Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Zugl.: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2008

<p> Turkey's most controversial religious figure is the Muslim cleric and author Fethullah G&uuml;len, whose followers have established around one thousand schools in 135 countries. Since 2003, the G&uuml;len-affiliated educational non-profit T&Uuml;RK&Ccedil;EDER has organized the International Turkish Olympiad, a competition for children enrolled in the G&uuml;len schools. The showpiece of this event is its song contest, in which students perform well-known Turkish songs before live audiences of thousands in cities all over Turkey and reach millions more via television broadcasts and the Internet. While the contest resembles American Idol in its focus on individual singers and Eurovision in its nationalistic overtones, the fact that the singers are performing songs associated with a nationality not their own raises intriguing questions about the intended message of the competition as well as about its publics. To answer these questions, I analyzed YouTube videos of the competition and examined YouTube comments, popular websites, and newspaper opinion columns. I conclude that the performers themselves are meant to feel an affinity with Turkish culture and values, while Turkish audiences receive a demonstration that G&uuml;len's brand of Islam is compatible with Turkish nationalism. Moreover, the competition reaches a multiplicity of publics both within and beyond Turkey. While some of these can be characterized as essentially oppositional counterpublics, I find that, in the case of the Turkish Olympiad, the dichotomy between rational public and emotional or irrational counterpublic established collectively by such theorists of publics as J&uuml;rgen Habermas and Michael Warner begins to break down.</p>

Grand Central is a twenty-minute multi-media work for chamber orchestra, live audio processing, and video projections. The piece was commissioned by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's New Music Ensemble, and will be premiered in March 2013. Composing a multi-media work poses many challenges, including the methodology of how to work with diverse components, the interplay between these elements, and how to best utilize the performance space to its full potential. The work is inspired by my experiences at Grand Central Terminal during my childhood and the musical material is derived from the building’s infrastructure and rich cultural history. The first chapter of this treatise examines the genesis of the composition, Grand Central’s history, and technical considerations related to the integration of technology, orchestration, and staging. The second chapter is encompassed by a thorough movement- by-movement analysis, complete with explanations of pitch derivation, formal principals, and programmatic considerations. / text

published_or_final_version / China Development Studies / Master / Master of Arts in China Development Studies

Not available / text

<p> At a time when technology seems increasingly poised to render the material realities of its users obsolete, putting the body back into digital media has become a matter of pressing social significance. Scholars like Lisa Nakamura have written compellingly about the importance of attending to the embodied identities of those who sit behind the screen: a crucial step toward disrupting the systems of inequality that characterize much of twenty-first-century Western digital culture. Similarly dedicated to issues of social justice, this project argues for turning attention to another essential element of the relationship between technology and the body: how digital media makes users feel. Far from being disembodied, digital tools have become crucial platforms for expressions of selfhood and desire. Yet, on a phenomenological level, virtual experiences also have a surprising capacity to directly affect the real, physical body. To demonstrate this, this project maps a network of key examples that illustrate how pain and pleasure&mdash;commonly imagined as the most embodied sensations&mdash;have in fact been brought to life through a range of media forms. </p><p> Beginning with the novels of the Marquis de Sade, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and Pauline R&eacute;age, this project contends that concepts of sadomasochism and literature have evolved side by side for more than two centuries. Moving from textual to visual forms, the project turns to Pier Pasolini&rsquo;s <i> Sal&ograve;,</i> a film that notoriously &ldquo;hurts to watch,&rdquo; to investigate the intersection of violence, complicity, and viewership. Next, the project moves into the digital realm, offering a reading of the erotic power exchange that drives video-game interactivity. In the final chapter, the project explores digital BDSM: practices of bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism that take place entirely in virtual spaces. Across these chapters, the project argues for the value of &ldquo;kink&rdquo; as a critical lens, much like the &ldquo;queerness&rdquo; in queer studies, which underscores the cultural and personal significance of experiences that hurt. Together, the works and cultures considered here bring much-needed attention to the place of non-normative desires in media, both digital and non-digital. They also serve to productively challenge the perceived divide between the &ldquo;virtual&rdquo; and the &ldquo;real.&rdquo;</p>

Contemporary interactive computer-based artworks are examined, with particular reference to the problems and opportunities presented by their relationship to their audience in conventional gallery settings. From an anecdotal starting point, the research uses a series of observational case studies of exhibited works, the production of an interactive artwork, and the curation of an exhibition of interactive artworks, to explore pragmatic questions of the artwork/audience relationship in real-world situations. A range of existing taxonomies for kinds and levels of interactivity within art 'are examined, and a `common-language' taxonomy based on the metaphor of `conversation' is developed and applied. -The case studies reveal patterns of use of interactive artworks including the relation of use-time to gender, aspects of intimidation, and social interaction. In particular, a high frequency of collective use of artworks, even when the artworks are designed to be used by one person, is discovered. This aspect of collective versus individual use, and interaction between audience members is further explored by several strands of research: The development of an interactive artwork specifically intended to be enhanced by collective usage and interaction between users; the application of a metaphor of 'conversation/host' to the making of the artwork; further, more specific, case studies of such artworks; and the further development of the taxonomy into a graphic form to illustrate differences in artwork-audience, and audience-audience relationships. The strands of research work together to uncover data which would be of use to artists and curators working with computer-basedin teractive artworks, and explores and develops tools which may be useful for the analysis of a wide range of artworks and art production

This study examined the effects of manipulating the modality (text-only, voice-only, voice+text) of a tutorial and restriction (restricted vs. unrestricted) of a simulation's interface on retention and transfer of tutorial content. The tutorial prepared novice students to use Packet Tracer, a simulation developed by Cisco that teaches network engineers how to build and troubleshoot computer networks. Retention was measured using a multiple choice test whereas transfer was measured using an assessment embedded within Packet Tracer. An interaction was found between modality and restriction on the Packet Tracer transfer test. When Packet Tracer's interface was unrestricted, students who received the voice-only tutorial performed significantly better on the transfer test than students who received the text-only tutorial. This finding is consistent with the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and previous research on modality effect. However, this is also an original finding because previous research has not examined the interaction between a tutorial's modality and the restriction of a complex simulation's interface. This study addressed relevant instructional technology design questions, such as how to design tutorials for complex simulations and what effect restricting a simulation's interface has on retention and transfer for novice students. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy