MULTIFUNCTIONAL,SELF-ORGANIZING BIOSPHERE LANDSCAPES AND THE FUTURE OF OUR TOTAL HUMAN ECOSYSTEM

Solar energy powered autopoietic (self-creating and regenerative) natural and cultural biosphere landscapes fulfill vital multiple functions for the sustainable future of organic life and its biological evolution and for human physical and mental health. At the present crucial Macroshift from the industrial to the post- industrial information age, their future and therefore also that of our Total Human Ecosystem, integrating humans and their total environment, is endangered by the exponential growth and waste products of urban-industrial technosphere landscapes and agro-industrial bio-technosphere landscapes.

This danger can be prevented only by the creation of new symbiotic relations between human society and nature with the help of mutual supportive, restorative cultural and economic cross-catalytic networks in our Total human Ecosystem. This should be part of an all—embracing sustainability revolution, driven by human consciousness and its responsibility to act as stewards rather than exploiters of the complex and harmonious web of life on this planet.     

Nature and Nationhood: Danish Perspectives

In this paper, I shall discuss Danish perspectives on nature, showing the interdependence of conceptions of ‘nature’ and ‘nationhood’ in the formations of a particular cultural community. Nature, thus construed, is never innocent of culture and cannot therefore simply be ‘restored’ to some pristine, pre-lapsarian state. On the other hand, invocations of nature are effectively calls to action, often of a sort that involves a degree of (limited) restoration and conservation.     

Inhabiting Forest of Dean borderlands: Feral wild boar and dynamic ecologies of memory and place

Borderlands are dynamic, fluid spaces where multifarious actors and their relations come together in continual tension. The (re)appearance of (nonhuman) animals can lead to the emergence of novel multispecies borderlands, generated through a variety of affective, emotional and material registers with diverging spatial-temporalities. Situated in the Forest of Dean, England, this paper draws on ethnographic research to consider how the unanticipated (re)appearance of feral wild boar has (re-)configured everyday landscapes in myriad ways. In particular, the focus is on how distinct ecologies of memory and place- weaving through pasts and presents, the material and immaterial, individuals and collectives, humans and nonhumans- are created and shaped by embodied practices, encounters, distributed meanings and temporal change. Amidst uncertainty, the ‘Forest’ borderland is shown to be an indeterminate space, where memory simultaneously disrupts and enriches sensations of belonging and emplacement, and can help negotiate interspecies differences. The paper argues it is important to pay attention to the fluxing, fluid agency of animals and how their everyday human relations (dis)connect heterogenous ecologies of memory and place, especially at a time when multispecies landscapes are undergoing rapid, unexpected and un/intentional change.     

Sounding grief: The Severn Estuary as an emotional soundscape

This paper explores sound infused creative responses to grief and related emotions of loss and landscape in the context of the tidal Severn Estuary (UK) and its particular sonic qualities. We draw principally on the practice of artist Louisa Fairclough, linking to wider discussions of emotion, sound and the body, in shared autotopological explorations of self and family in landscape. Like other estuaries, the Severn Estuary is a deeply rich (in socio-ecological terms) landscape which includes the tidal liminalities of the lower reaches of the Severn river, the mid estuary, and the lower areas which merge into open sea. The whole estuary, in geomorphological, ecological, and related social terms, is particularly dynamic as it has the second highest tidal range in the world. This means that vast volumes of brackish water wash up and down the estuary in a series of rhythmic cycles which play across and between day, month and season, mixing physical spaces and processes (e.g. land-sea; salt-fresh water). This ceaseless ebb and flow brings marked spatial, visual and aural richness to the estuary and places along its shores. This includes the Severn bore which, when at maximum height, is a powerful tidal wave washing up the upper estuary and tidal river with a loud sonic richness. Owain Jones (geographer) has previously written on this landscape and its memorial emotional qualities in relation to his family history and challenged geographical self. Louisa Fairclough (artist) has re-turned to it as performative art practice, to sleep by the River Severn, and produces a series of works consisting of field recordings, drawings and a series of installations of expanded films. These use river sounds and vocal recordings to interact with the tidal landscape and its margins in creative expressions of grief. This paper sets out these works, their background, shared responses to the estuary, and explores in particular the sonic registers of the landscape which, for us, listen, and speak to, loss and trauma.     

论理学对中国“画气”说的影响

中国画学中以气论画的传统可以追溯到六朝时期,而真正形成具有丰富理论内涵的画气说则在两宋。画气说的形成具有明显的哲学背景,北宋以来的理学思潮是画气说形成的最直接因素。本文认为,理学对画学理论中气论的影响主要集中在三个方面,一是为画气说提供一个有机论的基础,在气机哲学的影响下,中国画学将表现对象活泼生机作为根本目的,这突出体现在山水画和花鸟画中;二是从审美体验角度,中国画学形成了“以气合气”的独特创作思想;三是在绘画艺术形式上,气势论成为一引人注意的理论,六朝时的气韵生动理论获得了新的发展。     

Comprehension Models of Audiovisual Discourse Processing

Comprehension is integral to enjoyment of media narratives, yet our understanding of how viewers create the situation models that underlie comprehension is limited. This study utilizes two models of comprehension that had previously been tested with factual texts/videos to predict viewers' recall of entertainment media. Across five television/film clips, the landscape model explained at least 29% of the variance in recall. A dual coding version that assumed separate verbal and visual representations of the story significantly improved the model fit in four of the clips, accounting for an additional 15–29% of the variance. The dimensions of the event‐indexing model (time, space, protagonist, causality, and intentionality) significantly moderated the relationship between the dual coding model and participant recall in all clips.