Aquesta investigació pretén mostrar la transversalitat existent entre la cultura visual popular i la pintura contemporània. Analitza l’obra dels artistes, aporta evidències iconogràfiques i identifica les fonts, posant de manifest la inserció d’imatges de diferents àmbits d’una cultura popular i global. Alhora, la recerca permet veure que la pintura es realitza en un concepte expandit, fent difosa la frontera entre el que considerem els circuits tradicionals del high art i nous àmbits per a la imatge pictòrica. Això facilita visualitzar l’existència d’un artista pintor tot-terreny que treballa en la creació d’imatges bidimensionals travessant disciplines i circuits expositius sense prejudicis. La investigació comprèn una primera part, d’aproximació més teòrica, analitzant les interaccions, transferències iconogràfiques i expansions espacials de la pintura; aquesta ens condueix a una segona part, més pràctica i visual, amb l’estudi de cas de quatre artistes: Judas Arrieta, Enric Font, Sergio Mora i Santiago Morilla, evidenciant les insercions i els processos de transferència en la seva producció. / This research intends to demonstrate the transversal interferences existing between popular visual culture and contemporary painting. It analyses the work of the artists, with reference to iconographic evidence and identifies sources, showing the insertion of images from different fields of both popular and global cultures. At the same time, the research presents evidence how painting is realizing in a now expanded concept, blurring the borders between what we consider the traditional circuits of high art, and new fields for a pictorial image. This allows for the existence of an artist/painter who creates two-dimensional images that cross disciplines and exhibition circumstances without prejudice. This research comprises a first part, with a more theoretical approach, analyzing processes, iconographic transfers and space expansions in painting. This leads us to a second part, more practical and visual, with the case of study of four artists: Judas Arrieta, Enric Font, Sergio Mora and Santiago Morilla, showing evidence of the insertion and the process of transfer in their production.

El primer límite en que situamos nuestro trabajo es de orden geográfico (y por extensión, de tipo cultural). Hunde sus raíces en la isla de Mallorca. Nuestro interés, por ello, parte de un conocimiento directo de este contexto, tanto de sus instituciones como de sus mecanismos culturales, sin dejar de lado su sistema de galerías. En el ejercicio del trabajo artístico y creativo radicado en la isla de Mallorca, si nos centramos en la pintura, podemos encontrar un grupo heterogéneo y activo de artistas, que, de forma rigurosa y profesional vienen dedicándose con asiduidad a la práctica de la pintura abstracta. Nacidos en las décadas de los años cincuenta y sesenta (con algunos antecedentes previos) y a los que han ido añadiéndose nuevas generaciones, sus autores desarrollan su trabajo en el taller y hacen pública su actividad en exposiciones en una continuidad que se extiende desde los años setenta hasta la actualidad. Su relevancia crítica puede rastrearse principalmente en la prensa de las Islas Baleares, en un contexto local. El estudio de investigación que presentamos engloba también a artistas foráneos, mayores en edad, venidos de Estados Unidos, Inglaterra o Argentina y que han ocupado un lugar relevante en el desarrollo de la plástica abstracta de la isla durante el periodo mencionado. La primera idea del estudio que nos proponemos se gestó con motivo de la exposición de pintura de la Conselleria de Cultura del Govern Balear que, bajo el título de Abstraccions (Pintura no figurativa a les Illes Balears), se realizó en la La Lonja de Palma de Mallorca (un edificio emblemático de la ciudad) durante los meses de Septiembre y Octubre del año 1996. Incluía una amplia nómina de artistas cuyo número total era de cincuenta y siete pintores, todos relacionados con la pintura abstracta. Estudiamos este grupo de artistas porque su trabajo se encuentra en muchas ocasiones oscurecido, sobre todo, por pertenecer a una rama del arte que no exhibe características de moda o actualidad. Tratamos de reafirmar la vitalidad de esta tendencia, a la que estos pintores se entregan desde el ejercicio individual, conocedores todos ellos de las corrientes actuales. La práctica de la pintura de taller exige unas cualidades de dedicación lenta que no se prodiga demasiado en la posmodernidad. El hecho de que sigan practicando la pintura, y el respeto personal hacia ellos así como la creencia en la validez artística de su trabajo, me han animado así mismo a realizar este estudio. Su elección se justifica también por el buen nivel plástico reconocido de las obras de estos artistas, motivo que les hace merecedores de un estudio que ofrezca un testimonio conjunto de su actividad, ya que todos ellos continúan trabajando en lo que creen: La práctica de la pintura abstracta, independientemente del hecho que ésta no pertenezca demasiado al discurso principal establecido por una crítica centrada principalmente en otras cuestiones (tales como el cuerpo, el lenguaje, la performance, la instalación, las cuestiones de sexo e identidad, el arte del tercer mundo y el arte dirigido a aspectos sociológicos diversos). Son asimismo válidos por la necesidad de inclusión de estas prácticas pictóricas en nuestra cultura y sociedad, por su interés por preservar la legitimidad de la identidad artística en una sociedad de masas, con la total ubicuidad de los media como agentes de transformación del pensamiento y conducta del hombre actual, por su interés en la necesaria coexistencia y dialéctica del mundo de las nuevas tecnologías y soportes electrónicos en lugar del soporte tradicional de la técnica de la pintura. Existe, por todo ello, una necesidad de definir y acotar el ejercicio de la pintura abstracta en los años en que el mundo ha sufrido grandes transformaciones -el mundo de la globalización- y ello ha afectado las características tanto del artista como de la recepción y presentación de la obra de arte. Y, finalmente, nos sigue interesando el estudio de la existencia de proyectos artísticos específicos concretos que siguen valorando la abstracción como medio expresivo.

La presente investigación realiza un estudio a profundidad de la obra de Santiago Sierra y Teresa Margolles, quienes han trabajado en México desde el inicio de la década de los 90, y que ocupan hoy un destacado lugar en el circuito artístico internacional. Suele argumentarse que la importancia de su obra radica en visibilizar los increíbles niveles de violencia y polarización de la riqueza existentes en nuestra sociedad, constituyendo no sólo una denuncia sino un llamado a la reflexión ya la toma de postura crítica. Este trabajo cuestiona estos argumentos y enuncia que en la obra de ambos productores visuales existe una clara discordancia entre el discurso que las valida y las estrategias concretas seguidas para su realización. Pone particular atención a las prácticas de denigración y maltrato, así como a las dinámicas de objetualización y comercialización de los sujetos. ¿Nos encontramos frente a un arte de denuncia o simplemente somos testigos de un ejercicio de violencia perpetrándose dos veces sobre el mismo cuerpo? La hipótesis que se pretende demostrar es que su obra se articula a partir de la reproducciónde algunas de las lógicas más brutales del sistema económico y político vigente en México. La investigación establece diversos puntos de coincidencia entre el trabajo de Santiago Sierra y Teresa Margolles, plantea la existencia de una línea de continuidad en su obra y ubica la genealogía de sus propuestas en el periodo de instauración del neoliberalismo en México. Se realiza por tanto una reconstrucción de la serie de cambios experimentados por el circuito artístico mexicano durante aquél periodo, advirtiendo cómo las modificaciones suscitadas en el terreno político fueron acompañadas de una profunda transformación en la manera de entender el sentido y los límites del quehacer artístico. Se analiza la insistencia de ambos productores visuales (muy acorde al discurso de importantes sectores de la comunidad artística mexicana a inicios de la década de los 90) en afirmar la impotencia del arte, y se recuperan diversas declaraciones en las que queda de manifiesto su abierto desinterés por incidir en la realidad social. ¿Qué sentido parece tener entonces su trabajo? Si entendemos el arte como estrategia reflexiva, como herramienta para cuestionarnos sobre nuestra realidad, su quehacer no podría limitarse a la enunciación de lo existente sino que debería dirigirse a proponer mundos posibles.La reflexión se encuentra inexorablemente ligada a la posibilidad de creación, al deseo de incidir en la realidad (que puede aparecer como algo remoto o parcial, pero sin duda irrenunciable). La investigación concluye con una reflexión teórica, y una serie de imágenes en torno a la ética como ente capaz de resistirse a la impotencia y el desencanto: es la valoración, el reconocimiento de la humanidad e infinitud del Otro, lo único capaz de poner en marcha el deseo deapostar por la posibilidad de construir realidades compartidas. / This is an in-depth study of the work of Santiago Sierra and Teresa Margolles, who have worked in Mexico since the early 90’s and today hold an important position in the international artistic circuit. It is often said that the importance of their work lies in their ability to make visible the unbelievable levels of violence and polarization of wealth which exists in our society, and in the process, not only exposing it, but calling us to reflect on this and to take a critical stance. This work challenges such a view and proposes that the work of both producers presents a clear discrepancy between their validating discourse and the concrete strategies they follow to carry it out. Special attention is placed on the practices of denigration and abuse, as well as the process of objectifying and commercializing their subjects. Is this art of exposure or are we merely witnessing an act of violence being perpetrated twice on the same body? The hypothesis intends to demonstrate that their work does not only fail to question the present economic system, but that it also reproduces some of its most brutal rationale. This research establishes several points of coincidence between the work of Santiago Sierra and Teresa Margolles, it presents the existence of a line of continuity in their work, and it places the genealogy of their proposals at the onset of neoliberalism in Mexico. Therefore, it reconstructs a series of changes observed within the Mexican artistic circuit during this period, remarking on the way in which changes made in the political arena were accompanied by a deep transformation in the way we comprehend the meaning and limitations of artistic creation. This research concludes with a theoretical reflection and a series of drawings around the issue of ethics as an entity which is capable of resisting itself to impotence and disenchantment: the value, the recognition of humanity and the infinite Other, is the only thing capable of setting forth the will to bet on the possibility of building a shared reality.

La presente investigación se centra en el estudio de la presencia de lo mágico en la cultura y el paisaje gallego y, por ende, su evidencia en la pintura paisajística gallega entre 1830 y 1930. Para ello se profundiza en el estudio del concepto de lo mágico como noción estética y su relación con el paisaje gallego. Para poder entender el porqué y un posible origen de lo mágico en Galicia se indaga en la antropología social y cultural, principalmente la mitología y los perfiles simbólicos y morales que configuran el imaginario popular y la propia sociedad gallega. Además, se estudian los vínculos entre lo mágico, el paisaje gallego, el paisano gallego y, por extensión, el artista, lo que permite ver cómo estos vínculos configuran el espíritu y el carácter gallego Por otro lado, es importante tener en cuenta cómo la revalorización de la tradición popular y el afianzamiento del paisaje como tema independiente desde el siglo XIX en Europa, de la mano de movimientos como el Romanticismo y el Realismo, influyen en la pintura paisajística gallega de la época. Finalmente, cabe destacar el análisis de una serie de nociones estéticas que están presentes en el paisaje de Galicia y que colaboran en la evocación de un paisaje mágico, así como el estudio de aquellos pintores gallegos en los que lo mágico y dichas nociones estéticas se encuentran patentes en un grado relevante en su obra paisajística. / This thesis focuses on researching the presence of magical in the Galician culture and landscape, and therefore on its presence in the Galician landscape painting between 1830 and 1930. Consequently, it offers as in-depth investigation of the concept of magical as an aesthetic notion and its relation with the Galician landscape. To be able to understand the reason behind and the possible origin of magical in Galicia the thesis offers a research of the social and cultural anthropology, especially mythology and symbolic profiles, as well as morals, which configure the popular imagination and the actual Galician society. Moreover, it provides the analysis of the connection between magical, the Galician landscape, a Galician citizen, and what is more, the artist. This shows how these connections help establish the Galician spirit and character. However, it is necessary to keep in mind the fact that the re-evaluation of popular tradition and the consolidation of landscape as an independent theme since the 19th century in Europe, as in the periods of Romanticism and Realism have influenced the painting of Galician landscape of the period. Finally, it is important to emphasize the analysis of a series of aesthetic notions present in the Galician landscape which stimulate the evocation of magical landscapes, as well as the research of Galician painters whose magical and the above mentioned aesthetical notions appear as an actual and relevant point in their landscape artwork.

This thesis presents an architecture, which we call GRUE, for intelligent agents in real-time dynamic worlds. Such environments require agents to be able to flexibly adjust their behaviour to take into account changes in the environment or other agents’ actions. Our architecture is based on work done in robotics (Nilsson, 1994; Benson and Nilsson, 1995; Benson, 1996), which also deals with complex, dynamic environments. Our work focuses on goal arbitration, the method used by the agent to choose an appropriate goal for the current situation, and to re-evaluate when the situation changes. In the process, we have also developed a method for representing items in the environment, which we call resources, in terms of their properties. This allows the agent to specify a needed object in terms of required properties and use available objects with appropriate properties interchangeably. We show that the GRUE architecture can be used successfully in both a typical AI test bed and a commercial game environment. In addition, we have undertaken to experimentally test the effects of the features included in our architecture by comparing agents using the standard GRUE architecture to agents with one or more features removed and find that these features do improve the performance of the agent where expected.

Participatory sensing is an emerging field that uses pervasive technology to create new forms of sensing networks combining people, personal devices, and other sensors. Pervasive computing technology forms an essential component, used to report data and coordinate activities. This thesis reviews research in participatory sensing and key fields related to it: pervasive computing, observation networks and public engagement with science. After examining wider issues in sensor-based interaction from pervasive computing literature, this thesis investigates human-sensor dialogue; specifically how to develop new forms of dialogue in future participatory sensing experiences. The term 'dialogue' is used in broad sense, encompassing affordances and ongoing relationships between sensors and users. The thesis examines participatory sensing activities centring on two studies involving groups of young people collecting and visualising environmental sensor data using automatic and manual sensors. Participant observation methods are used for in-situ, naturalistic evaluation using observations, video footage and system logs and data. A framework for human-sensor dialogue is developed as a tool to help analyse the dialogue in participatory sensing experiences and inspire new forms of dialogue in future experiences. It highlights five activities to which dialogue can relate: planning, testing, navigation, capture and reflection. These are interleaved throughout an experience, affecting how it takes shape and resulting from the design of the devices and the whole experience. The framework is demonstrated by applying it to the experiences in the previous two studies. The framework is used to prototype a new experience intended for longer term engagement. It is used to elicit requirements for the new experience, structuring the activity and highlighting the desired transitions. The resulting prototype application is described, outlining the activity setup, key features and technical details. This application uses handheld devices as mobile sensors, wirelessly connected to fixed environmental sensors, which collect, process, and store the restating data.

This thesis studies the creation of illusion in computer aided performance. Illusion is created here by using deceptions, and a design framework is presented which suggests several different deception strategies which may be useful. The framework has been developed in an iterative process in tandem with the development of 3 real world performances which were used to explore deception strategies. The first case study presents a system for augmenting juggling performance. The techniques that were developed to control this system demonstrate how deception may become useful even when the core of the performance is not deceptive in any way. This is followed by a magic performance called the Cup Game, which was designed to explicitly test the strategies of deception described in the framework. The final case study is an interactive art installation which presents the illusion of a pet rock that lives in a cage. This demonstrates the usefulness of suspension of disbelief in the creation of illusions. It also demonstrates interesting social effects that are used to strengthen this suspension of disbelief. The idea of creating the impression of a false situation is inspired particularly by previous HCI work on public interaction. This work demonstrated the usefulness of hiding interface use or computer outputs from some people in a situation. The creation of deliberately ambiguous computer interfaces, which allow for a wider variety of interpretations to be made by the user has also been described. The work here goes beyond these techniques to use technology to actively create false impressions. The techniques used in this process are guided by the work of magic performers, and by psychological studies of how magic performance works. As well as artistic performance, it is envisaged that this work may prove applicable to more traditional situations. In addition to the framework itself, the development of the case studies has created several useful algorithms which have wider applications. The case studies are also useful guides for those creating performance systems, or other systems where deceptive techniques may be useful.

Mobile mixed-reality experiences mix physical and digital spaces, enabling participants to simultaneously inhabit a shared environment online and on the streets. These experiences take the form of games, educational applications and new forms of performance and art, and engender new opportunities for interaction, collaboration and play. As mobile mixed-reality experiences move out of the laboratory and into more public settings they raise new challenges concerning how to support these experiences in the wild. This thesis argues that mobile mixed-reality experiences in which artists retain creative control over the content and operation of each experience, particularly those that are deployed as theatrical performances, require dedicated support for content authoring and reactive orchestration tools and paradigms in order to be successfully and robustly operated in public settings. These requirements are examined in detail, drawing on the experience of supporting four publicly toured mobile mixed-reality experiences; Can You See Me Now?, Uncle Roy All Around You, I Like Frank in Adelaide and Savannah, which have provided a platform to practically develop, refine and evaluate new solutions to answer these challenges in the face of presenting the experiences to many thousands of participants over a four year period. This thesis presents two significant supporting frameworks. The ColourMaps system enables designers to author location-based content by directly colouring over maps; providing a simple, familiar and yet highly flexible approach to matching location-triggers to complex physical spaces. It provides support for multiple and specialised content layers, and the ability to configure and manage other aspects of an experience, including filtering inaccurate position data and underpinning orchestration tools. Second, the Orchestration framework supports the day-to-day operation of public experiences; providing dedicated control-room tools for monitoring that reveal the content landscape and historical events, intervention and improvisation techniques for steering and shaping each participant's experience as it unfolds both physically and virtually, and processes to manage a constant flow of participants.

This research proposes a new architecture for Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems (AEHS). Architectures in the context of this thesis refer to the components of the system and their communications and interactions. The architecture addresses the limitations of AEHS regarding interoperability, reusability, openness, flexibility, and limited tools for collaborative and social learning. It presents an integrated adaptive and collaborative Web-based learning environment. The new e-learning environment is implemented as a set of independent Web services within a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Moreover, it uses a modern Learning Management System (LMS) as the delivery service and the user interface for this environment. This is a two-way solution, whereby adaptive learning is introduced via a widely adopted LMS, and the LMS itself is enriched with an external - yet integrated - adaptation layer. To test the relevance of the new architecture, practical experiments were undertaken. The interoperability, reusability and openness test revealed that the user could easily switch between various LMS to access the personalised lessons. In addition, the system was tested by students at the University of Nottingham as a revision guide to a Software Engineering module. This test showed that the system was robust; it automatically handled a large number of students and produced the desired adaptive content. However, regarding the use of the collaborative learning tools, the test showed low levels of such usage.

This thesis investigates two major classes of Evolutionary Algorithms, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Evolution Strategies (ESs), and their application to the Orthogonal Packing Problems (OPP). OPP are canonical models for NP-hard problems, the class of problems widely conceived to be unsolvable on a polynomial deterministic Turing machine, although they underlie many optimisation problems in the real world. With the increasing power of modern computers, GAs and ESs have been developed in the past decades to provide high quality solutions for a wide range of optimisation and learning problems. These algorithms are inspired by Darwinian nature selection mechanism that iteratively select better solutions in populations derived from recombining and mutating existing solutions. The algorithms have gained huge success in many areas, however, being stochastic processes, the algorithms' behaviour on different problems is still far from being fully understood. The work of this thesis provides insights to better understand both the algorithms and the problems. The thesis begins with an investigation of hyper-heuristics as a more general search paradigm based on standard EAs. Hyper-heuristics are shown to be able to overcome the difficulty of many standard approaches which only search in partial solution space. The thesis also looks into the fundamental theory of GAs, the schemata theorem and the building block hypothesis, by developing the Grouping Genetic Algorithms (GGA) for high dimensional problems and providing supportive yet qualified empirical evidences for the hypothesis. Realising the difficulties of genetic encoding over combinatorial search domains, the thesis proposes a phenotype representation together with Evolution Strategies that operates on such representation. ESs were previously applied mainly to continuous numerical optimisation, therefore being less understood when searching in combinatorial domains. The work in this thesis develops highly competent ES algorithms for OPP and opens the door for future research in this area.