A radical transformation is taking place in today’s society with the rapid developments in digital technology. The digital dispersion of information occurs globally at an unprecedented speed, altering innumerable aspects of cultural memory to the extent that the experience of cyclical time of ritual culture is gradually replaced by the prevalence of linear time of progress and chaotic time of computerized processes. As a result, both formation and experience of meaning are changed. With that, an important question arises with regards to music: how does musical meaning transpire in contemporary culture? As a theoretical companion to my compositional work, this doctoral dissertation addresses this question from the perspective of memory. Based on the idea that musical meaning is informed through its contextualization within the manifold intersections of memory, cultural memory, and digital technology, its first three chapters explore the relationships between memory and identity, externalized memory and culture, time and meaning in music, and how these relationships can inform musical analysis. The fourth chapter provides analytical approaches to compositions by Luciano Berio, Helmut Lachenmann, John Cage, and Pierluigi Billone informed by the conclusions gained from the previous chapters. The last three chapters focus on the added complexity of the relationships between musical memory and cultural memory as impacted by digital technologies. It will be explored how digital processes affect various aspects of musical memory and musical time. Correspondingly, the final chapter offers musical analyses of compositions with live electronics by composers Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey, and the dissertation will be concluded by an analysis of my dissertation composition #ffffff which is appended. Central to the investigation are the post-structuralist ideas of philosophers Bernard Stiegler, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as theories regarding cultural memory brought forth by Jan and Aleida Assmann. In order to apply these concepts to an examination of music, they will be reconciled with the musical philosophy of Gunnar Hindrichs, the musical semiotics of Jean-Jacques Nattiez, the cultural semiotics of Roland Posner, and the critical media studies of Wolfgang Ernst. / Graduate / 0413 / annette.mailbox@gmx.net

This Creative Writing thesis argues for the need to rethink our understanding of climate change and focuses on the response of creative writers to this phenomenon, whilst also offering its own creative contribution. The critical component aims at articulating a post-climate change poetics. It reviews the mainstream literature in popular science writing, fiction and poetry from the point of view of a political frame-analysis of climate change, to demonstrate how a certain understanding of climate change maps onto conventions of literary genre. The thesis takes the view that many mainstream literary attempts to negotiate climate change are compromised by the teleological way in which they conceive of the phenomenon. As an alternative position, it draws on the work of climatologist Mike Hulme and physicist and cultural theorist Karen Barad to encourage participation in climate change as a condition for negotiating its meaning. Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass is proposed as a model for literary production informed by this poetics and as a model for the author’s own creative practice. The creative component of this thesis is an intra-generic text presenting the fictionalised narrative of a cycle expedition the author made from Salford to the Greek island of Ikaria in the summer of 2010. This substantial work aims to interrogate, imagine, and enquire into the epistemology of a post-climate change world.

This thesis analyzes the emergence, presence, and use of digital reproductions in the scholarship of art history and how these reproductions impact individual encounters with art. It will address matters related to the authenticity of reproductions, the development of modern technologies, and the rise of new media, reflecting on issues related to integrating technology into the discipline and proposing how to deal with the digital reproductions in the study of art history.

In this thesis, I attempt to explore the development of migrant literature in an era of digitalcommunication. The latest developments in communication technology have certainlydestabilized patterns of content creation and dissemination. While many use it uncritically,mostly as a means of information and keeping in contact, there are new avenues open forthose who wish to engage actively and create a space for new dialogue. And though theseonline platforms have not completely overturned hierarchies between literatures from theWest versus the global South, they have certainly altered both the content and form of workoriginating from African countries. By doing so, digital technology has boosted the creationof an African identity that moves away from victimhood by reimagining ideas of what itmeans to be and write from an African perspective where a multiplicity and hybridity ofvoices exist. I have chosen three “digital migrant novels” (Caren Irr’s term): ChimamandaNgozi Adichihe’s Americanah, NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, and Open Cityby Teju Cole. I begin by situating these novels in a technologically sophisticated, mediaoriented space, where the geography of nations is challenged by overlapping spaces of digitalcommunication. My aim is threefold – to identify new patterns in migrant identity and to seehow they are affected by technology use; to see whether these patterns correspond to theemergence of an Afropolitan identity (and to understand what permutations this Afropolitanidentity can take on). And and finally, to analyse how digital media communication shapes amigrant’s relationship to homeland and language.

Classification is one of the primary tasks of data mining and aims to assign a class label to unseen examples by using a model learned from a training dataset. Most of the accepted classifiers are designed to minimize the error rate but in practice data mining involves costs such as the cost of getting the data, and cost of making an error. Hence the following question arises: Among all the available classification algorithms, and in considering a specific type of data and cost, which is the best algorithm for my problem? It is well known to the machine learning community that there is no single algorithm that performs best for all domains. This observation motivates the need to develop an “algorithm selector” which is the work of automating the process of choosing between different algorithms given a specific domain of application. Thus, this research develops a new meta-learning system for recommending cost-sensitive classification methods. The system is based on the idea of applying machine learning to discover knowledge about the performance of different data mining algorithms. It includes components that repeatedly apply different classification methods on data sets and measuring their performance. The characteristics of the data sets, combined with the algorithm and the performance provide the training examples. A decision tree algorithm is applied on the training examples to induce the knowledge which can then be applied to recommend algorithms for new data sets, and then active learning is used to automate the ability to choose the most informative data set that should enter the learning process. This thesis makes contributions to both the fields of meta-learning, and cost sensitive learning in that it develops a new meta-learning approach for recommending cost-sensitive methods. Although, meta-learning is not new, the task of accelerating the learning process remains an open problem, and the thesis develops a novel active learning strategy based on clustering that gives the learner the ability to choose which data to learn from and accordingly, speed up the meta-learning process. Both the meta-learning system and use of active learning are implemented in the WEKA system and evaluated by applying them on different datasets and comparing the results with existing studies available in the literature. The results show that the meta-learning system developed produces better results than METAL, a well-known meta-learning system and that the use of clustering and active learning has a positive effect on accelerating the meta-learning process, where all tested datasets show a decrement of error rate prediction by 75 %.

L'étude des phénomènes sociaux actuels passe nécessairement par la reconnaissance du rôle de la technologie électronique dans l'ensemble des pratiques sociales. L'on parle, par exemple, d'une révolution culturelle pour montrer l'impact de la technologie numérique dans la vie quotidienne, mais quelles sont-elles vraiment les transformations qu'amène cette technologie à la socialité ? Les formes de vivre ensemble se sont transformées pour l'utilisation de la technologie numérique ? Voici les questions qu'on discute dans ce travail. Dans l'étude que nous présentons, l'on interprète ces transformations culturelles à partir d'un regard intime de l'expérience numérique. Dès notre filiation à la pensée maffesolienne, l'on fait une revendication du rapprochement esthétique pour l'étude sociologique, tout d'abord, car les motifs rationnels sont loin de montrer la richesse du lien social ; ensuite, parce que l'auteur a bien montré la puissance de l'interprétation autour au quotidien, à l'espace, aux formes sociétales. Enfin, puisque seulement dans la douceur de l'image était possible une compréhension de la socialité contemporaine. Pour conclure, on présente les tendances sociétales qui montrent cela que l'on appelle « l'e-rationalité postmoderne » qui n'est autre que l'articulation de l'être ensemble électronique attachée aux valeurs postmodernes. / The study of the current social phenomena inevitably goes through the acknowledgement of the role of electronic technology in social practices as a whole. We speak, for example, about a cultural revolution to emphasize the impact of digital technology in everyday life, but which are the transformations that this technology brings to the sociality? The ways we live together are transformed by the use of the digital technology? These are the questions which we discuss in this work. In the study we present, these cultural transformations are interpreted from an intimate look to the digital experience. From our affiliation to the thoughts of Michel Maffesoli, we vindicate an aesthetic approach to sociological studies; first of all, because rational motives are far from showing the richness of the social link; and then, because Maffesoli ('the author' serías tú) has clearly showed its power of interpretation of daily life, the space and societal forms. Finally, because it is only in the sweetness of the image that is possible to comprehend contemporary sociality. To conclude, we present the societal trends which demonstrate what we call "the postmodern e-rationality" which is no other than the articulation of an electronic being together, attached to the postmodern values.

Esta dissertação aborda as transformações que a tecnologia digital está operando sobre aquilo que um dia chamaram corpo. Nossa atual capacidade de perceber, interagir e intervir em múltiplos espaços sem nos deslocarmos fisicamente revela que já ingressamos coletivamente em uma nova condição da experiência corporal nas redes digitais. Isto é, a crescente participação das tecnologias mecânicas, elétricas e digitais no nosso cotidiano inaugurou sensações e assim transformou o estatuto e as condições do corpo, instaurando o que chamaremos corporalidades reticulares. Nesta perspectiva, os dualismos que arregimentaram a modernidade (mente/corpo, animal/humano, público/privado, natureza/cultura) são depostos, anunciando uma época em que não há mais aquele abismo ontológico que separou o humano da tecnologia. Deste modo, o objetivo desta dissertação é discutir o estatuto e a condição do corpo na época das redes digitais para abrir nossa percepção para uma realidade insuficientemente compreendida pela palavra corpo. Por isso, a justificativa desta pesquisa se dá pela urgência em compreendermos de que maneira a tecnologia digital está criando, retificando ou ressaltando atributos corporais anteriores e contemporâneos ao advento da comunicação digital em rede. Para tanto, a indisciplina própria ao corpo foi aqui utilizada como metodologia de pesquisa, atravessando irresponsavelmente diversos campos das ciências humanas, na tentativa de contemplar conceitualmente a complexidade de um assunto inapreensível enquanto \"objeto de pesquisa\". Analisando as ambiências digitais e o chamado \"sexo virtual\", concluiremos que àquele corpo natural, individual e sensível aos estímulos orgânicos do seu entorno, impõe-se agora um corporalidade reticular, sem centro nem periferia, capaz de sentir a miríade de estímulos transorgânicos, semióticos e sintéticos que a atravessam no contexto digital e fora dele. / This dissertation adresses the transformation digital technology is operating on all of that they one day called body. Our current capacity to perceive, interact and intervene in multiple spaces without having to physically move reveals we have collectively joined into a brand-new body experience condition through the digital networks. What I mean is that the increasing participation of mechanical, electric and digital technologies in our daily lives launched some sensations, thus transforming body constitution and its conditions, creating what we will be calling reticulate corporality. Into this perspective, the dualities that have regimented modernity (mind/body, animal/human, public/private, nature/culture) are deposed, in the announce of a period in which the ontological chasm between human and technology no more exists. That said, this dissertation aims the discussion over the body constitution and its conditions into the digital media era so we can expand our perception to a reality that is insufficiently comprised by the word body. That said, this research justifies itself due to the urgency to comprehend how digital technology is creating, rectifying or emphasizing body attributes that are prior and contemporary to the advent of the networking digital communication. Therefore, the indiscipline inherent to the body has been here used as a research methodology, recklessly intercepting several fields from the Human sciences, in an attempt to conceptually contemplate the complexity of an issue that is inapprehensible as a \"research object\". Through the analysis of the digital ambiences and the so-called \"virtual sex\", we will be able to conclude that the natural, individual and sensitive to surrounding organic stimulus body is now imposed a new reticulate corporality, with no center or periphery, able to feel the myriad of transorganic, semiotic and synthetic stimuli that cross it into and out of the digital context.

This thesis contributes to the fields of digital technology, consciousness studies and cultural theory by reassessing the relation of the contemporary subject to physical and digital worlds. By moving beyond the materiality of these worlds, this investigation will position the subject as a cyborg: a series of relations within consciousness that defines the reality and psychological construction of the subject across and through physical and digital perspectives. The functions of consciousness are set out as Existence, Meaning, Virtual, and Real, and their shifting relations defined in terms of physical and digital modes of consciousness. Using Slavoj Žižek's conception of parallax, applied ontologically to digital technology, and introducing a new framework for analysing consciousness as a series of relations between functions, the void of subjectivity is defined as the gap between physical and digital worlds. Within this framework the work of Gilles Deleuze and the philosophy of quantum physics are employed to negotiate a disruption of conventional reality with the Virtuality of thought and matter respectively, towards the conception of the subject as an engaged spectator. These methodological tools are developed to analyse cultural phenomena that highlight and challenge our consciousness of the relation between physical and digital worlds. Online and gallery-based digital art interventions, avatar-mediated spaces, computer games and representations of digital technology and culture in literature are examined in order to assess specific relations between functions, drawing the discussion towards the antagonism between Virtuality and Reality within the construction of the cyborg subject. Through these analyses, a critical position is established through which the contemporary subject is able to achieve the rupture of a minimal distance towards its own parallax position to confront the void of subjectivity between Virtual and Real functions of consciousness and between physical and digital modes of cyborg reality.

This thesis investigates the design of audio for feedback in human-technology interaction— auditory displays. Despite promising progress in research and the potential benefits, we currently see little impact of audio in everyday interfaces. Changing interaction paradigms, new contexts of use and inclusive design principles, however, increase the need for an efficient, non-visual means of conveying information. Motivated by these needs, this work describes the development and evaluation of a methodological design framework, aiming to enhance knowledge and skill transfer in auditory display design and to enable designers to build more efficient and compelling auditory solutions. The work starts by investigating the current practice in designing audio in the user interface. A survey amongst practitioners and researchers in the field and a literature study of research papers highlighted the need for a structured design approach. Building on these results, paco – pattern design in the context space has been developed, a framework providing methods to capture, apply and refine design knowledge through design patterns. A key element of paco, the context space, serves as the organising principle for patterns, artefacts and design problems and supports designers in conceptualising the design space. The evaluation of paco is the first comparative study of a design methodology in this area. Experts in auditory display design and novice designers participated in a series of experiments to determine the usefulness of the framework. The evaluation demonstrated that paco facilitates the transfer of design knowledge and skill between experts and novices as well as promoting reflection and recording of design rationale. Alongside these principle achievements, important insights have been gained about the design process which lay the foundations for future research into this subject area. This work contributes to the field of auditory display as it reflects on the current practice and proposes a means of supporting designers to communicate, reason about and build on each other’s work more efficiently. The broader field of human-computer interaction may also benefit from the availability of design guidance for exploiting the auditory modality to answer the challenges of future interaction design. Finally, with paco a generic methodology in the field of design patterns was proposed, potentially similarly beneficial to other designing disciplines.

The acoustic character of a space is often quantified using objective room acoustic parameters. The measurement of these parameters is difficult in occupied conditions and thus measurements are usually performed when the space is un-occupied. This is despite the knowledge that occupancy can impact significantly on the measured parameter value. Within this thesis new methods are developed by which naturalistic signals such as speech and music can be used to perform acoustic parameter measurement. Adoption of naturalistic signals enables passive measurement during orchestral performances and spoken announcements, thus facilitating easy in-situ measurement. Two methods are described within this work; (1) a method utilising artificial neural networks where a network is taught to recognise acoustic parameters from received, reverberated signals and (2) a method based on the maximum likelihood estimation of the decay curve of the room from which parameters are then calculated. (1) The development of the neural network method focuses on a new pre-processor for use with music signals. The pre-processor utilises a narrow band filter bank with centre frequencies chosen based on the equal temperament scale. The success of a machine learning method is linked to the quality of the training data and therefore realistic acoustic simulation algorithms were used to generate a large database of room impulse responses. Room models were defined with realistic randomly generated geometries and surface properties; these models were then used to predict the room impulse responses. (2) In the second approach, a statistical model of the decay of sound in a room was further developed. This model uses a maximum likelihood (ML) framework to yield a number of decay curve estimates from a received reverberant signal. The success of the method depends on a number of stages developed for the algorithm; (a) a pre-processor to select appropriate decay phases for estimation purposes, (b) a rigorous optimisation algorithm to ensure the correct maximum likelihood estimate is found and (c) a method to yield a single optimum decay curve estimate from which the parameters are calculated. The ANN and ML methods were tested using orchestral music and speech signals. The ANN method tended to perform well when estimating the early decay time (EDT), for speech and music signals the error was within the subjective difference limens. However, accuracy was reduced for the reverberation time (Rt) and other parameters. By contrast the ML method performed well for Rt with results for both speech and music within the difference limens for reasonable (<4s) reverberation time. In addition reasonable accuracy was found for EDT, Clarity (C80), Centre time (Ts) and Deutichkeit (D). The ML method is also capable of producing accurate estimates of the binaural parameters Early Lateral Energy Fraction (LEF) and the late lateral strength (LG). A number of real world measurements were carried out in concert halls where the ML accuracy was shown to be sufficient for most parameters. The ML method has the advantage over the ANN method due to its truly blind nature (the ANN method requires a period of learning and is therefore semi-blind). The ML method uses gaps of silence between notes or utterances, when these silence regions are not present the method does not produce an estimate. Accurate estimation requires a long recording (hours of music or many minutes of speech) to ensure that at least some silent regions are present. This thesis shows that, given a sufficiently long recording, accurate estimates of many acoustic parameters can be obtained directly from speech and music. Further extensions to the ML method detailed in this thesis combine the ML estimated decay curve with cepstral methods which detect the locations of early reflections. This improves the accuracy of many of the parameter estimates.