Towards an office of institutional aesthetics

By exploring the territory between being within the zone of art practice and the zone of art educational institutions along with their attendant bureaucratic structures, Dutton will engage with the possibility of applying different types of (poetic) sensibilities that emerge out of reflexive art practice onto and into the heart of the controlling rhetoric and processes that function as normative behaviour within many institutions of art education. Thinking of the Art School as a site of an improbable constellation of subjectivities and political and institutional imperatives, Dutton will outline a path through which art and institution might begin to conflate in a zone of possibilities. Starting with a propositional ‘Office of Institutional Aesthetics’, which has its roots in real world scenarios, Dutton will characterise the tensions and strains of contemporary institutions of art education as ‘end’ obsessed—after which he will explore forms of practice which concern ‘becomings’ rather than completions. Dutton concludes that those of us who straddle art and art-educational spheres might need to re-think our institutions as networks of behaviours and tactics in much the same way we might encounter and engage in the process of art over the fetish of the artefact

The Institute of Beasts: strategies of doubt and refusal in a contemporary art practice

The collaborative work of Steve Dutton and Steve Swindells (Dutton and Swindells) can be seen in the context of post-conceptual artistic practices which play with and interrogate images, objects and texts through processes of collage, appropriation and multiple association. The aim of the collaboration is to foster complex interpretations, often from deceptively simple means; consciously working through varied rhetorical devices and tropes, modes of production and strategic interventions. We are tactical artists, preferring to focus on strategies, context and processes, frequently doubling, collaging, reversing, repeating and inverting images, objects and texts as a means of disruption. But a question remains at the heart of such contemporary art practices, namely, a disruption of what? My paper for ATINER focused on strategies of refusal, waywardness, the production of ambiguity and new fictional taxonomies in a contemporary art practice and asked if the use of tactics of doubt in the work of art are useful tools for production of new knowledge. At the heart of these questions are issues around the relationship between art and research, the possibility or impossibility of art within the contexts of the contemporary art/educational institution and art school and the possibility of creating and sustaining an art practice which refuses to align itself to any one canon, manifesto, school, industry, form, institution or critical method. The paper draws on the collaborative practice of Dutton and Swindells and also Michael Phillipson’s 1992 essay “Managing ‘tradition’: the Plight of Aesthetic Practices in techno-scientific culture” as a means of illustrating the potential absorption of the specific into the general under the auspices neo-liberal institutional and commercial agendas

Clueless: contradictions, malapropisms and tensions within a contemporary art practice

At a recent gallery opening of the work of Terry Atkinson, I got talking to an artist friend, ‘M’, and both of us were singing the praises of a certain mutual acquaintance, ‘D’ who happened to be ‘cropping up’ all over the place, in shows, in magazines, in his writings, even his teaching was being talked about. It was a genuine pleasure to see our friend doing so well but when my other friend ‘M’ made the point that ‘D ‘was really focussed and knew what he was doing’, and added wistfully, ‘I wish I did, I haven’t a clue most of the time’, I felt an immediate sense of empathy and it seemed entirely appropriate that we would have this conversation within the context of work by Atkinson who has recently described the art world as a ‘swamp’. Like my friend ‘M’, I too mostly seem to be little lost in my practice, but it’s a waywardness I seem compelled to cultivate in a far more profound manner than a simple inability to focus, yet something about this apparent lack of direction seems to indicate back to me an absence of something altogether more serious, of a sustainable intellectual argument perhaps, leading to the further academic threat of the loss of peer esteem or even more withering, the accusation of a shortfall of artistic ambition. When asked to describe my work I often still stumble like a first year art student on his or her first viva. However I know its not that I’m not articulate, it’s that I’m not able to articulate a practice, which I have steered all over the place, precisely in order for it to be un-speakable. David Bohm, in On Creativity suggests that we must ‘give patient and sustained attention to the idea of confusion’. My argument for my contribution to ATINER was be for a rethinking of practice, particularly within the contexts of research driven agendas of the Art and Design Institutions, in order to create conceptual space for this confusion and complexity to exist as aesthetic tensions, which are attempting to exist outside of the realm of the essentialising commodification of the art market whilst being implicitly sceptical of the progressive drive towards knowledge of the contemporary research culture. In the words of Jacques Ranciere, ‘Aesthetics is the ability to think contradiction’. I proposed to explore an argument that refused to isolate waywardness as a lazy or uncritical approach, and indeed, to suggest that such an approach is deeply engaged, politicised and recognises contradiction as an aesthetic force. It may be possible to argue that this impossibility of classification, this refusal (or inability) to ‘focus’ is in itself a highly charged and even ideologically informed approach, having its routes in libidinal forces, which, at their centre promote a deeply profound and necessary critical distance and attempt at detachment from what could be seen as the atomising effects of the confusion and manipulation of everyday media orientated life, presenting another model of confusion, in which tensions and stresses, contractions and disturbances have an aesthetic and dynamic dimensions which may experienced as a form of pleasure. I did this by drawing attention to my own practice within my collaborations of Dutton and Swindells and The Institute of Beasts, but I will also referred to the work Art and Language, Terry Atkinson, Fischli and Weiss, Arakawa and Gins, Liam Gillick as well as some emergent artists within the UK (Andy Spackman, Brigid Mcleer) and the thinking of David Bohm, Claire Bishop, Jaques Ranciere, Grant Kester and Elizabeth Grosz

How to protect estuaries in Durham, NH

Estuaries are some of the most diverse and fragile ecosystems on our planet. All over the nation, along the coastal states, half of the wetlands, about 55 million acres, have been destroyed (“Habitat Loss Nationwide,” n.d.). Most of these wetlands get Dutton 3 cleared and drained for development, agriculture, etc. In the estuaries located in the Gulf of Maine, development has doubled in the last forty years in the lower watershed (“Habitat Loss Nationwide,” n.d.). This has resulted in an increase in population and impervious surfaces, which correlates with the negative impacts to the watershed, such as runoff and sedimentation (National Research Council, 1987). Other factors have contributed to the degradation of the estuaries in the Piscataqua region such as sealevel rise and an increase in fertilizer use (citations). Some changes have been made to protect these estuaries, however, solving the cumulative impacts need to be included in the protection. Each individual activity is not independent of each other. Their activities work together to decrease the productivity and health of the estuaries. We have policies that have been created, and zoning that has been changed to improve estuaries, however, we need to take that next step forward to fill in the gaps. The goal of this paper is to analyze the current policies and programs, identify the gaps to improve and enhance the programs to be in line with the longstanding ideals of protection and conservation of Durham’s estuaries

Report of Investigations No. 131 Origin and Diagenesis of Cap Rock, Gyp Hill and Oakwood Salt Domes, Texas

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Magnetic properties of quasi-one-dimensional lanthanide calcium oxyborates Ca4_4LnO(BO3_3)3_3

This study examines the lanthanide calcium oxyborates Ca$_4$LnO(BO$_3$)$_3$ (Ln = La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Y, Er, Yb). The reported monoclinic structure (space group $Cm$) was confirmed using powder X-ray diffraction. The magnetic Ln$^{3+}$ ions are situated in well-separated chains parallel to the c axis in a quasi-one-dimensional array. Here we report the first bulk magnetic characterisation of Ca$_4$LnO(BO$_3$)$_3$ using magnetic susceptibility $\chi$(T) and isothermal magnetisation M(H) measurements at T $\geq$ 2 K. With the sole exception of Ca$_4$TbO(BO$_3$)$_3$, which displays a transition at T = 3.6 K, no magnetic transitions occur above 2 K, and Curie-Weiss analysis indicates antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbour interactions for all samples. Calculation of the magnetic entropy change $\Delta S_m$ indicates that Ca$_4$GdO(BO$_3$)$_3$ and Ca$_4$HoO(BO$_3$)$_3$ are viable magnetocaloric materials at liquid helium temperatures in the high-field and low-field regimes respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Inorganic Chemistry, 28 May 202

Integrated assessment : new assessment methods literature review

The assessment of students in higher education performs a number of functions, some of which may not always be compatible with each other. Traditionally, the role of the assessor has involved determining the level of competence displayed in undertaking the task, and ideally, offering feedback on future learning needs (Rowntree, 1987). Assessment also provides grading for students’ work, allowing comparison of performance across a class, and across the curriculum for individual students. The subsequent gaining of a degree or professional qualification depends on students successfully completing a set of specified assessment tasks across the prescribed curriculum. As such, there may be stakeholders beyond the higher education institution, such as employers, regulatory bodies or clients, who believe the assessment process as being akin to certification or professional gatekeeping (Younes,1998). In professional courses such as social work, passing certain assessment tasks may be associated with notions such as fitness to practice and eligibility for professional registration as a social worker with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) or similar bodies in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and beyond the United Kingdom. In terms of gatekeeping, assessment tasks may not only restrict who gains certification on exiting an educational programme, but also who is admitted in the first place. For example, requirements by registration authorities that students admitted to social work programmes have achieved specified levels of literacy and numeracy will require appropriate assessment tasks to determine equivalence for those entrants who have not achieved formal qualifications in these areas. Entry point assessments may also be used to determine whether credit should be granted on the basis of prior learning or experience (Slater, 2000) or to identify areas in which additional training may be required (Shera, 2001) In addition to gatekeeping, assessment clearly has a vital role to play in the ongoing development of learning and teaching strategies. It can be crucial in determining what, why and how students learn (Brown, Bull and Pendlebury, 1997) and there is increasing recognition of the necessity to align learning and assessment tasks, so that learning and assessment become aligned rather than being somewhat independent of each other (Biggs, 2003). Furthermore, in an era when evaluation of teaching is often reduced to student satisfaction surveys, critical reflection on work submitted for assessment can serve as an alternative method of evaluating the success of teaching. The nature of assessment has changed considerably since the 1970s, and is ongoing. The key changes have included moves from written examinations to coursework assignments and more emphasis on student participation in assessment (self and peer assessments), processes rather than products, and on competencies rather than content (Brown et al., 1997). Even the more traditional forms of assessment such as essays and examinations have undergone considerable innovations. Yet, in practice these seemingly radical changes may be more a wish list than a statement of fact. In actuality, some new forms of assessment, such as self and peer assessment may simply have been added onto rather than replaced more traditional modes of assessment (Cree, 2000). Changes to assessment in social work tend to reflect changes in higher education more widely such as the emergence of competency based and modular approaches to learning, as well more proceduralised assessment processes necessary to cope with higher numbers of students (Cree, 2000). There is considerable divergence of opinion amongst the social work education community in the United Kingdom as to whether such changes actually benefit social work students and their learning (eg Clark, 1997; Ford and Hayes, 1996; O’Hagan, 1997; Shardlow and Doel, 1996). There have also been concerns expressed as to whether some new forms of assessment are actually capable of achieving the learning they claim to facilitate Boud, 1999; Entwistle, 1990; Taylor, 1993). This report was commissioned by the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education (SIESWE) as a resource on assessment for the development of the new social work degree in Scotland and provides an overview of the current literature on assessment methods being utilised in social work education both in the United Kingdom and beyond. This report begins by reviewing the various methods of assessment in social work education which were found in the literature. We then go on to explore the developing literature on the involvement of persons other than social work academics, such as students and service users, in the assessment process. Finally, we consider the importance of developing and assessment strategy which might incorporate these various different forms of assessmen

Performance of polar codes for quantum and private classical communication

We analyze the practical performance of quantum polar codes, by computing rigorous bounds on block error probability and by numerically simulating them. We evaluate our bounds for quantum erasure channels with coding block lengths between 2^10 and 2^20, and we report the results of simulations for quantum erasure channels, quantum depolarizing channels, and "BB84" channels with coding block lengths up to N = 1024. For quantum erasure channels, we observe that high quantum data rates can be achieved for block error rates less than 10^(-4) and that somewhat lower quantum data rates can be achieved for quantum depolarizing and BB84 channels. Our results here also serve as bounds for and simulations of private classical data transmission over these channels, essentially due to Renes' duality bounds for privacy amplification and classical data transmission of complementary observables. Future work might be able to improve upon our numerical results for quantum depolarizing and BB84 channels by employing a polar coding rule other than the heuristic used here.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submission to the 50th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing 201