2003

Musicologica Brunensia

The paper addresses Vilém Flusser's media philosophy, with a focus on his concept of new media art. Since Flusser never wrote a clear definition of new media art, his view must be deduced from remarks spread across his writings. The deduction is based on the assumption that Flusser's notion of new media art can be set up within the frame of Gaston Bachelard's water element aesthetics. In the paper, metaphors associated with water and with dreams are used to establish links among such different terms within Flusser's vocabulary as "sounding images and visible sound" (computed and projected models of collected data), "chamber music" (a metaphor for the endless collective creativity shared within the digital media pool), and "Vampyroteuthis infernalis" (a fantastic creature living in the hostile environment of the oceanic abyss). The aim is to introduce Flusser as an author of an original and visionary aesthetic and of the poetics of new media art.

Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie VII, Historia del Arte, 2017

The sea, like an embryo or a foetus, seems to represent «a sort of first stage in the advancement of superior life forms». Its fluid character suggests an early age of our world's foundation, before fluid turns to stone. It appears as an archaic cosmos into which one descends in order to find hidden treasures in its depths. How did artisans work, shape, and integrate the varied materials of the sea into an artistic oeuvre? Which meanings were attached to these materials? When, how and why were the materials' fluid origin remembered? The sea can be considered the great global depot of the world, which includes objects of both great and ordinary character, illustrating ambitious and innocent aspirations to an equal extent. Moreover, the particular shininess of the oceanic materials, like pearls, shells or animals' skins, was usually associated with cosmic elements and thus emphasizes the pure and primal characters of these substances. The treasures of the sea were therefore beyond national. They were global. And their aquatic identity made them universal. Metaphorically speaking, the sea, as an object, has body, shape and even face, and is demarcated by earth and air. This amorphous entity has a solid bottom, its upper surface, namely face, touches the air, and its walls constantly struggle against solid substances such as rock and stone. In addition, its depths are unknown. There, in the heart of darkness, unconsciousness resides. This introductory essay aims at opening the so-called 'Pandora Box' of the fluid realm of the seas. It presents this space's great potential in providing us with vast amounts of historical information, usually 'lying concealed', as if under the water.

G. Vavouranakis (ed.), The seascape in Aegean prehistory (Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens 14) , 2011

The Sea is All Around us is a multi-layered event which creates a memorable experience for those visiting the Dome Gallery and the Mission to Seafarers in Melbourne’s Docklands. The event acknowledges and raises awareness of the often difficult and dangerous working lives and journeys of seafarers by making visible their role in transporting commodities, materials and objects to and from Australia’s shores. This installation at the Dome Gallery in the Mission to Seafarers in Melbourne’s Docklands marks the third stage of an ongoing research project which seeks to reveal the ‘social life’ of souvenirs. Beyond their representational role souvenirs also trigger intangible, affective qualities – reminders of journeys and places, new associations with tastes, sounds and people, and thereby becoming objects which focus and hold memories. This installation invites seafarers and visitors to participate in a global project which aims to witness sea journeys and trace the mobile life of seafarers and souvenirs. For a fortnight in May 2015, the Dome Gallery became an architectural large scale compass, with the circular floor marking the intersection of its latitude and longitude (37 º 49'21" S 144º 57'03"E). Over these two weeks the Dome Gallery was inscribed with marks recording journeys made by seafarers, recording destination and departure ports, home lands and waterways, and in doing so making visible a small segment of the global patterns of seafaring. Custom-made souvenirs designed for the installation are given to seafarers as gestures of welcome and a memento of their visit. The souvenirs originating in Poland continue their journey by sea, to destinations beyond the Dome becoming part of the global network of seafaring, with an invitation for seafarers to record their future journeys using QR code scanning technologies. It is hoped that by releasing the 200 limited edition souvenirs accompanying the seafarers the mobile life of souvenirs and seafarers will also become visible. Like messages in bottles they leave our shores, becoming ambassadors, representing the Dome Gallery at the Mission to Seafarers, the waters of Port Phillip Bay, Australia’s red soil and vegetation, and carrying memories of visiting Melbourne.

2018

Beginning with the hypothesis that cultural heritage embodies both tangible and intangible values in its definition; this thesis proposes that if we are to truly experience heritage through virtual means, both sets of values must be incorporated into the experience. The project presented in this paper exists in the intersection of three fields of study: cultural heritage, virtual reality, and video games. Virtual reality technology has allowed us the opportunity to accurately visualize the physical characteristics of a space around us, with the emphasis residing primarily on the visual and sensory experience. Immersive video games place emphasis on a user's cognitive or emotional experience in virtual space by creating relationships and building value systems within the game worlds. Through the sensory stimuli of the former, and the cognitive and emotional stimuli of the latter, a combined methodology is proposed to create a fully immersive virtual environment that allows a user the opportunity to experience the intangible emotional and cognitive values of architectural heritage in addition to the already well-established tangible spatial experiences achieved by virtual reality. This thesis begins with establishing a definition of cultural heritage and a critical analysis of existing technologies and methodologies used in its representation through virtual heritage. It is then followed by a discussion of the video game industry, and how it addresses the elements lacking in the previous analysis, with emphasis on intangible cognitive experiences. Finally, a characteristic framework that merges the successes of both industry methodologies is proposed to demonstrate the possibilities of experiencing iii the intangible values of heritage, using the Carbide Willson Mill ruins site in Gatineau Park as a project example. I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Stephen Fai, for his invaluable support and guidance, not only throughout this project but also through my educational career at Carleton University. I would also like to extend my thanks to the Carleton Immersive Media Studio Lab. v

2009

Exploring spatio-temporal flux within architecture, this thesis presents design-based research on the temporal environments of Oceania and Western evental theory. Oceanic thought and Western theories of the event share commonalities, both holding that space and time are inseparable dimensions. This spatio-temporal concept challenges Western philosophical and architectural doxa that privilege stasis over temporal flux, and offers a mode by which to introduce alterity into architectural discourse. I move over these cultural and philosophical grounds in order to explicate and further develop a personal design practice that is of this place and time for, while there is a body of writing that documents Oceanic built environments, there is less research that considers how these may be constituted and communicated through contemporary architectural design. The thesis posits two temporalised environments apparent within Oceanic spatial thought and practice-the shifting and extensive oceanscape, and the telluric groundscape that makes space; and describes two resultant spatial typologies-an oceanspace which is characterised by openness and mobility, and a groundspace which is both surface and space. These contentions are tested and theorised through three architectural experiments developed between 1999 and 2005: the Sounds House, which operates as an open and mutable spatial field; the Ground House, which forms monumental "interiors" that emerge from and relate to the earth; and Tokatea, which blends these two spatialities, fabricating a temporalised environment in between the momentary and the monumental, between interior and exterior. In presenting and discussing these speculative spaces, this thesis moves between architecture and academia, Oceania and the West, the ephemeral and the enduring, and the inside and the outside, with the aim of destabilising architecture's discursive ground, causing its hermetic boundaries to become temporalised and fluid. Preface This exegesis explores a space-making practice that, like its author, has hybrid cultural origins deriving from both Polynesian and Western ancestries. The exegesis of the built work moves between these cultural conditions, discussing Pacific spatial environments and thought and Western architectural practices and theory. The Pacific and the Western are employed together as a means to unsettle assumptions and encourage emergent cultural expressions formed in the space in-between. Employing between-ness as a textual strategy, the exegesis models the design process and its concern with destabilising fixed conditions of interior and exterior, landscape and architecture or Western and Polynesian spatial thought and environments. This is the defining quality of the design process which otherwise employs common design development practices-modelling, sketching and drawing in order to generate a spatial language. The spatial designs thus formed are tested through an iterative developmental process which continually asks is the design active, is it in motion between spatial, cultural and discursive conditions, does it therefore practice betweenness through its resistance to fixed identifications or locations? The exegesis aims, at another level, to articulate what the emergent field of spatial design may be through the consideration of this practice of between-ness. Spatial design is established here as a discipline that is defined by its extensiveness, ranging across the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, interior and performance design as a time-based discourse, a site of spatial and discursive exchange.

2019

Representation Challenges. Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Heritage and Innovative Design Domain, 2021

Nello Scill'e Cariddi is an immersive and interactive room, in which the marine environment of the Strait of Messina was employed as first experimental scenarios to develop and test the technology. The scenarios reconstruct different settings relating to this unique ecosystem and represent the outcome of a long process of research and systematization of audio visuals available at the Horcynus Orca Foundation. The room, therefore, transforms collections of films, integrating them with the production of specific images, into virtual environments containing structured catalogues and into interactive installations for educational, playful, scientific, and popular use.