Journal articles on the topic 'Thesis by animation'

The golden age of the Polish School of Animation took place at the same time as the birth and rise of Polish Radio Experimental Studio – where plenty of soundtracks were recorded. The article consists of audio-visual analysis of the two Polish School of Animation's classics: House by Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk, and Labirynth by Jan Lenica with experimental score made by Włodzimierz Kotoński. The author's main thesis is that the soundtrack generally (including two soundtracks in the above-mentioned films), especially in animations that have no dialogues or subtitles, has crucial impact on the perception of a given animation, and could also be a key to its interpretation.

The paper describes events which are focused on Polish animation, with special regards to their educational values. The thesis refers to the importance of the Polish Film Institute, higher education, film workshops and film festivals for Polish animations. The most important part of the paper describes animation film festivals. Film festivals are portrayed as the most extensive educational platform, because of which the whole paper centres on an understanding of the issue through festival studies. The author evokes theories of the field configuring events by Bernard Leca, Charles-Clemens Rüling and Dominique Puthod. In the paper the Polish animation film scene is described as heterogeneous, however, filmmakers who make animations are evolving a coherent vision of it. Helpful in this process is the Polish Animation Producers Association. In the final part of the paper the author focuses on O!PLA. The Festival of Polish Animation. This event can be interpreted as a something more than a field-configuring event, and described as a communicator of the convergence of expertise (term of Grzegorz D. Stunża and associates).

3D animation technologies include FFD, Hierarchies and Kinematics (FK and IK), Dynamic animation, Keyframe, Time based animation, Non-linear animation, Path animation, Layered animation, and Motion capture animation etc. They are related with the efficiency of 3D animation. This thesis discusses these technologies separately and suggests methods to enhance the efficiency of 3D animation.

3D animation is an application of computer graphics. The factors that affect the efficiency of 3D animation include animation algorithms, 3D models, materials and textures, rendering, and LOD (level of detail). This thesis discusses these technologies separately. By using these technologies properly, we could reduce the complexity of algorithms and the overall data quantity and then enhance the efficiency of 3D animation.

This paper analyses the motion of animation with the methods of picking key points and predicting motion trace based on the particle filter for discrete particle track prediction theory. The behavior model has been built for the already existing animation character. During the research, the thesis realized using existed animation motion trace model to drive a similar figure and create a new animation.

This paper is based on the particle filter for discrete particle track prediction theory, analyses the motion of animation with the methods of picking key points and predicting motion trace by utilizing particle filter. The behavior model has been built for the already existing animation character. During the research, the thesis realized using existed animation motion trace model to drive a similar figure and create a new animation.

In 3D animation, there are several key technologies used to make the 3D characters, scene, and environments look much real and alive. The key technologies include motion capture, 3D fur and hair design, particle system, clothes design, and Billboard etc. These technologies are related with the efficiency of 3D animation. This thesis discusses these technologies separately and suggests methods to enhance the efficiency of 3D animation.

Around 2010, the inventor character started to populate animated blockbusters. Computer 3D animated films and their sequels such as Robots (Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, 2005), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2009), Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, 2010) and Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014) all feature inventors and their extravagant machines. In this article, the author explores the inventive artisan character as a self-reflexive trope of the animator. She expands Crafton’s thesis of the animator’s self-figuration and Tom Gunning’s work on machine comedy and operational aesthetics to further discussions on the animator and thereby the labour of animation. The article seeks to reveal the political agenda in the new animated machine comedy of the 2010s, which not only reflects the modes of production of contemporary animation studios, but also the larger concerns in the post-Fordist mode of production.

The advent of artificial ventilation was largely sparked by the popular belief that drowning and other causes of asphyxia could induce death-like states known as suspended animation. While the mystical nature of such states befuddled some physicians into the early 1900s, an English medical student by the name of Edmund Goodwyn (1756–1829) published a thesis in 1786, which demonstrated that suspended animation was simply the physical manifestation of extreme hypoxia. Goodwynʼs work advanced one of the earliest arguments in favor of artificial ventilation for the treatment of asphyxia over alternative resuscitation measures like heat and exsanguination. In addition, Goodwyn’s remarkable dissertation contains the first account of a reflex known as diving bradycardia, and possibly the first vehement refutation of claims by his contemporaries that pulmonary circulation stopped during exhalation. While miscellaneous aspects of his thesis have occasionally been mentioned by a few medical historians, the overall visionary nature of his work has yet to be recognized. This article attempts to accomplish this goal and to provide a first biographical glimpse of a man whose scientific career appears to have ended prematurely, perhaps because of his profound aversion to controversy.

In this paper, I will argue that with the emergence of digital virtual worlds (in video games, animation movies, etc.) by the animation industry, we need to rethink the role and authority of mathematics, also from an ontological point of view. First I will demonstrate that the application of mathematics to the creation and description of the digital, virtual worlds behaves in many respects analogously to the application of mathematics to the description of real-world phenomena from the viewpoint of the history of science. However, from other aspects, the application of mathematics significantly differs in this virtual world from the application to real-world fields. The main thesis of my paper is that the role of mathematics in the digital animation industry can be ontologically different from its usual role. In the application of mathematics to digital virtual worlds, mathematical concepts are no longer just modelling tools, forming a subordinated, computational basis, but they can direct and organise, and even create non-mathematical theory, something that we can call, for example, digital physics and biology. I will study this new, creative role of mathematics through some concrete phenomena, specifically through gravity. Our conclusion is that the animation industry opens an entirely new chapter in the relationship between (digital) sciences and mathematics.

Unmanageable anthropogenic activity able to cause haze. It is known that haze happened naturally. However, uncontrollable of these anthropogenic activities somehow may lead to the occurrence. Air pollution, farming, forest exploration and motor vehicle’s smoke emission are among the causes and factors for severe haze. This writing analyses the factors, impacts and ways to overcome the effect of haze that is included in the animation series of Upin dan Ipin. The selected series from Upin dan Ipin is in Season 7 Episode 10 entitled ‘Bahaya Jerebu’. This research is using text analysis method and research method that includes reference materials such as articles, journals, thesis and different writing articles. The findings of this research conclude that among the factors that lead to the occurrence of haze in Upin dan Ipin series are open burning and the smoke emission from motor vehicles. Haze manages to give impacts to health, psychology, economy and social matters. There are few suggestions and ways to overcome that has been suggested through this animation to minimize the hazardous haze such as wearing face masks, less outdoor activities and bury waste to avoid open burning. In conclusion, this children animation Upin dan Ipin manage to conveys countless significant messages and good results for the audience in general. Keywords: Upin dan Ipin animation; haze; open burning; haze effect; disadvantages of haze

In our contribution to a Special Section dedicated to the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome (CSC) (Centre for Experimental Cinematography), we acknowledge the achievements of the school’s graduates in directing from 2004 to 2019. In particular, we provide a detailed list of the thesis films, short feature and animation films, as well as some long feature films, which have been selected for the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, and have been nominated for and have been awarded national and international prizes such as the David di Donatello, the Silver Ribbon and the Golden Globe.

Virtual human bodies, clothing, and hair are widely used in a number of scenarios such as 3D animated movies, gaming, and online fashion. Machine learning can be used to construct data-driven 3D human bodies, clothing, and hair. In this thesis, we provide a solution to 3D shape and pose estimation under the most challenging situation where only a single image is available and the image is captured in a natural environment with unknown camera calibration. We also demonstrate that a simplified 2D clothing model helps to increase the accuracy of 2D body shape estimation significantly.

This thesis is aimed to analyses the process of self-actualization from a main antagonist character called Altair, from the anime series titled Re:Creators. Based on Abraham Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of Needs. The data that was used in order to determine the process of self- actualization in the main antagonist Altair, were the 21 episodes in the animation series of Re:Creators. The method used in this thesis is the analytic descriptive method, and the theories to support the result of the analysis are Himawan Pratista’s Movie Narratives Structure theory and Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The result of this thesis is that the main antagonist Altair achieves her self-actualization. Unlike any other human character, due to her nature of being a “creation”, an “omnipotent” character and not a normal human being, makes the process of self- actualization quite hard to determine. However, she managed to achieved her self-actualization by gathering allies to support her cause, survived being hunted by the protagonist, and at a intense final battle that took place in Tokyo’s district of Ginza, Altair once again managed to meet her long passed creator Setsuna Shimazaki.

This thesis aims to create and develop an integrated operating system platform by using programming languages, which has comprehends virtual reality technology, database technology as well image animation, all these three newly-found technologies together, and is utilized into the constructive field of mass concrete temperature control management. Furthermore, this research implies a further study of the application of virtual reality in concrete dam construction endowed with all the following priorities, such as: man-made interactive function, effective operability and compatible interface, which can simulate and rehearse all types of constructive schemes visually as well as measures with a practicable intention to provide a certain scientifically theoretical method for the construction of mass concrete projects. Thus, this platform can furnish a dynamic model based on virtual reality and engineering animation for concrete dam designs, pouring and temperature controlling, even can lead the construction scheme into its fullest optimization for any concrete construction as harboring true aims to improve the production efficiency and reduce any risk on costs of the popularization in addition with its application of this new technology.

Imamura Taihei (1911–86) is considered by many to be the first film theorist in Japan, and he is known chiefly for his two grand theories on documentary film and animation. Yet, at the same time, Imamura also developed a third, no less ambitious theory, that of “Cinema and Japanese Art,” in which he specified the national characteristics of Japanese cinema. This essay concentrates on this third and less studied thesis. Although the argument Imamura puts forth in the thesis is elusive, aspects in it enable an interpretation of Japanese cinema along lines of phenomenological critical theory. From this perspective, it appears that Imamura establishes a theorization of national cinema that is predicated not on film as a product, or ontological aspects of what films project, but rather on the phenomenology of the film-watching experience. In effect, the thesis thus defines Japanese cinema not as the total sum of films produced in Japan, or by Japanese filmmakers, but as a shared watching experience of films regardless of their country of origin. Measuring Imamura’s thesis against other theories of Japanese national cinema that were published around the same time, during World War II, the essay argues that his theorization is in fact flexible enough to withstand more recent critique leveled against the notion of national cinema, and even allows radical new ways of thinking about national cinema in the contemporary moment of a new media environment and increasing transnational cultural flows.

In this study, I want to analyze two films called Moana and Brave by Disney Animation. In this film there is a difference in characteristics of a princess who is usually in the field of others, just quiet and waiting for others to help them. That is the reason why I wanted to focus on the main characters named Moana and Merida who have the other side of a princess usually. This thesis talks about the issue of how the characters of Moana and Merida reflect the characteristics of girl power. The thesis aims to show that Moana and Merida can reflect the characteristics of Girl power through their decisiveness, smartness and boldness. In this study, I used girl power theory that Rebecca Walker as pioneer of the third-wave pioneer. As a result, I have found that Moana and Merida reflected the characteristics of Girl power that made them show a new side of the characteristics of a princess that is usually displayed by Disney.Keywords: Disney, Girl Power, decisiveness, smartness, boldness

In her article ‘Vital methodologies: Live methods, mobile art and research-creation’ (2015), Mimi Sheller posits the question: ‘How can “outcome” capture process?’ I take this quote as my starting point in this article but, losing the ‘how’, I ask the different question: ‘Can outcome capture process?’ This question is important for students taking or contemplating taking a Ph.D. by arts practice and their supervisors and assessors, as the answer might be ‘yes’ for a traditional Ph.D. by thesis, but ‘no’ for practice as research (PaR). I argue that in PaR knowledge production is to be found in the process, rather than in the end result of making, and that knowledge production might therefore be more readily demonstrated in PaR without recourse to explanatory written texts, if Ph.D. assessment considered process equally with or, in some cases, instead of outcome. I also argue that the repetitive, physically arduous and often time-consuming nature of many animation processes amplify the relevance of this question for those involved or interested in animation PaR. In addition to ‘practice as research’ there are many other titles in circulation, such as ‘creative arts research’, ‘performance research’ and ‘research creation’. The differences are not merely nominal but can indicate theoretical differences, for instance, Candy and Edmonds adopt the term ‘practice based’, arguing that the term ‘practice as research’ ‘unhelpfully conflates the two’. I have adopted Robin Nelson’s abbreviation, PaR, for brevity in this document.

Animation films have increasingly evolved throughout the years. No longer just a medium to convey stories, films also become an agent to express one’s beliefs. In this thesis, I discuss how Pixar demonstrates their ideal gender role through their films, Wall-E and Monsters University, with the assumption that Pixar deconstructs traditional gender role to show Pixar’s belief that a character can only be successful when he or she is able to adopt traits from both extremes. In order to accomplish this, I use gender role theory. In the analysis, I find out that both films’s existing ideology is that masculine gender role traits are put in higher hierarchy. However, the main characters’s characterization shows gender role traits which debunk the existing ideology such that both masculine and feminine traits become equally important to adopt. As a result, I can see that Pixar supports androgyny through their main characters. I also discover that their ideology can be used for increasing their profit income.

Ari Folman’s The Congress (2013) borrows freely from Stanisław Lem’s dystopian view in his Sci-fi novel The Futurological Congress (1971) to propose the gradual dissolution of the human into an artificial form, which is animation. By moving the action of the novel from a hypothetical future to contemporary Hollywood, Ari Folman gives CGI animation the role of catalyst for changes not only in the production system, but for human thought and, therefore, for society. This way, the film ponders the changing role of performers at the time of their digitalization, as well as on the progressive dematerialization of the film industry, considering a dystopian future where simulation fatally displaces reality, which invites relating The Congress with Jean Baudrillard’s and Alan Cholodenko’s theses on how animating technologies have resulted in the culture of erasing. Moreover, this article highlights how Lem’s metaphor of the manipulation of information in the Soviet era is transformed in the second part of The Congress into a vision of cinema as a collective addiction, relating it to Alexander Dovzhenko’s and Edgar Morin’s speculative theories of total film – which come close to the potentialities of today’s Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. In addition, although The Congress is a disturbing view of film industry and animating technologies, its vision of film is nostalgically retro as it vindicates an entire tradition of Golden Age animation that transformed the star system into cartoons, suggesting the fictionalization of their lives and establishing a postmodern continuum between animation and film.

In this paper, we describe a cross-disciplinary process that uses photogrammetric surveys as a precise basis for video projection mapping techniques. Beginning with a solid basis that uses geoinformatics technologies, such as laser scanning and photogrammetric survey, the method sets, as a first step, the physical and geometrical acquisition of the object. Precision and accuracy are the basics that allow the analysis of the artwork, both at a small or large scale, to evaluate details and correspondences. Testing contents at different scales of the object, using 3D printed replicas or real architectures is the second step of the investigation.<br>The core of the process is the use of equations of collinearity into an interactive system such as Max&amp;thinsp;7, a visual programming language for music and multimedia, in order to facilitate operators to have a fast image correction, directly inside the interactive software. Interactivity gives also the opportunity to easily configure a set of actions to let the spectators to directly change and control the animation content. The paper goes through the different phases of the research, analysing the results and the progress through a series of events on real architecture and experiments on 3d printed models to test the level of involvement of the audience and the flexibility of the system in terms of content.<br>The idea of using the collinearity equation inside da software Max&amp;thinsp;7 was developed for the M.Arch final Thesis by Massimo Visonà and Tommaso Pasini of the University of Venice (IUAV) in collaboration with the Digital Exhibit Postgraduate Master Course (MDE Iuav).

Always keen on the spectators’ freedom of interpretation, André Bazin’s film theory not only asks the famous question “What is cinema?,” but it also explores what is a human. By underlining the importance of personalist ethics, Angela Dalle Vacche is the first film specialist to identify Bazin’s “anti-anthropocentric” ambition of the cinema in favor of a more compassionate society. Influenced by the personalist philosophy of his mentor, Emmanuel Mounier, Bazin argued that the cinema is a mind-machine that interrogates its audiences on how humankind can engage in an egalitarian fashion towards other humans. According to Bazin, cinema’s ethical interrogation places human spirituality or empathy on top of creativity and logic. Notwithstanding Bazin’s emphasis on ethics, his film theory is rich with metaphors from art and science. The French film critic’s metaphorical writing lyrically frames encounters between literary texts and filmmaking styles, while it illuminates the analogy between the élan vital of biology and cinema’s lifelike ontology. A brilliant analyst of many kinds of films from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, ranging from fiction to documentary, from animation to the avant-garde, Bazin felt that the abstractions of editing were as important as the camera’s fluidity of motion. Furthermore, he disliked films based on a thesis or on an a priori stance that would rule out the risks and surprises of life in motion. Neither a mystic nor an animist, Bazin was a dissident Catholic and a cultural activist without membership of a specific political party. Eager to dialogue with all kinds of communities, Bazin always disliked institutionalized religions based on dogmas.

This paper considers an approach to resolving referential relations when extracting information from a text. The proposed approach is an attempt to integrate the multifactorial model of the activation coefficient with the approach to resolving the referential ambiguity of the text when replenishing the ontology. The found objects are compared based on an assessment of the proximity of attributes and relationships of objects. An ontological interpretation of relations and measures of similarity of attributes based on a multifactorial model is proposed. This model is distinguished by the fact that it makes it possible to introduce the concepts of "rhetorical distance", "linear distance", "animation", "distance between paragraphs", and "syntactic and semantic role of the antecedent". A multifactorial model is proposed, which is a necessary and sufficient component for the purpose of explaining the measure of similarity of referents for choosing the best applicant. The counting system and its modification were revealed by trial and error; the work was carried out until the selected numerical weights began to explain all the available material. The current study also examines the factors of choice of reference devices that make it possible to work with complex sentences and texts. Moreover, examples of finding a measure of proximity in a multilingual system for the Kazakh, Russian, and English languages are offered. For the current paper, texts in the Russian, English, and Kazakh languages were used as a source for practical tasks. The texts were selected using news articles on the Internet sites where translations into other languages, including those named above, were offered. The authors of this study have done massive practical work, which confirms the correctness of the thesis they are considering

AbstractThis essay charts the development of the American state during the era when Southern lynchings prevailed. Contrary to the standard interpretation that depicts the American state as having lacked the administrative and legal capacity to protect the lives of Southern Blacks, it is a more pluralist conception of state weakness for which I argue, one that characterizes the American state's behavior regarding racial violence as the deliberate, calculated act of an active state choosing not to act. The state had always possessed legal authority to prosecute lynch mobs, but the key determinant was garnering the political will to enforce the law. Examples gleaned from the Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Roosevelt (FDR), and Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) administrations illustrate the American government's political vacillation between acting and not acting. Examinations of two Supreme Court cases in 1966 highlight the political nature of federal rights enforcement. In light of the 1966 Supreme Court decisions inUnited States v. PriceandUnited States v. Guest, the Court appears never to have repudiated or stripped the federal government of all of its authority to engage in combating racial violence. Even though the Court clearly signaled during Reconstruction that it was not going to uphold claims of rights violations of Blacks in the South, it did so without ever making a substantive decision on whether it could. Sections 241 and 242 of Title 18 of the United States Code were, in effect, placed into suspended animation; it was only when there was a political will to reengage with federal rights enforcement that the Court resuscitated these laws. In the parlance of the weak state thesis, the American state did not lose its capacity to combat racial violence; rather it simply chose not to engage.

Abstract Hungarian civil religion in general, and various ethno-pagan spiritualities in special are deeply unsatisfied with the canonical version(s) of ancient national history. Screening history is an act of powerful pictorial mythologization of historical discourses and also a visual expression of national characterology. In recent years two animated films were released, telling the ancient history of Hungarians, but the stories they tell are very different. Not long after Marcell Jankovics’s Song of the Miraculous Hind1 (Ének a csodaszarvasról, 2002), a long fantasy animation based on ethnographic and historical data, another similar long animation: Heaven’s Sons (Az Ég fiai, 2010) started to circulate on YouTube and other various online Hungarian video-sharing channels. It seems as if the latter, an amateur digital compilation by Tibor Molnár, would have been made in response to the first film, to correct its “errors”, by retelling the key narratives. Built mainly on two recent mythopoetic works: the Arvisura and the Yotengrit (both of them holy scriptures for some Hungarian Ethno-Pagan movements), Molnár’s animation is an excellent summary of a multi-faceted new Hungarian mythology, comprising many alternative historical theses. My paper aims to present two competing images of the Nation on the basis of several parallel scenes, plots and symbolic representations from the two animations. A close comparative investigation of these elements with the help of the Kapitány couple’s mythanalytic method will show the essential differences between the two national self-conceptions expressed through the imaginary

With the old way of learning and methods, Vocational High School students will be bored, especially in the field of Arts and Culture, which on average are considered difficult and not liked by most students. Therefore, it is necessary to make other learning media based on Android so that learning becomes more interesting and enjoyable. In addition, with this learning media, it is hoped that it can help children's creativity and thinking power, because it is equipped with several important components that can hone children's imaginative power such as pictures, videos in the material provided. Therefore, the authors design and create an application about interactive learning media that includes these components. This application will be aimed at the Vocational High School level with the title "Android-Based Musical Instrument Recognition Application for Vocational High School Level". Therefore, research was conducted at the Vocational High School level. Users want attractive images of each musical instrument such as guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, have video links, there are questions in the application, a menu in the form of icons, and attractive colors. After designing, manufacturing, and testing this application, several conclusions can be drawn. First, with this application, Vocational High School students can easily learn musical instruments in different ways. In addition, with this learning method, students become enthusiastic and learning becomes fun in studying cultural arts lessons in the field of musical instruments, especially musical instrument techniques and chords of musical instruments. Second, this application is able to hone the cognitive abilities of students because in this application there are practice questions, the questions are integrated with the material provided, so that students can easily practice their abilities through the practice questions available in this application. Third, and lastly, according to the author, this application is lacking in terms of animation in the application that was made late. Hopefully this application can be a learning material for students who want to take a Thesis with a title related to learning musical instruments. The author really expects criticism and suggestions because this design system still has many shortcomings

This artistic doctoral research examines how the third space emerging from intercultural dialogue and transcultural collaboration can be a catalyst for new musical discoveries, intercultural humility, and the (re)forming of artistic identities. The body of this project is centred around three doctoral concerts, a CD/LP recording, and a documentary film which took place between 2016 and 2021. In addition, I draw on the embodied experience of a five-year period that I spent living and collaborating with musicians and dancers in Tanzania and Zambia prior to the doctoral project.As a double bass player, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, I place myself in a series of different musical and multi-arts contexts, engaging in dialogue with musicians, dancers, and visual artists from Brazil, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, France, Madagascar, Mexico, Poland, Sápmi, Tanzania, the UK and Zambia. Various solo, duo, and ensemble settings act as case studies to examine how this process takes place, the new knowledge gained from the collaborations and their resulting artistic outcomes, and the effects of intercultural dialogue, collaboration, and co-creation on my own artistic identity. The instruments and forms of artistic expression used by my collaborators include the Brazilian berimbau, Chinese guzheng, dance, live electronics, experimental instrument making, Finnish Saarijärvi kantele, Sámi joik, vocals, percussion, live visuals, image manipulation, animation, photography and film.The key concepts that I investigate in this research are: artistic identity, global citizenship, hybridity, interculturalism, intercultural humility, liminality, third space theory, and resonance, the latter being viewed both as a physical phenomenon and as an approach to thinking about the ways in which we connect with the world around us. This research contributes to new knowledge and understandings in the areas of artistic identity formation, intercultural collaboration and interculturalism in music education through the interweaving of artistic processes, audio, video, photographs, artistic outcomes and text.Findings emerge in terms of new musical discoveries that surface from the dynamic third space created through transcultural collaboration; the expanding and deepening of musicianship through intercultural dialogue and collaboration; the interconnected nature of interculturalism in music and its reliance on openness, empathy, dialogue and constantnegotiation with sonic material, people and place; and the crucial role of fluidity and resonance in forming a personal artistic identity.Further research outcomes include new techniques and the expansion of the sonic palette of the double bass, enabled by developing custom-made attachments, preparations and electronic manipulation. The complete scope of this doctoral project includes four artistic components (three concerts and a recording), a documentary film and an artistic doctoral thesis comprising two peer-reviewed articles and an integrative chapter, all housed within the main multi-media exposition, Resonance: (Re)forming an Artistic Identity through Intercultural Dialogue and Collaboration.

Since its inception by the Council of Europe in 1989, Eurimages has been to the fore in financing European co-productions with the aim of fostering integration and cooperation in artistic and industry circles and has helped finance over 1,600 feature films, animations and documentaries. Taking as its thesis the idea that the CoE seeks to perpetuate Europes utopian ideals, despite the dystopian realities that frequently undermine both the EU and the continent at large, this article analyses select Eurimages-funded dystopian films from industrial, aesthetic and socio-cultural standpoints with a view toward decoding institutionally embedded critiques of the European project.

Abstract While many aspects of disciplinary communication have been effectively illuminated by systemic functional linguistics, the ‘multimodal’ turn of communication requires some rethinking of old frameworks. In academic disciplines such as History, recent epistemological changes further highlight this need. From animations used by primary school students to doctoral theses, this paper draws on the systemic functional notion of register to explore how multimodal choices contribute to field, tenor and mode, just as linguistic choices do. Such multimodal examples may occur in forms which can be described as implicitly multimodal, explicitly multimodal or fully intersemiotic. All contribute to emerging forms of epistemology in the discipline and to new textual forms, with particular implications for educational practice.

This article introduces audiovisual data-set, and data-visualization methods developed to analyze video remixes, i.e., Anime Music Videos (AMVs). It mainly focuses on reviewing the methodology that has supported our Ph.D. thesis which aims to integrate a qualitative methodology according to Bakhtin's theories of genre and architectonics, and a quantitative methodology based on media visualization techniques and statistical distributions of formal and stylistic choices. More specifically, it aimed to reflect upon on audiovisual productions belonging to the site http://www.animemusicvideos.org/. Community whose goal is the elaboration and distribution of Japanese animations remixes called Anime Music Videos (AMVs). We propose to integrate an enunciative-discursive perspective, formulated for verbal language with an analysis objective method of multimodal objects. Hence we suggest a mixed research design (quantitative and qualitative) based on statistical distributions and description and analysis of our data visualization techniques, aiming to reveal relationships and patterns in our collection of audiovisual data, so as to provide productive transitions between the concepts proposed by Bakhtin and his Circle, and analysis of editing and video editing tools.

The article discusses the changes in puppetry that occurred mostly in the second half of the 20th century. It addresses the changes in organization that led from small family groups to institutionalized public institutions and follows the organizational example of ensembles of drama theatre institutions, as well as changes in the relationship between the animator and the puppet that allow the disillusioning emergence of the animator into the visual field of the viewer. The “manipulator” who is no longer hidden influences the change in the manner of narration, in the aesthetic and the political senses both; at the same time, the qualitative difference between the manipulator as a living, physical and human being and the puppet on the other side is suddenly revealed. The article concludes by addressing the ethical dimension in the puppet theatre as it stresses the understanding of the puppet as the face of the other whose life is the responsibility of the human being. The article carries out its instructive review and theses with the help of several illustrative examples.

The article examines the main theses of the New Italian Epic Memorandum (2009) written by an Italian literary group “Wu Ming” as well as response of critics and literary theorists to its publication. The paper discusses the notion of the author’s voice and author’s persona in the context of the modern literary process, as well as other theoretical postulates of the group. The underlying idea of the Memorandum is the concept of the New Italian Epic (NIE), a body of relevant modern works written after 2000 and sharing common features. The main idea of the NIE concerns the development of narrative crossroads between literature, journalism, movies, animation, and documentary, with the use of visual effects, allegoric figures, simplified stylistics, and hyperrealism. The Memorandum also calls to abandon traditional literary forms and style. Instead of the term “novel,” the authors suggest an alternative definition: “indefinite narrative object.” Between 2009 and 2019, Wu Ming 1 (Roberto Bui) gives detailed answers to critical comments and continues to develop their theory that can no longer be ignored by Italian literary scholars.

Can archaeology make sense of art ‘after interpretation’? Post-human scholarship suggests that conventional approaches to art, guided by Cartesian ontology, fail to account for the deeper kinship between things and thoughts. But the growing disillusionment with representation leaves art and the semiotic questions it raises in limbo. Can we recover an adequate social theory of art, semiosis and the subject in a post-humanist world? I submit that we can by building on Eduardo Kohn's thesis that life beyond the human is constitutively semiotic. Art, as a semiotic involution of life's animating processes, is form-taking and form-replicating activity. This form-taking is open-ended and prospective, continuously reaching beyond itself to refigure specific cases as general kinds. This occasions a process of emergence through which novel ‘reals’—including societies and selves—are produced. Extending Sahlins’ definition of kinship to include human/non-human relations, I argue that seventeenth-century Iroquoian art was about kinning—the making of relatives—and its power to form and reform relations of all sorts was central to its success.

Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History" have been interpreted almost exclusively in relation to Marxist historical materialism and, in that context, inevitably found wanting, misunderstood as the unwelcome intrusion of mystical and voluntarist notions into a rational method of historical explanation. Levinas, although he never mentions Benjamin, nonetheless affords a better clue as to what Benjamin might have been trying to accomplish. The major distinction animating and structuring Levinas's work is that between ethics, or the ethical relation, and ontology, or the disclosure of being. One of the principal ways this distinction is elaborated is in terms of the contrast and conflict between the synchronizable time assumed by the historical memory belonging to the ontological project and the diachrony of the ethical relation, or the non synchronizable time, the posterior anteriority of the memory of radical separation and interiority. The distinction between synchronic temporalization and diachrony can enable a different understanding of the central concept of Benjamin's "Theses...", viz. "empty homogeneous time, and also thereby of the perspective of Benjamin's "angel of history" from which the liberatory(non-)activity of the Benjamininan historical materialist follows. What the historical materialist does in allowing the flow of time and thought to be arrested in the grand abridgement of a monadic image is to speak for those Others whose being has been functionalized within universal history.

Abstract Following the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, murderous violence against local Jews broke out in many localities of the territories it had occupied in the wake of the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. In particular, organizers demanded revenge for the recent Stalinist repressions and deportations. Participants claimed that the “Jewish Soviet state,” the “Jewish NKVD,” or local Jews had been responsible for those crimes. Even now, the legend of prewar Jewish responsibility figures in the dubious “double genocide” thesis animating nationalistic historiographies in Eastern Europe and its international diasporas. The following study counters that mythology, addressing the story of actual Jews in the NKVD at the end of the 1930s. It draws on the archives of the Ukrainian security services, especially records that document Stalin’s effort to divert blame for the recent Great Terror onto senior and mid-level officials. Stalin’s green light to criticize the bosses gave other NKVD officers the opportunity to address many issues, including that of antisemitism among NKVD cadres. These sources suggest that antisemitism was in fact a potent force within the NKVD in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Homosexuality is the truth of love.—Gilles Deleuze, Proust and SignsNo one wants to be called a homosexual.—Leo Bersani, HomosThe Tension Between My Epigraphs' Formulations Might be Taken as The Animating Energy of Queer Theory. If the first provides queers with a vision of our sexuality as flatteringly significant, the second insists with punishing concision that this significance resists translation into social equality. More precisely, the two statements could be seen as mutually constitutive: it is the social abjection of the sexually deviant that makes our sexuality interesting, as it is the excessive symbolic interest of our difference that has made us socially volatile. Or at least this has been one guiding assumption of queer theory, which has leveraged some of its most imaginative work by arrogating to queerness a symbolic centrality out of all proportion to queers' acknowledged numbers or to our social power. It is no accident that Leo Bersani articulates the unpleasant reality principle in this little epigraphic debate. His writing is justly famous for its suspicion of the rhetoric of identitarian dignity and for its refusal of conceptual consolations of all kinds; Bersani's habit of accentuating the negative made his work the inevitable reference point for PMLA's May 2006 Forum on the “antisocial thesis” in queer theory (Caserio et al.). And yet for all Bersani's insistence on exposing the fantasies of transcendence undergirding our culture and our criticism, his writing is perhaps even more remarkable for the way it has managed to combine that scouring sensibility with a sense of ethical and political promise. Refusing the culture of redemption won't, of course, quite save you. But Bersani's work has always suggested that it could be beneficent (a favorite word of his).

Dietary perception, behavior, and nutritional status can all be influenced by exposure to information. Behavior change communication that is appropriately designed and implemented is critical for motivating optimal dietary behavior. On the other hand, inadvertent or deliberate misinformation can drive unhealthy dietary behaviors. As part of the process to develop food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) for Ghana, this rapid evidence review examined the nature, extent, sources, and medium of food and nutrition information dissemination and promotion in Ghana. PubMed, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and Open Access Theses Dissertations (OATD) databases were searched systematically using keywords to identify relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature. The review included 31 documents, after excluding 1,302 documents for ineligibility (based on irrelevant title, abstract, and duplicates). Limited reporting of undernutrition was found in print and electronic media. Unhealthy foods, including sugar-sweetened beverages, snacks, yogurt, instant noodles, candy/chocolate, and ice cream were frequently advertised through various communication media. Children are highly exposed to food advertisements, which target them. Promotional characters, animation, billboards, and front-of-store displays; product-branded books, and toys are common strategies for food marketing and advertisement in Ghana. The most frequently reported sources of health and nutrition information were television, radio, social media, health professionals, families, and friends. Children and adults experienced changes in food preferences and choices as a result of exposure to food advertised on television. The commonly used traditional media were radio and television; printed newspaper use has declined tremendously in the past decade. Social media use (particularly WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube) is highest in urban areas, and is growing rapidly; young adults are the most active users of social media platforms. Experts recommend regulation as a mitigation for nutrition miscommunication and inaccurate promotion. The current review highlights the need for regulation of food marketing, and advertisement to safeguard a healthy food environment in Ghana. Key words: advertisement, promotion, diet, regulation, social media, food, Ghana

The article is a first attempt to tackle Borys Grinchenko’s theoretical paper “The Management of Inspiration” (1893) in the Ukrainian literary studies. The manuscript of Grinchenko’s paper is kept at the Institute of Manuscripts of the National Library of Ukraine named after V. I. Vernadsky. The subject of the research is the writer’s views on the psychology of creativity. The article aims to consider the theoretical views of the Ukrainian philosopher on the problem of inspiration as a special creative venue of the artists, writers or composers, the management of which can affect their productivity. The results of the study enable to detect the influence of both idealistic and positivist-oriented aesthetics in Grinchenko’s theoretical approach to the cultivated creativity. The Ukrainian philosopher is resolute in denying the idea of inspiration as a rapidly passing special state which cannot be managed for example by the writer. Nor does he accept the possibility of productive creativity only in the moments of emotional outburst or transcendence. Grinchenko develops coherently the idea that the ingenious writers systematically experienced inspiration relying on the skill, worked out over the years, to create at a fixed time. In his opinion, the timing for different types of activity allowed those writers to evoke special spirituality at certain hours, when aesthetic performance is the most productive. In his paper, B. Grinchenko insists on the need for each creator to handle the inspiration by means of the skillful management of creative process. The ideas of the Ukrainian philosopher on the possibility of managing writer’s insight keep with the Hegelian thesis of creative inspiration as a natural result of the artist’s hard work. B. Grinchenko regards inspiration as an animating force that can be set in motion by daily routine. Every writer’s moment of the highest revelation proceeds differently; its every stage can be differently time-bound. Yet Borys Grinchenko hopes that in the future the development of literary processes will lead most writers to a disciplined and manageable way of creativity. The ideas of Grinchenko’s paper on the bonding of inspiration and the titanic work of the writer are up-to-date.

AbstractHans Urs von Balthasar claimed that Barth's Church Dogmatics demonstrates a weakening of his distinctive actualism in order to make space for ‘the concept of authentic objective form’, a point illustrated by the discourse on divine beauty in CD II/1. There Barth treats the divine being as an objective form to be contemplated, a seeming departure from Barth's privileged conceptualisation of God as personal subject whose free action humbles our theoretical gaze and graciously provides the material content for proper speech about God. Bruce McCormack has challenged von Balthasar's general thesis, arguing that no weakening has in fact taken place in the Church Dogmatics. If this is the case, what then of Barth's discourse on divine beauty? Is it consistent with his actualistic doctrine of God? Is it possible to speak of God both as a free, dynamic event and an object of beauty? Can theological aesthetics find a home within Barth's actualism? This article answers in the affirmative by demonstrating the systematic integrity between Barth's claims about divine beauty and the actualism permeating CD II/1. First, the article examines the ambiguity of Barth's specific claims about divine beauty. Barth is both enthusiastic and hesitant in speaking about divine beauty, affirming the concept yet placing careful qualifications on its use. Next, the article illustrates how the nature of these claims is anticipated by the actualism of CD II/1, specifically by (1) Barth's clear rejection of divine formlessness, (2) his argument that God's act of self-revelation in Jesus Christ implies an objective triune form for God's being and, lastly, (3) how he grounds discourse on divine beauty in the event of God's dynamic, free love. The article finally contends that the key to Barth's puzzling position on divine beauty is in understanding the precise reason why he registers beauty as a necessary but insufficient theological concept. This qualification is rooted in an important content–form, spirit–nature distinction which frames all discussion about God's being-in-act. Throughout CD II/1, objective form is a necessary condition for divine self-expression, but objectivity is always grounded in the freedom of the Spirit. Thus, the freedom-to-love at the heart of God's triune existence is the ground of our experience of God as beautiful, not any continuity with our contemplation of created forms. As such, the creative freedom animating God's triune life provides the space for, but also the limit to, theological aesthetics by imbuing divine beauty in mystery.

In the roadrunner cartoons, the unlucky coyote, in hot pursuit of the roadrunner, frequently finds himself running off the edge of a precipice. In sympathy with the coyote's plight, the laws of physics suspend their action. Gravity waits to exert its force until the coyote realizes his situation and resigns himself to the inevitable. Only then does the coyote fall, miraculously surviving the near-disaster without serious damage. What does this have to do with cell biology at the turn of the millennium? Blame it on JCS's Caveman or at least the infectiousness of the troglodyte's point of view. But it strikes this Editor that for much of cell biology, no less than for the roadrunner, the laws of physics are seemingly suspended. Pick up any contemporary text book or review article and look at the cartoons (diagrams) that grace the pages. You will find diagrams replete with circles, squares, ellipsoids and iconic representations of molecular components, supramolecular assemblies or membrane compartments. Arrows define signal cascades, pathways of transport and patterns of interaction. Even better, check out any of the supplementary instructional CDs that accompany text books and view the animations. You will see cell toons - molecules moving on smooth trajectories to interact with their partners, assembling into cellular machinery or arriving at cellular destinations. They all seem to know where to go and what to do in their cell toon life. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about DNA replication, protein synthesis, mitochondrial respiration, membrane trafficking, nuclear import, chromatin condensation or assembly of the mitotic spindle to mention just a few examples. In each case, the process unfolds before us as a molecular ballet choreographed by a hidden director. Or should I say anonymous animator. Please don't get me wrong. Cartoon diagrams are a necessary part of science. They help us to form and communicate concepts. Adages such as ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ do not come into existence for nothing. Further, simplification is necessary to sharpen Occam's razor. Science progresses faster if a hypothesis is honed to the point where it can be readily refuted. Of course, it is best to be right. Next best is to be wrong. But the worst thing that can be said about a concept is that it is so hedged or ambiguous that it cannot even be wrong. Cartoons are invaluable in presenting clear alternatives. And cartoons, by definition, do not attempt to portray reality. We understand and accept that they deliberately omit details which may be important in some other context but which are extraneous to the story line. We do not have to know how the coyote recovers from his disastrous fall. It is sufficient that he resumes the chase. Likewise, much of Cell Biology can satisfactorily be ‘explained’ in terms of the behavior of toons. My thesis for this essay is that cell biology at the turn of the millennium has, for the first time, the real opportunity to burst the frames of the cartoons. The field has progressed to the point where the maxim that cells obey the laws of physics and chemistry can be made more than a creed. The time is approaching for the mystery of the hidden directornymous animator to be dispelled. What is driving this new orientation and what is required to bring it to fruition? Advances in structural biology provide part of the explanation. Atomic structures have been determined for a large variety of proteins, with the number increasing on a daily basis. Structural genomics will succeed genomics. It is possible to foresee that in the not too distant future atomic structures will be known for most if not all the major proteins in a cell. Not only individual proteins but supramolecular assemblies as complex as the ribosome have yielded to structural analysis. Of course, structures per se are static entities, but biology has taught that function is inherent in structure. Knowledge of molecular structures has provided atomic explanations for ligand binding, allosteric interaction, enzymatic catalysis, ion pumps, immune recognition, sensory detection and mechano-chemical transduction. When combined with kinetics, structural biology provides the chemical bedrock of cell biology. But the bedrock of structural biology, while necessary for the new cell biology, is almost certainly not sufficient. A major gap is in understanding the complex properties of self-organizing systems. Cells are ensembles of molecules interacting within boundaries. Some of the molecules are organized into supramolecular assemblies that have been likened to molecular machines. Examples include multi-enzyme complexes, DNA replication complexes, the ribosome and the proteasome. Understanding the operation of these molecular machines in chemical and physical terms is a major challenge in that they display exotic behavior such as solid-state channeling of substrates, error-checking, proof-reading, regulation and adaptiveness. Nevertheless, the conceptual basis for their formation is thought to rest on well-established principles: namely, the equilibrium self-assembly of molecular components whose specific affinities are inherent in their 3-D structure. However, other aspects of cellular organization manifest properties beyond self-assembly. The cytoskeleton, for example, is a steady-state system which requires the continuous input of energy to maintain its organization. It displays emergent properties of self-organization, self-centering, self-polarization and self-propagating motility. Membrane compartments such as the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus and transport vesicles provide additional examples of cellular organization dependent upon dynamic processes far from equilibrium. A further level of complexity is introduced by the fact that the self-organization of one system, such as membrane compartments, may be dependent upon another, such as the cytoskeleton. A challenge for the new cell biology is to go beyond ‘toon’ explanations, to understand the emergent, self-organizing properties of interdependent systems. It is likely that an adequate response to this challenge will be multidisciplinary, involving approaches not normally associated with mainstream cell biology. We are likely to be in for a heavy dose of biophysics, computer modeling and systems analysis. A serious problem will be to identify functional levels of decomposition and reconstitution. Because of the microscopic scale, thermal energy, randomness and stochastic processes will be an intrinsic part of the landscape. Brownian motions may present a Damoclean double edge. They are commonly thought to be responsible for the degradation of order into disorder. But, counterintuitively, random thermal processes may also provide the raw energy which, if biased by energy-dependent molecular switches and motors, generates order from disorder. Non-deterministic processes and selection from among alternative pathways may be a common strategy. Fluctuation theory, probabilistic formulations and rare events may underpin the capacity of molecular ensembles to ‘evolve’ into ordered configurations. Further, biological properties such as error-checking and adaptiveness imply an ‘intelligence’, which suggests that the systems analysis may have ‘software’ as well as ‘hardware’ dimensions. Molecular logic may be non-deterministic, ‘fuzzy’ and able to ‘learn’. The evolvability of the system may itself be an important consideration in understanding the design principles. The belief that cells obey the laws of physics and chemistry means that, in terms of the molecular ballet, the director is not only hidden - he doesn't exist. One is tempted to say that the challenge is to understand how the ballet came to be self- choreographed. But even this formulation misses the point that the individual dancers have no definite positions on the stage. Organization in the cell is a continuity of form, not individual molecules. The challenge is to understand how the ensemble is able to perform the dance with chaotic free substitution.

Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit, author of Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife, explores, in the context of the development of cinema, how the concept of “the animal” has become central to modern understandings of human subjectivity. Lippit considers the disappearance of real animals and their concurrent appearance in various conceptual and material uses, particularly noting the ways in which the conjoined notions of humanity and animality figure into and through cinema. The animal, he argues, haunts the foundation of western logical systems. Yet, despite the fact that humans and animals suffer under the discursive weight of the signifier, Lippit is careful to note the increasing instability of the human-animal boundary and what might be done to realize more just relationships among both humans and other animals. On February 12, 2008, Lauren Corman spoke with Lippit as part of the “Animal Voices” radio program, a weekly show dedicated to animal advocacy and cultural critique. They discussed how Lippit developed his thesis and the ramifications of his theoretical work. Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife was published in 2000 by the University of Minnesota Press. “Animal Voices” can be heard weekly on CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto, or online at animalvoices.ca.Full TextLauren Corman: How have questions regarding animals and animality figured into your film scholarship? When did you bring these themes into your work, and why? Akira Mizuta Lippit: That is its own story in a way. The book that you refer to, Electric Animal, was written initially as my doctoral dissertation, and at the time, I was thinking in particular about the moment at which cinema appeared in the late 19th century. There are all kinds of phantasmatic and imaginary birthdays of cinema, but generally people agree that 1895, or thereabouts, was when cinema appeared as a set of technological, aesthetic, and cultural features, and as an economic mode of exchange. People sold and bought tickets and attended screenings. And I was thinking about what it must have felt like at that moment to experience this uncanny medium. There are various reports of early film performances and screenings, some of them apocryphal and inventive and embellished and so forth, but I think the fascination, the kind of wonder that cinema evoked among many early viewers had to do with this uncanny reproduction of life, of living movement, and the strange tension that it created between this new technology (and we are in the middle of the industrial revolution and seeing the advent of all sorts of technologies and devices and apparatuses), and its proximity to, in a simple way, life: the movements of bodies. And I began to think that the principle of animation, here was critical. To make something move, and in thinking about the term animation and all of its roots, to make something breathe, to make something live. What struck me, in this Frankensteinian moment was the sense that something had come to life, and the key seemed to be about how people understood, conceived of, and practiced this notion of animating life through a technology. I started to hear a resonance between animals and animation. I started to think about the way in which animals also played a role, not only in early cinema and in animation and the practice of the genre but leading up to it in the famous photographs of Edward Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey, the moving images of animals that were produced serially, as well as the “chronophotographs” that rendered animal motion. And it occurred to me that there was a reason to pause and think about what role animals were playing at that moment in history. As I began to read, and as I began to collect materials and to think through this question of the status and function of the animal, what animality meant, it took on its own set of values, and essentially Electric Animal ended up being a kind of preamble, or an introduction to a book that I haven’t yet written, because I only reach at the end of the book, and in a very perfunctory manner, the advent of cinema. So in a sense, this book, and this question, about what an animal meant for generations before, at that moment and in successive generations, became its own subject, one I still think is critically linked to the question of cinema, and the arrival of cinema, and the force of cinema throughout the 20th century. LC: Let’s return to that piece that you mentioned about life, and that cinema could show or play this Frankensteinian role; of course, a parallel stream is around death, and some of the work that I have read about early cinema shows that people were quite afraid, initially, of what it meant. Could you comment on that theme of death and the animal in cinema? AML: This emerged as a major issue during the course of my study. The discourse on death and the uncanny, the idea that something appears to be there, in the form of a ghost or a phantom, already existed in discussions of photography throughout the 19th century. The sense that photography forges a material connection to the object, that the photograph establishes a material connection to the photographed object, and as such when you look at a photograph you are not simply looking at a rendering, like an artist’s interpretation in a painting or sculpture, but you are actually looking at, experiencing a kind of carnal, physical contact with the persons themselves, or with an object, reappears frequently in the discourses on photography. This creates a real excitement, and also fear. I think that effect, the photographic effect of somehow being in the presence of the thing itself, is enhanced by the addition of movement, because with movement you have the feeling that this being is not just there, looking at you perhaps, but also moving in its element, in its time, whether (and this is very important to the discussions of photography) that person is still alive or not. I think that gap is produced at the moment of any photograph and perhaps in any film: the person who appears before you, who appears to be alive, who at that moment is alive, may or may not still be alive. So it produces, among those who have thought in this way, a sense of uncanniness, something is there and isn’t there at once. Where I think that this is particularly important in this discussion of “the animal,” and as I began to discover in doing the reading (I should add that I am not a philosopher, I don’t teach philosophy, but I am a reader of philosophy; I read it sporadically, I read here and there wherever my interests are) is that with very few but important exceptions, there is a line of western philosophy that says animals are incapable of dying. On the most intuitive level this seems nonsensical. Of course animals die. We know that animals die. We kill animals; we kill them andwe see them die. No question that animals die. But the philosophical axiom here—which begins with Epicurus, but is repeated over and over, by Descartes perhaps most forcefully, and in the 20th century by Martin Heidegger—is that death is not simply a perishing, the end of life, but it is a experience that one has within life, a relationship with one’s own end. The claim that is made over and over again, which has been disputed by many people – and it is certainly not my claim – but the claim that one finds repeatedly in philosophy is that animals don’t die – they don’t have death in the way human beings have, and carry with them, death. Animals know fear, they know things like instinctual preservation, they seek to survive, but they don’t have death as an experience. Heidegger will say in the most callous way, they simply perish. It struck me that this problem was not a problem of animals, but rather a problem for human beings. If human beings don’t concede the capacity of animals to die, then what does it mean that animals are disappearing at this very moment, in the various developments of industry, in human population, in urbanization, environmental destruction, that animals are increasingly disappearing from the material and everyday world? And where do they go, if we don’t, as human beings, concede or allow them death? (Of course this is only in a very specific, and one might argue, very small, discursive space in western philosophy. Many people have pointed out that this is not the case in religious discourses, in a variety of cultural practices, and in various ethnic and cultural communities. This is a certain kind of western ideology that has been produced through a long history of western philosophy.) So the question of death, the particular form of suspended death that photography and cinema introduced appeared in response to perhaps a crisis in western critical and philosophical discourse that denied to the animal, to animals, the same kind of death that human beings experience. You have this convergence of two death-related, life-anddeath related, problems at a time when I think that these issues were particularly important. LC: So from there, the question that comes to mind is what purpose does it serve and the word that is coming to mind is identity, and the idea of human identity and subjectivity. There must be some reason that western thought keeps going back to this denial of animal death. You tie it in, as others have, to language. AML: Two key features of human subjectivity, in the tradition of western philosophy, have been language and death, and the relationship between language and death. This goes back to Plato, to Socrates, and before. The point at which I was writing Electric Animal, at the end of the 20th century, gave me the ability to look back at developments in critical theory, philosophy, and the history of ideas throughout the 20th century, and it became clear with the significant interventions of the late 1960s that from at least one century earlier, the question of human subjectivity, its stability, its absoluteness, had already been in question. This question is slowly working its way toward a radical re-evaluation of the status of, the value of, and ultimately the confidence that human beings place in their own subjectivity, and there are many, many influences: around questions of gender and sexuality, questions of race and identity, and in crimes like genocide, for example, during World War II, but before and after as well. All of these developments contribute to this reevaluation, but one could argue that at this moment, in the late 19th century already, there was a certain sense that what had been insisted upon as absolutely unique, as an absolute form in itself – the human subject – required a whole series of constant exclusions and negations for it to survive. One such exclusion is to claim as properly human, language; what makes the human being human, is the capacity for language, and through this capacity, the capacity for death. As many philosophers argue, only human beings can name death as such, because language gives us the capacity to names those things, not just objects around us, but to name those things that do not appear before us, and these would be the traditional philosophical objects: love, death, fear, life, forgiveness, friendship, and so on. And it will be assumed that animals have communication, they communicate various things within their own groups and between groups, they signal of course, but that animals don’t have language as such, which means they can’t name those things that are not before them or around them. And it is very clear that there is an effort among human beings to maintain the survival of this precious concept of human subjectivity, as absolutely distinct and absolutely unique. So you find in those long discourses on human subjectivity, this return to questions of language and death. I would suggest that at this time, with the appearance of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, and with other disruptive thinkers like Sigmund Freud and the advent of psychoanalysis, there is a great sense of uncertainty regarding these edifices of human subjectivity, language and death. In Electric Animal this moment is particularly rich with such shifts and instabilities, and the sense that language is not exclusive to human beings, as many people thought, but also that language is not as self-assured in human beings as people thought. Here psychoanalysis plays an important role in indicating, at least speculatively, that we are not as in control of the language that we use to the extent that we would like to believe. LC: What are the consequences of this process in western thought, where the subject is conceived through an exclusion or a negation of the animal? What are the implications for humans, and also what are the implications for animals? I know that is a huge question. AML: It is a huge question; It is a very important question. One could argue that the consequences of a certain practice, let’s say, of the politics of the subject have been disastrous, certainly for animals, but also for human beings. If you take one of the places where the form of the human subject is created, it would be Descartes’ Discourse on Method, his attempt to figure out what, when everything that can be doubted and has been doubted, is left to form the core. And this is his famous quote: “Je pense donc je suis”, I think therefore I am, I am thinking therefore I am. If you read the Discourse on Method, this is a process of exclusion: I exclude everything that I am not to arrive at the central core of what I am. The process he follows leads him to believe that it is his consciousness, it is his presence, his selfpresence with his own consciousness that establishes for him, beyond any doubt, his existence. This is somewhat heretical, it is a break from theological discourses of the soul; it represents a form of self-creation through one’s consciousness. But consciousness is a very complicated thing, a very deceptive thing, because what I believe, what I feel, is not always exactly the way things are. Looking at a series of important shifts that have taken place during what we might call generally the modern period, which extends further back than the recent past, one finds a number of assaults on the primacy of consciousness. Freud names one as the Copernican revolution, which suggested that the earth was not the centre of the universe and that human beings were not at the centre of the universe; the Darwinian revolution, which suggested that humans beings were not created apart from other forms, all other forms of organic life, and that human beings shared with other animate beings, organic beings a common history, a pre-history. And Freud (he names himself as the third of these revolutionaries), is the one who suggested that consciousness itself is not a given at any moment, or available at any moment, to us as human beings. What constitutes our sense of self, our consciousness, is drawn from experiences that we no longer have access to—interactions with others, the desires of others, the kinds of influences and wishes that were passed into us through others, our parents, other influential figures early in our life— and that what we believe to be our conscious state, our wishes, desires, dreams and so forth, are not always known to us, and in fact can’t be known because they might be devastating and horrifying, in some cases. They will tell us things about ourselves that we couldn’t properly accept or continue to live with. I think that what is happening, certainly by the time that we enter the 20th century, around this discourse of the subject is that it is no longer holding, it is no longer serving its original purpose; it is generating more anxiety than comfort. Key historical events, World War I, for example, are producing enormous blows to the idea of western progress, humanism, and Enlightenment values, to the cultural achievements of the West— Hegel, for example, a 19th century philosopher, is very explicit about this—to those values that helped to shape the world, and ultimately were supposed to have created a better world for human beings: the Enlightenment, the pursuit of knowledge, science, medicine, religion and so forth. And yet, by the mid-twentieth century many of these beliefs were exposed as illusions, especially after the advent of death camps, camps created for the sole purpose of producing, as Heidegger himself says, producing corpses, a factory for corpses. It’s not a place where people happen to die. This is an entire apparatus designed in order to expeditiously, efficiently, and economically, create corpses out of living human beings. Similarly, with the first use of the atomic bomb, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, on human beings. This was a machine, a science, a technology, a weapon devised for maximizing, efficiently and economically, the destruction of human beings. I think what this created for many thinkers, philosophers, writers, artists, activists, citizens around the world was a sense that in fact what had helped to create this situation and these catastrophic results was not a matter of totalitarian regimes and bad politics, but something more fundamental: a certain belief that I have the right to destroy or take life from others. And how is that achieved? By first denying that those others are like me. So the discourse on Jews practiced throughout Nazi Germany is in fact even more extreme than that of the discourse on animals; in fact, as many people have pointed out, that many Nazis were famous for their love of animal, some were practicing vegetarians; they outlawed animal experimentation. In a sense animals were more like Aryan Germans, than Jews were. You have a series here of rhetorics that allow you to cast the enemy, the Other, at a distance from your own subjectivity, and in order to achieve this you have to deny them any form of subjectivity. Not just that they are just culturally different, or that they engage in different practices: They are radically and absolutely unlike me. And I believe that as many people began to think about this condition (Adorno has a very famous passage in which he talks about this), it became clear that one of the sources of this, is in fact the very ideology of the subject, which insists on an absolute autonomy, singularity, and distinct mode of existence from that which is not the subject, not any subject, the Other. Adorno, in a passage he wrote in a book titled Minima Moralia, which is a collection of aphorisms and observations he wrote during and after World War II, offers an observation I quote in Electric Animal. He titles it “People are looking at you”, and he says there is a moment in a typical scene of hunting where a wounded animal looks into the eyes of the hunter, or the killer as it dies. It produces at that moment, an effect that is undeniable: This thing, that is alive, that I have wounded and which is now dying, is looking at me. How can I deny that it is alive, that it is there, that it exists in the world, with its own consciousness, its own life, its own dreams, and desires? Adorno says the way you shake this off is you say to yourself, “It’s only an animal.” He will then link that gesture to the history of racism, and what he calls the pogrom, or genocide, against other human beings. You transfer this logic. So the ability to say to an animal, toward an animal that you have killed, whose death you’ve brought about, “It’s only an animal”, becomes the same logic you apply to other human beings when you harm or kill them. It’s a very profound observation because it suggests that in fact there is no line that separates the killing of animals from the killing of human beings. And in fact already at the moment when we kill an animal, we recognize something immediately that we have to erase from our consciousness with this phrase, “It’s only an animal.” LC: It seems to me then, too, that it’s this kind of perpetual haunting, because in that erasure, in that statement, “It’s only an animal,” there’s the animal itself that you had to assert yourself against and its living beingness. Do you think in that moment that he’s talking about—because it seems like kind of a struggle, or a narrative that you have to tell yourself—do you think that is also a moment potentially of agency, or resistance, in terms of an assertion of an animal subjectivity, or umwelt, or however you want to describe it? AML: Absolutely, and I think that Adorno’s phrase and that passage in which he is writing about this scene, an arbitrary, perhaps imaginary but typical scene of the hunt written shortly after the end of World War II, as well as all of Adorno’s pessimistic observations about the state of human culture, are written in a state of deep anguish. As he says in this very brief aphorism, we never believe this, even of the animal. When we tell ourselves, “It’s only an animal”, we in fact never believe it. Why? Because we are there and we see in the presence of an Other, a life that is there. For him it is important that the gaze, as he says, of the wounded animal, falls on the person who has perpetrated the crime. You seek to exclude it, to erase it, to dismiss it by saying that it is only an animal, but it allows you to transfer that very logic into the destruction of other human beings. Your phrase “haunting” is really important because I think that it suggests that a phantom animal becomes the crucial site not only for an animal rights, but for human ethics as well. The ability to kill another, is something in fact we—we, human beings—never properly achieve; we never truly believe this, “It’s only an animal” at that moment, Adorno says. We tell ourselves this, we insist upon it, try to protect ourselves through this mantric repetition of a phrase, “It’s only an animal,” “It’s only an animal,” yet we never believe it. And as such, we are haunted by it. I think the crisis in human subjectivity, in discourses on the human subject that arrive in the late 1950s, has everything to do with this kind of haunted presence. Human subjectivity is now a haunted subjectivity, haunted by animals, by everyone that has been excluded, by women, by people of different races, different ethnicities, different sexual preferences. And in fact the convergence of civil rights, critical theory, animal rights, feminism, the gay and lesbian movements, all of these things really shape—to use Foucault’s term—the episteme in which the primary political focus for many philosophers and theorists erupts in a critique of the subject. LC: Without getting you to offer something prescriptive [both laugh] about where to go from here, I do, I guess, want to ask about where to go from here. Because our audience is sort of the average person, turning on their car radio, or the animal rights activist, what does this mean then for… It just seems like a huge juggernaut, this huge weight, of Western history for people who want to shift, or people talk about blurring the boundaries between humans and animals (and this, of course, is very anxiety-provoking considering the legacy of Western thought), where is the turn now? Or where do you think there are potentials for (I think your phrase is) “remembering animals”? Is that the best can we can do? AML: Again, it’s an important question in so many ways. There are so many things I would like to speak to in response to that question. I would say that I don’t know if I am, by nature, an optimist or a pessimist. I do think, however, that a lot of things have been turning away from this condition, let’s say, or a certain kind of assumption, about the longevity of the human subject. I think that human subjectivity practiced honestly and ethically will continue to re-evaluate the terms of its own existence in relationship to Others, defined in the modern sense. And I do think that a certain ability to exist with an Other—an Other that may not share the same language that I speak, but certainly exists in a world that is as valuable, authentic, legitimate, as my own—will be the goal. I’ll introduce a phrase by Jacques Derrida. Somebody asked him, what does justice mean? What would justice be? He says justice is speaking to the Other in the language of the Other. I find this to be a very beautiful and very optimistic expression. It is not my task to exclude from my world those that I don’t understand; but it is my responsibility, or it is the practice or task of justice, to learn the Other’s language, which is to give the Other that capacity for language, to assume that there is in the Other, language. Language is, according to that earlier part of our conversation, language is that which is traditionally denied to the Other. “I don’t know what you mean when you speak”;, “women speak emotionally”; “ animals don’t have any language”; “the language that less developed cultures speak is not as articulate or precise as the language that I speak”, and so on and so forth. I think this pursuit of justice, defined as Derrida does, is very important. The other thing I will add is that the development of a field that some have called, perhaps temporarily, provisionally “Animal Studies”, is absolutely critical. I think there was a time when Animal Studies would have meant zoology, or in a very focused and direct manner, the pursuit of animal rights. What has been really been exciting for me to observe in this field of animal studies— and it’s not merely a community of scholars and academics; they are artists and performers, who engage in expressive and creative actions, activists who are committed politically, activists who are engaged in their daily lives and daily practices, and also a wide range of scholars in a variety of fields (feminists, literary scholars, historians, historians of ideas, philosophers, and so forth)—there is a certain understanding that “the question of the animal”, as it’s been called, or “of animals” or “of animality”, is not something that is restricted in the end just to the well-being of animals: it affects everybody in fact in ways that are obvious and perhaps less obvious. I think this kind of realization and this kind of community, let’s say, ex-community of people, who are in the field but also outside of their fields but in contact with one another is another way in which, much of what has been established can being critiqued, rethought, unthought, reformulated, toward a viable existence for all forms of life on this earth, and elsewhere. LC: It seems to me that it’s a difficult but important place to be, working in Animal Studies, in these divergent fields. My own experience was coming from Women’s Studies. It’s interesting how you point to these different groups, marginalized groups, and I think that one of the saddest things for me has been also that there’s this incredible moment of optimism, and potential to be thinking about “the animal” in different ways, (and thus us in different ways) but also in those moments of marginalization there has been a scrambling, a push towards a reinforcement of that human subject to say, “Ah, we are just like that, though. We are not like animals.” I think that this is very classic, in terms of an older feminism: liberation is about inclusion into a human culture that is necessarily exclusionary of animals. I think that’s still happening, that while there’s a kind of opening up of what this question means, “the question of the animal”, there’s also a concern, my concern anyway, that a simultaneous reinforcement as marginalized groups fight, using language, using the discourse of rights, etc., to become a part of what they were always excluded from. AML: That’s right. That’s a very difficult situation that traditionally marginalized groups have had to address. When you have been denied very basic civil rights, for example, one of the immediate and legitimate goals of any movement is to make sure that one secures those rights for one’s constituencies, for one’s members, and at the same time to make sure that the pursuit or achievement of that right does not reproduce the exclusion of others that one was fighting against initially. That’s why I think the role of animal rights is so important, because the animal is perhaps the place where life as such has been most excluded in the history of human cultures. And as such it is the place, perhaps, where this rethinking has to begin. There will be all sorts of differences, and all sorts of different objectives and agendas, but when this discussion is practiced rigorously and in good faith, I think ultimately it will be productive. Remember that most of those whom we now think of as the great thinkers were often marginalized in their time; many endured this marginalization, ridicule, hostility. It’s part of the task, and I think one of the comforts we can draw in these situations is that the process is ongoing and one makes a contribution where one can, one engages where one can, and it continues forward hopefully toward some better formulation of life for all beings. LC: Thank you very much. I hope you can join us again on the program sometime. It was really a great honour, and a great pleasure, to speak with you today. AML: It was a great pleasure for me today. And I really appreciate the work you’re doing. The questions were just fantastic. I enjoyed every moment of it. LC: Thank you so much. Today we’ve been speaking with Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit.

The cognitive specificity of social pedagogy is its interest in the issues related to social conditionings of human development and, respectively, the specific social conditionings of the upbringing process. The notion has been developed in various directions since the very beginning of the discipline, yet the most clearly visible area seems to be the functioning of individuals, families and broader environment. Simultaneously, it is possible to observe that the issues have been entangled in certain socio-political conditions, the knowledge of which is substantial for the reconstruction and identification of the research heritage of social pedagogy. All these interrelationships allowed to distinguish particular stages of development of social pedagogy. Contemporarily, it is a discipline with descent scientific achievements which marks out and indicates new perspectives both in the field of educational practice and the theory of social activity. Social pedagogy, similarly to other areas (subdisciplines) of pedagogy, deals with the notion of upbringing in a certain aspect – in a certain problem inclination. It specializes in social and environmental conditionings of the upbringing process. It is the thread of the social context of upbringing what proves to be the crucial, basic and fundamental determinant of upbringing and, thus, decisive factor for human development. This notion was always present in the general pedagogical thought however, its organized and rationalized character surfaced only when the social pedagogy was distinguished as a separate, systematic area of pedagogy. It occurred in Poland only at the beginning of the 19th century. From the very beginning the creators and precursors of this subdiscipline pointed out its relatively wide range. It has been the notion of individual – social conditionings of human development, yet, social pedagogists were interested in human at every stage of their lives i.e. childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Another area of interest were the issues related to family as the most important “place” of human development and, in this respect, the issues connected with institutions undertaking various activities: help, care, support and animation. Finally, the scope of interest included issues related to the environment as the place where the upbringing process is supposed to realize and realizes. Since the very beginning of social pedagogy these have been the prominent threads for exploration. At the same time it ought to be stated that these threads have always been interwoven with various social-political conditions both with regards to their interpretation as well as possible and planned educational practice. Therefore social pedagogy and its findings must be always “read” in the context of social-political conditions which accompanied the creation of a given thought or realization of some educational practice. As these conditions have constantly been undergoing certain transformations one may clearly distinguish particular stages of development of social pedagogy. The stages reflect various approaches to exploring and describing the above-mentioned areas of this discipline. Following the assumptions regarding the chronology of social pedagogy development and the three distinguished stages of development, it seems worthwhile to study how the issues related to an individual, family and environment were shaped at these stages. The first stage when the social psychology was arising was mainly the time of Helena Radlińska’s activities as well as less popular and already forgotten Polish pedagogists – precursors of this discipline such as: Anna Chmielewska, Irena Jurgielewiczowa, Zofia Gulińska or Maria Korytowska. In that period social pedagogists mainly dealt with individuals, families and the functioning of environments in the context of educational activities aimed at arousing national identity and consciousness. However, their work did no focus on indicating the layers of threats and deficits in functioning of individuals, social groups or families but on the possibilities to stimulate their development and cultural life. Therefore social pedagogy of those times was not as strongly related to social work as it currently is but dealt mainly with educational work. The classic example of such approach in the research carried out in the social pedagogy of that time may be the early works by Helena Radlińska who undertook the narrow field of cultural-educational work targeted to all categories of people. The works described such issues as the organization of libraries, organizing extra-school education (H. Orsza, 1922, H. Orsza-Radlińska, 1925). It ought to be stated that this kind of work was regarded as public and educational work, whereas currently it exists under the name of social work. Frequently quoted works related to the issues of arising social pedagogy were also the works by Eustachy Nowicki e.g. “Extra-school education and its social-educational role in the contemporary Polish life” from 1923 or the works by Stefania Sempołowska, Jerzy Grodecki or Jadwiga Dziubińska. Such an approach and tendencies are clearly visible in a book from 1913 (a book which has been regarded by some pedagogists as the first synthetic presentation of social pedagogy). It is a group work entitled “Educational work – its tasks, methods and organization” (T. Bobrowski, Z. Daszyńska-Golińska, J. Dziubińska, Z. Gargasa, M. Heilperna, Z. Kruszewska, L. Krzywicki, M. Orsetti, H. Orsza, St. Posner, M. Stępkowski, T. Szydłowski, Wł. Weychert-Szymanowska, 1913). The problem of indicated and undertaken research areas and hence, the topics of works realized by the social pedagogists of that times changed immediately after regaining independence and before World War II. It was the time when the area of social pedagogists interests started to include the issues of social inequality, poverty and, subsequently, the possibility of helping (with regards to the practical character of social pedagogy). The research works undertaken by social pedagogists were clearly of diagnostic, practical and praxeological character. They were aimed at seeking the causes of these phenomena with simultaneous identification and exploration of certain environmental factors as their sources. A classic example of such a paper – created before the war – under the editorial management of H. Radlińska was the work entitled “Social causes of school successes and failures” from 1937 (H. Radlińska, 1937). Well known are also the pre-war works written by the students of H. Radlińska which revealed diagnostic character such as: “The harm of a child” by Maria Korytowska (1937) or “A child of Polish countryside” edited by M. Librachowa and published in Warsaw in 1934 (M. Librachowa, 1934). Worthwhile are also the works by Czesław Wroczyński from 1935 entitled “Care of an unmarried mother and struggle against abandoning infants in Warsaw” or the research papers by E. Hryniewicz, J. Ryngmanowa and J. Czarnecka which touched upon the problem of neglected urban and rural families and the situation of an urban and rural child – frequently an orphaned child. As it may be inferred, the issues of poverty, inefficient families, single-parent families remain current and valid also after the World War II. These phenomena where nothing but an outcome of various war events and became the main point of interest for researchers. Example works created in the circle of social pedagogists and dealing with these issues may be two books written in the closest scientific environment of Helena Radlińska – with her immense editorial impact. They are “Orphanage – scope and compensation” (H. Radlińska, J. Wojtyniak, 1964) and “Foster families in Łódź” (A. Majewska, 1948), both published immediately after the war. Following the chronological approach I adopted, the next years mark the beginning of a relative stagnation in the research undertaken in the field of social pedagogy. Especially the 50’s – the years of notably strong political indoctrination and the Marxist ideological offensive which involved building the so called socialist educational society – by definition free from socio-educational problems in public life. The creation and conduction of research in this period was also hindered due to organizational and institutional reasons. The effect of the mentioned policy was also the liquidation of the majority of social sciences including research facilities – institutes, departments and units. An interesting and characteristic description of the situation may be the statement given by Professor J. Auletner who described the period from the perspective of development of social policy and said that: “During the Stalinist years scientific cultivation of social policy was factually forbidden”. During the period of real socialism it becomes truly difficult to explore the science of social policy. The name became mainly the synonym of the current activity of the state and a manifestation of struggles aimed at maintaining the existing status quo. The state authorities clearly wanted to subdue the science of social activities of the state […]. During the real socialism neither the freedom for scientific criticism of the reality nor the freedom of research in the field of social sciences existed. It was impossible (yet deliberated) to carry out a review of poverty and other drastic social issues” (J. Auletner, 2000). The situation changes at the beginning of the 60’s (which marks the second stage of development of social pedagogy) when certain socio-political transformations – on the one hand abandoning the limitation of the Stalinist period (1953 – the death of Stalin and political thaw), on the other – reinforcement of the idea of socialist education in social sciences lead to resuming environmental research. It was simultaneously the period of revival of Polish social pedagogy with regards to its institutional dimension as well as its ideological self-determination (M. Cichosz, 2006, 2014). The issues of individuals, families and environments was at that time explored with regards to the functioning of educational environments and in the context of exploring the environmental conditionings of the upbringing process. Typical examples here may be the research by Helena Izdebska entitled “The functioning of a family and childcare tasks” (H. Izdebska, 1967) and “The causes of conflicts in a family” (H. Izdebska, 1975) or research conducted by Anna Przecławska on adolescents and their participation in culture: “Book, youth and cultural transformations” (A. Przecławska, 1967) or e.g. “Cultural diversity of adolescents against upbringing problems” (A. Przecławska, 1976). A very frequent notion undertaken at that time and remaining within the scope of the indicated areas were the issues connected with organization and use of free time. This may be observed through research by T. Wujek: “Homework and active leisure of a student” (T. Wujek, 1969). Another frequently explored area was the problem of looking after children mainly in the papers by Albin Kelm or Marian Balcerek. It is worthwhile that the research on individuals, families or environments were carried out as part of the current pedagogical concepts of that time like: parallel education, permanent education, lifelong learning or the education of adults, whereas, the places indicated as the areas of human social functioning in which the environmental education took place were: family, school, housing estate, workplace, social associations. It may be inferred that from a certain (ideological) perspective at that time we witnessed a kind of modeling of social reality as, on the one hand particular areas were diagnosed, on the other – a desired (expected) model was built (designed) (with respect to the pragmatic function of practical pedagogy). A group work entitled “Upbringing and environment” edited by B. Passini and T. Pilch (B. Passini, T. Pilch, 1979) published in 1979 was a perfect illustration of these research areas. It ought to be stated that in those years a certain model of social diagnosis proper for undertaken social-pedagogical research was reinforced (M. Deptuła, 2005). Example paper could be the work by I. Lepalczyk and J. Badura entitled: “Elements of pedagogical diagnostics” (I. Lepalczyk, J. Badura, 1987). Finally, the social turning point in the 80’s and 90’s brought new approaches to the research on individuals, families and environments which may be considered as the beginning of the third stage of the development of social pedagogy. Breaking off the idea of socialist education meant abandoning the specific approach to research on the educational environment previously carried out within a holistic system of socio-educational influences (A. Przecławska, w. Theiss, 1995). The issues which dominated in the 90’s and still dominate in social pedagogy with regards to the functioning of individuals, families and local environments have been the issues connected with social welfare and security as well as education of adults. Research papers related to such approach may be the work by Józefa Brągiel: “Upbringing in a single-parent family” from 1990; the work edited by Zofia Brańka “The subjects of care and upbringing” from 2002 or a previous paper written in 1998 by the same author in collaboration with Mirosław Szymański “Aggression and violence in modern world” published in 1999 as well as the work by Danuta Marzec “Childcare at the time of social transformations” from 1999 or numerous works by St. Kawula, A. Janke. Also a growing interest in social welfare and social work is visible in the papers by J. Brągiel and P. Sikora “Social work, multiplicity of perspectives, family – multiculturalism – education” from 2004, E. Kanwicz and A. Olubiński: “Social activity in social welfare at the threshold of 21st century” from 2004 or numerous works on this topic created by the circles gathered around the Social Pedagogy Faculty in Łódź under the management of E. Marynowicz-Hetka. Current researchers also undertake the issues related to childhood (B. Smolińska-Theiss, 2014, B. Matyjas, 2014) and the conditionings of the lives of seniors (A. Baranowska, E. Kościńska, 2013). Ultimately, among the presented, yet not exclusive, research areas related to particular activities undertaken in human life environment (individuals, families) and fulfilled within the field of caregiving, social welfare, adult education, socio-cultural animation or health education one may distinguish the following notions:  the functioning of extra-school education institutions, most frequently caregiving or providing help such as: orphanage, residential home, dormitory, community centre but also facilities aimed at animating culture like youth cultural centres, cultural centres, clubs etc.,  the functioning of school, the realization of its functions (especially educational care), fulfilling and conditioning roles of student/teacher, the functioning of peer groups, collaboration with other institutions,  the functioning (social conditionings) of family including various forms of families e.g. full families, single-parent families, separated families, families at risk (unemployment) and their functioning in the context of other institutions e.g. school,  social pathologies, the issues of violence and aggression, youth subcultures,  participation in culture, leisure time, the role of media,  the functioning of the seniors – animation of activities in this field,  various dimensions of social welfare, support, providing help, the conditionings of functioning of such jobs as the social welfare worker, culture animator, voluntary work. It might be concluded that the issues connected with individuals, families and environment have been the centre of interest of social pedagogy since the very beginning of this discipline. These were the planes on which social pedagogists most often identified and described social life – from the perspective of human participation. On the course of describing the lives of individuals, families and broader educational environments social pedagogists figured out and elaborated on particular methods and ways of diagnosing social life. Is it possible to determine any regularities or tendencies in this respect? Unquestionably, at the initial stage of existence of this discipline, aimed at stimulating national consciousness and subsequent popularization of cultural achievements through certain activities – social and educational work, social pedagogists built certain models of these undertakings which were focused on stimulating particular social activity and conscious participation in social life. The issues concerning social diagnosis, though not as significant as during other stages, served these purposes and hence were, to a certain extent, ideologically engaged. The situation changed significantly before and shortly after the World War II. Facing particular conditions of social life – increase in many unfavourable phenomena, social pedagogists attempted to diagnose and describe them. It seems to have been the period of clear shaping and consolidation of the accepted model of empirical research in this respect. The model was widely accepted as dominating and has been developed in Polish social pedagogy during the second and subsequent stages of developing of this discipline. Practical and praxeological character of social pedagogy became the main direction of this development. Consequently, social diagnosis realized and undertaken with regard to social pedagogy was associated with the idea of a holistic system of education and extra-school educational influences and related educational environments. Therefore, the more and more clearly emphasized goal of environmental research – forecasting, was associated with the idea of building holistic, uniform educational impacts. After the systemic transformation which occurred in Poland in the 90’s, i.e. the third stage of social pedagogy development, abandoning the previous ideological solutions, environmental research including diagnosis was reassociated with social life problems mainly regarding social welfare and security. Individuals, families and environment have been and still seem to be the subject of research in the field of social pedagogy in Poland. These research areas are structurally bound with its acquired paradigm – of a science describing transformations of social life and formulating a directive of practical conduct regarding these transformations. A question arouses about the development of social pedagogy as the one which charts the direction of transformations of practices within the undertaken research areas. If it may be considered as such, then it would be worthwhile to enquire about the directions of the accepted theoretical acknowledgments. On the one hand we may observe a relatively long tradition of specifically elaborated and developed concepts, on the other – there are still new challenges ahead. Observing the previous and current development of Polish social pedagogy it may be inferred that its achievements are not overextensive with regards to the described and acquired theoretical deliberations. Nevertheless, from the very beginning, it has generated certain, specific theoretical solutions attempting to describe and explain particular areas of social reality. Especially noteworthy is the first period of the existence of this discipline, the period of such social pedagogists like i.a. J.W. Dawid, A. Szycówna, I. Moszczeńska or Helena Radlińska. The variety of the reflections with typically philosophical background undertaken in their works (e.g. E. Abramowski) is stunning. Equally involving is the second stage of development of social pedagogy i.e. shortly after the World War II, when Polish social pedagogy did not fully break with the heritage of previous philosophical reflections (A. Kamiński, R. Wroczyński) yet was developed in the Marxist current. A question arouses whether the area of education and the projects of its functioning of that time were also specific with regards to theory (it seems to be the problem of the whole Socialist pedagogy realised in Poland at that time). The following years of development of this discipline, especially at the turn of 80’s and 90’s was the period of various social ideas existing in social pedagogy – the influences of various concepts and theories in this field. The extent to which they were creatively adapted and included in the current of specific interpretations still requires detailed analysis, yet remains clearly visible. Another important area is the field of confronting the theories with the existing and undertaken solutions in the world pedagogy. A. Radziewicz-Winnicki refers to the views of the representatives of European and world social thought: P. Bourdieu, U. Beck, J. Baudrillard, Z. Bauman and M. Foucault, and tries to identify possible connections and relationships between these ideas and social pedagogy: “the ideas undertaken by the mentioned sociologists undoubtedly account for a significant source of inspiration for practical reflection within social pedagogy. Therefore, it is worthwhile to suggest certain propositions of their application in the field of the mentioned subdiscipline of pedagogy” (Radziewicz-Winnicki 2008). The contemporary social pedagogy in Poland constantly faces numerous challenges. W. Theiss analysed the contemporary social pedagogy with regards to its deficiencies but also the challenges imposed by globalisation and wrote: “Modern social pedagogy focuses mainly on the narrow empirical research and narrow practical activity and neglects research in the field of theory functioning separately from the realms of the global (or globalising) world or pays insufficient attention to these problems. It leads to a certain self-marginalisation of our discipline which leaves us beyond the current of main socio-educational problems of modern times. In this respect, it seems worthwhile and necessary to carry out intensive conceptual and research work focused on e.g. the following issues:  metatheory of social pedagogy and its relationship with modern trends in social sciences;  the concepts of human and the world, the concepts of the hierarchy of values;  the theory of upbringing, the theory of socialization, the theory of educational environment;  a conceptual key of the modern reality; new terms and new meanings of classical concepts;  socio-educational activities with direct and indirect macro range e.g. balanced development and its programmes, global school, intercultural education, inclusive education, professional education of emigrants”. Considering the currently undertaken research in this field and the accepted theoretical perspectives it is possible to indicate specific and elaborated concepts. They fluctuate around structural spheres of social pedagogy on the axis: human – environment – environmental transformations. It accounts for an ontological sphere of the acknowledged concepts and theories. Below, I am enumerating the concepts which are most commonly discussed in social pedagogy with regards to the acquired and accepted model. Currently discussed theoretical perspectives (contexts) in social pedagogy and the concepts within. I. The context of social personal relationships  social participation, social presence;  social communication, interaction;  reciprocity. II. The context of social activities (the organization of environment)  institutionalisation;  modernization;  urbanization. III. The context of environment  space;  place;  locality. The socially conditioned process of human development is a process which constantly undergoes transformations. The pedagogical description of this process ought to include these transformations also at the stage of formulating directives of practical activities – the educational practice. It is a big challenge for social pedagogy to simultaneously do not undergo limitations imposed by current social policy and response to real social needs. It has been and remains a very important task for social pedagogy.

Increasing preoccupations and interest manifested for the Romanian language as a foreign language compose a focused and clear expression in the volume “Romanian as a foreign language. Methodology and cultural applicability”, launched at the Turku University publishing house, Finland (2018). The editors, Paul Nanu (Department of Romanian Language and Culture, University of Turku, Finland) and Emilia Ivancu (Department of Romanian Studies of the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland) with this volume, continue a series of activities dedicated to the promotion of the Romanian language and culture outside the country borders. This volume brings together a collection of articles, previously announced and briefly presented at a round table organized by the two Romanian lectors, as a section of the International Conference “Dialogue of cultures between tradition and modernity”, (Philological Research and Multicultural Dialogue Centre, Department of Philology, Faculty of History and Philology, “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). The thirteen authors who sign the articles are teachers of Romanian as a foreign language, either in the country or abroad. The challenge launched by the organisers pointed both at the teaching methods of Romanian as a foreign language – including the authors’ reflections upon the available textbooks (Romanian language textbooks) and the cultural implications of this perspective on the Romanian language. It is probably no accident that the first article of the aforementioned volume – “Particularities of teaching Romanian as a foreign language for the preparatory year. In quest of “the ideal textbook’’ (Cristina Sicoe, University of the West, Timișoara) – brings a strict perspective upon that what should be, from the author’s point of view, “the ideal textbook”. The fact that it does not exist, and has little chances ever to exist, could maybe be explained by the multitude of variables which appear in practice, within the didactic triangle composed by teacher – student – textbook. The character of the variables is the result of particular interactions established between the components of the triad. A concurrent direction is pointed out by the considerations that make the object of the second article, “To a new textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language’’ (Ana-Maria Radu-Pop, University of the West, Timișoara). While the previous article was about an ideal textbook for foreign students in the preparatory year of Romanian, this time, the textbook in question has another target group, namely Erasmus students and students from Centres of foreign languages. Considering that this kind of target group “forms a distinct category”, the author pleads for the necessity of editing adequate textbooks with a part made of themes, vocabulary, grammar and a part made of culture and civilization – the separation into parts belongs to the author – that should consider the needs of this target group, their short stay in Romania (three months to one year) and, last but not least, the students’ poor motivation. These distinctive notes turn the existent RFL textbooks[1] in that which the author calls “level crossings”, which she explains in a humorous manner[2]. Since the ideal manual seems to be in no hurry to appear, the administrative-logistic implications of teaching Romanian as a foreign language (for the preparatory year) should be easier to align with the standards of efficiency. This matter is addressed by Mihaela Badea and Cristina Iridon from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, in the article “Administrative/logistic difficulties of teaching RFL. Case study”. Starting from a series of practical experiences, the authors are purposing to suggest “several ideas to improve existent methodologies of admitting foreign students and to review the ARACIS criteria from March 2017, regarding external evaluation of the ‘Romanian as a foreign language’ study programme”. Among other things, an external difficulty is highlighted (common to all universities in the country), namely the permission to register foreign students until the end of the first semester of the academic year, meaning around the middle of February. The authors punctually describe the unfortunate implications of this legal aspect and the regrettable consequences upon the quality of the educational act. They suggest that the deadline for admitting foreign students not exceed the 1st of December of every academic year. The list of difficulties in teaching Romanian as a foreign language is extremely long, reaching sensitive aspects from an ethical perspective of multiculturalism. This approach belongs to Constantin Mladin from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia, who writes about “The role of the ethical component in the learning process of a foreign language and culture. The Macedonian experience”. Therefore, we are moving towards the intercultural competences which, as the author states, are meant to “adequately and efficiently round the acquired language competences”. In today’s Macedonian society, that which the author refers to, a society claimed to be multiethnic, multilingual and pluriconfessional, the emotional component of an intercultural approach needs a particular attention. Thus, reconfigurations of the current didactic model are necessary. The solution proposed and successfully applied by Professor Constantin Mladin is that of shaking the natural directions in which a foreign language and culture is acquired: from the source language/culture towards the target language/culture. All this is proposed in the context in which the target group is extremely heterogeneous and its “emotional capacity of letting go of the ethnocentric attitudes and perceptions upon otherness” seem to lack. When speaking about ‘barriers’, we often mean ‘difficulty’. The article written by Silvia Kried Stoian and Loredana Netedu from the Oil & Gas University of Ploiești, called “Barriers in the intercultural communication of foreign students in the preparatory year”, is the result of a micro-research done upon a group of 37 foreign students from 10 different countries/cultural spaces, belonging to different religions (plus atheists), speakers of different languages. From the start, there are many differences to be reconciled in a way reasonable enough to reduce most barriers that appear in their intercultural communication. Beneficial and obstructive factors – namely communication barriers – coexist in a complex communicational environment, which supposes identifying and solving the latter, in the aim of softening the cultural shock experienced within linguistic and cultural immersion. Several solutions are recommended by the two authors. An optimistic conclusion emerges in the end, namely the possibility that the initial inconvenient of the ethnical, linguistic and cultural heterogeneity become “an advantage in learning the Romanian language and acquiring intercultural communication”. Total immersion (linguistic and cultural), as well as the advantage it represents as far as exposure to language is concerned, is the subject of the article entitled “Cultural immersion and exposure to language”, written by Adina Curta (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia). Considered to be a factor of rapid progress and effectiveness of acquisition, exposure to language that arises from the force of circumstances could be extended to that what may be named orchestrated exposure to language. This phrase is consented to reunite two types of resources, “a category of statutory resources, which are the CEFRL suggestions, and a category of particular resources, which should be the activities proposed by the organizers of the preparatory year of RFL”. In this respect, we are dealing with several alternating roles of the teacher who, besides being an expert, animator, facilitator of the learning process or technician, also becomes a cultural and linguistic coach, sending to the group of immersed students a beneficial message of professional and human polyvalence. A particular experience is represented by teaching the Romanian language at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. This experience is presented by Nicoleta Neșu in the article “The Romanian language, between mother tongue and ethnic language. Case study”. The particular situation is generated by the nature of the target group, a group of students coming, on the one hand, from Romanian families, who, having lived in Italy since early childhood, have studied in the Italian language and are now studying the Romanian language (mother tongue, then ethnic language) as L1, and, on the other hand, Italian mother tongue students who study the Romanian language as a foreign language. The strategies that are used and the didactic approach are constantly in need of particularization, depending on the statute that the studied language, namely the Romanian language, has in each case. In the area of teaching methodology for Romanian as a foreign language, suggestions and analyses come from four authors, namely Eliana-Alina Popeți (West University of Timișoara), “Teaching the Romanian language to students from Romanian communities from Serbia. Vocabulary exercise”, Georgeta Orian (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) “The Romanian language in the rhythm of dance and hip-hop music”, Coralia Telea (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia), “Explanation during the class of Romanian as a foreign language” and Emilia Ivancu (Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland), “Romanian (auto)biographic discourse or the effect of literature upon learning RFL”. The vocabulary exercise proposed to the students by Eliana-Alina Popeți is a didactic experiment through which the author checked the hypothesis according to which a visual didactic material eases the development of vocabulary, especially since the textual productions of the students, done through the technique that didactics calls “reading images”, were video recorded and submitted to mutual evaluation as well as to self-evaluation of grammar, coherence and pronunciation. The role of the authentic iconographic document is attested in the didactics of modern languages, as the aforementioned experiment confirms once again the high coefficient of interest and attention of the students, as well as the vitality and authenticity of interaction within the work groups. It is worth mentioning that these students come from the Serbian Republic and are registered in the preparatory year at the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology of the West University of Timișoara. Most of them are speakers of different Romanian patois, only found on the territory of Serbia. The activity consisted of elaborating written texts starting from an image (a postcard reproducing a portrait of the Egyptian artist Eman Osama), imagining a possible biography of the character. In the series of successful authentic documents in teaching-learning foreign languages, there is also the song. The activities described by Georgeta Orian were undertaken either with Erasmus students from the preparatory year at the “1 Decembrie 1989” University of Alba Iulia, or with Polish students (within the Department of Romanian Studies in Poznań), having high communication competences (B1-B2, or even more). There were five activities triggered by Romanian songs, chosen by criteria of sympathy with the interests of the target group: youngsters, late teenagers. The stake was “a more pleasant and, sometimes, a more useful learning process”, mostly through discovery, through recourse to musical language, which has the advantage of breaking linguistic barriers in the aim of creating a common space in which the target language, a language of “the other”, becomes the instrument of speaking about what connects us. The didactic approach, when it comes to Romanian as a foreign language taught to students of the preparatory year cannot avoid the extremely popular method of the explanation. Its story is told by Coralia Telea. With a use of high scope, the explanation steps in in various moments and contexts: for transmitting new information, for underlining mechanisms generating new rules, in evaluation activities (result appreciation, progress measurements). Still, the limits of this method are not left out, among which the risk of the teachers to annoy their audience if overbidding this method. Addressing (Polish) students from the Master’s Studies Program within the Romania Philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Emilia Ivancu crosses, through her article, the methodological dimensions of teaching Romanian as a foreign language, entering the curricular territory of the problematics in question by proposing an optional course entitled Romanian (auto)biographic discourse”. Approaching contact with the Romanian language as a foreign language at an advanced level, the stakes of the approach and the proposed contents differ, obviously, from the ones only regarding the creation and development of the competence of communication in the Romanian Language. The studied texts have been grouped into correspondence/epistolary discourse, diaries, memoires and (auto)biography as fiction. Vasile Alecsandri, Sanda Stolojan, Paul Goma, Neagoe Basarab, Norman Manea, Mircea Eliade are just a few of the writers concerned, submitted to discussions with the help of a theoretical toolbox, offered to the students as recordings of cultural broadcasts, like Profesioniștii or Rezistența prin cultură etc. The consequences of this complex approach consisted, on the one hand, of the expansion of the readings for the students and, on the other hand, in choosing to write dissertations on these topics. A “tangible” result of Emilia Ivancu’s course is the elaboration of a volume entitled România la persoana întâi, perspective la persoana a treia (Romania in the first person, perspectives in the third person), containing seven articles written by Polish Master’s students. Master’s theses, a PhD thesis, several translations into the Polish language are also “fruits” of the initiated course. Of all these, the author extracted several conclusions supporting the merits and usefulness of her initiative. The volume ends with a review signed by Adina Curta (1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia), “The Romanian language, a modern, wanted language. Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu – Textbook of Romanian language as a foreign language”. The textbook elaborated by Iuliana Wainberg-Drăghiciu (“1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia) respects the CEFRL suggestions, points at the communicative competences (linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic) described for levels A1 and A2, has a high degree of accessibility through a trilingual dictionary (Romanian-English-French) which it offers to foreign students and through the phonetic transcription of new vocabulary units.

This thesis project uses animation to communicate the risk of HIV transmission via breastfeeding to mothers living with HIV in Canada. Current guidelines do not recommend breastfeeding for HIV+ mothers because there is always some level of risk. Knowledge of mother-to-child transmission is poor, and the cultural pressure to breastfeed has complex implications. It was essential that the science of transmission risk be conveyed in a clear and culturally sensitive manner, to allow women to make appropriate, informed decisions about whether or not to breastfeed. To accomplish this, we adopted a user-testing approach. Throughout development, the script, animatic, and character designs were presented for feedback to members of the target audience, healthcare providers, and representatives from Canadian HIV organizations in an iterative design process. At each round of feedback, the script, animatic, and visual assets were revised, and sent for further comment. Ongoing collaboration with the target audience helped us develop an animation with a wide diversity of characters, culturally sensitive metaphors, and nuanced descriptions of risk, in response to feedback that detailed desires about representation and identified how concepts were being misunderstood. User-testing approaches are necessary when creating patient education animations. Population needs, background, and context have a dramatic impact on patient understanding, and cannot be understood properly without user testing and direct feedback. Doing so helps prevent insensitive concepts and easily misinterpreted information, and thus is key to effective patient education animation.

The procedure for carrying out the thesis defense continues to change in line with technological developments as well as the overall need for a more effective and efficient system. Many problems have occurred through this process of change. There is website-based information consisting of long texts of procedures and static infographics, but it turns out that these forms of media are not effective in conveying information that is easy to understand. Additionally, the design of these media is unattractive. Therefore, we propose an animated infographic design related to the thesis defense registration procedure. In this research, data were collected via a questionnaire and interviews with experts. The design stage included the steps of narrative concept, asset design, storyboard, animation, voiceover, editing and rendering to produce the final design result. This product was then tested through a questionnaire. The results of testing the previous media were then compared with the results of this media test. The findings demonstrated that the animated infographics significantly increased the understanding of lecturers and students regarding the thesis defense registration procedure. This was indicated by an increase in the results for the aspects of completeness, clarity, and attractiveness of information when compared to text media or static infographics. However, the animation video produced was very dependent on the combination of visual and sound elements, so that information was difficult to obtain when one of these did not function properly. Therefore, the next design stage will involve making a video that remains informative even in the presence of visual or sound disturbances. Keywords: design, infographic animation, thesis defense, visualizing information

This paper aims to analyze the dichotomy between the filmed (live-action) and animated images: the daily and night aspects of the images proposed by Gilbert Durand. This look comes from a study on real and animated images, presented in the doctoral thesis “The Representation of the Diegetic Imaginarium by Animation in Live-action Cinema” (2018). In this thesis, based on the concepts of “cool and hot media” from “Understanding Media” (McLuhan, 1964), one considers Animation a Cool medium, while live-action a Hot medium. Therefore, as McLuhan’s work looks at the image dichotomy from the communication domain, it is possible to complete the analysis on this axis through the concepts of Durand’s image. Thus, these concepts start directly from the imaginary studies. The methodology for such an analytical development is the case studies about films that use animated images to represent a part of their narratives. Analyzing them, considering these images by both aspects: in the field of communication (Hot and Cool Media), and the imaginary (daily and night aspect of the image). These analyses are a complementary look to the one presented in the thesis, along with they offer a double look to the study of the Audiovisual image.

Abstract Computer vision technology and video image processing technology in the visual rehearsal of sports dance is a hot research topic. Based on this research background, the thesis uses 3D mathematical modelling technology to interpolate and extract the captured sports and dance movement information to make the final synthesised human animation natural, smooth and lifelike. At the same time, the thesis realises the method of action cohesion through the definition of characteristic action unit attributes and association constraints. Then, it applies it to the visual rehearsal system of sports dance. Finally, the analysis of experimental results proves that the proposed method can improve the precision and recall of rehearsal.

One of the success of an organization of educators in implementing the learning is how educators attempt to deliver the message , and information theory to the students to understand the lessons and information more quickly and make the lessons more interesting and easier to understand, then educators need to create an exciting learning media such as media learning 3D animation ( three- dimensional ) . The purpose of this thesis is to design and build 3D animated instructional media on subjects Installing PC on Skills Program Computer Engineering and Networks . 3D animation creation using real-time , with the Pre-Production stages that include a search of ideas and materials will be made in 3D animation , character design , script, and storyboard creation , later stages of production , including the manufacture of modeling a design object / character , the next stage is the stage of post- production is a compilation of Final Editing and pengecekkan element if an error occurs then the process is repeated . Afterwards, proceed to the next stage of the rendering which will output the video as a whole . In the process of making 3D animsi using Blender 3D application version 2.6.5 . This final project will result in a medium of learning in subjects install the PC in the Program of Computer Engineering and Networks. Keywords : learning process , instructional media , 3D animation

Death, a universal human experience, has been represented and understood in numerous ways throughout time and across cultures. Dénouement is a practice-based research project that engages with the emotionally fraught and complex experience of losing a loved one. The research positions the medium of hand-drawn animation as rich territory for exploring visual expressions of the internal, psychological, and abstract dialogue when grieving. As a personal reflection of in-articulable feelings, the aim is not to show the world as it is but as it is travelled through psychologically. The final short film underpins the practitioner’s passion for drawing the world (as they see it), moving it in time and moving those who view the work, emotionally. This article is a reflective dénouement of the author's Master's journey. The full Master's thesis can be accessed here: https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/15296