Imaginary Space Research Articles

Imgur, image macros, and algorithms: memes as imaginary issue spaces of users’ encounters with algorithmic recommendations

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes memes collected from Imgur that concern users’ encounters with algorithmic recommendations. Such encounters, mobilized, performed, and circulated via memes, can reveal algorithmic ‘imaginaries,’ expectations that may be realistic or unrealistic, technically informed or uninformed, but that in any case shape the way people interact with platforms. These imaginaries reflect and influence users’ attempts to comply or resist pressures exerted by algorithmic recommendation systems, as is the focus of this paper. Working inductively, this paper extrapolates from memes the imaginaries users have about the algorithmic systems. First, this paper uses a qualitative analysis and coding scheme to analyze a meme ‘collection’ scraped from Imgur. Second, it localizes and discusses the imaginaries performed in these memes, which are termed as follows: algorithmic recommendation systems vs nostalgic antagonism; algorithms as dysfunctional and flawed; algorithms as making magic; and humanity vs AI. In the analyzed data sample, memes that concern algorithms appear primarily in the context of users’ encounters with the algorithmic outputs, which are either glitches, failures, or happy accidents. Third, the practice of ‘memeing’ algorithmic imaginaries is discussed in the context of ‘memetic issue spaces,’ spaces for memetic evocations that can ignite algorithmic counter-imaginaries.

Nevanlinna analytic continuation for Migdal–Eliashberg theory

In this work, we present a method to reconstruct real-frequency properties from analytically continued causal Green’s functions within the framework of Migdal–Eliashberg (ME) theory for superconductivity. ME theory involves solving a set of coupled equations self-consistently in imaginary frequency space, but to obtain experimentally measurable properties like the spectral function and quasiparticle density of states, it is necessary to perform an analytic continuation to real frequency space. Traditionally, the ME Green’s function is decomposed into three fundamental complex functions, which are analytically continued independently. However, these functions do not possess the causal properties of Green’s functions, complicating or even preventing the application of standard methods such as Maximum Entropy. Our approach overcomes these challenges, enabling the use of various analytic continuation techniques that were previously impractical. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method by combining it with Nevanlinna analytic continuation to achieve accurate real-frequency results for ME theory, which are directly comparable to experimental data, with applications highlighted for the superconductors MgB2 and LaBeH8.

An intimate prayer with the dead

AbstractThis article explores how listening to monājāt (Islamic sung prayer) creates dynamic and unsettling imaginative spaces for Amir—a paraplegic veteran of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War—to be‐with Sohrab, his comrade killed in combat. Amir, who both witnessed Sohrab's tragic death and endured severe physical trauma himself, engages in a profound, nonreciprocal relationship with Sohrab through the act of listening to the sung prayer. Monājāt is a collective experience that derives its power from Amir's imagined world where he finds himself whispering the prayers alongside Sohrab. This participatory mode of listening allows the living to host and welcome the dead. Monājāt creates a nonreciprocal relationship with the dead, a place where Amir hears what is otherwise inaudible. In this imaginary world, Amir finds proximity to be‐with his dead friend. Listening is a mode of being‐in‐the‐world that challenges one to not neglect the other's needs. For Amir, monājāt provides both images of Sohrab in heaven (the radiant face with the angels) and a disturbance by alerting him to recall Sohrab's suffering and the injured face. Listening, then, becomes a response and obligation to care for the dead; a way to attend to and be responsible for Sohrab which for Amir is both healing and haunting.

Figuring Displacement: Spaces of Imagination in Early Modern and Postmodern Intertextual Transmissions

This essay examines, ecocritically, geocritically, and comparatively, the metaphoric spaces represented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and in Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ Chapters—seas, mountains, islands, jungle—to show that these spaces allow for different interpretations, yet they are spaces of individual imagination in both the play and the novel, suggesting transformation and metamorphosis. I argue that these literary spaces show a common feature of displacement, which allows human language to re-imagine other worlds—in literature and in visual arts. The spaces of imagination proliferated through Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Barnes’ novel have suffered a transformation in time and space, as they speak to past and present audiences and readers. The sea in Barnes’ chapter entitled “Shipwreck” symbolizes danger but also hope, as does the sea in the storm scene in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The Mountain in Barnes’ eponymous chapter represents an isolated and inaccessible landscape on Mount Ararat, at the intersection of three cultures (Armenia, Turkey and Russia), but it also represents the biblical language of faith and hermitic isolation. Similarly, the island in The Tempest, which is—geologically—a mountain above the water, represents metaphorically the island of the mind. The jungle in Barnes’ chapter “Upstream” is a remote place in the forest on the Orinoco River, where Europeans and native Indians interact while making a movie; this movie is a work of visual art, represented in a novel; so is any one of the many productions of The Tempest, which reiterates the island’s imaginary space in various directorial interpretations. All these locations are metaphoric spaces of imagination, transmitted through different media, in which reality is transformed into literary representation by means of fictional description or theatrical action.

Literary cityscape in the sociological topology before 1945 in Việt Nam

When Việt Nam became a French colony in the 20th century, the press created an imagined space of possibilities where urban dwellers could exercise their new power. Attracted by this space of opportunity, literary authors from all over Vietnam came to big cities, like Hà Nội, to make their dreams come true. Depending on their choice of literary genres, authors from rural areas or cities invest their capital in writing. The press then played a key role in creating a cityscape in the literary field. By establishing the link between the hometown, the city of residence, and the choice of literary genre, we strive to understand the investment of capital among writers and the laws regulating the literary landscape in sociological topology.

The space not beyond: T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939) and their musical adaptations as elemental melodrama of an upper-atmospheric limit

ABSTRACT This essay examines T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939) and its subsequent musical adaptation, Cats (1981) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, through the lens of elemental melodrama. It begins with Eliot’s envisioned but omitted conclusion, where a poet ascends with Jellicle cats, and explores its revival in the musical’s song ‘Journey to the Heaviside Layer’. This ascent melodramatises the climactic journey to a heaven, an imaginary space beyond Earth’s tangible experiences. The essay contrasts the musical’s alignment of the Heaviside Layer with a ‘heaven’ oriented toward the desires and aspirations of anthropomorphised cats with Joseph Kittinger’s 1960 high-altitude balloon ascent and Maurice Blanchot’s reflections on Yuri Gagarin’s space mission. Both Kittinger’s and Blanchot’s writings reveal the Heaviside Layer as both a real and metaphorical space of death and existential void, contrasting with the musical’s portrayal of it purely in terms of celestial ascent. Drawing on Peter Brooks’s theory of melodrama as a post-sacred mode, the essay highlights how tableau, gesture, heightened emotion and, especially, song in Cats convey a collective yearning for transcendence. Ultimately, it argues that the Heaviside Layer in Cats serves as a zone of elemental melodramatic transcendence. It is in this context that earthly limitations, particularly those relating to embodied differences of race and sex, exist in tension with feline (and, by implication, human) aspirations for an unreachable ‘beyond’.

Planners Becoming Visualizers in the Mediatized World: Actor-Network Analysis of Cairo’s Street Billboards

While visual communication is crucial in urban planning, there is a gap in understanding how dominant narratives and visuals affect professional planning practice and planners’ roles, particularly in mediatized urban environments. This study addresses this gap by examining street billboards in Cairo to understand how planning visualizations contribute to the restructuring of the planning profession. It explores how these visual tools shape the practice and roles of urban planners, who are increasingly becoming visualizers. Employing actor-network theory, the study traces the relationships between billboards, planners, and other network actors. The primary research question is: How and why does the use of planning visualizations (billboards) restructure the profession of planning, including planning practice and the roles of planners? Utilizing a qualitative exploratory methodology, the study focuses on billboards along Cairo’s 6th of October Bridge. Data were analyzed through visual and content analysis of 209 billboards to understand their language, content, patterns, and geo-positioning. The analysis revealed that billboards in Cairo significantly impact urban landscapes and the visual culture of urbanization, often promoting exclusive real estate projects to a socio-economic elite. The research highlights the dilemmas in the changing professional roles of planners within a mediatized world and underscores the need for more inclusive planning practices. By employing actor-network theory, the study provides a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships that shape and are shaped by the visual culture of urban planning, offering insights into how planners can navigate and influence these dynamics for more equitable urban development.

A Hybrid Prototype Method Combining Physical Models and Generative Artificial Intelligence to Support Creativity in Conceptual Design

Conceptual design is an essential stage in the design process, and its ultimate success largely depends on designers’ creativity. Both physical and digital prototypes are commonly adopted by designers to support ideation and creativity, providing intuitive perception and rapid iteration, respectively. In recent advancements, large-scale generation models are able to offer data-enabled creativity support by generating high-quality solutions comparable to human designers. This opens up an imaginary space for designers and brings new possibilities for design tools. In this study, we proposed a hybrid prototype method that synergistically combines physical models and generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the conceptual design stage. Correspondingly, we developed a hybrid prototype system to implement the proposed method. We conducted a comparative user study with 45 designers who completed a design task using the physical prototype method, standalone generative AI, and the hybrid prototype method, respectively. Our results verified the effectiveness of the hybrid prototype method and investigated its mechanism in supporting creativity. Finally, we discussed the application value and optimisation space of the hybrid prototype method.

A Perspective on tellurium-based optoelectronics

Tellurium (Te) has been rediscovered as an appealing p-type van der Waals semiconductor for constructing various advanced devices. Its unique crystal structure of stacking of one-dimensional molecular chains endows it with many intriguing properties including high hole mobilities at room temperature, thickness-dependent bandgap covering short-wave infrared and mid-wave infrared region, thermoelectric properties, and considerable air stability. These attractive features encourage it to be exploited in designing a wide variety of optoelectronics, especially infrared photodetectors. In this Perspective, we highlight the important recent progress of optoelectronics enabled by Te nanostructures, which constitutes the scope of photoconductive, photovoltaic, photothermoelectric photodetectors, large-scale photodetector array, and optoelectronic memory devices. Prior to that, we give a brief overview of basic optoelectronic-related properties of Te to provide readers with the knowledge foundation and imaginative space for subsequent device design. Finally, we provide our personal insight on the challenges and future directions of this field, with the intention to inspire more revolutionary developments in Te-based optoelectronics.

Transoceanic Memory (Studies): Oceans as Mode, Method and Material

Abstract There is a renewed interest in scholarship exploring the connection between memory and the environment, remembering and ecocriticism, and between memory cultures and the Anthropocene. Oceanic spaces feature as frameworks to conceptualise this environmental turn across the disciplines, but have not been used to theorise an approach to memory. Taking cue from literary examples from the Anglophone sphere, and building on the work of Paul Gilroy, Isabel Hofmeyr, Michael North and Ananya Kabir, this essay conceptualises transoceanic memory (studies) as a transdisciplinary approach to memory; as mode, method and material. It is mode in its capacity to frame oceans as providing ideational, aesthetic, material and imaginary space to the many processes of remembering, and to reveal relational and exclusionary dynamics inherent to the formation of collective memory. It is method in the manner in which a transoceanic lens offers a comparative framework for transdisciplinary memory studies, allowing for different methods and models of memory to coalesce and communicate. Transoceanic memory is material in the sense in which it relates to oceans as ecosystems, as environmental formations in their own right, and with their own mnemonic agency.

Editorial

This special issue of Euxeinos explores the ways that urban Poles, German-Austrians, Ukrainians and Soviets have imagined and constructed an image of the Carpathian mountains from the mid-19th century to the current day. The city is often seen as the epitome and engine of modernization and progress, whether through trade, technological advancements, or industrial development. It is in the city that cultural institutions, commerce, and political power predominantly reside. Urban centers, whether large or small, have been the epicenters of massive mediatization, shaping our imagination of places beyond the cities. Urban dwellers have actively imagined, reinvented, and transformed rural life, often through a process of destruction and reconstruction. Folk arts and rural lifestyles were invented and reinvented, imagined, and reimagined, resulting in new forms of culture. Natural phenomena, like mountains and rural areas, were transformed into imaginary spaces that expressed anxieties about urban conditions, community bonds, environmental crises, human relations and power structures. The landscape became integral to depicting practices and imposing ideas about belonging, authenticity, roots, communities, states, hierarchies, and borders.

아브젝트 개념으로 접근한 ‘무진’이라는 공간의 상징성

Kim Seung-ok's “Record of a Journey to Mujin” is a successful work to the extent that it has been adapted into a film among his many works. Along with this, “Record of a Journey to Mujin” is actively discussed among his works. Within it, various studies have been conducted on the symbolism of the space due to the uniqueness and imaginative nature of the space called 'Mu-jin.' Particularly noteworthy is that although the title of Record of a Journey to Mujin” includes the word 'journey' as a clue, it shows a different form from conventional travel novels. There are also studies suggesting that the space called 'Mu-jin' is not a space existing in reality but holds symbolic significance as a space that contrasts with Seoul. Among these, noteworthy are studies that adopt Lacan's concepts of the imaginary and symbolic orders. These studies analyze 'Mu-jin' as an imaginary or real space contrasting with 'Seoul,' an existing space symbolized by the symbolic order. In this paper, adopting these two perspectives, we will posit 'Seoul,' existing in contrast to 'Mu-jin,' as the symbolic order. However, there are aspects of the characteristics of the space called 'Mu-jin' that cannot be accommodated solely by Lacan's concepts of the imaginary and real orders. Therefore, by expanding and reinterpreting Lacan's studies from a feminine perspective, adopting Kristeva's concept, we aim to present 'Mu-jin' as a gathering of abjects placed in opposition to 'Seoul,' symbolized as a symbolic order, forming a 'semiotic system.'

Implementation of a Gamification-Based Metaverse Exhibition: A Case Study of the Farewell Museum

The increasing adoption of metaverse exhibitions aims to overcome the limitations of traditional offline exhibitions by enhancing accessibility and creating imaginative spaces without temporal and spatial constraints. This study explores how incorporating gamification into metaverse exhibitions can leverage the strengths of online and offline experiences. By integrating metaverse elements and gamification, we designed an interactive metaverse space and evaluated its effectiveness through user feedback. Our findings indicate that guiding visitors to complete missions within the metaverse enhances their understanding of the offline exhibition narratives, thereby increasing their engagement with the exhibition themes. Furthermore, online experiences in the metaverse can stimulate interest in offline exhibitions, promoting visitor attendance. The metaverse space also encourages users to contribute personal stories to the exhibition content, fostering continuous content expansion. This approach strengthens the connection between online and offline exhibitions, increases visitor engagement, and promotes repeat visits, thereby addressing the limitations of traditional exhibitions. Additionally, metaverse exhibitions enhance the preservation and accessibility of cultural heritage through digital archiving, offering inclusive participation opportunities and promoting social sustainability. This study underscores the potential of metaverse exhibitions to evolve beyond technological innovation toward contributing to social sustainability.

Representations of the everyday life in Nairobi city in Kenyan film

ABSTRACT Representations of urban spaces and most importantly, of city culture, is often manifested in and visibilized through popular cultural productions. City culture is embodied in popular artforms such as film, photography, dance, music, and fashion among others, which present the city as an imagined space for performance and display. Whereas the city is integral in understanding manifestations of social change, film plays a role in foregrounding and reflecting its social transformations overtime. Anchored on the multi-disciplinary triad of the cultural production of place, space and meaning, this article explores representations of everyday life in Nairobi city as mediated through three films: Ndoto za Elibidi (2010), Nairobi Half-life (2012) and Rafiki (2018). The article argues that the production and consumption of urban cinematic geographies is, in different ways, tied to everyday experiences in the city. The article further shows how space in film is used as a narrative devise to depict emerging queer social imaginaries in the city spaces in Nairobi. Thus, the article contributes to emerging trends on how urban practices influence popular consciousness and adds to the growing lore of urban scholarship in Kenya.

The Shelters of Imagination: Logos, Franklin Street, St Peters, Marion and The Dreamhouse

‘The Shelters of Imagination’ is a series of five poems, ‘Logos’, ‘Franklin Street’, ‘St Peters’, ‘Marion’, and ‘The Dreamhouse’, which explore the relationship between a writer’s place and the phenomenological aspects of literary composition. Each poem examines how a place from which I have written has impacted, driven, or impinged on the poetic imagination. These poems destabilise the boundary between where the material world the writer inhabits ends, and the fringe of poetic imagination begin. These poems are heavily informed by Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (1964) where he examines the relationship between place and the phenomenology of poetic imagination. Along with creative engagement with Bachelard’s writings, auto-ethnographic reflections from my recent relocation from Sydney to Adelaide are woven through these poems as they move from the sterile cityscape, to a garden-lined eco-flat shaped like a chapel in St Peters, towards the rural sites of an artist residency space in the Adelaide Hills, and then conclude with a meditation on the imagined space.

How do oilcloth sessions work? A realist evaluation approach to exploring ripple effects in an implementation strategy

PurposeTo explore the mechanisms of the implementation strategy, “oilcloth sessions” and understand and explain the ripple effects of oilcloth sessions as a strategy to implement a new emergency department.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative design was used whereby data were collected using field notes from an ethnographic study of the oilcloth sessions and follow-up semi-structured interviews with staff, managers and key employees who participated in the oilcloth sessions. The data analysis was inspired by the realist evaluation approach of generative causality proposed by Pawson and Tilley.FindingsThe primary ripple effect was that the oilcloth sessions were used for different purposes than the proposed program theory, including being used as: (1) a stage, (2) a battlefield, (3) a space for imagination and (4) a strategic management tool influencing the implementation outcomes. The results bring essential knowledge that may help to explain why and how a well-defined implementation strategy has unplanned outcomes.Originality/valueUnintended outcomes of implementation strategies are an underexplored issue. This study may help implementation researchers rethink the activities required to reduce unintended negative outcomes or explore potential unplanned outcomes and, in this way, hinder or enhance outcomes, effectiveness and sustainability. Future studies within implementation research should incorporate attention to unintended outcomes to fully understand the impact of implementation strategies.

Escaping from Confinement: Hell Imagery in the Shōjuraigōji Rokudō-e Scrolls

This article explores the pictorial representation of the Buddhist hell in Kamakura (1185–1333) Japan, with a focus on a mid-thirteenth century rokudō-e, or Pictures of the Six Realms, preserved at Shōjuraigōji Temple. The examination revolves around how these scroll paintings convey messages of salvation by representing the symbolic architecture of the hell realm, the lowest level within the six realms. By scrutinizing the visual representation of hell landscapes in four hell scrolls in the Shōjuraigōji set, the study unveils the architectural symbolism of boundaries and pathways. A visual analysis of two hell-tearing narrative scrolls further reveals that the key iconography involves the destruction of the architectural symbols of hell. Through tracing the concurrent processes of constructing and destroying the imaginary space of hell, the study demonstrates that the conceptual and visual construction of hell is coupled with an equally pronounced intent for hell-tearing. Lastly, based on the visuality of the hell-escaping narratives, the medium of hanging scrolls, and the centrality of an Enma scroll within the Shōjuraigōji set, the author proposes a spatial arrangement of this set of fifteen scrolls that could systematically convey the visual massage of “escaping from suffering in the six courses”.

Staging the Theatrical Public Sphere in The Laramie Project

Abstract Contemporary documentary theater has become a favored genre in scholarship to investigate the relationship between theater and the public sphere (Reinelt, “Promise”; Balme; Claycomb, Lurch). Drawing on Christopher B. Balme’s concept of the theatrical public sphere and other scholarship, I examine how The Laramie Project (2000) by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project stages the idea of the public sphere and, in the process, rethinks the form of documentary performance. On one level, the play reflects a discursive turn in documentary practice as multiple narrative layers dramatize the collision of opposing value systems and civic voices in order to challenge established boundaries between the private and the public, the liberal and the conservative, the rural and the urban, poverty and wealth, life and art. The theatrical sphere is constructed as an imaginary space not just of rational debate but of negotiating questions of accountability by appealing to the affective engagement of the audience. On another level, I argue, the play operates as a metatheatrical piece, using strategies such as a narrator and anti-illusionism to establish the theatrical public sphere as a conceptual framework that fuses sociopolitical engagement with a self-reflexive theater practice.

Cosmopolitan Ethics and the Politics of Religious Identity in Leila Aboulela's Novels: an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Leila Aboulela is a prolific Anglophone Muslim writer whose narratives inscribe in the postmodernist tradition of literary production. She engages with Muslim religious identity renegotiations in a transnational imaginary space. Literary critics consider her writings as an arduous write back to the underpinning discourses of Islamophobia, which gained momentum in the metropolitan cities of the West in the aftermath of 9/11. In doing so, Leila Aboulela overstresses the religious identity at the expense of other forms of affiliation and identity. In my thesis, I will invite philosophers of cosmopolitanism across disciplines to account for the inverse relationship between constructing religious identity and cosmopolitan ethics.

Evocations of China in the Music of György Ligeti

This paper traces the shifting significance of China in the music of Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006). In early instances of chinoiserie from the 1940s—including a black-key piano exercise and incidental music for the puppet play Spring Flower—Ligeti resorts to pentatonic essentializing to evoke childlike visions of a fairytale Orient. A half-century later, in his 2000 song cycle Síppal, dobbal, nádiheged vel, China reemerges as a far more nuanced, though no less imaginary space. Ligeti’s settings of Chinese-themed verses by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres function as coded expressions of alienation and foreignness from an exile composer separated from his homeland.