Proxemics

If space and materials chosen by Luigi Ademollo in his self-portraits could show that they are suitable to a private and public use in terms of dimension, support and artistic techniques? Through his works, the artist stares intimately into himself in order to approach self-portraiture, hence his prime interest is focused on private sphere, realism and caricature. Miniatures and devotional imagery refer to an affective dimension, while painted and engraved images are functional to express social claim. This study includes a semiotic and proxemics analysis. A fascinating thread that ties up social practices related to those artworks to a contemporary obsession with tablets or smartphones. Finally, the 'ritratto non ritratto' reveals how gestures, apparel and its accessories enclose an aesthetic and ethic code that underlines a psychological link between the sitter and his spatiality.

E se lo spazio e il materiale degli autoritratti di Luigi Ademollo potessero dimostrare che la loro dimensione, il supporto e le tecniche artistiche sono proporzionali ad un uso privato o pubblico? Tramite i suoi lavori l'artista rivolge uno sguardo intimo su se stesso e si approccia all'auto ritrattistica focalizzando su aspetti privati, realismo e caricatura. Le miniature e le immagini devozionali si riferiscono soprattutto alla sfera affettiva, mentre le immagini dipinte e incise rispondono ad una funzione di affermazione sociale. Lo studio include un'analisi semiotica e prossemica. Le pratiche sociali correlate a queste opere d'arte consentono un affascinante paragone con il legame simbiotico fra l'uomo contemporaneo e i tablets o gli smartphones. Infine, il 'ritratto non ritratto' rivela come la gestualità, l'abbigliamento e i suoi accessori contengano un codice estetico e etico che sottolinea un collegamento psicologico tra il personaggio e la sua spazialità.

Este trabajo es parte de una investigación en antropología vial que desarrolla el grupo Culturalia en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (UBA). Se trata de una exploración antropológica de los imaginarios viales en la Argentina. El estudio parte de la idea de que los hechos viales son hechos sociales y que, como tales, son parte de la trama de representaciones colectivas que definen las múltiples dimensiones de la ocupación del espacio público por parte de los ciudadanos, en una tensa y ambigua relación entre las normas estatales y las prácticas concretas que uno puede observar en la calle. Dado que la conducta social es una acción simbólica, nos interesa identificar los principales símbolos que condensan estos imaginarios viales en situaciones cotidianas.  El objetivo del trabajo es hacer explícita la urdimbre de significados culturales que dan sentido a los principales patrones de comportamiento vial, comenzando por el área de Buenos Aires y el Conurbano. Este conjunto de datos antropológicos servirán de insumos conceptuales y empíricos para la elaboración a largo plazo de una necesaria política de estado sobre el campo vial en nuestro país. Una política tal debe necesariamente aproximarse al fenómeno vial, que es una suma de variables de gran complejidad, desde un enfoque igualmente complejo, en donde la seguridad es un aspecto clave aunque no el único de este sistema de interacciones sociales en el espacio público.

This paper focuses in the comprehension of mixed insights regarding the importance of the interpersonal communication achieved via technological schemes. It is an interdisciplinary study dwelling between the contexts of new technologies exclusion. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to bring up debates concerning the distribution of sensorial stimuli to people who lack -or excess- certain apparatuses that could convey new forms of the bodies and spaces. The main tentative argument is that if postmodern discourses -along technological developments- bring different communicational experiences, then people without technological devices cannot achieve a fully interpersonal communication. Moreover, if digital realities challenge the conventions of physicality, how is it possible to bring a more democratic access to these new forms of communication. In sum it is a comparative analysis between traditional understandings of new technologies and the implications in our human condition.

Outdoor music festivals (OMFs) are increasingly common events on the
summer entertainment landscape for youth in Australia. Attending these OMFs is associated with an increased risk of injury and, in extreme cases, death. Although there have been a number of incidents and fatalities internationally, in Australia there has been only one fatality
at a live music event and, as a result, significant attention is now being paid to crowd safety and security issues, as well as infrastructure and production safety issues. The crowd incident model developed by Fruin and its derivative guidelines outlined in this article show that many crowd disasters could have been avoided with appropriate advance
planning and management techniques. Reliable real-time communication between those responsible for crowd management and authoritative communication with the crowd are also critical elements in defusing a potentially Iethal crowd incident.

Crowds occur frequently in modern society. A major sporting or entertainment event can attract tens of thousands of avid fans. Usually, these large gatherings of people occur without serious problems. Occasionally, however, the combination of inadequate facilities and deficient crowd management results in injury and death. Outdoor music festivals (OMFs) are increasingly common events on the summer entertainment landscape for young people around the world. Attending these OMFs is associated with an increased risk of injury and, in extreme cases, death. A considerable proportion of these risks can be attributed to high-risk behaviour in the general admission or standing room only areas in front of the stages, or 'mosh pits'. During the ten year period from 1992 to 2002, 66, 787 people have suffered significant injury and 232 people have died at 306 outdoor music concerts around the world. Fatality data over a longer period (1974 to 2003) indicates that at least 136 fatal incidents at concert events have not been scientifically explained. Forty one (41) of these involved persons who died in front of a concert stage. Crowd incidents show different types of group motivation. In some cases there is an interruption of a simple traffic process such as exiting a stadium or a passenger conveyor, resulting in a critical crowd pressure point. Others fall into the two general behavioural categories of either a flight response or a craze. Flight occurs where people experience either a real or perceived threat. Frequently mislabelled as panic, a closer investigation usually shows that flight was a reasonable group reaction under the perceived circumstances. A mass craze is a competitive rush to obtain some highly valued objective. Such group behaviour is created where participation in an event, or viewing of a public personage, is intensively promoted. General admission events and so called " festival seating " concerts, in particular, cause competition for favourable seats or standing positions close to entertainers. October, 2005

ABSTRACT Digital games are increasingly profiting from sensing technologies. However, their focus is mostly on sensing limb movements. We propose that sensing capabilities could also be used to engage players with proxemics: the interpersonal distance between players. We further add that wireless networks offer complementary distance zones for designers, offering novel design resources for digital play. We use our own as well as other games to articulate a set of strategies on how designers can utilize both proxemics and the new wireless proxemics to facilitate novel play experiences. Ultimately, with our work, we aim to expand the range of digital play.

In my paper, I will analyse certain Christian Greek sources from Late Antiquity that present the metaphor of man as a microcosm mirroring the musical harmony of the universe that is directed by Christ/Logos defined as the New Song. This microcosm is created in the image of God as a living musical instrument. Significant examples can be found in authors such as Clement of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa. After summarizing the meaning of the Greek concepts of "choreia" and "schema", I will attempt to highlight that these notions were used by Christian intellectuals from the first centuries onwards with varying degrees of awareness as a form of social and spatial control, above all through attempts to regulate a cultural practice like dancing. Besides art (painting and sculpture), the concept of schema also concerns the way of speaking, walking and appearing in public, relating to space and etiquette. In the Greek world, citizens are aware of the schemata of their gestures and the values that they convey. Therefore, schemata have a political value and anything that does not follow them might undermine the stability of the State. In the thinking of ancient and medieval Christian intellectuals, men should use the gestures of their bodies to help establish a universal harmony that is directly connected to the harmony of the Platonic cosmos. Indeed, just as in the Ideal City, the Christian cosmos also prohibited gestures that interrupted this harmony, as they were categorized as "aschemosyne". There is also a clear example of the application of this model of harmonic gesture in the ceremonies and rituals that were practiced at the court of Byzantium, where crucial importance was attributed to compliance with etiquette and what semiotics defines as proxemics, namely ideologically determined space. This vital role is codified in the "Liber de Caerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae" by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. As recent studies have clearly illustrated, imperial proxemics in Eastern Roman society defined the cultural use of space and spatial relations, foregrounding order and social control, the same control of bodily gesture and space propagated by Christian intellectuals.

Managing people is not, has not, and will not be an easy thing to do because people are dynamic (ie. they change their actions, and emotions based on a huge spectrum of factors that beset them), and originate from different cultures, races, religions, and ideologies; all of which, to a certain extent, are unique, and approached differently in different environments or geographical locations. Most often, Human Resource papers address those issues, in addition to recruiting, training, compensating, and developing people as a way of achieving the goals of a firm. Knowledge management, on the flip side, focuses on the tools or techniques used to improve people's knowledge within an organization, how to, and why it is vital to employ/create, distribute, implement, and retain said knowledge for the competitive edge it potentially renders an entity. This paper looks at the relationship between human resource management and knowledge management, and how organizations use or should use them in a complementary fashion in order to gain competitive advantage. It seeks to show knowledge gaps in organizations as a result of their failure to implement KM practices, potential other reasons why those gaps exist, and how they can be remedied while at the same time using HRM concepts to help the process. The observations arrived at in this paper are a result of interviews, research, surveys, and questionnaires from a wide range of sources across variant biographical characters (ie. different age groups, spousal statuses, races, religions, etc).