This dissertation examines the role of the spatial in four works of digital interactive literature. These works are Dreamaphage by Jason Nelson (2003), Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2003), Façade by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2005) and Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day by M. D. Coverley (2006). The study employs an original analytical method based on close reading and spatial analysis, which combines narrative, design and interaction theories. The resulting critique argues that the spatial components of the digital works define reader interaction and the narratives that result from it. This is one of very few in-depth studies grounded in the close reading of the spatial in digital interactive literature. Over five chapters, the dissertation analyzes the four digital works according to three common areas. Firstly, the prefaces, design and addressivity are present in each. Secondly, each of the works relies on the spatial for both interaction and the meanings that result. Thirdly, the anticipation of responses from a reader is evaluated within the interactive properties of each work. This anticipation is coordinated across the written text, moving and still images, representations of places, characters, audio and navigable spaces. The similar divisions of form, the role of the spatial and the anticipation of responses provide the basic structure for analysis. As a result, the analytical chapters open with an investigation of the prefaces, move on to the design and conclude with how the spaces of the digital works can be addressive or anticipate responses. In each chapter representations of space and representational space are described in relation to the influence they have upon the potentials for reader interaction as spatial practice. This interaction includes interpretation, as well as those elements associated with the ergodic, or the effort that defines the reception of the digital interactive texts. The opening chapter sets out the relevant theory related to space, interaction and narrative in digital literature. Chapter two presents the methodology for close reading the spatial components of the digital texts in relation to their role in interaction and narrative development. Chapter three assesses the prefaces as paratextual thresholds to the digital works and how they set up the spaces for reader engagement. The next chapter takes up the design of the digital works and its part in the formation of space and how this controls interaction. The fifth chapter looks at the addressivity of the spatial and how it contributes to the possibilities for interaction and narrative. The dissertation argues for the dominance of the spatial as a factor within the formation of narrative through interaction in digital literature, with implications across contemporary storytelling and narrative theory.

How can an alternative route to knowledge recognition create inclusive and accessible education? Can architecture and spatial practice create relevant learning opportunities for informally living Syrians in Izmir, Turkey? There is an acute access gap to quality education for marginalized communities all over the world. The formally recognized ways of producing knowledge in traditional institutions are not able to reach all parts of society. There is a need to reimagine the way we value and create learning environments, to forge alternative paths of knowledge recognition for a socially inclusive education.This thesis situates itself within the context of Izmir, Turkey, where many Syrians are currently living informally, unable to benefit from formal support and education. This requires us to rethink our approach to pedagogic strategies of empowerment for adults in an informal way. Through a review of relevant literature by educational experts, global actors, thinkers, and activists, and proof of successful practice through case studies, this thesis argues that educational empowerment can happen through critical dialogue and a desire to act for change. It proposes that not only is it possible for architecture and spatial practice to create alternative paths to learning, but also that this might innovate education and create learning environments of high quality and real impact.The research results in an architectural proposal that aims to reconnect knowledge production to real life through spatial practice. The proposal intends to bridge informally acquired knowledge with formal recognition by addressing local issues in the living environment. The project proposes self-organized courses in which communities come together to build knowledge around a certain issue. This practice opens for a collaborative opportunity to take part in the democratic debate, questioning right of access to the knowledge economy and a better living environment.The thesis concludes that this approach has a potential to create alternative paths to knowledge recognition, but that it needs to happen in a collaboration with important actors; local communities, innovators, universities, industries, governments, and NGO’s. It also discusses the appropriateness of this approach and its potential drawbacks, but states that this conversation is important to have in order to imagine a future of empowerment and social inclusion.

Städer är präglade av värderingar och politiska ideal, och genom sin utformning bidrar de till befästande och upprätthållande av normer. Offentliga miljöer uppmuntrar, likt staden som helhet, till ett för samhället önskvärt beteende hos stadens användare. Men där finns också grupper som har andra förutsättningar än vad normen förutsätter och som då får det svårare att tillfredsställa sina preferenser. Bland dessa grupper finns personer som identifierar sig som queer, det vill säga att inte vara heterosexuell och/eller ej tillhöra den binära könsuppdelningen. För personer inom denna minoritet, så som andra minoriteter, upplevs stadens gemensamma rum inte alltid som lika välkomnande. Detta då de i högre grad än personer som identifierar sig inom stadens normer, såsom Heteronormen, utsätts för trakasserier och våld i dessa rum. Men eftersom stadens form sätter ramarna för och påverkar användarnas beteenden kan det också vara ett redskap för att skapa förändring. Rapporten syftar till att undersöka vad en mer queer stad och stadsplanering kan innebära. Detta genom att granska rumspraktik med uttalat queert perspektiv i sökandet på insikter om strategier, vilka skulle kunna inspirera och informera stadsplanering som önskar skapa mer inkluderande offentliga rum. I kandidatarbetet har ett queerteoretiskt perspektiv använts vid analysen av konst- och arkitektkollektivet MYCKET:s rumsliga praktik inom fallet Clubscenen, ett projekt inom vilket deras uttalade mål var att utforska möjligheter att skapa mer inkluderande rum. Den övergripande strategin som användes var att synliggöra samtida och dåtida queera personer och deras perspektiv. Mer specifikt använde sig MYCKET av strategierna återberättande av queer aktivism och livsstil, iscensättande av queera miljöer och fysisk manifestation av queera uttryck. Dessa tre strategier används både separat, tillsammans och överlappande. Avslutningsvis diskuteras hur de strategier som MYCKET använde sig av skulle kunna inspirera och informera stadsplaneringen. Rapporten föreslår att stadsplaneringen arbetar med riktade medborgardialoger vilka etablerar trygga rum för minoriteter, såsom personer som definierar sig som queer, för att säkerställa att även deras perspektiv inkluderas i och tas hänsyn till vid stadsutveckling. Vidare bör ett mer normkritiskt perspektiv utvecklas och implementeras i stadsplaneringspraktiken, ett perspektiv som granskar och vid behov ifrågasätter underliggande värderingar som influerar stadsplaneringen. Rapporten föreslår också att införa minnesmonument till minne av queer aktivism i de redan byggda delarna av staden, samt att enstaka offentliga rum tillskapas utifrån den queera minoritetens önskemål och preferenser vid den fortsatta utvecklingen av staden. / Cities are characterized by values and political ideals, and by their design they contribute to the consolidation and maintenance of norms. Public spaces, like the city, encourage a behaviour that society deem desirable among its users. But in the city, there are groups that have needs different from the norm, and because of that have a much harder time satisfying their preferences. Among these groups are persons who identify themselves as queer, that is not being heterosexual and/or not belonging to the binary gender norms. People within this minority, like many other minorities, may find the city’s public space not as welcoming as the majority might find it. This is because of the harassment and violence they might be subject to in these places, to a greater extent than people who identify with the norms of the cities, like heteronormativity. But since the shape of the city sets the framework for the user’s behaviour as well as affect if, it can also be a tool for creating change. This report aims to investigate what a queerer city and queerer urban planning can be. This by examining spatial practice with a pronounced queer perspective, in search of insights on strategies that could inspire and inform urban planning that aims to create more inclusive public spaces. In this report, a queer theoretical perspective has been used in the analysis of MYCKET’s, an art and architectural collective, spatial practice in their project ”The Club Scene”, a project in which their stated goal was to explore means to create more inclusive spaces. The overall strategy used was to put queer people and their perspective in the spotlight. For that, MYCKET used the strategies of retelling queer activism and lifestyle, staging queer spaces, and physical manifestation of queer expressions. These three strategies are used both separately, together and overlap each other. In the final part of the report, the strategies that MYCKET used are discussed for how they could inspire and inform the urban planning. The report proposes that urban planning should work with directed citizen dialogues, which establish secure rooms for minorities, such as people who define themselves as queer, to ensure that their perspectives are included and taken into account in urban development. Furthermore, a more norm-critical perspective should be developed and implemented in urban planning practice, a perspective that examines and, if necessary, questions underlying values that influence urban planning. The report also suggests introducing memorials in memory of queer activism in the already built parts of the city, and that some public spaces are created in favour of the queer minority and their preferences when developing the city.

<p>This dissertation argues that critical practices in the expanded field of art, technology, and space illustrate the potential of twenty-first century media by materializing depths of our experiential dimensions. Scholarship on digital embodiment and materialism in art, media studies, and aesthetics has paid much attention to the central role played by the human body in contemporary media environments. Grounded in these studies, however, this study moves forward to understand the more fundamental quality that grounds and conditions the experience of the human body—namely depth. </p><p>Drawing on diverse disciplines, such as art history, visual studies, media studies, critical theory, phenomenology, and aesthetics, this study provides a reconstruction of the notion of depth to unpack the complex dimensionality of human experiences that are solicited by different critical spatial practices. As a spatial medium that produces the body subject and the world through the process of intertwining, depth points to an environmental affordance that prepares or conditions the ways in which the body processes the information in the world. The dimension of depth is not available to natural human perception. However, incorporating twenty-first century media that are seamlessly embedded in physical environments, critical spatial practices sensibly materialize the virtual dimensions of depth by animating space in a way that is different from the past. </p><p>This dissertation provides comprehensive analyses of these critical spatial practices by artists who create constructed situations that bring the experiential dimensions of depth to the fore. The acknowledgement of depth allows us to understand the spatialities of bodies and their implication in the vaster worldly spatiality. In doing so, this study attends to major contemporary philosophical and aesthetic challenges by reframing the body as the locus of subjectivity that is always interdependent upon broader sociocultural and technological environments.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Naučno-istraživački rad iz oblasti fenomenologije arhitekture;<br />bavi se uspostavljanjem zasnovanog i analitičkog odnosa ka<br />osnovnim odrednicama koje su predmet istraživanja. To su:<br />efemerna arhitektura, granični prostori, prostorne prakse,<br />redefinisanje odnosa arhitekture i tehnologije, ukazivanje na<br />primenu teorije funkcija arhitekture, te sintetičko određenje ka<br />korelirajućim transdisciplinarnim teorijama prostora.</p> / <p>Scientific research from the field of phenomenology of architecture;<br />considers establishment of the discursive analytical relations towards the<br />notions of the ephemeral architecture, liminal space, spatial practice;<br />redefinition of the relation between architecture and technology and their<br />future unitary action; indication of the architectural functions theory<br />application, and finally, synthetically defined attitude towards all of the<br />correlating factors and transdisciplinary theories of space.</p>

Atat&uuml / rk Forest Farm is a unique spatial practice representing the main philosophy of the Turkish Republic to create a new society by holding together modern agricultural and industrial production techniques, combining them with leisure activities and developing an urban farm. Eventually it is neither simply a land problem nor a heritage issue. Its being is evaluated as a conscious contribution for the cultural transformation of the Turkish nation. Therefore, its genesis is discussed in relation to the main definitions of culture in history: 1) cultivating nature with the idea of increasing the efficiency in products and lands / 2) cultivation of minds in relation to the education of human beings / 3) the process of social development / 4) meanings, values, ways of life / 5) practices which produce meanings and finally 6) the meshing of anthropological views linking the two definitions of &lsquo / a way of life&rsquo / and &lsquo / the production of meaning&rsquo / as a network of representations. The research has proved that there are very few experiments that might have some resemblance with Atat&uuml / rk Forest Farm, however, its stance as a culture transformation agent is unique.

When on September 15, 2008 the financial conglomerate Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy – and with that ‘officially’ sparks the international financial crisis – still few would anticipate the invasive effect this crisis would come to have on the professional and personal life of many across the world. Today, it’s implosion remains a mere ‘blip’ in the universe of events that followed. On closer observation, this financial turmoil started out as a ‘mortgage crisis’, largely fuelled by unsustainable or speculative investments in real-estate in cities across the world. In the run-up to the boom-and-bust of 2008, some – among them architects, urban designers, spatial practitioners, artists, activists, but also economists and others – started preparing for what they understood as (the necessity) of a different world to come, beyond the broken neo-liberal dogma. Today, fragments of such a different reality are unfolding in front of us. Modest, but for real. STEALTH.unlimited (practice of Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) is one of the protagonists in this field, pointing to the responsibilities and capacities of architecture in contemporary societies, and acts between the fields of architecture, art and activism. With “Upscaling, Training, Commoning”, in 2011 they set on an expedition of sorts, to transform their practice. Following a decade of research addressing urgent cultural and urban issues ahead (resulting in publications, exhibitions, spatial interventions), now they use questions, doubts or limitations of such a practice as a lead towards direct long-term engagements with specific spatial process and/or communities. The resulting practice based exploration has been far away from a distant or objective research condition. It is subject to volatile political and economic situations, to conflicting interests or the engagements with(in) local communities encountered in the work. In this, three lines of exploration have been followed; that of the practice assuming new responsibilities, of the economies of engagement and disengagement, and that of the urban commons.   The title “Upscaling, Training, Commoning” relates to the awareness that the relevant activities and approaches need to be nurtured, and that the imperfect contexts in which this take place can be seen as ‘training grounds’ to arrive to practices of commoning. Hence, upscaling, training, commoning describes a trajectory (to be) taken. The artistic research (PhD) “Upscaling, Training, Commoning” concludes with a set of six books, and includes comments on the trajectory taken since 2008 by: the writer Dougald Hine, the economist Martijn Jeroen van der Linden, architects Ana Méndez de Andés and Iva Marčetić. The concluding book, set to words by the writer Paul Currion, features a fictional narrative, looking what the future could possibly hold, in which collective action might enable citizens to navigate through difficult times to create a new political economy.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T18:15:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Suzana Silveira Gnaccarini.pdf: 40979334 bytes, checksum: f4c50a5ef76ba6cbdce37e27e1308d03 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-24 / The result of this research came from a study of the geographical production of space in the Vila Parque da Cidade community, in the City of Rio de Janeiro. Its goal was to analyze the built space by the spatial practice according the basic needs to live. We developed a study from the relationship between the community, the neighbor Municipal Natural City Park and the Botanical Garden both hosted by the Tijuca National Forest, making a mosaic among local protected areas. We attempted to get the perception of that community about the usages of the main forest and its amenities and symbolism. The methodology comes through semistructured interviews followed by questionnaires and author observation. The research also investigated information taken from official censuses and papers of research institutes and others private, seeking to identify the spatial movement of social classes and their impact on the environment, especially the structural reasons of this movement. The results showed that the expansion of capital in urban space has the State as an supporter, drawing on urban planning policies without the necessary consideration of a development that could incorporate the rights of workers and the assumptions of environmental preservation, resulting as housing the slums, generally allocated in preservation areas / Esta dissertação realizou um estudo sobre a produção do espaço geográfico, na Comunidade Vila Parque da Cidade no município do Rio de Janeiro. Seu objetivo foi analisar o espaço construído segundo a necessidade básica de habitar numa área de floresta urbana. Foi realizado um estudo da relação dessa Comunidade com o Parque Natural Municipal da Cidade, justaposto ao Parque Nacional da Tijuca e o Jardim Botânico, formando o Mosaico de áreas de proteção ambiental. Buscou-se o levantamento da percepção dessa Comunidade acerca dos usos da floresta e os serviços que oferece, e seus simbolismos. A metodologia empregada foi a de entrevistas semiestruturadas, acompanhada de questionários e observação. A pesquisa investigou também informações retiradas dos censos oficiais e Institutos de pesquisa oficiais e privados buscando identificar o movimento espacial das classes sociais e seu impacto no ambiente, principalmente as razões estruturais desse movimento. Os resultados mostram que a expansão do capital no espaço urbano tem o estado como aliado, valendo-se das políticas de planejamento urbana, sem a consideração necessária de um desenvolvimento que incorpore os direitos da população trabalhadora e os pressupostos da preservação ambiental. A busca do direito à moradia em assentamentos precários é em geral alocada em áreas de preservação

During the period 1967-1995, Swedish mental healthcare underwent a complete re-organisation, starting with county councils taking over responsibility for mental healthcare from the state. Asylums were then phased out and mental health care moved closer to patients. The Mental Health Reform of 1995 completed this decentralisation and put the emphasis on an independent and integrated life as a citizen in society and the idea of a dwelling of one’s own. This thesis describes and analyses spatial aspects of decentralised mental healthcare in Sweden, focusing on the decentralisation discourse regarding organisation, localisation, patient care and working methods behind decentralisation and its spatial performance. A case study of decentralised mental healthcare in Nacka, a Stockholm suburb, between 1958-1999 examines in particular the emerging decentralisation discourse 1958-1973, The Nacka Project 1974-1980 (one of the first examples of community care in Sweden), psychiatry in Nacka 1980-1994 and the official report Welfare and Freedom of Choice from 1995. The methods used include studies of documents, interviews, visual and architectural drawing analysis. The theoretical point of departure for the analysis is a post-structural heterogeneous concept of space where spatial materiality and discursiveness are looked upon as intertwined.    The result shows that the re-organisation of mental healthcare brought about a substantial spatial transformation. Normalisation of patients’ lives involved integration into society and support for independent living. The local environment was the main trope for the early stage of decentralised mental healthcare, but the notion of a dwelling of one’s own became the important trajectory to an independent life after 1995. The idea of the patient is challenged by the independence discourse, which could be said to contain an idea of the ‘non-patient’. Overall, it can be concluded that spatial organisations of the built environment are never value-free or neutral. They reflect, enable and constrain power relations in a society and material space can contribute to the power of one group at the expense of another. Furthermore, the results of the spatialities, or the meanings, cannot be predicted. It is therefore crucial to distinguish power in all its configurations and scales and to keep negotiations alive, especially within the field of mental healthcare, but also in the care sector as a whole and in other societal institutions where policies buildings and built environment interact with user practices. This kaleidoscopic perspective can be used for examining complexities in the past and present and for encouraging future potentialities in the process of making/enacting spatial relations. / QC 20120306

This dissertation aims to position train surfing as a visual spectacle that is practised by Sowetan train surfers within the context of post-authoritarian Johannesburg. The author argues that train surfing is a visual and spatial phenomenon that is theoretically under-researched. As such, this study aims to decode seven train surfing videos to establish what train surfing looks like, where train surfing occurs and why individuals participate in such a high risk activity. This study, furthermore, aims to frame train surfing as a spectacle by investigating the similarities between train surfing and rites of passage (initiation rites). The author also regards train surfing as a very specific form of storytelling. The narratives conveyed in the seven videos are, therefore, interpreted to establish that train surfing is practised to ‘voice’ fatalistic feelings, societal as well as individual crises. After establishing the visual aspects of train surfing, the author focuses on the spatial context of train surfing. Johannesburg is described as both an authoritarian and post-authoritarian construct by tracing the spatial and political history of the city. When the discussion turns to the post-authoritarian city, townships and squatter settlements are analysed as being both marginal and hybrid spaces. It is argued that townships are marginal spaces due to their location, they are inhabited by the underclass and they are formed by processes of capitalism and urbanisation, and as a result of these factors, township residents might have fatalistic mindsets (Gulick 1989). The author, however, contends that township space is an ambivalent construct, and as such, it can also be read as hybrid space. Here, hybrid space is interpreted as a platform from which township residents can resist oppressing spatial and political ideologies. In this context, train surfing is regarded as one way in which train surfers use hybrid space to express tactics of resistance. After establishing the spatial context of train surfing, the socio-economic and material living conditions of train surfers are investigated. The discussion firstly, explores the underclass, as theorised by Jencks and Peterson (1990), and thereafter highlights why train surfers can be classified as being part of this sub-category. It is, furthermore, argued that Sowetan train surfers are part of a new lost generation due to high unemployment rates, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and bleak future outlooks. The author aims to establish that, as a result of their socio-economic status and material living conditions, train surfers are fatalistic, and practice an extreme activity to exert control over one area of their lives, namely their bodies. Lastly, the dissertation aims to explore train surfing as being both a risk-taking activity and a new spatial practice. The dynamics of adolescent risk-taking behaviour is explored by emphasising the psychological motivations behind high risk activities. The author argues that alienating space can be regarded as an additional factor that usher adolescents into risk-taking activities. As such, the place(s) and space(s) inhabited by train surfers, namely Johannesburg, Soweto and township train stations, are discussed as alienating spaces. Moreover, it is argued that alienating spaces create opportunities for resistance (following the power-resistance dialectic inherent to space), and as such, train surfing is interpreted as a de-alienating spatial practice that enables the marginalised train surfer to exert control over his surroundings. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Visual Arts / unrestricted