Neon Signs Research Articles

Camouflaging Electromagnetic Networks as Techno-Habitats for Humans, Plants, Animals, and Machines

Abstract “Digitalization is coming” is the mantra of our society. In recent decades, the environment has been transformed into a high-frequency electromagnetic field by the increasing number of antennas. At present, the roll-out of the new generation of 5G wireless networks means that urban spaces will be littered with thousands of new antennas, invisibly hidden in all sorts of housings such as street lamps, advertising pillars, and neon signs. This development is not stopping at the countryside either. This essay uses media theory and examples from art and technology to speculate on how the changes in urban space and atmosphere can be understood, but also why 5G is a perfect case for techno-criticism and conspiracy theories alike. The waves of wireless networks are spreading to reach even the smallest niches, driven by mobile telephony and wireless Internet. In the future, the environment in which we are immersed and which pervades us will always be an electric field flowing through us. Like any other radio network, 5G is invisible and abstract, and no one can see the artificially generated high-frequency radiation. At the same time, almost all of us have a sensor in our pocket with our mobile phone, telling us where the network is and how strong the radiation is.

Development of a Tesla Coil Utilizing Neon Sign Transformer and Using Antenna Measurement

Development of a Tesla Coil Utilizing Neon Sign Transformer and Using Antenna Measurement

ChatGPT Isn't Magic

ChatGPT Isn't Magic

The design of a high-voltage pulsed electric field (hpef) device for non-liquid materials based on microcontroller

High-voltage pulsed electric field (HPEF) is one of the technologies applied in the food industry with the principle of non-heat treatment with a short pre-treatment time and no pollution is produced. The main benefit of this tool is to kill microbes in the food industry. In addition to non-thermal sterilization, HPEF can also be used for electroporation. Cell electroporation is the application of an electric voltage to the cell. The cells are damaged (broken/porous) without destroying the bioactive components present in the cells. Previous studies have shown that materials treated with HPEF increase the yield when distilled. It can occur due to the electroporation process, namely the breakdown of the oil cell network, so that the distillation process is efficient (can reduce distillation time and increase the quantity of oil). The care box is designed with dimensions of 60cm x 40cm x 30cm which is made of acrylic material. The electrodes used a 60cm x 40cm plate mounted on a linear drive to adjust the treatment distance. HPEF uses a 15kV neon sign transformer. The transformer input frequency setting is set with a dimmer. A microcontroller is installed to adjust the shock period on the electrodes. Based on trials, the device can be used for various solid materials with different volumes.

Euclid with Flashlight on the Bridge of Asses

When his hoe came down on the copperhead’s neck, its blade nicked a rock or chunk of cracked walk kindling stars, among them a glint from vertical slit of pit-viper pupil as soul shorted out with parting last shot still fanged in the conscience: I deserved better, having let your legs and uncovered ankles pass unmolested. Even a pagan would have been fairer. Or was it a firefly who witnessing all steps up to testify I’m nothing to you, you pastoral ass, but summer in sequins, one flashing bulb of neon sign need on the evening marquis.

Neon signs in urban space, yesterday and today. A case study based on Lublin

During the communist era, neon signs were something Poland could boast of. At that time, the streets were drowning in luminous advertising, which was impossible not to notice. Recent years have brought disastrous quality of urban advertising and the prevailing arbitrariness has contributed to the degeneration of urban spaces. Colourful neon signs once prevailed in Polish streets, serving as a model example of advertising whose impact was crucial in the perception of urban space. Today, neon signs are considered works of art, and the most valuable achievement of Polish 20th century design, which we can mainly admire today in museums. In the last decade, we have been reminded of their existence and efforts have been made to save them and return them to urban spaces. The purpose of the article is to draw attention to the extraordinary value of neon signs as an important building block of urban space and to highlight their artistic and social functions. The undertaken research includes material on neon signs from the communist era as well as those newly designed, based on the city of Lublin.

More Human Than Human: The Exile in Blade Runner

More Human Than Human: The Exile in <i>Blade Runner</i>

Reverie

Reverie

Motel Builders of the Modern West

Motel Builders of the Modern West

Black Joy/White Fragility by Joy Mariama Smith

Reviewed by: Black Joy/White Fragility by Joy Mariama Smith Megan Hoetger BLACK JOY/WHITE FRAGILITY. By Joy Mariama Smith. Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. October 21, 2021. Occupying a small but central gallery on the main exhibition floor of Rotterdam’s Kunstinstituut Melly, Joy Mariama Smith’s provocatively titled Black Joy/White Fragility brought a queer urban nightlife edge to the institution’s fall 2021 program. As a movement artist, educator, and activist, Smith has spent the last decades cultivating a practice rooted in radical Black traditions of refusal and care, which sits at the intersections of art, pedagogy, performance, design, and club culture. In Black Joy/White Fragility, these elements come together as a performance installation that unsettles the general stasis of the arts institution. In the installation, the props and lighting of a club environment merged with the pedestals and spatial arrangements of an art gallery: crystals and natural oils took their places atop stands as a mixing board, speakers, and subwoofer stood below the gallery’s monumental arched window. In the back corner, a simple neon sign shone in fuchsia pink with the words: “Black Joy.” The soft curves of the cursive lettering and the glittering refraction of the disco ball suspended in the center of the room stood in contrast to the hard shadows of the window’s wrought iron details, counteracting the sharp points of the metalwork with an ephemeral sparkle and a nominal reminder of Black joy. Together with a few strategically placed color LED stage lights, these light-and-shadow plays created a flickering cinematic effect that pulsed with the creeping (sub-)bass of Smith’s techno music playlist (featuring Seven Angels, KILLA, Sophie Ruston, and DJ NEON QUEEN). Literally shaking the bean bags in painter Iris Kensmil’s adjacent gallery of portraiture with deep sonic pulsations, Smith’s installation was something that could be felt before it was legible as something “to be heard.” Starting from a place of resonances, then, Black Joy/White Fragility worked through vibrations, which cut across visual, architectural, and other boundaries. The artist described this in conversation with me as “trying to heal, trying to vibrate the building.” The link between healing and vibrating says much about the dramaturgy of the performance that activated Smith’s installation. On four days throughout the month-long run of their project, the installation was closed to museumgoers and reserved for a community of QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) performers, including Sharlan Adams, Esther Arribas, Ieva Barsauskaite, Carly Rose Bedford, Mohamed Boujarra, Devika Chotoe, Dandelion Eghosa, Antonella Fittipaldi, G, Ahmed El Gendy, Ciro Goudsmit, Annick Kleizen, Isabel Kwarteng, Parisa Madani, Mini Maxwell, Anthony Nestel, Emanuel Oladokun, Auro Orso, Ada M. Patterson, Roberto Perez Gayo, Estrellx Supernova, June Yuen Ting, and Michael Ludwig Tsouloukidse. The performers could dance, rest, or converse with one another as they pleased. In this occupation otherwise, the installation took on a double presence: it was an architecturally scaled social sculpture and a site of convening. Working in and against the spatial cues of white (cube) space, it moved beyond contained abstract notions of language and action, and into the infrastructures of the building where it inverted patterns of racial segregation, confusing both the directionality of the gaze (who was seeing whom?) and exclusionary door policies (visitors and allied white performers could only encounter “the club” from outside the doors of the gallery). And within this expanded social sculpture, a site of convening was carved out, holding space open for the community of performers to gather and share time. What “gathering” meant remained an open invitation: performers could dance together in the installation or dance autonomously with wireless headphones. They could also leave the gallery and move through the art center’s circulation spaces (entryway, bookshop, [End Page 368] halls, stairways, and elevator) with their wireless headphones. Donning oversized and often hand-altered neon T-shirts designed by Smith with inscriptions like “Hard Femme,” “Stop Acting White,” or “Queer Energetic Household,” they were immediately recognizable as a community of performers, but without an expected precondition of always acting together. Click for larger view View full resolution Performance documentation of Joy Mariama Smith, Black Joy...

Doran Hrothgar Ross Scholar, Trickster, Connoisseur

Doran Hrothgar Ross Scholar, Trickster, Connoisseur

The Strange Case of Galte or Beyond the Realm of What is Physical

The Strange Case of Galte or Beyond the Realm of What is Physical

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia

Vernacular Design: A History of Hong Kong Neon Signs

Abstract Neon signs dominated Hong Kong’s urban landscape from the 1950s to the early 2000s. This visual vernacular, however, has begun to vanish from Hong Kong’s streets over the past decade due to stricter regulations and the emergence of cheaper alternatives. As a result, scholars, the media and the general public have become more engaged in recording and preserving neon signs, and have begun to recognize them as an aspect of Hong Kong’s vernacular design. This engagement serves as an entry point for investigating the application of western views of vernacular design to Hong Kong, using neon signs as a case study. A collection of 218 original neon sign designs was donated by the Nam Wah Neonlight &amp; Electrical Factory to the Information Design Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Using these original designs and photos of neon signs taken in different districts in Hong Kong, this article provides historical and socio-cultural perspectives with which to examine vernacular design, to identify other attributes that should be taken into account, such as aesthetics, bottom-up participation, architecture and the urban environment. The article aims to contribute to the study of vernacular design and the design history of neon signs.

Mutational signatures in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

BackgroundTumor mutational burden (TMB) has been identified as one of the predictors for the response to anti-programmed cell death-1 (anti-PD-1) antibody therapy and reported to correlate with smoking history in lung adenocarcinoma. However, in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, the association between TMB and clinicopathological background factors, such as smoking history, has not been reported, including in our previous study. The mutational signature is a tool to identify the mutagens that are contributing to the mutational spectrum of a tumor by investigating the pattern of DNA changes. Here, we analyzed the mutational signature in lung squamous cell carcinoma to identify mutagens affecting the TMB.MethodsSeven representative mutational signatures including signature 7 (SI7) [ultraviolet (UV)-related], SI4 (smoking), SI6/15 [mismatch repair (MMR)], SI2/13 [apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide-like (APOBEC)], and SI5 (clock-like) were analyzed in Japanese patients with lung squamous cell carcinoma (n=67) using data generated by next-generation sequencing consisting of a 415-gene panel. The relationships between signatures and clinico-pathological data including TMB and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression were analyzed.ResultsAlthough the reconstructed mutational counts were small with targeted sequencing (median: 30.1, range: 13.3–98.7), the distributions of signatures were comparable among samples, with 56 cases containing more than four signatures. The smoking-related SI4 was found in 45 cases and was significantly related with pack-year index (PYI) (P=0.026). The reconstructed mutation counts were highly correlated with SI4 (r=0.51, P<0.0001), whereas the correlation was weak with SI6/15 (MMR-related) and SI2/13 (APOBEC-related). There was no mutational signature related with PD-L1 expression. Some patients exhibited unique signatures; the patient with the highest mutational counts had a MMR signature, and another patient with a prominent UV signature had occupational exposure to UV, as he was employed as a neon sign engineer.ConclusionsMutational signatures can predict the cause of lung squamous cell carcinoma. Tobacco smoking is the mutagen most related with TMB.

Wastewater treatment based on remazol blue using DBD plasma reactor under acidic and basic conditions

Synthetic dyes are one of the most dangerous components of textile wastewater. Waste that contains various organic compounds, especially synthetic dyes, causes a high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) values. Remazol blue is a reactive dye that is widely used for the textile dyeing process. Therefore, water pollution occurs when the dye waste produced from textile activities is discharged into water bodies without prior treatment. In this study, innovation in waste treatment technology was applied in the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma reactor. DBD are non-thermal plasma reactors designed to degrade organic and inorganic compounds in wastewater through oxidation process. This is carried out by active species, such as ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and hydroxyl radical (•OH), which are formed in the reactor. The study aims to evaluate the performance of non-thermal DBD plasma reactor in treating wastewater containing one of the textile dyes, namely remazol blue. The results showed that the percentage of degradation achieved was 98.43% within a process time of 120 minutes with a final concentration of 0.75mg/L. Furthermore, it showed that optimum conditions were obtained at pH value of 4, air flow rate of 2.5L/min, liquid flow rate of 50mL/min and a primary Neon sign transformer (NST) voltage of 19kV.

Precarity and Enterprising Selves: The Resemiotization of Neon Language Objects

Following my observation of an increased prevalence of neon or neon-esque signs within high-end spaces of consumption, this paper seeks to theorise how such signs can function as vehicles for the circulation of neoliberal ideas, a key concept structuring the capitalist economies, whilst having effects for individuals who are sold a brand of cool capitalist consumption. I demonstrates how neoliberalism is semiotically realised both online and offline through examples of “language objects” consisting of neon signs found in cafes located in Hong Kong and Singapore, and their Instagram resemiotizations, focusingon dimensions of precarity and the entrepreneurial self. In doing so, I suggest that these signs are not merely aphorismic decor but a means to reproduce neoliberal ideology in both their medium and message when they stylise concepts of individual agency, success and the turning of everyday activities into “projects”. Instead of the transformation and success promised by these stances, these signs further obscure the social embeddedness of neoliberalism and resulting inequality.

Hybridity and singularity: a study of Hong Kong’s neon signs from the perspective of multimodal translation

ABSTRACT Hung over the streets and in large quantity, Hong Kong’s neon signs make a highly identifiable urban spectacle. The colonial history and geographical advantages have transformed Hong Kong into a culturally hybridised city manifested by the interaction between the bilingual texts and semiotic images on the neon signboards. This article gives the neon signs a multimodal description, and lays bare the social, aesthetic and intercultural attitudes embodied by the specific cityscape. It provides a translational approach to the neon signs by exploring the way in which they integrate different cultural sources and assume a strong local vibe that breeds new meanings and promotes a special urban landscape. In view of visual, aesthetic and sociocultural factors, it argues that Hong Kong’s neon signs present a kind of multimodal translation, and the meanings of the signboards are articulated through specific interlingual and visual mediation, which gives rise to the specificities of Hong Kong’s street scenes.

The Imageable City – Visual Language of Hong Kong Neon Lights Deconstructed

Hong Kong as an international city has long held the title of ‘Pearl of the Orient’, known for its gleaming night view. The Hong Kong Tourist Association often featured local neon signs as promotional visuals, a way of attracting foreign visitors in response to exotic voyeurism and imagination. However, numerous neon signs had been taken down since the Buildings Department issued statutory removal orders in 2010, leading to the gradual disappearance of a unique facet of vernacular visual culture. The emergence and decline of neon signs tell rich stories of everyday life, spatial culture, community memories, and socio-economic change. This article attempts to categorize and analyse 400+ local neon signs of varying types documented since 2015, exploring the following questions: What are the social functions of neon signs, and how do they connect with visual communication and the city? How do neon signs construct the image of the city?

Neon visions: from techno-optimism to urban vice

In the first quarter of the 20th century, luminous neon signs paved the way for the multiscreen aesthetics now punctuating major intersections in metropolises around the world. And yet, these epicenters of spectacle currently bear little or no neon themselves. This article draws from visual studies and histories of electricity to chart a unique material history of neon from novelty to norm, to obsolescence. The article begins with neon’s introduction in France in 1910, followed by its travels across the Atlantic in 1923, when novel neon quickly became definitive of a new urban aesthetic. The best illustration of this is 1940s Las Vegas, where neon flourished as a symbol of glamour and modern progress until, less than a decade later, it lost ground to cheaper and more efficient backlit plastic, fluorescent, and eventually, LED lighting systems. By the 1960s, neon was abandoned to inner cities, noire film, and New Wave journalism, and yet, we still refer to the mega-screen spectacles in numerous cities around the world as bearing this same ‘neon aesthetic’. This article charts this visual journey, demonstrating how neon holds a special significance to urban visual cultures that extends beyond survey histories of electricity and basic light and color theories heralded in traditional visual communications courses.