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This issue of CITAR (Journal of Arts Science and Technology) is especially devoted to what we designated as Marginalized Narratives. It is a special issue that collects studies published upon the 5th Colloquium on Narrative, Medium and Cognition, held at the University of Algarve in November 2018, and which was focused on that topic.

In audiovisual's history, minorities as LGBTQ+ people had been excluded or stereotyped, thus, this study has as a guiding question understanding “Him”, character of the classic cartoon series “The Powerpuff Girls”, produced between 1998 and 2005 by Cartoon Network - by the bias of the Queer Theory, which address the questions about non-heteronormative bodies that belong to marginalized groups whose rights are denied and their lives taken. For this, a documentary and exploratory methodology was used, based on the authors researches like: Guacira Louro, Judith Butler, Edgar Morin, besides the analysis of two episodes: Octil Evil and Bash Birthday. Thus, the problematizations arised here refer to: a) How the Queer is related to Him and its possible problems and b) The dialectic between the bodies discourses accepted and excluded from the heteronormative society.  The argumentation of this research is sustained by homophobia and transphobia brazilian datas, which reveals the urge to approach matters about gender and sexuality representations.

What is augmented in Augmented Reality (AR)? In this paper, we review existing opinions and show how little consensus exists on this matter. Subsequently, we approach the question from a theoretical and technology-independent perspective. We identify spatial and content-based relationships between the virtual and the real as being decisive for AR and come to the conclusion that virtual content augments that to which it relates. Subsequently, we categorize different forms of AR based on what is augmented. We distinguish between augmented environments, augmented objects, augmented humans and augmented content and consider the possibility of augmented perception. The categories are illustrated with AR (art) works and conceptual differences between them are pointed out. Moreover, we discuss what the real contributes to AR and how it can shape (future) AR experiences. A summary of our findings and suggestions for future research and practice, such as research into multimodal and crossmodal AR, conclude the paper.

This paper extends previous research relating puppetry to new media art. Two of the author’s artworks, Toast and Ventriloquisms for Fun and Profit, are used as case studies. The projects are summarised and insights that emerged from their implementation are proposed as results. Throughout the text, ventriloquism diagrams are used to illustrate possibilities for directional transmission of speech and to reflect upon the roles of code, artist, and participant in new media artworks.

This article is an extended version of a paper presented at the xCoAx 2015 conference, and explores how smart materials, and in particular thermochromic silicone, can be integrated into a wearable object in combination with microelectronics to create aesthetically coherent stimulus-reactive jewellery. The different types and properties of thermochromics are discussed, including experiments with layering pigments that react at different temperatures within three dimensional silicone shapes. The concept of creating digital enchantment through playful interaction is introduced, illustrating how accessible microelectronics can be used to facilitate the creation of responsive jewellery objects. Bringing together digital methods of fabrication with craft methodologies to create objects that respond intimately to changes in the body of the wearer and the environment is presented as an outcome of this research project. Moving towards the notion of a posthuman body, potential practical applications for these jewellery objects exist in the areas of human– computer interaction, transplant technology, identity management and artificial body modification, where such symbiotic jewellery organisms could be used to develop visually engaging, multifunctional enhancements.

Since the 1990s, the growing expansion of a vast array of medical technologies for the visualization of the inner body seems to have revamped, in an improved version, the tradition of the anatomical theatre, fuelling not only the question of the relation between inner and outer body, public and private space, visible and invisible objects, but also the problem of the relation between art, science and knowledge. The objective of this article is to shed some light on how contemporary artists engage with the very notion of “knowledge of the inner body” proper of the anatomical tradition. To this aim I briefly summarize some fundamental aspects of such tradition and subsequently examine the work of two artists, Laura Ferguson and Annie Cattrell, as examples of very different approaches to the meaning of the visualization and representation of the inner body in contemporary art.

In this paper, we describe the development and use of PhotoFrac, an application that allows artists and designers to turn digital images into fractal patterns interactively. Fractal equations are a rich source of procedural texture and detail, but controlling the patterns and incorporating traditional media has been difficult. Additionally, the iterative nature of fractal calculations makes implementation of interactive techniques on mobile devices and web apps challenging. We overcome these problems by using an image coordinate based orbit trapping technique that permits a user-selected image to be embedded into the fractal. Performance challenges are addressed by exploiting the processing power of graphic processing unit (GPU) and precomputing some intermediate results for use on mobile devices. This paper presents results and qualitative analyses of the tool by four artists (the authors) who used the PhotoFrac application to create new artworks from original digital images. The final results demonstrate a fusion of traditional media with algorithmic art.

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts (CITARJ) has decided to formally withdraw the article “Avoid Setup: Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema", by Dejan Grba. After investigation, we have concluded that this article is substantially similar to previous publications by the same author:- Grba, D. (2016). AVOID SETUP Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema. Retrieved from http://dejangrba.dyndns.org/lectures/en/2016-avoid-setup.pdf- Grba, D. (2016). Avoid Setup: Insights and Implications of Generative Cinema. In R. Bogdanovic (Ed.), Going Digital: Innovation in Art, Architecture, Science, and Technology - Conference Proceedings. Strand.- Grba, D. (2016). AVOID SETUP: INSIGHTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF GENERATIVE CINEMA. In C. Soddu & E. Colabella (Eds.), Generative Art 2016 - Proceedings of XIX Generative Art conference.

Today, the importance of sound and music in film is well established and an integral part of professional workflows within the audio-visual production industry. However, Sound and Music Design in film has been explored creatively since the advent of Talkies in the 1920’s. The most well-established practices for the use of sound in film always came from the inspiration of film directors, editors and composers, but in recent years the systematic use of Sound and Music in this media has become increasingly relevant in academic domains, as a subject of study and research. This article proposes a possible direction in addressing challenges presented by this growing academic field, by introducing a process for codifying and systematizing an initial grammar of Sound in Film, entitled the Film Sound Analysis Framework (FSAF). The FSAF is a tool for critical analysis of Sound and Music in Film, that is based on the relationship between Sound Semantics and Syntax from a Taxonomical and Applied perspective. Using the FSAF in longitudinal studies of film, allows for a systematic analysis by the observation of similar variables through the identification and assessment of patterns or trends, when using Sound to convey meaning and foster emotions.

O discurso dos media tem uma grande importância na construção da imagem do Outro e, por consequência, influencia as relações interculturais. Neste estudo, procurou-se analisar o discurso de cinco jornais europeus para caraterizar Portugal na crise financeira de 2011. Para a consecução deste objetivo, foram analisados 25 artigos sobre a crise portuguesa, publicados em 5 jornais de diferentes países europeus. Nas notícias estudadas, os Portugueses são associados a atributos pouco valorizados na escala de valores europeia, como a pobreza, a desorganização, a corrupção ou a preguiça. Dominam, ainda, as referências a instituições e personalidades ligadas às União Europeia, em detrimento da alusão aos cidadãos portugueses. Portugal e outros países que enfrentam a crise financeira, como Espanha ou Grécia, são apresentados através de uma terminologia frequentemente pejorativa. As notícias analisadas adotam um estatuto moralizador, insistindo na identificação dos responsáveis pela crise e associando a austeridade a uma “pena” que conduzirá reabilitação do país.  Neste estudo, observa-se uma clara demarcação entre o Nós e os Outros, associando-se os Outros a um duplo estereótipo: diferentes e pobres. 

Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca is part of the series of 1940s gothic films. In this essay, one of the most common tropes of this subgenre of the psychological thriller is identified and analysed: perceptual ambiguity. Based on this element, I justify the formal choices of an (audio)visual essay - "Some Visual Thought about Perception in Rebecca" - made with images and sound from that film, which explores the gothic dimensions of the video-essayistic practice itself: research, contradiction, quotation and evocation.

In this article, we present Akson, a web-based audio-visual (AV) environment for networked interaction and performance. It is demonstrated as an emerging artefact of an investigation in computer music and media art from collaborative interfaces exploring the cloud. Akson allows both the generation of content in a customized network and the structuring of agents connected in different interaction models. There are detailed experiments carried out during the development process, their existence taking advantage of the Internet and the way in which the software works technically is detailed extensively. As an interface that extends the artistic gesture, it is presented as a result of research in the context of Braga Media Arts, a creative city of UNESCO (UCCN).

It is hard to deny that the notions of creativity and intelligence are inherently connected. But what does this correlation amount to? The aim of this paper is to explore this question and to contribute to the discussion regarding the connections between creativity and intelligence. In order to do so, I draw on the results of a study on the public perceptions in relation to the use of AI in the creative sector conducted at the University of Nottingham. Through this discussion I aim to test the hypothesis that the key features of creativity correspond to the aspects that are essential for the realization of Artificial General Intelligence, e.g. flexibility, domain knowledge, and common-sense. I close the paper by contending that while creativity is a crucial component of general intelligence, the constituents needed to build an AGI may not be sufficient to design creative artificial systems.

The evolution of philosophical views on art is interwoven with trajectories of accelerating technological amelioration. In the emergence of generative algorithms there is a need for making sense of modern technologies that step in a realm previously reserved for humans – creativity. This paper aims to understand the role of the human in generative art by demystifying implications of black-box generative algorithms and their applications for artistic purposes. First, we shortly canvas the current state of practice and research in generative art, especially music. Then, we introduce Anastatica, a part performance, part installation built using data-driven generative live coding. Finally, we discuss implications of AI in art through a case study of Anastatica’s development and performance. We trace the path from algorithms to intelligence, applying musical and computer science theory to a practical case of generating a live coding musical performance, while focusing on aesthetic, compositional, conceptual, and phenomenological implications.

We present an approach for composition and performance with speculative complex biological systems. This iterative approach engages with both the content and the context of science through generative visual and sound art. We offer a conceptual framing as well as practical exercises, demonstrated in two cases. By distinguishing the system, its representation, and human observer(s), we clarify influences, material artifacts, and sources of tension. In the case of Dismantling, a live performance using a simulation adapted from a model of the acellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum, we explore a shifting locus of agency during the performance between the observer and the representation. In the case of Feed, a visual and sound installation realizing addiction as a multi-scale process, we explore the generative tension of re-use of a representation to engage with different systems. The underlying biological phenomena can be viewed as complex networks with powerful performative agency and multi-scale behaviors.

In the early 17th Century, the Spanish painter Francisco Pacheco railed against his apprentices, telling them that the image should stand out of the picture. The topic was the one most debated in the art of the Counter-Reformation, whose main directives, outlined in the Council of Trent, would be put in motion simultaneously with urban "Christianisation". They presupposed a social contract, established between producer and receiver, implying maximum clarity of the message, which involved an ambiguous grey area that would be reserved for the outside of the focus. In painting, which sacrificed everything that was incidental or extraneous to the story, showing the essential and neglecting the accessory, the binary radicalism of the concept became more explicit, through the Caravaggian illumination or in the case above, the Spanish tenebrism of Velásquez, to whom Pacheco's admonition was addressed. In our Doctoral Thesis presented at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, we sought to demonstrate that the Plastic Arts were not the only field for the application of Luminist principles. In this article we aim to summarise this thesis by exposing the important relationships between image, ritual and urban form in 16th Century Porto, after a time, therefore, the late Middle Ages, which Huizinga classified as deeply iconophile , in which image and ritual were put at the service of the reformulation of a State becoming increasingly centralised and interventionist, whose action extended to the sphere of the Church: with King João II, and especially King Manuel I, the Crown was an active sponsor of religious reform that was pursued with redoubled energy and systematisation, from the reign of "the Pious", then already within the political system of close bilateral cooperation that was designated the Confessional State. We therefore believe that this type of approach to anthropological and symbolic components, which seeks to take into account the increasing importance that is given in contemporary research on the city's history, can be very fruitful.

A considerable number of contemporary films are now using narrative models that allow several adaptations on digital and interactive operating systems. This trend is seen in films such as Memento by Christopher Nolan (2000), Irréversible by Gaspar Noé (2002) and Smoking / No Smoking by Alain Resnais (1993), concerning the chronological organization of their narrative parts – here it is a question of order. Or in films such as Elephant by Gus Van Sant (2003), Groundhog Day by Harold Ramis, 1993 and Rashômon by Akira Kurosawa (1950), for the diegetic repetition – a question of frequency. Or even, in films such as Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson (1999) and Short Cuts by Robert Altman, 1993 which use the idea of expansion or compression of the narrative – a question of simultaneity. To change the accessibility of the cinematographic experience and to constantly re-evaluate the way in which the narrative tool is used, is from now on considered the interactive potential of the contemporary film narrative.

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