Search Results

Movements of the Mental Eye in Pictorial Space

Jan J. Koenderink

in Images and Artefacts of the Ancient World

When an observer is faced with a straight photograph, the observer can either look at the image or look into the photograph. This manner of observing photographs presents a difference that is ... More

When an observer is faced with a straight photograph, the observer can either look at the image or look into the photograph. This manner of observing photographs presents a difference that is crucial. In the former case, the observer is aware of the photograph as a physical object in a physical space while in the latter, the observer is aware of the pictorial object in a pictorial space. This chapter focuses on the current understanding of pictorial perception and the structure of pictorial space. Pictorial space is different from physical space in that it does not exist outside of the observer's awareness. It is a thread of consciousness and a purely mental object. In contrast, the photograph as a physical object is a mere planar sheet composed of pigments in a certain simultaneous order. The concepts of pictorial object and scene is not limited to the earlier existence of a physical space that figured casually in the present existence of the photograph. The theory of pictorial space is largely derived from psychophysical data. The measurement of it depends on the idiosyncratic movements of the mental eye. It is purely an ‘intentional entity’ that makes its elusive to physiological methods and susceptible to misconception.Less

MODULATED CRYSTALS IN SUPERSPACE

Sander Van Smaalen

in Incommensurate Crystallography

This chapter introduces the superspace theory for the description of the crystal structures of incommensurately modulated crystals. Two alternative constructions of superspace are presented. In ... More

This chapter introduces the superspace theory for the description of the crystal structures of incommensurately modulated crystals. Two alternative constructions of superspace are presented. In reciprocal space the observed scattering vectors of Bragg reflections are considered to be the projections of reciprocal lattice points in (3+1)-dimensional superspace. Lattice translations in superspace applied to the atomic positions in three-dimensional, physical space generate the structure model in superspace. Thus, the latter is a periodic structure in superspace by definition. Structure factors of Bragg reflections are shown to be the Fourier transform of the electron density on one unit cell of the superspace lattice. t-Plots are defined, and their use in structural chemistry is demonstrated by the application to the incommensurately modulated structure of Sr2Nb2O7.Less

Urban Magic: Concluding Remarks

Yannis M. Ioannides

in From Neighborhoods to Nations: The Economics of Social Interactions

This chapter considers the prospect of a deeper understanding of social interactions in urban settings as well as their significance for the functioning and future role of cities and regions. It ... More

This chapter considers the prospect of a deeper understanding of social interactions in urban settings as well as their significance for the functioning and future role of cities and regions. It introduces broader sets of tools for exploring the properties of urban networks, from the lowest microscale up to the highest levels of aggregation. Graph theory, for example, offers a promising means of elucidating the urban social fabric and the interactions that define it, and more specifically the link between urban infrastructure and aspatial social networks. The chapter also compares individuals and their social interactions to an archipelago, a metaphor that offers a picture of the magic of the city. It concludes by emphasizing the interdependence between the creation of cities over physical space, on the one hand, and the urban archipelago and its internal social and economic structures, which are man-made, on the other.Less

Privacy Gets Physical

Laura DeNardis

in The Internet in Everything: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch

This chapter addresses the critical area of cyber-physical system privacy. Cyber-physical system privacy concerns encroach into intimate spaces in and around the body and in material spaces of ... More

This chapter addresses the critical area of cyber-physical system privacy. Cyber-physical system privacy concerns encroach into intimate spaces in and around the body and in material spaces of industry, the home and society that were once distinctly bounded from the digital sphere. Privacy problems are also concerns about discrimination, such as using collected data for employment, insurance, and law enforcement decisions. Privacy problems in digital-physical spaces also raise a host of national security concerns. The chapter then explains some of the constraints that complicate privacy and recommends a baseline privacy-protection framework to address this extraordinary policy challenge. Transparency and notice to consumers about data gathering and sharing practices should represent absolute minimal standards of practice. But even this minimal standard is difficult to attain.Less

Geometry and Spatial Vision

Gerald Westheimer

in Seeing Spatial Form

Space finds its specific definition in different disciplines. This chapter deals with the concept of visual space, and object—or physical—space. It also discusses how the fundamental laws of geometry ... More

Space finds its specific definition in different disciplines. This chapter deals with the concept of visual space, and object—or physical—space. It also discusses how the fundamental laws of geometry apply to all spaces, and that includes visual space.Less

Limits to Places and Spaces for Physical Exercise

Melvin Delgado

in Social Justice and the Urban Obesity Crisis: Implications for Social Work

This chapter examines how the lack of places and spaces for physical exercise contributes to the problem of obesity. Policies and community/neighborhood infrastructure play a significant role in the ... More

This chapter examines how the lack of places and spaces for physical exercise contributes to the problem of obesity. Policies and community/neighborhood infrastructure play a significant role in the prevalence of obesity. In particular, the physical environment can either promote or hinder activities that support health in low-income urban communities of color. In 2006, the Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities Research identified the built environment as a key contributor to health disparities. A social justice perspective provides a lens through which we can better understand the relationship between physical environments and health. The lack of exercise due to an inability or unwillingness to engage in physical activity must be considered in the development of interventions. This chapter looks at the role of the built environment and the obesogenic environment as factors in obesity. It also analyzes the importance of physical spaces in an urban context and how social forces can minimize physical exercise in marginalized urban communities.Less

Disconnect to Reconnect! Self-help to Regain an Authentic Sense of Space Through Digital Detoxing

Gunn Enli and Trine Syvertsen

in Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection

A typical call in contemporary self-help literature is to “look away from screens and enter the physical world.” Drawing on an empirical analysis of 15 self-help books, this chapter explores advice ... More

A typical call in contemporary self-help literature is to “look away from screens and enter the physical world.” Drawing on an empirical analysis of 15 self-help books, this chapter explores advice to reconnect with social and physical spaces by taking a break from digital technology. Digital detox is a relatively new term, but its ideological foundations are familiar from a long history of media and technology criticism. In the chapter, self-help advice on digital detoxing is discussed in the light of classical and contemporary criticism of media influence. Although the self-help books illuminate obstacles and difficulties, they propagate an optimistic belief that invasive technology can be controlled, authenticity restored, and social and physical dislocation reversed.Less

Do You See Space? How to Recover the Visible and Tangible Reality of Space (Without Space)

Jenann Ismael

in Philosophy Beyond Spacetime: Implications from Quantum Gravity

In the search for a theory of quantum gravity, there are strong theoretical pressures that have pushed in the direction of theories in which space (or spacetime) is not present at the fundamental ... More

In the search for a theory of quantum gravity, there are strong theoretical pressures that have pushed in the direction of theories in which space (or spacetime) is not present at the fundamental level. The task of recovering the appearances is especially pressing in such theories. This chapter looks at the cognitive processes that produce spatial experience to better understand the empirical constraints on such theories. There is no question that we have immediate awareness of the visible and tangible reality of space, but what that awareness amounts to, and whether it supports the requirement that space has to be recovered as concrete external structure, is not something that has received enough attention. This chapter fills that gap.Less

Music and the Restructuring of Physical and Social Space

in The Power of Song: Music and Dance in the Mission Communities of Northern New Spain, 1590–1810

This chapter examines the function of musical performances in restructuring physical and social space in mission communities in New Spain. It explains that the Indians took advantage of the ... More

This chapter examines the function of musical performances in restructuring physical and social space in mission communities in New Spain. It explains that the Indians took advantage of the opportunities offered by performance to carve out social space while other indigenous groups electively incorporated religious music as a way of gaining material benefits. This chapter also discusses the role of music and dance in the processes of ethnogenesis and cultural adaptation which indigenize Catholic special celebrations.Less

Scenes

Joanna Gavins

in Text World Theory: An Introduction

Our existing knowledge frames enable us to conceptualise and understand discourse and we use them as the basis for the mental representations we create of the language we encounter. This chapter ... More

Our existing knowledge frames enable us to conceptualise and understand discourse and we use them as the basis for the mental representations we create of the language we encounter. This chapter examines how the process of constructing these mental representations, or text-worlds, is facilitated. It begins the exploration of the precise conceptual structure of the worlds we create in our minds. Of central interest is the relationship between our conceptualisation of real-world experiences and our mental representation of discourse. In particular, the chapter investigates how our understanding of physical space and the progress of time in our everyday lives has a direct influence on how we create text-worlds from discourse. The processes by which we begin to conceptualise the spatial and temporal setting of a text-world are examined in relation to an internet audio-guide and some extracts from literary prose fiction.Less

Introduction

John R. Parkinson

in Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book argues that democracy depends on the availability of physical, public space, even in our allegedly digital world. It ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book argues that democracy depends on the availability of physical, public space, even in our allegedly digital world. It also argues that the availability of space for democratic performance is under threat, and that by overlooking the need for such space — or arguing against that need — we run the risk of undermining some important conditions of democracy in the modern world. The chapter also sketches out the approach taken in this study, including a brief discussion of the case studies, followed by an overview of the subsequent chapters.Less

Physical Space: The Sites of Courtship

Doris G. Bargen

in Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors

This chapter maps out the sites of courtship in The Tale of Genji. In the imaginary world of Heian courtship, space is so important that female characters in Genji are often known by their ... More

This chapter maps out the sites of courtship in The Tale of Genji. In the imaginary world of Heian courtship, space is so important that female characters in Genji are often known by their residential location. The spaces that matter, in increasing order of importance, are the city (Heian-kyō, later known as Kyōto) and its environs, the temples and shrines of the city's periphery and center, the Imperial Palace (dairi) within the Greater Imperial Palace (daidairi), and the residence of the woman who is the desired object of courtship. What also matters is the road—that is, the space in between the nobleman's more or less temporary dwelling and the courted woman's residence. In the normative pattern, the peripatetic courtier—unlike the aristocratic woman—cannot easily be fixed in space.Less

Class and Community Organizations

Gregory Smithsimon

in September 12: Community and Neighborhood Recovery at Ground Zero

This chapter examines how physical space and the socioeconomic class of residents shaped community activism in Battery Park City before and after September 11. It compares the activism of Battery ... More

This chapter examines how physical space and the socioeconomic class of residents shaped community activism in Battery Park City before and after September 11. It compares the activism of Battery Park City groups and community activism as detailed in several classic ethnographies of low-income communities to illustrate how the physical boundaries that defined the social community influenced the positions that groups took, the alliances they forged, and the way they defined themselves. It shows that class mattered, not only in the money residents could contribute at fundraising events, but also in terms of political agency and residents' views toward community organizing and leadership roles.Less

Subsuming Reality: Schematism and Transcendental Judgment

Waxman Wayne

in Kant's Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind

The first of three chapters on transcendental judgment, Chapter 16 explains transcendental schematism as the extension of the transcendental synthesis speciosaof the manifold of pure-formal intuition ... More

The first of three chapters on transcendental judgment, Chapter 16 explains transcendental schematism as the extension of the transcendental synthesis speciosaof the manifold of pure-formal intuition elucidated in Chapter 15 to the empirical-material manifold of realities apprehended in perception. Schemata are needed because pure-formal space and time lack empirical-material reality, which means that whatever has such reality has no space and time in which to exist (occupy or contain). Schemata make good this want, so that empirical realities are differentiated and determined exactly as they would be if there were a space and time in the field of appearance that conformed to transcendentally synthesized pure-formal space and time. The chapter then analyzes the schemata individually and their role as the predicates of transcendental judgments.Less

Where We Live, Work, and Play

Sandro Galea

in The Contagion Next Time

This chapter focuses on place, which is one of the key factors that determines whether or not we can live a healthy life, for the simple fact that place is a ubiquitous exposure. It first provides an ... More

This chapter focuses on place, which is one of the key factors that determines whether or not we can live a healthy life, for the simple fact that place is a ubiquitous exposure. It first provides an overview of the link between place and health, before looking at the physical spaces where we live and work, our communities and transportation networks, and the condition of our global home. COVID-19 showed that for all the segregation in our society, for all the difference between high- and low-income neighborhoods, for all the variety of spaces we navigate, there is really only one place to truly speak of—the world we share. The story of place and health is ultimately the story how we can support the long-term sustainability of our planet. Just as it is not enough to have nice homes if they are situated in dangerous neighborhoods, it is not enough to make our communities more conducive to health if we neglect the broader environmental challenges that shape the health of our fragile, indispensable world. This means, centrally, mitigating the effects of climate change by designing healthier, more sustainable cities.Less

Step-by-Step: Geography’s Myth

Paul Carter

in Dark Writing: Geography, Performance, Design

This chapter suggests that modern geography's foundations are poetic, and it is geography's myth to suppose otherwise. The inductive sciences, of which geography is one, make use of spatial figures ... More

This chapter suggests that modern geography's foundations are poetic, and it is geography's myth to suppose otherwise. The inductive sciences, of which geography is one, make use of spatial figures of speech in order to describe the nature of reality. But for geography—which, after all, is the science of describing physical space—these figures of speech are indispensable. The maps people inhabit represent mental geographies—ways of thinking and drawing that idealize the appearances of the world in the interest of saving the appearance of reason. However, the ironic result of this determination to reduce the world to an algebra of points and lines is that it opens up abysses both in thought and nature. Only the creative imagination can bridge these gaps in reason.Less

French Cinema Dies of Suffocation

Kaira M. Cabañas

in Off-Screen Cinema: Isidore Isou and the Lettrist Avant-Garde

This chapter reviews Maurice Lemaître's Le film est déjà commence? (Has the Film Already Started?, 1951). The end of the film features a voice-over that details various press responses to the film, ... More

This chapter reviews Maurice Lemaître's Le film est déjà commence? (Has the Film Already Started?, 1951). The end of the film features a voice-over that details various press responses to the film, which was mysteriously included as part of the film's premiere screening. Given the impossibility of the existence of reviews before the premiere, the fictive nature of the press reports reproduced on the film's soundtrack becomes suspicious. By inventing the film's press reception, Lemaître ironically legitimizes his work as a film and transforms the screening event, whose effects are registered both within and beyond the cinema's institutional frame. What emerges as central to Lemaître's film practice is not only the physical space in which the film is projected and the live interventions that transpire therein, but also the multiple forums for discussing, debating, and legitimating what constitutes as cinema.Less

Tremors and Whirlpools

Joseph P. Reidy

in Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery

In times of war, physical space may appear to shed its customary character of permanence and become pliable. Places that in times of peace signify safety and security might during war become scenes ... More

In times of war, physical space may appear to shed its customary character of permanence and become pliable. Places that in times of peace signify safety and security might during war become scenes of danger, even death. Federal emancipation policy accentuated this tendency, as civilians and soldiers alike employed space to new ends, often polar opposites of its earlier uses. When freedom-seeking refugees gained the protection of the U.S. Army, they benefited from a cordon of safety that transcended the fixed space of military camps to encompass armies on the move as well as at rest. The winds of change swept through plantation big-houses, fields, and workshops, where enslaved women and men moved more slowly and spoke less respectfully than usual. The bodies of water that lapped on the shores and cut through the interior of the Confederacy proved especially amenable to loosening the bonds of slavery. Nonetheless, black sailors in the U.S. Navy discovered that constraints as well as opportunities accompanied this particular route to freedom.Less

Entering the Maze

Doris G. Bargen

in Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors

This chapter maps out both the fictional characters' movements in space and locates their positions in the Genji's genealogical charts. Except for the emperor, Murasaki Shikibu's noblemen seem to be ... More

This chapter maps out both the fictional characters' movements in space and locates their positions in the Genji's genealogical charts. Except for the emperor, Murasaki Shikibu's noblemen seem to be in constant motion. Women also left their residences, but their travels were less frequent than the men's. Furthermore, Murasaki Shikibu puts to the test the resolve of three or four generations that, through courtship, seek to improve their genealogical lines. Obtaining genealogical clarity in this case, however, is no easy task. The complicated ramifications of family trees in polygynous societies make it dauntingly difficult to present a visually lucid and complete picture. To help the reader follow the protagonists' movements as they pursue their genealogical aspirations, this chapter has thus provided maps of their physical space as well as genealogical charts.Less