Multimedia Work Research Articles

Navigating the gig economy in Romania: unveiling perceptions of working on on-demand platforms

Purpose This paper aims to explore the realm of gig work and the gig economy in Romania in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms of this type of work and the reasons and benefits of engaging in gig-related activities.Considering the low conceptual consensus on gig work, the authors aim to explore how participants in this study define and refer to gig work, thus helping to contribute to the current conceptualization and characterizations of gig work and the gig economy. Among the wide range of services encountered within the gig economy, this research focuses on three categories of tasks, as defined within COLLEEM 2018 questionnaire (see Pesole et al., 2018), namely, online creative and multimedia work, online sales and marketing support and online software development and technology work. Design/methodology/approach Based on semistructured interviews with people working in the gig economy in Romania, the authors look to understand the meaning given to gig work and its features. The authors tackle how participants in this study perceive themselves and their work. The authors also look into perceived similarities and differences with other types of independent work. Findings In this paper, findings are organized into two main sections. The first section showcases perceptions about working in the gig economy, including how people involved with this type of work are describing them and their activity and exploring financial insecurities in connection with the independent/gig work. The second section highlights the mechanisms of gig work on digital labor platforms, developing means and ways of reputation-building and their impact on financial earnings. Originality/value This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the environment and needs of gig workers. Although gig economy and online work are widely covered by field literature, knowledge about the experiences and perceptions of gig workers in emerging markets has more to gain by exploring European Union developing markets.

IMPLEMENTATION MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE IN INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA DESIGN FOR TRADITIONAL INDONESIAN MUSIC INSTRUMENTS INTRODUCTION

This research aims to address the lack of interactive multimedia-based educational media in introducing traditional Indonesian musical instruments to the public, especially children. The issue arises from the fact that the diversity of traditional musical instruments in Indonesia has not been presented attractively in an interactive media format. Therefore, this study utilizes the Multimedia Development Life Cycle (MDLC) method as a guide in designing and developing interactive multimedia. The MDLC stages, namely Concept, Design, Material Collecting, Assembly, Testing, and Distribution, are implemented to ensure that each step of the system development is well-organized. The results of alpha testing indicate that all features of the interactive multimedia work well. Beta testing, involving 36 respondents, yields a rating of 4.52 out of 5, demonstrating that this interactive multimedia is excellent and suitable for use as a learning media for traditional Indonesian musical instruments. This research addresses the gaps in the presentation of educational information by providing an interesting and effective media, especially in the context of traditional musical instruments. Thus, it is expected that this interactive multimedia can enrich the knowledge of the public, especially children, about the cultural wealth of traditional Indonesian musical instruments.

Enhancing copyright protection with Hadamard transform-based blind digital watermarking using the cycling chaos system

The network's ease of use has brought a copyright dilemma for some multimedia works. It is consequently necessary to develop a safe digital watermarking technology to guarantee the protection of digital work's copyright. The proposed method addresses the pressing need for robust blind digital watermarking technology to safeguard the copyrights of multimedia works in the face of the accessibility provided by modern networks. Two approaches are presented in our research paper. First, a blind Hadamard transform-based method is proposed, leveraging the energy concentration concept inherent in the transform. This technique embeds watermarks into the highest energy coefficients of color host images in the transform domain. Notably, watermark extraction is achieved without accessing the original data. Extensive simulation tests validate the efficacy of this method. Second, we have explored the burgeoning field of chaotic systems in watermarking. An LSB-based strategy, termed the cycling chaos algorithm, is introduced. This approach seamlessly integrates data, into color images using the least significant bits. It employs a cycling chaos function to generate a key for a pseudorandom number generator, which, in turn, determines the intensity and pixel positions for storing privileged data in the original image. Through simulation trials, the significant impact of this method on various performance metrics is demonstrated. These contributions aim to not only address immediate copyright protection challenges but also inspire further exploration and advancement in digital watermarking.

The Art of (Non)Experimental Translation of Electronic Literature. On the (Un)Repeatable Translation of Loss Of Grasp

The article focuses on (Nie)panowanie, the Polish translation of Loss of Grasp by Serge Bouchardon and Vincent Volckaert. The main part of the study consists of a detailed report of translator’s work made in 2019 and her experience is compared with the experiences of translators of ten other language versions of the work. This study is accompanied by some more general reflection on problems of e-literature translation, especially in the context of experimental translation theory. Two main questions the author deals with are: should e-lit translation always be seen as an experimental one, and what does it, in practice, mean to translate interactive and multimedia work? The last part of the article offers a broader perspective on the field: reflections on trans-platform translation as a kind of digital literature preservation and on the problems of platform liability or programming obsolescence.

Michaël Ferrier Inter-Media: Writing the World Between Image, Music and Text

Informed by his practice of music, drawing, photography and calligraphy, and depicting various experiences of border crossing between cultures, languages and media, Michaël Ferrier’s eclectic writings are characterised by an aesthetic hybridity that defies generic classifications. In line with his critique of the primacy of the visual in contemporary societies, his versatile prose frequently uses synaesthesia and refers to numerous art forms such as jazz, painting or cinema, thereby appealing to the reader’s five senses. Ceaselessly experimenting in his literary work with the flexible form of the novel, between fact and fiction, Ferrier published in 2019 his first photo-text, Scrabble, which is analysed in depth in the second part of this article. In this autobiographical narrative focusing on his childhood in Chad in the 1970s, the numerous black and white illustrations introduce a complex game of presence and absence that mirrors the way memory functions. Haunted by the traumatic advent of civil war that brutally halted Ferrier’s stay in Africa, this multi-media work circles around an ominous image of the author playing Scrabble with his brother as the conflict is about to break out; evoked at the beginning and the end of the text, this decisive image however remains elusive—a “ghost image.”

Digging holes, excavating the present, mining the future: extractivism, time, and memory in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s and Sammy Baloji’s works

ABSTRACT This article explores the links between creative imagination and extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This question has an undeniable memorial dimension, for extraction, as a crucial point of entry into Congolese historical consciousness, allows for a multi-perspectivist examination of the way in which the memory of the past has been archived, experienced, and (mis)interpreted. As a key term to understand Congo’s geopolitical position since colonial times, extraction offers a rich array of tropes and ideas to assess culture from the DRC and the Congolese diaspora. First, I reflect on the notions of extraction and extractivism; secondly, I analyse how they form the basis of Sammy Baloji's multi-media work in Mémoire (2006) and Mémoire/Kolwezi (2014); then, I turn to La Danse du vilain (2020) and Tram 83 (2014) by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, first to assess how extraction is employed in these novels, then to conduct a reflection on ‘necropolitics’, and reveal little-known aspects of diamond digging during the Mobutu era. I will also show that Baloji’s and Mujila’s creative trajectories have been enriched by dialogues with Filip De Boeck, the Belgian social anthropologist and specialist of the DRC.

Digital Watermarking

The paper introduces the digital watermarking technology which is a data hiding technique that embeds a message into a multimedia work such as an image or text or other digital object. The proposed technique has several important applications; the majorly important is the digital copyrights protection. The digital watermarking system as any other data hiding technique has its own requirements that make the digital watermark strong as possible. Technologies of digital watermarking are mainly classified depending on their domain to spatial domain watermarks, Watermarks belonging to frequency (transform) domain and wavelet domain watermarks. The digital watermarks suffer from different types of attacks that include either state-of-the-art watermarking attacks or watermark estimation attacks. The recovery from these attacks requires strong detection techniques; the digital watermark agent provides a professional solution for these attacks.

Discordant Memories: Atomic Age Narratives and Visual Culture by Alison Fields

Reviewed by: Discordant Memories: Atomic Age Narratives and Visual Culture by Alison Fields Robert (Bo) Jacobs (bio) Discordant Memories: Atomic Age Narratives and Visual Culture By Alison Fields. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020. Pp. 256. "Containment—the process of gaining control over something harmful," writes Alison Fields, "is a key mechanism for responding to traumatic memories" (p. 16). Her book proceeds to explore nuclear-themed artwork as locations where the containment of nuclear memories has fractured, revealing a disjointed and evolving memory culture in the wake of Hiroshima. Fields opens with an exploration of the so-called "Hiroshima Maidens," twenty-five young women who experienced the nuclear attack on Hiroshima as children and were brought to the United States ten years later to receive reconstructive and plastic surgeries. This bold start establishes that institutions may strive to contain historical traumas in narratives of event, impact, and consequence, but they are better understood as organic and living beyond the memorialized event, just as the bodies of those who endured it. The book then contrasts the formal memorializations of the attacks in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, these museums exemplifying the "discordant memories" of the title. Although the official curations—in service to the communities in which they are embedded—seem to describe disparate events, it is on the "leaking" of memory culture beyond both of these containers that the book centers its analysis. Fields argues that "the experience of atomic trauma cannot be contained" (p. 80), then proceeds to lay out several chapters detailing this dynamic. These chapters explore a series of pieces by artists and writers working in multiple media who deconstruct and reenvision memory cultures of the nuclear attacks, augmenting their trajectories of inheritance. Many are master practitioners within their medium. Of particular note are the participatory [End Page 625] and responsive multimedia works by Shinpei Takeda, the range of historical and topical focuses of various members of the Atomic Photographers Guild, and the photographic explorations of Navajo uranium mining landscapes by Will Wilson. An examination of the role of manga in reproducing and then leaking outside of the formal Japanese Hiroshima narrative and the tension between survivor testimonies and official curation also reveal the vitality of this leaking. Though it also surveys "atomic bomb literature" produced in Japan in the decades following the nuclear attacks, the book is at its best when analyzing visual artwork. Fields asserts that "visual expressions of memory offer possibilities for resisting linear, closed-off narratives of the past and for reflecting the continuing, and often cyclical, nature of trauma" (p. 19). We are fortunate the book includes seventeen full-color photographic plates that allow us to encounter a number of the original works that Fields describes. Fields uses her inquiry to guide readers through the growing awareness that the 1945 nuclear attacks were not the solitary moments of nuclear harm on human beings and communities: to contextualize some of the artwork, she walks readers through the history of nuclear testing and uranium mining. This is most evident in the discussion of the work of members of the Atomic Photographers Guild, many of whom played a central role in foregrounding this ongoing history through their work. The fact that the Guild includes the work of Yoshito Matsushige, the only photographer to capture images on the actual day of one of the nuclear attacks on Japan, links the visualization of direct nuclear attack with ongoing assaults on human beings and the ecosystem during the Cold War. In tracing how Hiroshima has continued leaking out of its curatorial containment, Fields shows us a history that is alive and imbricated with human beings who experienced the direct attack and all of us who continue to inherit and live amid its historical ripples. I was particularly interested in the complicated relationships that many of the pieces imply between radiologically affected communities in the United States and Hiroshima as both place and mythic icon. I welcome work that pursues that fault line, both artistically and politically, as well as work that extends this analysis into the many other sites of nuclear harm around the world. A second generation of scholars...

‘Genocide is climate change’: a conversation about colonized California and Indigenous futurism

This written conversation unpacks a phrase, ‘genocide is climate change,’ which co-author Christine Howard Sandoval wrote and featured in her video artwork, Niniwas- to belong here (2022). The authors discuss scholarship linking the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the Americas to climate change and contextualize the assertion within an expanded archive of the Spanish missions in California. They address Howard Sandoval’s multimedia work in dialogue with Indigenous women’s basket weaving and land care practices, including the cultural use of fire, in order to consider how Indigenous arts can illuminate the intertwined apocalypses of colonization and climate change.

In search of synchresis: an examination of compositional approaches in new audiovisual works for solo electric guitar and visual projections

ABSTRACT This paper examines the interaction of sound and vision in audiovisual works for solo electric guitar, providing an overview of existing compositions before exploring in depth the approaches utilised in two new works commissioned by the author. Multimedia works which combine sound and vision represent a minority of the contemporary western art music repertoire, and are rarer still in works involving the electric guitar. The use of visuals in the small literature of audiovisual works for solo electric guitar varies widely, ranging from pre-recorded videos which simply play back over the course of a performance with no temporal alignment between sound and vision, to complex lighting mechanisms which respond to the music in real-time with clear parameter mapping. The bulk of the repertoire, however, demonstrates limited gestural synchronisation between the two media, with composers creating audiovisual cohesion through extra-temporal means. The works commissioned by the author – Svart-Hvít Ský á Himni by Icelandic composer Gulli Björnsson, and especially Akrasia by Australian composer Victor Arul – run counter to this trend, situating them as outliers which push the boundaries of parametric mapping in the repertoire for solo electric guitar and visuals.

Seeking Gender Identity in the Contexts of Atayal: An Art Project

This paper examines and seeks to challenge fixed ideas relating to identity, gender, and belonging, which I explore in my art practice. Focusing on a central work, Perhaps She Comes From/To __ Alang, I explore ways that virtual reality—in a video and a website—can be employed to define and engage with my Indigenous and queer identity. This work uses digital video, performance, and cyberspace to reconstruct a sense of place and space that disengages from the traditional gender(ed) norms of what it means to be Atayal. My disconnected urban context prompts me to question what counts as an authentic pathway to reconnect with gaga (Atayal customs and traditional values). The journey of returning to a preconstructed identity needs to be redefined and discussed to embrace a queer sense of belonging. This paper engages with these notions by discussing cyberspace, live performance, and video installation as alternative spaces in which to thread indigeneity, the marginalised body, and queer visibility, and to reclaim screen sovereignty. Three different narratives that feature in my multimedia work—the story of Temahahoi, the story of the brass pots, and a personal story of my quiet queer body—are discussed. Through my work, these narratives engage with storytelling, Atayal worldview, and the Atayal language to re-examine the complexity of identity and the reclaiming of screen space in contemporary times.

Snail Paradise Trilogy: A Series by Chang En-man

In 1933, a Japanese colonial official introduced the giant African snail (Achatina fulica), originally from East Africa, to Taiwan from Singapore to be raised for food. Since 2009, I have given presentations on this snail, including projects involving recipes, embroidery, maps, interviews, collaborations, and multimedia work. My inspiration comes from my Paiwan (an Indigenous group in Taiwan) mother, who would always gather snails after the rain, cook them, and give them to my siblings and me to eat. Snails were the starting point for my research into my maternal bloodline, which is part of the Taiwanese Indigenous bloodline. From there, I considered how the path of the snail’s dispersal is comparable to the route of imperial expansion in the Pacific, and looked at Taiwan’s history and its relationship to the world. This paper considers my evolving project centered around the giant African snail and offers my thoughts on how traditional Indigenous Taiwanese cooking and sewing practices may be reinterpreted as a strategy for resisting colonisation.

Alternative Approaches to Chinese Imagery: Audiovisual aesthetics in A Reflection in the Brook

The importance that Chinese composers attach to their nation’s cultural traditions in their electronic music compositions has become a dominant trend in Chinese electronic music. This has generally led to a ‘Chinese imagery’ in Chinese electronic music compositions. Among China-inspired electroacoustic music, the interactive multimedia work A Reflection in the Brook (小青, 2013) shows a unique expression. The author explores how the composer recreated a controversial female figure in Chinese history through a completely real-time audiovisual language: Feng Xiaoqing, thereby presenting Chinese imagery in electroacoustic music through an alternative approach. The audiovisual relationship in A Reflection in the Brook will be analysed through the lens of Michel Chion’s audiovisual theory and the perspective of musical composition techniques, further presenting the audiovisual aesthetics of multimedia electronic music.

FEATURES OF A MULTIMEDIA WORK

In connection with the comparative novelty of the concept of "multimedia work" and the lack of a unified approach to its interpretation among lawyers, the issue of determining the signs that could serve as the basis for distinguishing works of this kind from other objects of copyright is relevant.
 The article analyzes and systematizes the theoretical provisions on the research topic, identifies and considers the following features of a multimedia work: interactivity; the presence in the structure of the totality of several results of intellectual activity; complexity; digital form; virtuality; the presence in the structure of a computer program; providing information using a combination of many perceived by the person; the presence of several storylines; artistic design of the interface and navigation tools; embodiment on material carriers; the need to use special technical devices for working with multimedia works. Based on the results of the study, the essential legally significant features of a multimedia work are highlighted.

A scoping review of the use of photo-elicitation and photovoice with autistic and neurodiverse people. Moving towards more inclusive research?

Photo-elicitation and photovoice are tools for gathering people’s points of view and would seem especially appropriate for use with individuals whose participation in research could be compromised by the dis/ability issues encountered with a more traditional research approach. This article presents the findings of a scoping review of recent initiatives (2006 and 2020) conducted with autistic and neurodiverse people for the purpose of determining the extent to which these methods can facilitate their participation in research and support their social inclusion. We used the PRISMA method and 33 articles were selected. The relevance and feasibility of these methods has been verified. Certain aspects must be considered in the research design and throughout the process to maximize accessibility. In short, the use of photo-elicitation and photovoice are not in themselves a guarantee of emancipatory research. Points of interest Photoelicitation or photovoice are methods that use visual aids (photo, video, graphic or multimedia works) to allow participants to illustrate through images their perception of a theme or a problem, its causes and its solutions. The use of innovative methods such as photoelicitation is particularly important for the inclusion of autistic and neurodiverse people in research. We conducted a review of research published between 2006 and 2020 that used these methods with autistic and neurodiverse participants. While these methods are relevant and feasible, other aspects must be considered to maximize inclusion and accessibility. The use of photo-elicitation and photovoice is not a guarantee of emancipatory research.

No justice, no peace: an arts-based project with a college choir

ABSTRACT This study examined the changes in perception toward systemic racism of twenty-six first-year students at a mid-sized university in central New Jersey. All were members of the first-year choir and, with their conductor, participated in a three-week workshop called ‘No Justice, No Peace.’ The goal was to examine social justice issues and systemic racism in society and to produce multimedia works of art to express their changing attitudes. Reacting to prompts by the facilitator, they created original poetry, singing, movement, and visual art projects recorded and posted on YouTube for public viewing. Critical pedagogy, critical pedagogy for music education, and activist pedagogy provided the theoretical frameworks. Coding techniques from the grounded theory literature offered a structure for the data analysis. We invited four students from the choir to participate in open-ended interviews and to share their final projects. We found that the students had positive feelings about the project, which did provide a safe space for dialogue among the students. But little changed in their attitudes and understandings about systemic racism and/or their commitments to social justice by condemning acts of racism and injustice when they see evidence of it in society.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction

X-Ray Image Authentication Scheme Using SLT and Contourlet Transform for Modern Healthcare System

The network’s convenience has created a copyright dilemma for some multimedia works. Nowadays, every healthcare system relies on digital medical images for diagnosis. These medical images are transmitted through communication channels, so there is a risk of tampering and copyright violation. A digital watermarking system can ensure and guarantee that tampering and copyright violation are prevented. This study presents a nonblind digital watermarking approach to X-ray medical images based on Contourlet transform (C.T.) and Slantlet Transform (SLT). Since the two-dimensional signals are represented flexibly by contourlet transforms, the contour plot can be used efficiently to represent curves and smooth contours. At the same time, the SLT has better time-localization & smoothness properties. The maximum energy of an image is conceived in the LL band if SLT transform are employed. Therefore, the LL band is used to entrench the watermark. The additive quantization method has been used to entrench the watermark. The efficiency of our scheme is assessed by different quality parameters and compared with several existing schemes. The results of the experiment show that the proposed scheme performs better and has the ability to resist several attacks.

Documenting disappearance: self-forgery and dissimulation as a means of mobility

ABSTRACT How have migrants and other displaced and internally excluded persons used dissimulation and self-forgery in service of mobility? How can we read an aesthetics of disappearance as more than just an aesthetical choice but as a source of activism? Following Jacques Rancière [The politics of aesthetics (G. Rockhill. Trans.). Continuum. (Original Work Published in, 2000)], I understand that such aesthetic acts are capable of creating ‘new modes of sense perception’ and, in doing so, produce alternative forms of political subjectivity. In this essay, I compare migrant self-representations and creative tactics of camouflage, mimicry, and dissembling with public practices, while looking at the extraterritorial space of the makeshift camp as a paradigm for preserving invisibility and anonymity. And yet, it is not just that aesthetic acts have the potential to produce novel forms of political subjectivity, as Rancière understood, but that, in order for the latter to be true, the equation needs to be reversed: political subjects must first be recognized as aesthetic subjects. As I place the multimedia work of Cold War East German artist Cornelia Schleime in conversation with the contemporary glitch art – drawings, paintings, video – of Kon Trubkovich, who was born in Moscow and left, at age eleven, following the Chernobyl disaster, I argue that to reorient the terms of visibility, it becomes necessary for subject-producers to stage the gaze that would otherwise objectify them.

Das Epos der Maschine. Tendenzen der Literatur im digitalen Zeitalter

‘Das Epos der Maschine’ is a multimedia work by Urs Schreiber that was published in 1998. In the work, the relationship between literature and technology is addressed in two ways. On the one hand, digital technology is tested as a new medium in the production of literature. On the other hand, the work is an epic about the reach of man who tries to uncover the mysteries of his existence with the help of technology. In this article, ‘Das Epos der Maschine’ is analyzed in terms of authorship, the nature of the text and the function of the recipient. The aim is to use this hypertext to examine which tendencies the above‑mentioned trio of aspects display when addressing new technology.