Amateur Work Research Articles

Dla prywatnej rozrywki i służby publicznej. Rysunek amatorski Adama Kazimierza, Izabeli z Flemingów i Adama Jerzego Czartoryskich / For Private Enjoyment and Public Service. Amateur Drawing of Adam Kazimierz, Izabela née Fleming and Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (Summary)

Amateur drawings by Adam Kazimierz, Izabela née Fleming and Adam Jerzy Czartoryski played functions assigned to this type of work in the main centers of European amateurism – France and Great Britain. The invitation of J.P. Norblin to Poland, in 1774, as a teacher of drawing for the children of Adam Kazimierz and Izabela showed their belief in modern educational ideas, that were also present in the Cadet Corps program. Drawing, a useful skill, became an element of the education of a responsible citizen. Adam Jerzy Czartoryski learned to draw not only under the guidance of Norblin, but also during his educational tour in Paris. When he left for Great Britain in 1789, his father advised him to collect visual notes for later use in Poland. Another function of amateur work appeared in the drawings of Izabela Czartoryska, for whom they were sign of her status of an aristocrat related with the ruling families.

Transformations of street photography in the era of digital technologies

The purpose of the article is to explore the main features of street photography’s development in the digital age. The methodology. Several methods were used to analyze the street photography genre. The logical-analytical method helped to organize and summarize key ideas. The subject-analytical method allowed a deeper look at photography as a form of art and social communication. The system-analytical method showed the connection between technology and the evolution of the genre. The typological method identified the main stages of street photography development, and the historical-cultural method traced the impact of cultural factors on the genre. The results. Digital technologies have greatly influenced the genre, transforming it from traditional to new forms. The use of mobile devices and social media has blurred the lines between professional and amateur photography, opening new creative possibilities. Street photography now includes elements of humanism, surrealism, and documentary film, creating visual stories that reflect the social space of the digital age. The scientific novelty. This study explores how digital technologies have changed street photography. It also explores how humanism, surrealism, and documentary film influence the genre, as well as its historical and modern development. The conclusions. Digital photography is flexible and widespread because of mobile devices, which affects how people create. Smartphones, social media, mirrorless cameras, and AI have changed the genre, making it harder to tell the difference between professional and amateur work. Street photography continues to adapt to the changing cultural space. The practical significance of the article is in its contribution to understanding how digital technologies affect street photography and audiovisual arts. It helps both researchers and artists better understand how technology is changing creative expression.

Luci e ombre nella riforma del lavoro sportivo

The Legislative Decree No. 36/2021 has had a significant impact on the regulation of labour relations in the sport sector, overcoming, among other things, the traditional legislative disregard for amateur work. The reform increases labour protections for individuals who professionally engage in sports activities, but at the same time aims to respect the specific nature of sports as an autonomous order, especially when it comes to the economic burden of sports organizations. The article starts by analysing the new concept of worker in the sector, which spans both professional and amateur sports. Then, the article proceeds by addressing the issue of classification between subordination and self-employment. The reform confirms the traditional dichotomy between professionals, which are subject to a stringent presumption of subordinate work, and amateurs, which in most cases are self-employed under article 409, No. 3 of the Italian Civil Procedure Code, with limited employment protections. In the final section the article briefly addresses the issue of voluntary work in the sport sector.

The Many Care Worlds a Butterfly Crosses

This article explores the theme of heroes and villains in relation to the conservation of the North American monarch butterfly. The monarch butterfly is a migratory insect that performs an annual four-thousand-kilometer journey across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Through its travels, the at-risk insect connects and disconnects humans, revealing tensions between the different actors participating in its survival across its North-South geographies. In the North, conservation relies on the voluntary care work of butterfly amateurs who recreate monarch habitat, rear and care for the insect at home, and contribute economically and affectively to habitat protection. In the South, the conservation model is experienced by Indigenous and mestizo communities as a top-down imposition restricting their traditional livelihoods. Residents of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve contest their framing as nature trespassers, while they carry the political, affective, and physical labor of conserving a disappearing insect. They too care for this butterfly but with an emphasis on its forest relations. Based on ethnographic data collected among these two often-opposed conservation communities, this article explores the ontological questions raised by these hero and villain dynamics around radically different ideas of what caring for this butterfly means. The exploration of one insect and two care worlds intersects with the “one planet, many worlds” debate in a colonial context. By examining the tensions between these opposed care worlds, the essay illustrates how a disappearing butterfly constitutes and confronts distinct perceptions of the urgency of caring for nature.

The Sudden Rise of Cosmetic and Medical Tattoos on All Continents.

Cosmetic tattooing dedicated to beautifying the normal anatomy such as the eyebrows, the eyelines, or the lips is in a remarkable growth all over the world. Medical tattooing with reconstruction of the areola and the nipple after breast surgery, correction of the lost color of vitiligo and scars is a spin-off, which has made tattooing cross the barrier and become accepted and used in clinics and hospitals in service of the quality of life of patients. The last years have seen a major development of machinery, inks, techniques, experiences, and services. The overwhelming rise of the activity created by client pressure and business opportunity, however, also has its cons: amateur work and even malpractice. The development is driven by elite technicians, but competence is little transparent to clients, and there is no distinct authoritative recognition of practitioners based on a recognized educational curriculum. National regulations of the industry are highly variable and scattered. Some countries have no restriction and in others cosmetic tattoos shall be performed by medical doctors. The challenge of the coming decades is to parallel the success of the industry with quality assurance to better control practices and safeguard clients, and the patients.

Time Bomb from the West: Video, the Advertising Industry, and Consumer Culture in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

Time Bomb from the West: Video, the Advertising Industry, and Consumer Culture in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

Krainian Architecture as a Subject of Research in the Works of Domestic Scientists of the 1900s

The purpose of the study is to identify the contribution of representatives of Ukrainian art history in the 1900s to the definition of national forms of national architecture. The research methodology is based on the use of combined, thematic and chronological approaches; description of publications is combined with comparative and comparative analyzes. The scientific novelty of the article is to highlight the initial stage of formation of ideas about the unique features of Ukrainian architecture in the context of public demand and the leading trends of the general artistic process of this period. The factors of growing attention of scientists of the specified decade to the systematic study of buildings of Ukraine from ancient times to the XIX century, in particular, wooden cult. The works of famous specialists of those years are described: G. Pavlutsky, E. Redin, O. Novitsky, V. Shcherbakovsky, M. Makarenko, E. Sitsinsky and other authors. The study of this problem in these scientific works is based on the analysis of numerous information as a result of systematic work of many scientists and amateurs on the study of architectural works. Researchers’ scientific ideas on the evolution of forms of this field of art and substantiation of the uniqueness of Ukrainian architecture are determined. Conclusions. Analysis of numerous sources of scientific publications allows us to conclude that during the 1900’s there was a concept of originality of national architectural forms at all historical stages. Scientific analysis of the characteristic features of Ukrainian architectural monuments of different periods was carried out in the perspective of the relationship with the masonry architecture and the relevant decisions of other historical and national architectural schools. The history of Ukrainian science of art of this decade can be considered as the history of ideas about national forms of art and architecture. The leading idea of the uniqueness of Ukrainian architecture directed and became the basis for the development of Ukrainian art science in the following decades.

THEATER ART AS A SELF-REALIZATION FORM OF NADDNIPRYANSHCHYNA POLITICAL EMIGRANTS IN VOLYN VOIVODESHIP (1920 – 1930-IES)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the Dnieper (Naddnipryanshchyna) political emigrants’ influence on the Western Volyn region theatrical life: from the mobile theater troupes spread to the VUT creation, which facilitated their adaptation and promoted creative self-realization. The methodology of the research is based on the historical, cultural chronological methods, as well as the analysis and systematization methods, which made it possible to consider Volyn Ukrainian Theater mobile troupes appearance conditions, to trace their relations with the Polish authorities, the repertoire features and the importance of creativity for the national consciousness of the local Ukrainian population. The prosopography method was applied in order to find out the artists’ names. The scientific novelty of the article is the introduction to the scientific circulation of the new archival documents, the interwar periodicals, which made it possible to show the Dnieper (Naddnipryanshchyna) political emigrants ’ influence on the interwar Volyn theatrical life development. The Conclusions . The Ukrainian political emigrants became fully involved in the cultural and artistic activities, realized their talents and skills in the theater and amateur work, after the revolution defeat of 1917 – 1921 in the territory of Volyn Voivodeship. In the first half of the 1920-ies, mobile theaters became a means of embodying the creative aspirations of the artists and the golden opportunity to earn a living. The commencement of the “Volyn experiment” by voivode H. Yuzevskyi, M. Pevnyi’s and other artists, who came from Naddnipryanshchyna relocation to Lutsk caused the VUT establishment, which during the 1930-ies of the XXth century kept the national spirit, Ukrainian traditions, the way of life and culture. The establishment of Bolshevik power in the region in 1939 led to the total control over the cultural life of the region, including the theatrical arts.

Chalutzim—Zionist Photography in Germany and Palestine in the 1930s: A Comparative Analysis of Images

Abstract This article reconstructs and compares photographic perspectives on the historical phenomenon of preparing German-Jewish youth for emigration from Germany, and their subsequent training in Palestinian kibbutzim in the framework of the hachshara and the youth aliyah. It considers the photographers’ status, differentiating between professional photography and the work of amateurs, and investigates the use and addressees of these images. The image analysis that underlies this study examines facets of the photographic and pictorial conception of chalutzian youth, including motifs, style, and atmospheres. In the process, photography is classified as a unique historical image source, in which the conditions of the time inscribe themselves even beyond personal and political intentions, interests, and contexts of usage. The image analysis also aims to reconstruct the specific, visually represented individual and collective experiences of the producers and addressees of photographic images in Germany and Mandatory Palestine.

Cell Phone Cinema: Latin American Horror Flicks in the Post-Digital Age

Cell phone cinema is an emergent phenomenon well-suited for Latin American independent filmmakers. With technology that is simple to operate and low production costs, as well as open and free distribution via online streaming, cell phone cinema has arguably democratized access to filmmaking. But even as alternative production and distribution avenues liberate filmmakers, they also limit artistic potential and marginalize their films as the work of amateurs. Since cell phone cinema’s arrival in the early 2000s, filmmakers have wrestled with a paradox: they have embraced the making of films that are low-budget, transgressive, and independent, even as they strive for a higher production quality to compete with commercial cinema. Efforts to reconcile these seemingly opposing tendencies have profound repercussions on the content and aesthetics of cell phone films—works that are made close-to-the-body and are increasingly hybrid (combining digital and analog elements), characteristic of a post-digital aesthetic of glitch. This essay defines the features of global cell phone cinema and presents an overview of the format. Then, turning to Latin America, it studies three paradigmatic cell phone horror flicks, a genre with a significant presence in mobile filmmaking. Several critical questions are raised: are we experiencing a cinematic format that will change the game, from a cinema made and distrib-uted by the commercial industry to self-produced films created by autodidacts and distributed freely online? Or will these films be co-opted by market forces? I argue that whatever the future of this new format, the Latin American independent film landscape has already been significantly altered by cell phone technologies

‘I Feel Jewish . . .’: Roots and Reflections in Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir

‘I Feel Jewish . . .’: Roots and Reflections in <i>Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir</i>

Working it: the professionalization of amateurism in digital adult entertainment

This article examines a sector of professional amateur work for women in the digital industry for adult entertainment known as “adult webcam modeling” (AWM). Through a selection of narratives, this paper explores the gendered meanings of AWM and the values women derive from their “amateur” sexual content creation. I draw particular attention to the complex union of professional and amateur roles and relations in the strategies women adopt to succeed in these spaces. On one level, they describe the technical skills and institutionalized knowledge needed to successfully perform professionalized duties of hosting and animating site users’ sexual and emotional fantasies. Still, they do not solely view their work in professional terms, highlighting the usefulness of enacting their amateurism by performing authenticity and developing ongoing friendships with site users for succeeding in this line of work. Framing this work as reliant on both “professional” and “amateur” strategies builds ambiguity into the AWM persona, which has implications for social and historical constructions of sexuality and gender. It also demands rethinking conceptual frameworks that create dualities between professional/amateur, public/private, and commercial/authentic.

„Kwazar”, „Fantom”, „Czerwony Karzeł”, „Inne Planety”. Kilka uwag krytycznych o nietypowej sytuacji fantastycznych fanzinów w kulturze polskiej

In Poland, research-related fanzines rarely include writings edited by Polish fans of science fiction, horror and fantasy. Active fans edited amateur magazines which were very important because they popularized fantastic literature and culture in Poland. The role of fantastic fanzines was not limited solely to the promotion of amateur creativity or publishing translations of foreign fiction not available on the market, but also consisted in the creation of creative bonds between writers and readers. The remnants of the activities of Polish fantastic fiction fans are about one hundred titles including “Quasar”, “Red Dwarf” and “Other Planets”. These three fanzines as effects of pure amateur work are also very similar to the professional magazines. Each of them has a different poetics and thematic dominant. They have also published stories written by famous Polish writers such as Ewa Białołęcka and Andrzej Sapkowski.

Granie w historię

The phenomenon of a democratization of history lies not so much in the equal status of different narratives about the past as in the society’s willingness to regard them as equally acceptable. In this sense academic historiography is not the only source of the cultural visions of the past. Movies, games, the Internet and other digital media all serve as a platform for creating these visions which, being usually the work of history-loving amateurs rather than professional historians, emerge within the framework of the so called non-conventional history (representations of the past found in movies or literature) or the alternative history (representations of the past found in computer games, historical portals or produced by reconstruction groups). The pluralism of the visions of the past and of ways of representing it turns out to be as much the result of the process of the democratization of history as it does the consequence of the technological possibilities that have emerged in modern culture, the essence of which seems to lie in its audio-visual character. In order to make it possible for history to carry out its cognitive functions, it is necessary not only to reformulate research programmes, which after all is being done, but also to devise new ways of representing the past. This is dictated not only by some key aspects of research practice, which is informed by the post-modernist critique of the traditional forms of practising history, but also by the new cultural context the historiography of today is set in. It is within this context that we may observe both verbal and visual articulations of the view of the past that is alternative to the representations of it in academic historiography. These articulations can be found in a variety of history games. It should also be kept in mind that the benefits of ‘playing at history’ are usually thought of as lying in the realm of education and of the commercialization of history. However, its cognitive potential is usually neglected.

Between Certainty and Trust: Boundary-Work and the Construction of Archaeological Epistemic Authority

The discovery of a rock art site in 2008 by an amateur archaeologist spurred a wave of public interest in archaeology in Maragatería, Spain. As new discoveries took place, alternative archaeological discourses thrived facing the inaction of institutional and academic archaeologists. A long-term study of Maragatería carried out by the author serves to explore the construction of archaeological epistemic authority in a context where various social actors compete for dominance. Gieryn’s notion of ‘boundary-work’ serves to analyse the different strategies employed by academic and institutional archaeologists, amateurs and pseudoarchaeologists to build epistemic authority. This article draws on Latour’s affirmation that the legitimisation of scientific objectivity should rely on ‘trust’ rather than on ‘certainty’. Ethnographic research showed that the more archaeologists attempted to legitimise their authority by reclaiming certainty, the more pseudoarchaeology proliferated. In contrast, the work of amateurs restrained the growth of pseudoarchaeology by creating networks of trust.

Choreographic Art in the Far Eastern Federal District: History, Problems and Prospects of Development

The article deals with contemporary choreographic amateur work in the Far Eastern Federal District in the context of the history of the national choreographic art development. The author refers to the characteristics of the main directions and genres, analyzes the work of choreographic festivals, competitions, creative activities and the repertoire of choreographic groups of the region.

Amateur Work: Reader Participation and Dialogism in Late-nineteenth-century Domestic Design Advice

ABSTRACTThis article offers a rereading of Victorian domestic design advice that emphasizes its dialogic qualities rather than presuming its didactic or discursive status. Previous work on late nineteenth-century design advice literature has rightly identified its distance from everyday practice, but various publications demonstrate that domestic design was mediated by readers and often developed through an ongoing conversation with them. This article identifies the dialogic apparatus of one late nineteenth-century how-to magazine, Amateur Work (1881–96), edited by Francis Chilton-Young. Adopting Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of dialogism (how texts emerge from different authors and “extraliterary” contexts), this article shows how Amateur Work's editor and writers were in constant dialog with their readers, principally through the reader-response column in each issue entitled “Amateurs in Council.” Case studies on bookcase and fernery construction in this section serve as examples of how content was generated out of reader-to-reader interaction, how tips were shared, and how readers adapted advice to their particular circumstances. Such evidence challenges the presumption that readers of domestic design advice were passive, uncritically following prescriptions by authors or reading such literature for entertainment alone.

The Eye of the Beholder: Artistic Sense and Craftsmanship in Eighteenth-Century Jewish Books

After the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, the Jewish world, in line with their surrounding non-Jewish worlds, quickly embraced the printed book as the most important medium for the transmission of knowledge. Nonetheless, even after the invention of printing, tens of thousands of Hebrew manuscripts were still being hand-copied, testifying to a lively, parallel writing culture. Many of these manuscripts were decorated or illustrated. One of the striking aspects of the decorated manuscripts of the eighteenth century is the enormous difference in quality of the works. Some are genuine masterpieces of scribal art in Hebrew or in Latin script, while others can be very naive and are clearly the work of amateurs. The central question in this essay, a reworked version of the author’s inaugural lecture at the University of Amsterdam, is why certain handwritten decorated Jewish books of the period look the way they look, and what this teaches us about both their makers and their patrons. It becomes clear, at least in its modern interpretation, that within the Jewish scribal tradition craftmanship was of greater importance than artistic sense. To what extent can only be understood in full when looking at larger developments within the eighteenth-century western European Jewish world.

Do‐it‐yourself cement work: the main cause of severe irritant contact dermatitis requiring hospitalization

There are myriads of potentially irritant agents causing acute irritant contact dermatitis. In the large majority of cases, dermatitis is mild to moderate, and patients do not need hospitalization. However, some agents or special circumstances may cause severe dermatitis requiring more intensive therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate causative agents of severe acute irritant contact dermatitis requiring hospitalization. In this single-centre observational cohort study, we included 54 consecutive patients presenting with signs and symptoms of acute irritant contact dermatitis for which hospitalization was necessary. The severity of dermatitis was graded (grade I-IV) according to intensity, and details related to the skin irritation (irritant agent, area of exposure, time interval to onset of symptoms, and duration of hospitalization) were determined. All cases with severe ulcerative dermatitis (grade IV) were caused by wet cement, owing to prolonged skin contact. These cement burns are clearly associated with amateur work, younger age, male preponderance, and leg localization. The study data provide clear-cut evidence that wet cement is a severely irritant substance that regularly causes the most severe form of acute irritant contact dermatitis. The main causative prerequisite for these cement burns is do-it-yourself work with poor protective measures.

Amateur Creation and Entrepreneurialism: A Critical Study of Artistic Production in Post-Fordist Structures

Based on an interview with a hip-hop artist from Eastern Poland, this article critically assesses amateur art pro-duction proliferating throughout the globe today through individuals’ creative usages of new ICTs and new media affordances. The post-Fordist material and ideological context of contemporary social life is the main focus point of the article’s critique. Scarcity, dispossession, and entrepreneurship are the main analytical concepts used to develop a critical analysis and explanation of mainstream realities of amateur artistic production today. Within a context defined by precarious work conditions and prospects, material scarcity, and consumerist aspirations, media and technological potentialities are strategically used by the amateur artist-entrepreneur a) as resources where creativity is put to work for potential socio-economic elevation and inclusion in the global industrial artistic scene (in the case of private ICT), b) as “free” resources, appropriated for entrepreneurial aspirations (in the case of “free“ digital material circulating online, particularly through peer to peer networks), c) as channels for self promotion and networking (in the case of web 2.0 structures). What is often less apparent to the amateur artists, though, concerns the exploitative capacities of corporate Internet to dispossess amateur work and online social relations for the purposes of capital accumulation and reproduction. Unless critiqued, “free culture” -generated by new ICTs and new media- is assimilated by the material and ideological power of late capitalism and is “put to work” for the (re)production of late capitalism. The article concludes by suggesting the critical challenging of the mainstream artistic identity and the critical use and appropriation of new media/ICT’s potentialities.