated the architecture’s function to open the space by breaking down perceived barriers, and beckoning the passersby inside. Reflecting Irwin’s community-oriented, site-specific practice, this was the relational catalyst of the work—the piano made available for anyone to play and enjoy, day or night, an invitation to respond to an object inserted into the shared space of the sidewalk: to explore, as Nicolas Bourriaud suggests, “the art as a state of encounter” (16). It was the centerpiece of the exhibition's outreach, which included the exhibition’s vernissage featuring new music and performance artists in concert, a costume and prop workshop for a late night public choir procession, and a series of artist talks. This was, arguably, a defining characteristic of the work, underscoring how the work of art, in this case the piano itself, its abjection illustrated by the perfunctory means typically used to dispose of them, is augmented or gains value through its social construction, over-and-above any that is originally ascribed to it. As Bourriaud writes, any kind of production takes on a social form which no longer has anything to do with its original usefulness. It acquires exchange value that partly covers and shrouds its primary “nature”. The fact is that a work of art has no a priori useful function—not that it is socially useless, but because it is available and flexible, and has an “infinite tendency”. (42) In the Dunlop’s press release, curator Blair Fornwald also confers a supplemental value ascribed to the reframed material object. She describes how the public space in front of the library, as a place of social interaction and cultural identification—of “being seen”—is augmented by the red piano: its presence in an unfamiliar setting underscores the multitude of creative and performative possibilities inherent within it, possibilities that may extend far beyond playing a simple melody. By extension, its presence asserts that the every day is a social, cultural, and physical environment rich with potentiality and promise. (Fornwald) Juxtaposed with the first red piano, the second was dramatically staged within the Dunlop gallery. The room, painted black, formally replicated the framing and focusing conventions of the theatre: its intention to propose other ways of “being seen” and to suggest the blurring of lines between “on stage and off,” and by extension, “on line and off.” A camera embedded in the front of the piano and a large projection screen in the space provided a celebrity moment for anyone approaching the instrument and implied, arguably, the ubiquitous surveillance associated with public space. Indeed, a plausible way of reading the red piano in the darkened gallery was as a provocation to think about how the digital and physical are increasingly enmeshed in our daily lives (Jurgenson). Lit by a chandelier and staged on a circular red carpet, this piano was also available to be played. Unlike the one outside of the building, it was augmented by speakers, a microphone, and a webcam. Through a custom-built digital system (using MaxMSP software), it recorded and played back the sound and image of everyone who sat down to perform, then repeated and superimposed these over similar previously captured material. Enhanced by the unusual stark acoustics of the gallery, the sound filled the reverberant space. Affixed to the gallery’s back wall was the projection screen made up of sheet music (Bach, Debussy and Mozart) taken from the Irwin family’s piano bench, a veritable time capsule from the 1950s. Image 2: Piano installed inside Dunlop Gallery (photo credit: Jeff Morton) In addition to the centrally placed piano, a miniature red piano was situated near the gallery entrance. It and a single red chair placed near the screen, repeated the vivid colour and drew the eye into and around the space underscoring its theatrical quality. The toy piano functioned as a lighthearted invitation, as well as a serious citation of other artists—Eikoh Sudoh, Margaret Leng Tan, John Cage, and Charles M. Schulz’s “Schroeder”—who have employed the miniature instrument to great advantage. It was intended as an illustration of the infinite resonances that material objects may provide and the diverse ways they may signify contingent on the viewer. Considered in a historical context, in the golden age of the upright and at the turn of the twentieth-century, piano lessons signified for many, the formation of a modern citizen schooled in European culture and values. Owning one of these intricately engineered and often beautiful machines, as one in five households did, reflected the social aspirations of its owners and marked their upward economic mobility (Canadian Encyclopedia). One hundred years later, pianos are often relegated to the basement or dump. Irretrievably out of tune, their currency as musical instruments largely devalued. Nonetheless, their cultural and social value persists, no longer the pervasive marker of status, but through the ways they are mediated by artists who prepare, deconstruct, and leave them to deteriorate in beautiful ways. They seem to retain their hold on us through the natural impulse to engage them kinetically, ergonomically, and metaphorically. Built to be an extension of the human hand, body, and imagination, they are a sublime human-scale augmentation of a precise musical system of notation, and a mechanism evolved over centuries through physical augmentations meant to increase the expressivity of both instrument and player. In PLAY, the use of the pianos referenced both their traditional role in public life, and our current relationship with forms of digital media that have replaced these instruments as our primary means of being linked, informed, and entertained—an affirmation of the positive attributes of technology and a reminder of what we may have lost. Indeed, while this was not necessarily clear from the written responses in the Gallery’s guest book (Gorgeous!: Neat!; Too, too cool!; etc.), we surmised that memory might have played a key role in the experience of the installation, set in motion by the precise arrangement of the few material objects – red piano, the piano bench, red chair, and toy piano, each object designed to fit the shape of the body and hold the memory of physical contact. These were designed to trigger a chain of recollections, each chasing the next; each actively participating in what follows. In the Gallery’s annual exhibition catalogue, Ellen Moffat suggests that the relationship the piano builds with the player is important: “the piano plays and is played by the performer. Performing the piano assigns a posture for the performer in relation to the keyboard physically and figuratively” (Moffat 80). Technically, the piano is the sum of many parts, understandable finally as a discrete mechanical system, but unbounded in imagination and limited only by our capacity to play it. Functionally, it acts as an affective repository of memory and feeling, a tool to control the variables of physical and expressive interaction. In PLAY, the digital system in the gallery piano captured, delayed and displayed audio and video clips according to a rubric of cause and effect. Controlled by computer software designed by Morton, the installation captured musical phrases played randomly by individuals and augmented these notes by playing them back at variable speeds and superimposing one over another—musical phrases iterated and reiterated. The effect was fugue-like—an indeterminate composition with a determinant structure, achieved by intertwining physical and digital systems with musical content supplied by participants. The camera hidden in the front of the piano recorded individuals as they sat at the instrument and, immediately, they saw themselves projected in extreme close up onto the screen behind. As the individual struck a note, their image faded and the screen was filled again with the image of a previous participant abstracted and in slow motion. The effect, we suggest, was dreamlike—an echo or a fleeting fragment of something barely remembered. Like the infinite variations the piano permits, the software was also capable of expressing immense variety—each sound and image adding to an expanding archive in an ever-changing improvised composition developed through iterative call and response. Drawing on elements of relational aesthetics, scenographic representation, and digital technology, in PLAY we attempted to cross disciplines in ways that distinguished it from the other piano projects seen over the past several years. Indeed, the image of the upright piano has resonated in the zeitgeist of the international art scene with colourful uprights placed in public places in urban centers across Europe and North America. Wherever they are, individuals engage enthusiastically with them and they, in turn, become the centre of attention: this is part of their appeal. The pianos seem to evoke a utopian sense of community, however temporary, providing opportunities to rediscover old neighbours and make new friends. In PLAY, we posed two different social and aesthetic encounters—one analogue, real, “off-line” and one digital, theatrical, and “on-line,” illustrating less a false binary between two possible realities that ascribes more value to one than the other, than a world where the digital and the physical comingle. Working within a public library, this was a germane train of thought considering how these institutes struggle to stay relevant in the age of Google search and the promise of technological augmentation. The piano also represents a dichotomy: both a failure to represent and an excess of meaning. For decades replete with social signification, they have now become an encumbrance, fit only for the bone yard. As these monumental relics come to the end of their mechanical life, there is more money made in their disposal than in musical production, and more value in their recycled metals, solid wooden bodies, and ivory keys then in their tone and function. The industry that supported their commodification collapsed years ago, as has the market for their sale and the popular music publishing industry that accompanied it. Of course, pianos will be with us for a long time in one form or another, but their history, as a culturally potent object, has diverged. The assumption could easily follow that they have been rendered useless as an aesthetic, generative, and social object. What this installation offered was the possibility of an alternative ending to the story of this erstwhile entertainment console even as we seek our amusement by other means and through other devices. Not surprisingly, the title of the installation suggests that the consideration of “play,” as social and recuperative engagement, is significant. In his seminal work, Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga discusses the importance of play, suggesting that it is primary to and a necessary condition of the making of culture. He writes, “In play there is something in play, which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action” (Huizinga 97). According to games theorist Mary Flanagan, playing may serve as a way of creating something beautiful, offering frameworks for new ways of thinking, exploring divergent logic, or for imaging what is possible. She writes, “Games, both digital and analog, offer a space to explore creativity, agency, representation and emergent behaviour” (Flanagan 2010). In reaching out to Regina’s downtown community, the Dunlop Art Gallery dispersed some of the playfulness of PLAY in planned and accidental ways, as the outdoor piano became a daily destination for individuals who live rough or in the city’s hostels, some of whom who have enviable musical skills and considerable stage presence. One man came daily with sheet music in hand to practice on the indoor piano—ignoring the inevitable echo and repeat that the software triggered. Another young woman appeared regularly to perform at the outdoor piano, her umbrella raised against sun and rain, wedged under her arm to keep both hands free. Children invariably drew parents to it as they entered or exited the library—for some it may have been the first time they had touched such an instrument. Overall, in press, blogs, and the visitors’s book, responses to the pianos were enthusiastic and positive. One blogger wrote in response to an online publication, Art, Music, News (Beatty), chapeau June 13, 2013 at 11:51am this is most definitely up and running, and it would be interesting to see/hear all that will go on with that red piano. my two-and-a-half year old daughter and i jammed a bit yesterday morning, while a stranger watched and listened, then insisted that i play the same mostly crappy c-blues again while he sang! so i did, and he did, and my daughter and i learned a bit about what he feels about his dog via his singing. it was the highlight of the day for us—I mean really, jamming outside on a very red upright piano with strangers—good times! (Simpson) As evidence of public approbation, for the better part of the summer it stood unprotected on the sidewalk in front of the library encountering only one minor incident of defacement—a rather fragile tag in white spray paint, someone’s name in proper cursive writing. Once repaired and retuned, it became a dynamic focus for the annual Folk Festival that takes over the area for a week in August. In these ways, PLAY fulfilled the Library’s aim of encouraging literacy and reinforcing a sense of community—a social augmentation, in a manner of speaking. As Moffat writes, it encourages the social dimension of participation through community-engagement and dialogic practices. It blurs distinctions between spectator and participant, professional and amateur. It generates relationships between people or social actions. (Moffat 76) Finally, PLAY toyed with the overtones of the word itself—as verb, noun, and adjective—signifier, and metaphor. The title illustrated its obvious current potential and evoked the piano’s past, referencing the glittering world of the stage. While many may have more memories of seeing pianos in disrepair than in the concert hall, its iconic stage setting is never far from the imagination, although this too changes as people from other cultures and backgrounds recognize little cultural capital in such activity. In current vernacular, the word “play” also implies the re-imagination of ourselves in the digital overlays of the future. So we ask, what will be the fate of the piano and its meme in the 22nd century? Will the augmentation of reality enhance our experience of the world in inverse proportion to a loss of social interaction? Conclusion In her essay, Moffat notes that as digital technology replaces the analog piano, a surplus of second-hand uprights has become available. Citing artists Luke Jerram, Monica Yunus, and Camille Zamora (among others), she argues that the use of them as public art coincides with their disappearance, suggesting a farewell or memorial to a collective cultural icon (Moffat 76). What is there in this piece of furniture that speaks to us in art practice? The answer, it would seem, is potential. In a curatorial interview, Irwin suggested the possibility that beyond the artist’s initial meaning, there is always something more—an augmentation. The pleasure of discovering this supplement is part of the pleasure of the subjective experience of the spectator. Similarly, the aleatoric in music composition, refers to the pursuit of chance as a formal determinant and its openness to individual interpretation at the moment of reception. For Morton, the randomness of memory and affect are key components in composition. They cannot be predicted, controlled or quantified; nor can they be denied. There is no correct interpretation or response to music or, indeed, to relational art practice. Moffat concludes, as a multi-faceted media installation, PLAY proposed “a suite, chorus or a polyphony of things” (Moffat 76). Depending on your point of reference, the installation provided a dynamic venue for considering our relationships with material objects, with each other and with new technologies asking how they may or may not augment our reality in ways that supplement real-time, person-to-person interaction. References Beatty, Gregory. “Exciting Goings-On at Central Library.” Prairie Dog Blog 11 June 2013. Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods. Paris: Les Presses du Réel, 1998. Canadian Encyclopedia. “Piano Building.” ‹http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/piano-building-emc/›. Chapeau [David Simpson]. “One Response to ‘Exciting Goings-On at Central Library.’” Prairie Dog Blog 13 June 2013. Fornwald, Blair. PLAY. Regina, Saskatchewan: Dunlop Art Gallery. 2013. Flanagan, Mary. “Creating Critical Play.” In Ruth Catlow, Marc Garret and Corrado Morgana, eds., Artists Rethinking Games. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010. 49-53. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Jerram, Luke. Play Me, I’m Yours. Site-Specific Piano Installation. Multiple Venues. 2008-2013. Jurgenson, Nathan. “Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality.” Cybergology: The Society Pages 24 Feb. 2011. 1 Dec. 2013 ‹http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/02/24/digital-dualism-versus-augmented-reality/›. Moffat, Ellen. “Stages and Players” in DAG 2 (2013). Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery, 2013. 75-87. Walkin, Daniel J. “For More Pianos, Last Note Is Thud in the Dump.” New York Times 29 June 2012. Yunus, Monica, and Camille Zamora. Sing for Hope Pianos. Site-Specific Piano Installation and Performance. New York City. 2013.

Almost all the technology that we use today depends on our ability to control and exploit the properties of many electron phases. These phases are primarily made up of non-interacting fermions embodied in a metal or a simple band-insulator like silicon, and the physics of which have been understood for over 50 years now. The next generation of technology will have to overcome new obstacles, which are becoming more and more apparent, as we move forward. Most of these obstacles originate from fundamental limitations that are imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. A way forward is to use strongly interacting electronic phases to tackle said obstacles. In this thesis, four new works that deal with such strongly interacting systems, are presented. The first work tackles the entropy problem in cold atomic experiments. The field of cold atoms has emerged as a promising platform for simulating many-body quantum phenomena that would otherwise be difficult to study via traditional methods. However, the presence of excess entropy in fermion based simulations has hindered the field's progress. In chapter 2 of the thesis, we present our solution for addressing the said ``entropy problem" and demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal by showing that the conditions necessary, for obtaining a fermionic superfluid, are optimal. The second and the third work deals with the subject of non-Fermi liquids, which are electronic states of matter devoid of particle-like excitations of the kind usually found in metals. This makes a non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behave distinctly from a usual metal (a Fermi liquid) and hence NFLs are also called strange metals. In particular, this part of the thesis introduces the reader to a recent model of a zero-dimensional strange metal, called the SYK model, which is analytically solvable and has interesting connections to black hole physics. We show in chapter 3 that new electronic phases like strange half-metals (SHM) and Mott Insulators (MI) can be obtained from the SYK non-Fermi liquid. Additionally, in chapter 4 we discuss the construction of a higher-dimensional generalization of the SYK model and show that a new class of lattice non-Fermi liquids, different from the SYK model, emerge from our construction