The thesis concerns the artworks by Johan Sylvius in the staircase, upper vestibule, upper north guard room and upper gallery of the Drottningholm Palace, as painted performances. They are studied as performative cultural encounters with a historically situated beholder but will also be regarded in relation to their spatial and artistic surrounding. From the theoretical framework of performativity and reception aesthetics, the results indicate that the images have the potential to inscribe the beholder within certain postulates on power relations and politics of identity, through working with splendour, naturalism, narrative and the function of the rooms they are located in. The results further point to the images’ manners of effecting the beholder on several levels through an employed pluralism and lastly, that they both build upon and re-produce the relation between monarch/nobility, where the former is the sole figure who both grants status and can remove it in an instance.

yes / Purpose To characterize the intracranial volumetric changes that influence the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulse in the Aqueduct of Sylvius (AoS). Materials and methods Neck MRI data were acquired from 12 healthy adults (8 female and 4 males; mean age = 30.9 years), using a 1.5 T scanner. The intracranial arterial, venous and CSF volumes changes, together with the aqueductal CSF (aCSF) volume, were estimated from flow rate data acquired at C2/C3 level and in the AoS. The correlations and temporal relationships among these volumes were computed. Results The aCSF volumetric changes were strongly correlated (r = 0.967, p < 0.001) with the changes in intracranial venous volume, whose peak occurred 7.0% of cardiac cycle (p = 0.023) before peak aCSF volume, but less correlated with the intracranial arterial and CSF volume changes (r = −0.664 and 0.676 respectively, p < 0.001). The intracranial CSF volume change was correlated with the intracranial venous volume change (r = 0.820, p < 0.001), whose peak occurred slightly before (4.2% of CC, p = 0.059). Conclusion The aCSF pulse is strongly correlated with intracranial venous volume, with expansion of the cortical veins occurring prior to aCSF flow towards the third ventricle. Both caudal-cranial aCSF flow and venous blood retention occur when arterial blood volume is at a minimum.

yes / To investigate cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics in the aqueduct of Sylvius (AoS) in chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI)-positive and -negative healthy individuals using cine phase contrast imaging. Materials and Methods Fifty-one healthy individuals (32 CCSVI-negative and 19 age-matched CCSVI-positive subjects) were examined using Doppler sonography (DS). Diagnosis of CCSVI was established if subjects fulfilled ≥2 venous hemodynamic criteria on DS. CSF flow and velocity measures were quantified using a semiautomated method and compared with clinical and routine 3T MRI outcomes. Results CCSVI was associated with increased CSF pulsatility in the AoS. Net positive CSF flow was 32% greater in the CCSVI-positive group compared with the CCSVI-negative group (P = 0.008). This was accompanied by a 28% increase in the mean aqueductal characteristic signal (ie, the AoS cross-sectional area over the cardiac cycle) in the CCSVI-positive group compared with the CCSVI-negative group (P = 0.021). Conclusion CSF dynamics are altered in CCSVI-positive healthy individuals, as demonstrated by increased pulsatility. This is accompanied by enlargement of the AoS, suggesting that structural changes may be occurring in the brain parenchyma of CCSVI-positive healthy individuals

This study investigates the perceptual effect of ceiling painting on the viewer in relation to spatiality. Three case studies have been conducted of ceiling paintings by Johan Sylvius from 1690, Karl XI's gallery at Drottningholm Palace; Karl Axel Pehrson Transfigurata from 1978, at Thielska Gallery; and by Malin Gabriella Nordin from 2021, at the restaurant Ricordi, all in Stockholm Sweden. The objects represent ceiling paintings with different mediums, pictorial expressions, and motifs. This study presents how ceiling painting's formal and aesthetic structures and mechanisms activate the viewer's perception and performative action. Together with the room, these elements shape the viewer's overall experience of the ceiling painting and the spaciousness. The perceptual influence takes place in interaction with the individual's subjective psychological make up, which filters the mentally and physically perceived information. This means that each individual's experience is characterized by subjective perceptions: the same colour, expression or form can generate different impressions in different individuals – depending on the individual's previous experience with similar elements. The aim is not to find a common experience, but to track which elements and how they activate the viewer. These elements are the ceiling painting's internal and external factors, which activate the senses and shapes the viewer's movements in the room. Sensations together with the viewer's choreography create an overall experience within the viewer. The thesis in the essay postulates that these structures and mechanisms are conditioned in the ceiling painting's particular placement in the inner ceiling of the room, its materiality and spatial relationship. The perceptual impact is the initial awareness of the art, before the intellectual, ceiling painting is not sought to be interpreted but to be experienced. Most of the research in the visual arts and especially on ceiling painting is devoted primarily to narratology, the narrative content. The purpose of the essay is therefore to highlight ceiling painting as an art form and shed light on its perceptual impact on the viewer and the spatiality, as an introductory part to the subsequent intellectual interpretations. This pre-narratological stage conveys both the sensuous potential of the ceiling painting itself, and knowledge that can contribute with extensions of the narratological content.

No / PURPOSE: To investigate cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics in the aqueduct of Sylvius (AoS) in chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI)-positive and -negative healthy individuals using cine phase contrast imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-one healthy individuals (32 CCSVI-negative and 19 age-matched CCSVI-positive subjects) were examined using Doppler sonography (DS). Diagnosis of CCSVI was established if subjects fulfilled >/=2 venous hemodynamic criteria on DS. CSF flow and velocity measures were quantified using a semiautomated method and compared with clinical and routine 3T MRI outcomes. RESULTS: CCSVI was associated with increased CSF pulsatility in the AoS. Net positive CSF flow was 32% greater in the CCSVI-positive group compared with the CCSVI-negative group (P = 0.008). This was accompanied by a 28% increase in the mean aqueductal characteristic signal (ie, the AoS cross-sectional area over the cardiac cycle) in the CCSVI-positive group compared with the CCSVI-negative group (P = 0.021). CONCLUSION: CSF dynamics are altered in CCSVI-positive healthy individuals, as demonstrated by increased pulsatility. This is accompanied by enlargement of the AoS, suggesting that structural changes may be occurring in the brain parenchyma of CCSVI-positive healthy individuals.