Suchergebnisse

Plastic is ubiquitous. It is in the Arctic, in the depths of the Mariana Trench, and in the high mountaintops of the Pyrenees. It is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Nanoplastics penetrate our cell walls. Plastic is not just any material—it is emblematic of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Plastic Matter Heather Davis traces plastic's relations to geology, media, biology, and race to show how matter itself has come to be understood as pliable, disposable, and consumable. The invention and widespread use of plastic, Davis contends, reveals the dominance of the Western orientation to matter and its assumption that matter exists to be endlessly manipulated and controlled by humans. Plastic's materiality and pliability reinforces these expectations of what matter should be and do. Davis charts these relations to matter by mapping the queer multispecies relationships between humans and plastic-eating bacteria and analyzing photography that documents the racialized environmental violence of plastic production. In so doing, Davis provokes readers to reexamine their relationships to matter and life in light of plastic's saturation

In the resistance to the violence of gender-based oppression, vibrant - but often ignored - worlds have emerged, full of nuance, humour, and beauty. Correcting a glaring omission of writing about contemporary feminist work by Canadian artists, Desire Change considers the resurgence of feminist art, thought, and practice in the past decade by examining artworks that respond to themes of diversity and desire. Essays by historians, artists, and curators present an overview of a range of artistic practices including performance, installation, video, textiles, and photography. Contributors address the desire for change through three central frames: how feminist art has significantly contributed to the complex understanding of gender as it intersects with sexuality and race; the necessary critique of patriarchy and institutions as they relate to colonization within the Canadian national-state; and the ways in which contemporary critiques are formed and expressed. The resulting collection addresses art through an activist lens to examine intersectional feminism, decolonization, and feminist institution building in a Canadian context. Heavily illustrated with representative works, Desire Change raises both the stakes and the concerns of contemporary feminist art, with an understanding that feminism is always and necessarily plural.--

Taking as its premise that the proposed geologic epoch of the Anthropocene is necessarily an aesthetic event, this book explores the relationship between contemporary art and knowledge production in an era of ecological crisis, with contributions from artists, curators, theorists and activists. Contributors include Amy Balkin, Ursula Biemann, Amanda Boetzkes, Lindsay Bremner, Joshua Clover & Juliana Spahr, Heather Davis, Sara Dean, Elizabeth Ellsworth & Jamie Kruse (smudge studio), Irmgard Emmelhainz, Anselm Franke, Peter Galison, Fabien Giraud & Ida Soulard, Laurent Gutierrez & Valérie Portefaix (MAP Office), Terike Haapoja & Laura Gustafsson, Laura Hall, Ilana Halperin, Donna Haraway & Martha Kenney, Ho Tzu Nyen, Bruno Latour, Jeffrey Malecki, Mary Mattingly, Mixrice (Cho Jieun & Yang Chulmo), Natasha Myers, Jean-Luc Nancy & John Paul Ricco, Vincent Normand, Richard Pell & Emily Kutil, Tomás Saraceno, Sasha Engelmann & Bronislaw Szerszynski, Ada Smailbegovic, Karolina Sobecka, Zoe Todd, Richard Streitmatter-Tran & Vi Le, Anna-Sophie Springer, Sylvère Lotringer, Peter Sloterdijk, Etienne Turpin, Pinar Yoldas, and Una Chaudhuri, Fritz Ertl, Oliver Kellhammer & Marina Zurkow.

This article explores the exhibition Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through. Curated by the Synthetic Collective, the exhibition emerged from a scientific study aimed at tracking plastic pellet pollution on the strandlines of beaches of the Great Lakes. This lake system crosses the border of the United States and Canada and contains more than 20% of the world’s surface freshwater reserves. Utilizing this study as a starting point, Plastic Heart also examined the role of plastics in the art world, the challenges of conserving plastics in museum collections, and the potential for art-science collaboration. Importantly, Plastic Heart also aimed for a minimal carbon impact, driving decisions throughout the process to mitigate the energy footprint and waste generated during curation. Using Plastic Heart as a case study, the authors address the strengths and weaknesses of the curatorial approach employed in the exhibition and argue for curatorial strategies grounded in complexity as a method of addressing environmental issues.

Abstract

Aims
Negative affect has been implicated in risk for the development of problematic drinking behavior. Furthermore, there is evidence for reciprocal relationships between negative affect and problem drinking, such that engagement in problem drinking also predicts increases in negative affect. However, affective models of risk often fail to consider affective lability—the experience of rapidly changing mood. Although affective lability appears to increase risk for problem drinking, it is unknown if this relationship persists above and beyond other affect-related constructs (e.g. depression, anxiety) and if it is reciprocal in nature. Accordingly, we used a longitudinal survey design to examine (a) if affective lability predicts problem drinking above and beyond depression and anxiety and (b) if affective lability and problem drinking demonstrate a reciprocal relationship.


Methods
First-year college students (n = 358) participated in a three wave longitudinal study. We constructed a structural equation model (SEM) of a random intercept cross-lagged panel model to test our hypotheses.


Results
Consistent with our hypotheses, affective lability predicted increases in problem drinking while anxiety and depression did not. Problem drinking and affective lability demonstrated a reciprocal relationship in which increases in one predicted increases in the other at subsequent time points. This relationship was present beyond the predictive effects of anxiety or depression.


Conclusions
Affective lability appears to be an important affect-based predictor of problem drinking, and there may be a reciprocal, risk-enhancing relationship between affective lability and problem drinking.
Components of negative affect, such as depression or anxiety, have been shown to predict risk for problem drinking, and vice versa. A less considered construct, affective lability, predicted problem drinking while anxiety and depression did not add any predictive power. Problem drinking and affective lability also appeared to demonstrate a reciprocal relationship.

Long Term Conditions (LTCs) are increasing in prevalence and cost in Western healthcare. Patients with such conditions are often classed as "disabled", because of impacts of self-care on "activities of daily life" or secondary consequences of conditions (impairments) affecting factors such as mobility, concentration and communications. Disability needs are often ignored in the design of services and treatment of individuals. It manifests as services which some find difficult to use and lack of personal respect (discrimination) often based on lack of understanding by the healthcare profession itself (ignorance). This paper explores how Social Media (SM), an example "Assistive Technology" in an increasingly digital age, might help. The focus is Chronic Kidney Disease with two, specific illustrations in the UK beginning to spread worldwide. Support mechanisms now emerging may go well beyond healthcare, and even beyond kidney problems. They may also find additional assistance via the new, English Accessible Information Standard.