Browsing by Subject "Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::Aesthetics"
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    Expressing technological metaphors in dance using structural illusion from embodied motion
    (ACM, 2013-06) Maranan, Diego S. ; Schiphorst, Thecla ; Hwang, Albert ; Hwang, Albert
    We illustrate how technology has influenced creative, embodied practices in urban dance styles by analyzing how technological metaphors underlie conceptual representations of the body, space, and movement in three related styles of urban dance: liquid, digitz, and finger tutting. The creative and technical embodied practices of urban dancers are not well understood in either the ethnographic or creative movement scholarly literature. Following an exploratory netnography of movement practitioners, we claim that unlike most dancers of traditional genres or other urban dance styles, dancers of these three styles frequently employ representations of the body and of space that are geometrical, mathematical, mechanical, or digital. To explain how viewers perceive and understand these metaphors, we extend the perceptual theory of structure from motion in order to apply dance performance reception theory to a model we call 'Structural Illusion from Embodied Motion' (SIEM). Our analysis of performance techniques of these styles suggests that during performance, dancers leverage SIEM to represent two types of 'illusions' to viewers: a) the dancer's body has a reconfigurable structure; and b) the dancer is immersed in a virtual environment that contains invisible, mutable objects and structures that are revealed only through the dancer's movement. The three dance styles exemplify a trend in popular dance in which body, space, and time are understood in the language of technology.
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    Transcending Diversity Through Aesthetics: Reflections on Taman Mini Indonesia Indah and Nayong Pilipino
    ( 2025) Yasa, Mary Vincelle C.
    A side-by-side exploration of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah and Nayong Pilipino has never been undertaken before, despite claims that the latter served as inspiration to the former, despite the regional connection of Indonesia and the Philippines, and despite the parallel authoritarian regimes which initiated the parks’ construction. The primacy of culture during the New Order and New Society eras of Soeharto and Ferdinand Marcos, its concomitant crystallization into cultural policies, and subsequent materialities into institutions, specifically cultural theme parks, is the horizon this study situates itself in. As a social historical thesis, documentary research and expert interviews served as the main avenues by which data were collected. The study is organized around what makes nation-states the way they are, that is authority, territory, people, international relations, and culture, and is largely observed through Michel Foucault’s views on governmentality and Tony Bennett’s propositions on museums. The narrative commences from where the idea for the parks originated, its proponents—the First Ladies and the shadows they cast on national cultures. It then traverses the condensations of their respective nations within the chosen spaces, particularly their layout and intention. It navigates the formation of identities as they are envisioned, idealized, and prescribed. And explores the currents which aided the parks’ fruition along with links that prove how these parks cannot be seen in isolation. The journey culminates with the understanding of culture’s power when distilled and harnessed through aesthetics and its associated perils on the inherent diversity of people living in both countries.