Here is just some of what we are given to understand John Chamberlain’s art as being like: car wrecks and dancers, artichokes and mummies and giant phalluses, drapery, a football player, ornaments for an immense Christmas tree and monstrous jungle-gyms, a sucked egg, and Titans beside themselves with rage. Next, a long list of the art-historical m…[Read more]

Knowledge founded on perception always stays flexible. Imposed intellectual interpretations remain rigid, eliminating discrepancies if sensations vary from that which is expected. When viewing art, as with everyday existence in the world, a willingness to just perceive means learning, again and again, what one did not know before, even though…[Read more]

Donald Judd’s 1964 essay ‘Specific Objects’ probably remains his most well-known. In it, he described new artworks characterized by, among other features, ‘a quality as a whole’ instead of conventional ‘part-by-part structure,’ the ‘use of three dimensions’ and ‘real space’ as opposed to depiction, ‘new materials [that] aren’t obviously art,’ and…[Read more]

A review of the original Sims game and how fans are attempting to preserve the game and its assets through digital archives and other participatory practices. Written for the Intensive: Cult Media Review section of Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media.

The author examines a choice of the conceptualisations of the ‘musical work’ within the domain of music in the context of bibliographical control and information retrieval. The study uses the principles of domain analysis proposed by Hjorland (Hjorland 2002) as a framework. The scope is wide and does not claim to be comprehensive. The phi…[Read more]

Why do we play games—with and upon each other as well as ourselves? When are winners also losers, and vice-versa? How and to what end do we stretch the spaces of play? What happens when players go ‘out of bounds,’ or when games go ‘too far’? Moreover, what happens when we push the parameters of inquiry: when we play with traditional narrative…[Read more]

This essay analyzes Zorns Lemma (1962–1970), a film made by American artist Hollis Frampton (1936–1984). Noting Frampton’s use of Robert Grosseteste’s thirteenth-century treatise De luce [‘On Light’] as a key aspect of the film’s soundtrack, the essay argues that Grosseteste’s investigations of light as a medium played a key role in Frampton’s t…[Read more]

Two Pietàs in different media, the first by French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) and the second by Swedish composer Lisa Streich (1985-), permit an examination of the Pietà trope itself by laying open a range of its symbolic aspects. Bouguereau’s Pietà (1876) is discussed in terms of the grief and joy that are both presen…[Read more]

This paper engages with the existing body of archival literature that addresses what has been termed “documentary art” in order to address questions regarding the treatment of visual materials in archival practice and theory. It will also borrow and apply theories from the disciplines of material culture studies and art history in order to for…[Read more]

Through an engagement with theory from the fields of art history, anthropology, and sociology, this article examines the archival existence of medieval manuscripts and facilitates an understanding of archival practice and its effects on user experience from the perspective of the researcher, rather than from that of the archivist or information…[Read more]

Through a discussion of the materiality of photographic documents and the inherent qualities of digital objects, this article examines the viability of digitization as a method of archival photographic preservation. By exploring notions of surrogacy, originality, and aura, the author presents and deconstructs the popular argument that digital…[Read more]

Through a discussion of the materiality of photographic documents and the inherent qualities of digital objects, this article examines the viability of digitization as a method of archival photographic preservation. By exploring notions of surrogacy, originality, and aura, the author presents and deconstructs the popular argument that digital…[Read more]

Occasionally, the handlers of the past chose to leave marks more permanent than the everyday wear and tear. The deliberate traces left by past user(s) demand further inquiry, beseeching us to investigate more closely the relationship between our experiences of manuscripts today, and those responses of past readers who have left an indelible mark…[Read more]

The present paper is a continuation of research on terminology used in the Renaissance to identify and describe altarpieces. It treats Venetian painted altarpieces from c. 1350 to c. 1500 and follows last year’s study of Florentine and central Italian altarpieces. It focuses on multi-panel works, some of which survive intact, while most have b…[Read more]

In the original arrangement of the since-dismembered tomb, the costly life-size bronze panel of Roccabonella seated in his study faced the life-size bronze panel of the Virgin and Child adored by St. Francis and St. Peter; the two panels and their arrangement present Roccabonella’s erudition as well as his devotion to the holy figures depicted i…[Read more]

This article traces the gradual development of allegorical portraiture in Mughal Art under emperor Jahangir (1569–1627), by analyzing Mughal artists’ gradual adaptation of the European genres of portraiture and allegory through their encounter with European prints.

Abstract What is a Health Library? What categories need to be met so that a library can be referred to as a Health Library, and not just a library with health material? A literature review was carried out, looking at the history of health libraries in the UK, various organisations linked to those, the staff that work in them, the services they…[Read more]

This study aimed to examine in depth a newly-built modern public library to gain insight into attitudes to and perceptions of a modern library space in 2014. It used as a starting point a previous study carried out in 2005 and published by Black (2011) which gathered Mass Observation Archive data on public perceptions of public library buildings…[Read more]

Powerpoint slides for a lecture on Area Studies, given for the #cityLIS Information Domains module (#INM307), 2015-16 cohort.

The study sets out to examine in detail a Carnegie Shadowing Group in a large urban comprehensive school, questioning what the impact may be of participation in such a group. This piece of action research takes place in the context of a wider literature-based enquiry into the nature and benefits of reading for pleasure and what may motivate young…[Read more]