The article examines the pressing issue of developing spiritual culture and professional identity among future specialists in pedagogical and artistic fields within the context of contemporary sociocultural transformations. It is emphasized that ongoing societal changes highlight the need to shape a well-rounded individual capable of responsible professional self-determination. The study substantiates that arts education possesses significant potential for influencing the spiritual and moral development of the personality, as art itself shapes worldview orientations, aesthetic taste, and the ability for empathy. The article demonstrates that spiritual culture functions as an integrative factor in the professional formation of the future artist, combining various dimensions of his or her professional activity. The transformation of national and cultural identities among young people is analyzed, along with key sociocultural challenges of the present — globalization, informatization, the growing role of visual culture, and the shifting value orientations of youth — all of which directly impact the process of professional identity formation among students of pedagogical and artistic specializations. Particular attention is given to the necessity of cultivating the inner culture of the future teacher–art critic as a prerequisite for successful self-realization within educational and cultural environments. The article stresses that the professional identity of the artist is shaped through the assimilation of national cultural traditions, the comprehension of the aesthetic and spiritual values of one’s people, and the integration of humanistic ideas into the educational process. It is noted that the effective combination of artistic, pedagogical, and educational methodologies contributes to the formation of a harmonious, spiritually mature, and morally responsible individual capable of creative self-realization and active participation in the cultural life of society. The conclusion highlights that spiritual culture constitutes the fundamental basis of the professional identity of the future teacher and artist, enhances resilience to social challenges, fosters the capacity for cultural dialogue, and ensures a humanistic orientation of professional development within the sociocultural dynamics of the 21st century.

Book review of: Elodie A. Roy, Shellac in Visual and Sonic Culture: Unsettled Matter (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), 240 pp., ISBN 9789463729543.

This special issue of TMG – Journal for Media History aims to historicize the entanglement of media and migration. Encompassing a wide range of experiences of human mobility, including labour migration, postcolonial migration, refugee conditions, exile, and diaspora, regimes of representation, in/visibility, and audibility, media have been central in the framing of migration as problem, threat, crisis or emergency. Yet (digital) media have also been essential in terms of cultural imagination, and the shared and connected imaginations of diaspora communities. Moving beyond the persistent ahistorical rhetoric of ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’, the selection of theme articles presented here acknowledge and foreground the temporal and historical dimensions of migration as a deeply mediatized phenomenon, an experience, and a process.

This study investigates the cinematic adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s literary corpus through an interdisciplinary and aesthetic-theoretical lens, aiming to reveal how Poe’s narratives are rewritten, transformed, and re-materialized within the dynamics of modern visual culture. Structured around the conceptual framework of a “cinematic cycle,” the analysis focuses on the aesthetic reconfiguration of central themes such as madness, guilt, and the grotesque across a spectrum of cinematic genres and temporalities. Ranging from Roger Corman’s expressive Gothic poetics of the 1960s to Brad Anderson’s critical engagement with institutional madness; from Raul Garcia’s stylized and fragmentary animation aesthetics to Robert Eggers’ historically inflected minimalism, the selected corpus exposes the narrative fractures, crises of representation, and dissolutions of subjectivity encountered in the visual translation of Poe’s textual universe. The study is grounded in Linda Hutcheon’s adaptation theory, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, Michel Foucault’s epistemology of madness and power, Judith Butler’s performativity, and Catherine Spooner’s theorization of contemporary Gothic aesthetics. The central argument is that Poe adaptations function not merely as cinematic transfers of literary texts but as complex processes through which Poe’s thematic ontology is multiplied, displaced, and reconstituted. Poe’s cinematic representations are approached as aesthetic palimpsests, producing a multilayered Gothic continuity that oscillates between narrative erasure and aesthetic resonance within visual memory. In this context, adaptation is theorized not only as an intertextual act but also as an ontological intervention that reprocesses visual codes and symbolic structures. The reanimation of Poe’s aesthetic through cinema is thus positioned as a constitutive component of modern Gothic memory.

The Jerunei, a wooden carved funeral pole used by the Melanau’s, is a key mediator of the deceased person's transition from the physical to the spiritual world. While past studies have discussed Jerunei as a significant artifact of Melanau funeral ritual, its deeper symbolic meaning, specifically its articulation of Melanau cosmology and social stratification, has not been thoroughly explored. This research seeks to fill the gap by exploring the Jerunei as material object and spiritual mediator, with specific focus on its symbolic functions and aesthetic qualities. Through ethnographic source analysis, visual culture analysis, and heritage studies theory, the paper explores how the Jerunei testifies to Melanau worldview in relation to death, the afterlife, and social ranking. Moreover, the paper considers the Jerunei's function in postcolonial identity and heritage preservation in the face of globalizing forces that would seek to erase indigenous cultural practice. This research also considers how gender roles intersect in Jerunei construction and use, shaping Melanau ritual knowledge from a postmodern perspective. The paper therefore contends that the Jerunei is not just a funeral object but an exquisitely crafted articulation of Melanau cosmology, social identity, and constant negotiation of indigenous cultural heritage.

European accounts of elephant-hunting in nineteenth-century Africa have been primarily used by historians to explore the construction of the idealized male imperial hero and his increasingly monstrous elephant-foe. This paper asks what happens, however, if we see the elephants in such sources not only as symbolic representations but as living creatures with the capacity to communicate across species. Undoubtedly, the elephants who appeared in nineteenth-century hunting literature were distorted by cultural imaginaries, but this paper argues that they were nevertheless the product of interspecies encounters in which elephants could be experienced as extremely powerful antagonists. Hunters are, by necessity, the keenest observers of animal behaviour and the most likely to experience close bodily encounters with their prey. The elephants knew (or were learning) how to loom larger than life or how to disappear into thin air: their own behaviours and strategies produced the fantastic beasts in these texts as much as the authors’ imaginations. By reading their accounts in dialogue with indigenous oral sources and more recent research on elephant behaviour and with attentiveness to the emotional, embodied, and even empathic aspects of hunting experiences, we can attempt to discern the intentions, messages, and impacts of elephants. This paper suggests that at least some of these behaviours likely arise from a specific historical context of unprecedentedly intense elephant-hunting in nineteenth-century Southern Sudan. It argues therefore that the aggressive, vindictive monsters of European narratives were produced not just by the authors’ imaginations but also by the effects of their hunting.

Contemporary visual culture is undergoing a profound transformation driven by artificial intelligence. This bibliometric study examines the scientific development of the field between 2014 and 2024, based on 93 articles indexed in Scopus. MASHA, VOSviewer, and Biblioshiny were employed to analyse co-authorship networks, thematic trends, publication sources, and geopolitical dynamics. The results reveal exponential growth since 2021, with a particular emphasis on computer vision, generative aesthetics, and cultural criticism. European contributions addressing perceptual biases and algorithmic authorship are especially prominent. The findings also indicate a concentration of knowledge in the Global North and limited representation from the Global South. The study provides a critical mapping of the field and proposes a transdisciplinary research agenda for scholars in the arts, digital humanities, communication, and data science. It further recommends future research adopting mixed-method approaches to examine the ethical, cultural, and symbolic implications of visual AI.

The Ghanaian Visual Arts Education is a rich tapestry woven with threads of tradition and modernity, encompassing both the creative expressions of fine arts and the functional aesthetics of commercial arts. While existing scholarship has examined contemporary Ghanaian artists in academia, less attention has been paid to the specific contributions of the commercial artists who operate at the intersection of art, design, and commerce. This study sought to fill this gap by providing an in-depth biographic study of selected commercial artists and their professional lives, media, techniques, sources of inspiration, and impact on Ghana’s creative economy. Employing a qualitative descriptive research design, the study was conducted in Winneba, Takoradi and Kumasi of Ghana with instruments such as semi-structured interviews, direct observation, artifacts and photography to gather the required data for the study. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the gathered data through a purposive sampling technique of the three participants. The findings discovered that these commercial artists navigate a balance between artistic expression and market demands by contributing to Ghana’s visual culture and shaping its identity in a globalized world. The paper calls for further research by scholars and practitioners of Art Education into the diverse art forms of commercial artists and urges formal recognition of their role in Ghana’s cultural and economic development. The study contributes to scholarship by highlighting the symbolic and philosophical dimensions of design practices and positions visual arts education in Ghana as a critical space where design, lived experience, and communal values intersect.

It is a pleasure to present this special issue of ShodhKosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts titled “Emotion-Aware AI and Digital Transformation of Visual Culture.” This issue highlights the growing role of emotion as a core analytical dimension in AI-driven visual arts. As affective computing and intelligent systems increasingly shape artistic creation and media practices, visual culture is undergoing significant transformation. The selected contributions explore creative, pedagogical, and ethical implications of emotion-aware technologies, bringing together perspectives from visual arts, digital humanities, and artificial intelligence. This special issue offers a scholarly platform for artists, educators, researchers, and students engaged with ethics and innovation in contemporary visual culture. Issue Editor: Dr. Mithun Baswaraj PatilAssociate Professor, Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Nagesh Karajagi Orchid College of Engineering & Technology (NKOCET), Solapur, Maharashtra, IndiaEmail: drmithunbpatil@gmail.com Dr. Mangala MadankarAssistant Professor and Head, Department of Artificial Intelligence, G H Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, IndiaEmail: msmadankar@gmail.com Dr. Tahira Anwar LashariAssociate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, SEECS National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, PakistanEmail: tahiraa.lashari@gmail.com Dr. Hamzah Bin AhmadAssociate Professor, Faculty of Electrical & Electronics Engineering Technology, University Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah, Pekan Campus, 26600 Pekan, Pahang, MalaysiaEmail: hamzah@umpsa.edu.my Dr. Maheshwar KumarAssistant Professor, Birla School of Management, Birla Global University, Bhubaneswar, IndiaEmail: maheshwar.kumar@bgu.ac.in

The adjective “placial” signals our connection as well as our preoccupation with places. Like “spatial,” which refers to the characteristics of space, “placial” encompasses place-bound qualities and place-based experiences. It underscores how we make places and how places, in turn, make us; it marks our individual relationality and collective positionality in place-worlds. However, due to the lack of sources that define placial properties, this notion has rarely been discussed in relation to visual culture and photography. By surveying primarily geographical debates about the concept of place, the article puts forward six specific placial features in this paper, namely materiality, sociality, affectivity, temporality, eventementality and perpetuity. In doing so, the article pursues three aims: first, to clarify the adjective “placial” through a geographical exploration of the concept of place; second, to outline the potentials of the six placial qualities for photography; and, third, to foreground the questions and challenges the term poses for visual culture at large.

The printing and photography sectors are changing very fast due to digitalization, automation and using data to make decisions. The analysis of market trends which can be predicted as a key to the analysis of the demand fluctuations, the technological use, and the changing preferences of consumers in such visual-oriented sectors. This paper will examine the predictive market trends in printing and photography by using a combination of economic indicators, technological drivers and behavioral data into a single analysis tool. To capture both the macroeconomic and the micro-level market dynamics, the study uses heterogeneous sources of data, which are industry reports, sales records, online platforms, and social media trend signals. Premature preprocessing and feature engineering are used to derive temporal, economic and behavioral cues to express pricing frameworks, production expenses, personalization demand, sustainability inclinations, and transformations in visual culture. Several different predictive modeling approaches will be considered, including classical time-series like ARIMA, SARIMA, Prophet, or machine learning models like regression, random forest, and gradient boosting or deep learning models like LSTM, GRU, or transformer-based predictors. Comparative analysis reveals that hybrid, as well as deep learning models, are strong in terms of capturing non-linear trends and long term dependencies of creative markets.

This article examines transnational “re-stagings” of Japan and Korea’s intertwined colonial past through adaptation, focusing on the Korean film Pak Yol (2017) as a counterpoint to the global Pachinko phenomenon. Situating both works within the recent boom of postcolonial screen adaptations in South Korea, it argues that Pak Yol functions as a cross-border adaptation that imaginatively reconstructs the 1920s imperial capital Tokyo as a multilingual site of resistance, filling a representational void long avoided by Japanese visual culture. The film’s portrayal of the anarchists Park Yeol and Kaneko Fumiko centers on linguistic performance—especially the subversive use of Japanese, the imperial language—as a means of cross-ethnic solidarity and critique. Through close reading of the film’s “Inukoro” sequence and its adaptation of lost texts, the essay considers how Pak Yol recovers lost or censored forms of Japanophone cultural production, while contrasting this with Pachinko’s universalizing, Americanized treatment of the colonial experience. Ultimately, the article contends that Pak Yol exemplifies an adaptive practice that visualizes translingual resistance and fills the silence left by Japan’s own culture industries, which remain unable—or unwilling—to adapt their imperial past.

ABSTRACT Amid the growing influence of visual culture on public perception, cinematic art increasingly shapes how architectural heritage is recognized, emotionally internalized, and socially mobilized. Using The Shadowless Tower (2023) and the White Pagoda of Miaoying Temple in Beijing as a non-touristic focal case, this study proposes and operationalizes a three-stage media impact model – mediated representation, cognitive & affective transformation, and affective mobilization – to explain how film repositions built heritage from scenographic background to a shared cultural anchor. Drawing on a multilingual corpus of 45 long-form reviews (20 Chinese, 20 English, 5 Japanese) and manual coding with keyword matrices, the analysis shows (i) how spatial framing and symbolic imagery enable visibility, (ii) how memory, identity, and affect drive audience – heritage linkages, and (iii) how these linkages trigger discourse and nascent conservation intent. Cross-cultural contrasts clarify where perception and interpretation diverge across linguistic communities. The findings contribute to heritage studies by specifying affective pathways through which film fosters cultural resonance and public awareness, advancing the sustainable safeguarding of historic environments in line with SDG 11.4 and informing assessments related to Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). The model offers actionable implications for heritage communication, policy outreach, and education.

This study systematically reviews academic literature on war-themed picture books to construct a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary analytical framework. Focusing on how this medium represents historical trauma, constructs collective memory, and conveys ideals of peace education, the research is grounded in theo-retical perspectives from semiotics, narratology, and memory studies. Through a critical synthesis of domestic and international scholarship, it traces an evolution in research themes—from early content description and historical verification toward multidimensional analyses of narrative strategies, visual rhetoric, reader reception, and socio-cultural implications. The findings reveal that war picture books, as distinctive cultural texts, engage in complex meaning-making processes. These involve intertextual dynamics between image and text, dialogues between individual experience and grand historical narratives, and interpretive divergences shaped by varying national and regional historical contexts. While clarifying key academic trajectories and core debates, this review also identifies limitations in theoretical depth, cross-cultural breadth, and methodological innovation. Future research should integrate insights from visual culture studies, psychology, and education, while expanding focus to include non-mainstream narratives and digi-tal forms. Such directions will offer finer-grained insights into the role of war picture books in shaping historical consciousness, facilitating intergenerational dia-logue, and advancing cultures of peace.

ABSTRACT This article will discuss the trade cards (and, to a lesser extent, the poster stamps) that featured visual narratives of Robinson Crusoe and accompanied or were issued with products ranging from meat extract to chocolate. It is a literary-historical examination which focuses on advertising media to glean the impact and interpretability of the novel among young collectors at the beginning of the twentieth century. As such, it will probe the extensive life beyond the text edition of the original work in which readers would have encountered Defoe’s protagonist. The article will examine the subject coverage of some of the early series (which largely consisted of six cards, but also, on occasion, after World War II, extended to far more extensive sets comprising more than 80 cards). Finally, it will consider how the series as a narrative made up of interconnected images and text cues conveyed a particular (reductive) version of Robinson Crusoe that was rooted in German abridgments and redactions of the English work.

A surprising majority of the existing images of Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, were created during a short period from 1789- 1791, and are essentially the result of his visit to London for a fencing exhibition match organized for the Prince of Wales by the Duc d’Orleans and his political operatives. The scarcity of French- origin images of Le Chevalier, so celebrated during his lifetime in France as a musician, composer, musical director, and fencing master, is perplexing. Why is this the case? Perhaps it can be explained in part by the French visual culture at the time, characterized by censorship and intolerance in the visual arts, in stark contrast to a popular print culture in England that tolerated political and social commentary and even satire, creating a market for prolific production and enthusiastic consumption by the British public.

Our enduring cultural narratives about technology—carried across generations and embedded in collective memory—shape how societies interpret and respond to emerging innovations such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and neurotechnology. These stories may help shape regulatory discourse by embedding philosophical assumptions and ethical norms into governance frameworks. Frankenstein and Astro Boy serve here as illustrative archetypes that capture contrasting traditions of technological imagination: one foregrounding risk, hubris, and individual autonomy; the other emphasizing harmony, relationality, and technological partnership. Media representations continue to reinforce these orientations, framing debates over the integration of technology into human life. While Western narratives often highlight threats to personal freedom, many East Asian portrayals explore technology’s role in sustaining social balance. Yet within all regions, there remains significant internal diversity. This paper develops a research agenda for understanding the relationship between cultural narratives, media portrayals, and neurotechnology governance. Drawing on examples from literature, film, and policy debates, it identifies patterns of correlation—not causation—between cultural imaginaries and regulatory approaches. Our approach builds on prior experiments in anticipatory governance, such as Responsible Research and Innovation and its application in the Human Brain Project. These initiatives showed both the value and the challenge of embedding ethical reflection into scientific practice. By extending this conversation to include cultural narratives, we highlight how global governance of neurotechnology can be broadened beyond a European focus to integrate diverse philosophical traditions and imaginaries. We conclude by outlining mechanisms for more inclusive governance—layered regulation, cross-cultural deliberation, international impact assessment, and a novel Narrative-Informed Governance Toolkit with five operationalizable components—offering conceptual scaffolding to guide future empirical research and practical design. Building on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) frameworks while addressing their documented limitations, our approach extends anticipatory governance by treating cultural narratives as resources for governance design.

Aesthetic dimensions of teacher education are frequently marginalized in favor of curriculum delivery and assessment, despite substantial evidence that learning environments significantly influence emotion, cognition, and professional identity. While existing research has examined learning environments and affective processes largely as separate domains, few conceptual frameworks theorize their systematic integration within teacher education. Addressing this gap, this conceptual paper advances the notion of aesthetic pedagogy as emotional architecture, proposing it as a unifying construct that explains how designed learning environments function as affective, cognitive, and identity-shaping structures in Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) classrooms. Drawing on environmental psychology (Evans, 2006; Barrett et al., 2015), aesthetic education (Eisner, 2002; Greene, 1995), sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978), affective neuroscience (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007), and teacher identity research (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009), the paper develops a five-dimensional conceptual framework comprising spatial aesthetics, visual culture, multimodal creative practice, emotional climate, and professional identity formation. The framework theorizes emotional climate as a mediating mechanism linking aesthetic design and pedagogical practice to the formation of professional dispositions. By conceptualizing aesthetic pedagogy as a foundational emotional infrastructure rather than a decorative enhancement, the paper contributes a theoretically generative model for understanding how teacher education environments sustain emotion, meaning-making, and identity development. Implications are discussed for curriculum design, institutional policy, and future empirical research in teacher education.

The grassroots leadership by women has become a revolution in rural India especially in the Panchayati Raj system that has seen women participating actively in it. This paper examines visual representation as an effective tool of recording, analyzing, and magnifying the lived experiences of elected women politicians. It does not rely on traditional policy and governance analyses but draws a visual-cultural approach to discuss portraits, photographs, and community-based visual stories as a means of telling a story, gaining strength, and political representation. The concepts analyzed include the ways in which visual stories can trap intersections between gender, caste, class, and local power dynamics, displaying the limited and determining women in the process of leadership. These delineations demonstrate some of the normal governing, negotiating, and survival practices, which refer to the women Panchayat leaders, not as symbolic recipients of constitutional reservations, but as time-takers of decision-making in the rural developing and social justice, and community welfare. The methodology of the work incorporates the visual analysis together with qualitative analysis based on the field documentation, interviews and participating observation to allow the development of the sensitive meaning-making and definition of representation. The results show that visual narratives are very effective in redefining how people view them and disrupting the stereotype of a passive political figure in rural women, and give confidence to young leaders. This visual documentation is a simultaneously archival, pedagogical, and political intervention, which adds to the feminist discourse, deepening democracy, and inclusive governance. The foregrounding of voices of women using images empowers the study by highlighting the possibilities of the visual culture as a tool of empowerment and social change at grassroots in rural India.

This preliminary research integrates visual culture analysis with the preservation of ancient wall sculptures by transforming scenes from the Ramayana depicted in the carvings of Prambanan Temple into digital artwork. The primary objective is to develop innovative storytelling methods using digital art to preserve and reimagine the visual heritage of these ancient carvings. By creating digital representations of specific scenes, this study aims to introduce new storytelling methods that engage contemporary audiences. The research specifically examines Hanuman's pivotal role during the episodes when Ravana abducted Sita, highlighting the moral and ethical implications of these scenes and their potential impact on contemporary society. Through imagery and contextual research, pivotal scenes are documented and analyzed for their symbolic, motif, and narrative elements. Digital transformations are created using software like Adobe Photoshop, reinterpreting these scenes with modern artistic techniques while maintaining historical accuracy. This study finds that transforming Ramayana carvings into digital artwork preserves the visual heritage of Prambanan Temple and introduces innovative storytelling methods. Highlighting Hanuman's bravery and righteousness provides insights into ancient stories' moral and ethical lessons for modern society. Furthermore, contemporary reinterpretations of these stories through digital art influence current visual understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage. By combining visual culture research with creative art and ethical reflections, this study contributes to preserving cultural heritage and enriching modern storytelling.