Art Research Research Articles

NEXT EDITION AND SCOPIO & CONTRAST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

NEXT EDITION AND SCOPIO & CONTRAST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Digital technologies as a tool for identification the authorship of sacred sculpture

Latvian sculptures created before the mid-19th century are located mainly in churches, not in museum collections. The most serious obstacle to research of Latvian art in the given period is lack of pertinent documentary material. As a result, Latvian art historians have mostly studied the sculptures for which written sources are available. This article will offer solutions for further research in cases when written sources are limited or altogether unavailable. How much and what can be discovered using digitisation solutions? The study of the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church in Riga provides a paradigmatic case for further research with the help of digitisation. In 1967, when the congregation of the Biķernieki Church was forced to abandon the church, the sculptures were transferred to museums. Today they can be seen in the exhibition of the Rundāle Palace Museum. The scant extant documentary evidence does not allow us to establish the authorship of the sculptures or the time of their creation with certainty. The study discussed in the article shows the importance of digitisation in art history research. The current research is based on 3D models of the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church obtained using 3D scanning technology. Supplementing them with high-resolution photographs and other digital solutions can confirm or, on the contrary, refute assumptions about their authorship and creation made by historians so far. The article outlines the methods used to identify stylistic influences on the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church, suggesting that they may have been modelled after similar sculptures in Gdańsk (Danzig) and Dresden and even after certain antique sculptures. The graphic methods used in the research have made it possible to precisely identify the style of execution of a single sculptor in several churches in Riga.

Impact of Social Distancing on Research Activities: An online cross-sectional survey

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many institutions enforced social distancing measures to limit or restrict access to offices, laboratories, and workplaces, disrupting the standard workflow of research. This survey investigates the impact of social distancing measures in universities and research institutes on research and research training. An online survey was designed for distribution to researchers and students worldwide to researchers in medical physics, engineering, science, clinical, arts and social studies. In addition to demographic questions, we surveyed the impact of social distancing in terms of research output, training activities, and mental health of the researchers and students. One hundred and thirty participants completed the survey, of which 72% of the respondents were from Malaysia, and 58% of the respondents were female. Prior to the pandemic, 59% worked in hospitals and universities. There was a variation in how strict social distancing was practised/enforced in different institutions, with 85% reporting limited or completely no access to laboratories or research facilities. A significant difference was found between genders, with female respondents reporting to be less affected by the social distancing measures. No correlation was found between age and the reported effect of social distancing research activities. The most affected research activities were research progress, presentation of results at conferences, and data collection. The pandemic also affected the respondents' mental health, reporting demotivation, feeling isolated, and losing focus on their work. Measures to alleviate the negative impact of COVID-19 suggested enhancing research and training, including improved communications, making research training more accessible, and adjusting administration, work and research goals.

『예술·디자인학연구』 연구 동향 분석

This study was conducted in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the academic journal 『Journal of Art &Design Research』 issued by the Art and Design Research Institute at Kyung Hee University, and in conjunction with its inclusion in recognized journals. The aim was to expand the scholarly and unique domains of art and design pursued by the journal and to provide foundational data to promote interdisciplinary research. To achieve this, an analysis was conducted on 525 papers published in the journal and the 935 researchers who participated from 1998 to 2022.
 The analysis results revealed several key insights. In response to the quantitative increase in papers, it was suggested to increase the frequency of journal publications. The expansion of the editorial board's composition, considering diversity in contributors and authors based on region, affiliation, and academic field, was recommended. Additionally, the findings emphasized the need to enhance collaboration and research functions among the nine centers, promoting interdisciplinary research through increased exchanges.

A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW ON SECURITY ISSUES IN CLOUD COMPUTING USING EDGE COMPUTING AND BLOCKCHAIN: THREAT, MITIGATION, AND FUTURE TRENDS

This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) examines the security threats experienced by cloud computing along with QoS by edge computing and scheduling. Various consumers and cloud service providers (CSP) obtained benefits from the cloud computing environment. However, various privacy and security challenges occur in this digital age. This SLR mainly aims to review the state of the art research studies on secure cloud computing with high QoS and its challenges. We examined numerous research studies related to cloud computing security with secure service level agreement (SLA) which are published between 2019 to 2022 from the reputed electronic databases. Cloud computing security is ensured mostly based on trust evaluation, implementation of blockchain technology, authentication, and cryptography techniques, and implementing edge computing in the cloud environment. This SLR also analyzed the research gaps of the previous research papers and provides future research directions to obtain secure cloud computing environment with high QoS performance.

Interpretation of technical and expression aspects on Mauro Giuliani’s “Grand Overture, Op.61”

The Mauro Giuliani’s “Grand Overture, Op. 61” poses a diverse and intricate task for classical guitar musicians, as it involves a complex interweaving of technical elements, profound emotional expression, and intricate structural components. The significant of this study is to acquire a more profound comprehension of the dynamic correlation between composition and artistic interpretation within the framework of this renowned classical guitar composition. There are two research objectives in this study. The first is to interpret the various elements of “Grand Overture, Op. 61” in terms of its composition, encompassing its challenging technical aspects, profound emotional depth, and intricate structural intricacies. The second is to interpret how these facets impose specific artistic expectations on the performer. This study was conducted within the paradigm of artistic research. The data collection technique employed in this study will involve a combination of library research, personal experience, direct observation, and self-reflection. The artistic processes and revelations in this study emphasize the resolution of technical challenges, the development of an approach to achieve a high level of technical proficiency, the analytical examination of compositional elements, and the crafting of sound profiles. These aspects were thoroughly explored through theoretical and practical investigations of “The Grand Overture” by Mauro Giuliani. This ultimately results in the development of distinctive and captivating interpretive decisions that successfully encapsulate the fundamental nature of Giuliani’s composition. The beneficial features of the basic interpretive concepts in this study are highly recommended for future studies to be applied in the form of various classical repertoires and other fields of musical instrumentation.

«Реальное дело художника» и философия искусства: Соловьев – Федоров – Чекрыгин

The article is dedicated to the aesthetic views of an artist and philosopher V.N. Chekrygin (1897–1922). His ideas are compared to the philosophy of art of V.S. Solovyev and N.F. Fyodorov. Theoretical heritage of the artist is analyzed, it reflects understanding of the tasks of creativity, history and language of the visual art. The research is based on the texts of Chekrygin: “A Manifest of the Painters (1920)”, “The Program of One-year Course on Art Philosophy” (1920), “About Upcoming New Era of the All-European Art” (1921), “About Convocation of the Resurrecting Museum’ (1921), and his epistolary art. Little-known materials from the archive are considered. Studying aesthetic works of Fyodorov and Solovyev allows to make comparative-typological research of the artist and philosopher of art. The connection is shown between Chekrygin’s ideas and aesthetic tradition of the Russian religious philosophy. Signs of aesthetics of Christian universalism can be seen in his project of a new era of the art. The idea of the project of “living art” of Chekrygin is opposed to the research of avantgarde art and it was inspired by the ideas of conciliarity and theurgy. It is shown that philosophical-aesthetic ideas of the artist are close to the philosophy of art of V.S. Solovyov and even more to the doctrine of the aesthetic supramoralism of Fyodorov. The research discloses particularities of the aesthetic ideas of the artist, which are permeated with the spirit of eschatological anxiety. Chekrygin shows the way that modern art should follow referring to the topics of theophany, to the process of contemplation of the space evolvement and the creation of the church-museum of the universal resurrection. It is proved that the artist creates the image of the final ideal of art conceiving the philosophical ideas of Solovyov and Fyodorov. It is proved that the artist remains in line with modernism discourse at the same time creating the outlines of the art of the future.

Image Construction, Status Analysis, Goddess Reflection

In the history of ancient Egypt, women were an ordinary but indispensable group, occupying an important position in family construction, legal practice and national governance. At the same time, their activities are also reflected in literature, artworks genesis mythology. From the perspective of academic history, the existing achievements of ancient Egyptian women can be summarized as three research directions: image construction, status discrimination and Goddess reflection. In advocating gender study and interdisciplinary construction of academic trend, effectively take example by art, law, literature and other discipline research methods, reasonably draw religious theology, marriage and family theory paradigm, to build a discourse system of world history gender research with Chinese characteristics based on the historical facts of ancient Egypt which has a broad academic prospect.

Corporate Social Responsibility Activities in Arts: Focusing on Performing Production Firms in South Korea

The purpose of this study was to investigate CSR activities in the field of arts and culture in South Korea. This study focused on government-driven CSR activities in performing arts production companies. The study collected 425 theater performance data samples from the 2015 Daehak-ro Culture Map Directory published by the Seoul Theater Center to examine which characteristics of performing arts production companies influence participation in the Nanum Ticket Program. Logistic regression analyses were performed with this data to test the hypotheses. After controlling several conditions, we found that the size of the production firm and the genre of the performance had significant effects on donation activities. In this study, the field of CSR empirical research in arts and cultural management was expanded by considering performing arts production companies as subjects of social contribution activities. This study also presents policy implications for expanding CSR activities in the field of arts and culture.

BETWEEN DOCUMENTARY AND POST-DOCUMENTARY: SEARCH VECTORS OF CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN DRAMA

The article discusses modern dramaturgical strategies, which consist in creating a transformative field by means of documentary/post-documentary. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the search vectors of contemporary Ukrainian drama in the context of the connection between documentary and post-documentary aesthetics. "Post-documentary" becomes such a feature of liminal aesthetics, which manifests itself in its performative, active orientation to the understanding of reality through the document. The main features of post-documentary theater, identified by researchers, are the ability to bring to the fore the subject of the action, which records its own states "here and now" and turns the text into a performative event. With such an artistic strategy, the author realizes an approach to true reality, "preserves" the moment of creation, the fluid phase of "here and now", a unique moment that is valuable for its true imperfection. For a dramatic text, this can be realized in the inclusion of autobiographical material, in the metagenres of diary, notebook, letter, etc., and through the embodiment of a "draft aesthetic". "Draft aesthetics" is a contemporary strategy of "non-finito" as a type of artistic thinking and demonstrates conditional imperfection, incompleteness of the text, an open form that captures the variability, uniqueness, confusion of the subject's state of consciousness and realizes the performative nature of the dramatic text. The fixation of facts, characteristic of a document, becomes in the documentary a fixation of temporary fluid states of the character in the interpretation of events (past or present) in order to preserve and remember this liminal state. In contemporary Ukrainian drama, a field of frontier between documentary and post-documentary is being formed: playwrights, directors, drama and theater researchers raise issues of trust in the document, look for ways to find contemporary attitudes, artistic methods and techniques that would reflect the "truth of the fact", raise questions of artistic ethics regarding involvement of documentary sources. The crisis of the documentary is realized as a means of salvation in the post-documentary: playwrights embody for the recipient the maximum approximation to reality, which reflects the document as an object of artistic research.

Power market models for the clean energy transition: State of the art and future research needs

As power systems around the world are rapidly evolving to achieve decarbonization objectives, it is crucial that power system planners and operators use appropriate models and tools to analyze and address the associated challenges. This paper provides a detailed overview of the properties of power market models in the context of the clean energy transition. We review common power market model methodologies, their readiness for low- and zero‑carbon grids, and new power market trends. Based on the review, we suggest model improvements and new designs to increase modeling capabilities for future grids. The paper highlights key modeling concepts related to power system flexibility, with a particular focus on hydropower and energy storage, as well as the representation of grid services, price formation, temporal structure, and the importance of uncertainty. We find that a changing resource mix, market restructuring, and growing price uncertainty require more precise modeling techniques to adequately capture the new technology constraints and the dynamics of future power markets. In particular, models must adequately represent resource opportunity costs, multi-horizon flexibility, and energy storage capabilities across the full range of grid services. Moreover, at the system level, it is increasingly important to consider sub-hourly time resolution, enhanced uncertainty representation, and introduce co-optimization for dual market clearing of energy and grid services. Likewise, models should capture interdependencies between multiple energy carriers and demand sectors.

Exploring Chinese EFL pre-service teachers’ perceptions of self-directed professional development: The benefits and challenges disclosed

Teaching has long been regarded as a demanding and complicated job, in which teachers play a vital role. To be effective and successful in this profession, they need to constantly engage in professional development programs. However, such programs are mostly externally driven with teachers playing passive roles. Against this pitfall, self-directed professional development (SDPD) has recently captured the attention of educational researchers. Yet, the benefits and challenges of SDPD in pre-service programs are unknown in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, this study used a semi-structured interview with 50 Chinese pre-service teachers regarding their perceptions of this mode of professional development. The findings of thematic analysis obtained by MAXQDA software (v. 2022) revealed that the most frequent benefits of SDPD were being “needs-based” and “self-directed”, which, in turn, produce “flexibility”, “autonomy”, and “professional knowledge development” in teachers. Concerning the challenges in implementing SDPD, “lack of professional interaction/assistance” from external forces and being “labor-intensive” for teachers were posed most frequently by the participants. Despite these complexities, most of the Chinese pre-service teachers (82%) preferred self-directed and self-initiated PD given their potential and effectiveness. The study encourages EFL educators to revisit their perspectives, plans, and strategies regarding professionalism and professional development. FUNDING INFORMATION. This study is a part of a research project on ‘The Training Mode of the Five-Year Bilingual International Talents under the Background of New Liberal Arts Construction’ supported by Nanjing Normal University’s New Liberal Arts Research and Reform Project in 2021.

TroublingGAN: generated visual ambiguity as a speculative alternative to photojournalism

This exposition documents artistic research that engages with generative neural networks and artificial intelligence-driven visual synthesis, the goal being to challenge the limits of the research and question the value of the generated visual outcomes. We present here our experiment with a customised StyleGAN model. In contrast to its utilisation by computer scientists, it has been trained on a heterogeneous dataset, voluntarily exposing the generative neural network to failure while focusing on the unexpected moments of surprise that arise from such a process. Led by the critical thoughts of The Nooscope Manifested (Pasquinelli and Joler 2020), this experiment questions what kind of knowledge generative neural networks produce, whether they could change one’s perspective on studied objects (the dataset) and whether they could function as a viable tool for artistic research. The observed object in this project is the concept of ‘troubling times’ (inspired by ‘Designing in Troubling Times’, the theme of the 2021 Uroboros Festival) — rapid socio-ecological changes caused by shifts in global economic, political and technological power and the subsequent series of troubling events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, violent conflicts and environmental catastrophes. StyleGAN is used as a pattern-recognition and knowledge-production tool to create an intuitive understanding of what this ambiguous term ‘troubling times’ actually means today. During the experimentation process, multiple unforeseen moments and twists happened, offering valuable insights into the nature of synthetic media, generating ethical questions concerning the use of generative neural networks and spawning new propositions for further research.

Running Freight on the River. A Clean Cargo Prefiguration

We are interested in exploring the types of futures that are preferable for us all. Discussions of preferable futures can be made difficult by a lack of understanding of the lived experience of that possible future. We like to think that some wise person once said: “I hear futures and I forget. I see futures and I remember. I do futures and I understand.” In order to explore scenarios of possible futures, we thus look into experiential modalities. This exposition examines our Danube Clean Cargo project. The prefigurative process imagined what small scale localised transport could be like and attempted to run a pilot scheme. Reporting on that, merging the quantitative, qualitative and experiential aspects of the project, we present some resulting insights and imaginations. The project leaves us with speculations and visions drawn out by the process of prefiguration. It also leaves us with questions around heterotopic instantiations, queered economics and the everyday to be pondered as artistic research. This helps us reflect on the process of imagination and speculation, on dreams of various freedoms and the harsh realities of logistics chains. The exposition develops ideas in both internal and external reflective modes. The exposition is oriented along a chart of the Danube river for the region of interest. Along the south bank of the Danube the project and its internal reflections are arrayed as episodic text fragments, leading up to a short vision that echoes older stories of sailing cargo barges. Along the north bank a more external reflection is positioned, bringing the project and its understandings into context with a collection of previous developments and external references. The entire exposition is arranged as a single page paper nautical chart, which in contrast to a digital chart plotter, always displays all of the information and does not hide features. This exposition is part of Curiouser and Curiouser, cried Alice: Rebuilding Janus from Cassandra and Pollyanna (CCA), an art-based research project from Design Investigations (ID2) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Time's Up. It is supported by the Programme for Arts-based Research (PEEK) from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): AR561.

Amulets from Viking-age Baltic coast: A unique hoard from Piaski-Dramino (Poland) in the light of provenance and technological research of silvercraft art

This technological and provenance analysis of metal artifacts from a unique Viking-age hoard found in Piaski-Dramino (NW Poland) reveals an expansive trade network. Particular attention was paid to kaptorga type amulets made in post-Great Moravian style. X-ray spectroscopy (XRF, EDS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used for elemental composition and structural imagesto fingerprint the techniques used by silversmiths. Pb and Ag isotope analysis combined with trace element compositions show that high-quality silver bullion was obtained mainly from the resmelting of Asian dirhams. Silver and lead from the Upper Silesia and Kraków regions were also used in this period. Research results are confirmed by incomplete historical sources that the Kraków land and Upper Silesia from the 9th to the end of the 10th c. were under Czech rule. This can be associated with the Czech elite's desire to access the silver and lead sources.

Rethinking Artistic Research: A Review of Michael Schwab’s ‘Contemporary Research’

Rethinking Artistic Research: A Review of Michael Schwab’s ‘Contemporary Research’

The Making of 'Commotion'

“Commotion” is a fixed media multichannel composition that revolved around the principles of minimalist music. This exposition aims at understanding these principles while it tries to place the process of composing the piece within the common premises of artistic research. Due to the nature of its context, this approach includes also theories of reception - mostly by exploring themes such as intentionality, interpretation and representation. With this exposition, the author shares technical terminology of sound practices, in order to promote it in contexts predominantly visual-oriented.

Monumentalism as an Essential Feature of V. Hegamyan's Work

The purpose of the work is to investigate monumentalism in V. Hegamyan’s artistic works as a characteristic feature of the artist's creative manner. The research methodology combines a set of such methods as analytical, semiotic, art history, biographical, which in the end made it possible to achieve objective research results. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the systematisation and generalisation of the artist V. Hegamyan’s work, in particular, the disclosure of the essential features of monumentalism as a defining feature of the majority of his works. Conclusions. The name of the Odesa artist V. Hegamyan, who was the founder of the graphic faculty of the Odesa pedagogical institute, is little known to the general public of researchers of Ukrainian fine art. It has been found that the peak of the artist's creative search and revelation falls in the 1960s and 1970s, when V. Hegamyan painted numerous works, combining elements of monumental style and traditions with the colour energy of modern painting, moving away from socialist realist (academic) painting and creating unrealistic images. The monumentality of his works was manifested in the fact that he experimented a lot and fruitfully with the form, which was always dynamic. Accordingly, with all the conventionality of the figures, V. Hegamyan achieved real similarity, verisimilitude and expressiveness, creating a semantic multi-layeredness and endowing them with symbolism and ambiguity. He constantly worked on improving the technique and created his own artistic style in art, which consisted of a combination of graphic, pictorial and monumental techniques. The deepest level is archetypal symbolism, which transcends the boundaries of cultural regions and eras. In this aspect, V. Hegamyan consistently avoids straight-line allegoricality: symbolic subtexts naturally emerge from the subjects of the paintings and the means of expression chosen by the artist. This is what makes his works multifaceted: additional meanings are superimposed on specific images. The peak of the artist's creative activity during the Soviet period coincides with the emergence and development of such an artistic phenomenon as nonconformism, to which V. Hegamyan, although he did not belong, became a symbolic figure for many artists of that time. Keywords: Velery Hegamyan, monumentalism, works of art, Odesa period of creativity, nonconformism, drawing, symbols, symbolism, artistic composition.

A Systematic Literature Review on Marine Tourism in Business Management: State of the Art and Future Research Agenda

This systematic literature review investigates marine tourism within the scope of business management areas, shedding light on diverse industry dimensions, from environmental impacts to economic valuations. Utilizing the Scopus database and spanning a decade (2012-2022), this research meticulously sifts through an initial bulk of identified articles, ultimately honing in on 37 pertinent papers through a criterion that ensured relevance via aspects like authorship, title, publication year, journal, and citation count. With a structured mapping approach, the research categorizes marine tourism in business management into basic, emerging, motor, and niche themes, revealing critical insights and articulating states of the art in several key facets of marine tourism. Among these are Limited Focus on Sustainable Practices, Under-Explored Technology Utilization, Insufficient Market Segmentation Studies, and Minimal Research on Crisis Management. The study further crafts a future research agenda, considering pivotal domains such as sustainability, technology, market dynamics, crisis management, and community engagement. Serving as a potential cornerstone for forthcoming studies, this research not only maps out future investigations in marine tourism within business management but also highlights themes ripe for deeper, more detailed exploration, thereby enriching the academic vista in marine tourism within the realm of business management.

Тоталітарні режими Європи та музика: хроніки протистояння

The article analyses the relationship between artists and the totalitarian regimes that prevailed in Italy, Germany, and Ukraine in the twentieth century. The relevance of the topic is due to the need for a deep study of the processes that took place in the field of art in the twentieth century, since this era is characterised by close interconnections of artistic research with certain philosophical, aesthetic, and ideological systems. Musical life reflected the social processes that took place in different locations in Europe during that period, including the principles of neo-myth-making inherent in totalitarian ideologies. The mythologisation of mass consciousness required complete submission from art. Not all famous musicians were able to openly oppose the ideology of totalitarian regimes, as they felt an immediate danger to their own lives. The fascist and soviet regimes demonstrated all kinds of punitive systems in the face of disobedience and deviation of the artist's work from the general vector of artistic life - from doom to oblivion to complete moral and physical destruction. Based on existing studies by foreign and domestic scholars, the authors of the article aim to recreate the events of the creative life of famous artists in the context of their complex relationships with the authorities and confrontation with totalitarian regimes of the 1920s-1950s. Recreating such chronicles is a necessary component in creating a systematic view of the role of the artist in the sociocultural continuum. The complex and ambiguous relations with the authorities are examined on the example of the creative life of composers P. Hindemith and B. Martinů, conductors W. Furtwängler, H. von Karajan, O. Klemperer and A. Toscanini. Some of them took a position of outright opposition to the regime (A. Toscanini), others - of collaboration with it (H. von Karajan), and some made constant attempts to manoeuvre between their own conscience and the need to express support for the regime. Understanding the actions of each individual artist in the complex socio-cultural situation of the totalitarian regime is possible only if the specifics of social psychology and national culture are taken into account, which further requires an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the problem. Understanding the actions of each individual artist in the complex socio-cultural situation of the totalitarian regime is possible only if the specifics of social psychology and national culture are taken into account, which further requires an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the problem.