Jimy Alexander Cortés-Osorio, Juan Bernardo Gómez-Mendoza, Juan Carlos Riaño-Rojas
Context: Vision-based measurement (VBM) systems are becoming popular as an affordable and suitable alternative for scientific and engineering applications. When cameras are used as instruments, motion blur usually emerges as a recurrent and undesirable image degradation, which in fact contains kinematic information that is usually dismissed.
Method: This paper introduces an alternative approach to measure relative acceleration from a real invariant uniformly accelerated linear motion-blurred image. This is done by using homomorphic mapping to extract the characteristic Point Spread Function (PSF) of the blurred image, as well as machine learning regression. A total of 125 uniformly accelerated motion-blurred pictures were taken in a light- and distance-controlled environment, at five different accelerations ranging between 0,64 and 2,4 m/s2. This study evaluated 19 variants such as tree ensembles, Gaussian processes (GPR), and linear, support vector machine (SVM), and tree regression.
Results: The best RMSE result corresponds to GPR (Matern 5/2), with 0,2547 m/s2 and a prediction speed of 530 observations per second (obs/s). Additionally, some novel deep learning methods were used to obtain the best RMSE value (0,4639 m/s2 for Inception ResNet v2, with a prediction speed of 11 obs/s.
Conclusions: The proposed method (homomorphic mapping and machine learning) is a valid alternative for calculating acceleration from invariant motion blur in real-time applications when additive noise is not dominant, even surpassing the deep learning techniques evaluated.
The article revisits the concept of entropy in art as discussed by Gestalt psychologist and art theorist Rudolf Arnheim. His discussion of artworks and their reception as complex dynamic fields where the forces of entropy and orderliness counter and complete each other, are brought into dialogue with newer approaches, from the perspective of complexity theory and neuroscience, to the dynamics of perception and to entropic processes in the brain. I will argue that even though Arnheim’s observations can still be valuable for contemporary art criticism they need to be updated as they tend to overstate the tendency for order as well as the visual aspects of reception in the expense of multimodal and embodied aspects. In light of these observations, I will discuss contemporary cases of ‘entropic’ art through the moving image works of Marco Brambilla, their aesthetics as well as the ‘structural themes’ arising and the Gestalt processes involved in their reception.
The 2019 unrest in Hong Kong was the result of complex factors simmering over the years, culminating in a tragedy of errors unreeling at warp speed. This paper examines a few of the factors from the personal perspective of a Hong Kong-born Chinese American. Since the 1997 Retrocession, Hong Kong had been engaged in a unique version of post-colonial condition, “one country, two systems” (OCTS), meaning that it must contend with not only ways of a new beginning and ways of the former days but also ways for a future beginning—that of future China when OCTS expires. Hong Kong had also been conditioned to look at itself through the Western gaze and its future through Western imagination, resulting in self-objectification. Many of its people were consumed by misguided idealism that compelled citizens toward a profound mistrust of China while turning a blind eye to the country’s unique accomplishment. A powerful media dedicated to promoting the Western agenda further fanned the fire, turning the former colony into an unwitting proxy of the new Cold War waged by the United States on China. Such was a tragedy of errors that a movement launched against a worrisome rule, resulting in the passing of a law even more worrisome.
The formal, cinematic language specific to immersive motion pictures is an area of cinema theory that has been neglected up until now. This paper investigates a new language of cinematic montage specific to immersive cinema, somatic montage, while it examines historical precedents in the sciences, arts, and cinema of the twentieth century. We propose somatic montage as a model for developing new poetic structures in time-based works that inhabit a three-dimensional, architectonic space – a space of embodiment, motion, perception, and participation in the reception of a work of art. In this paper, we consider cinema as a four-dimensional artwork conceptually engendered by the principles of hyper-dimensions, the outgrowth of scientific discoveries made at the turn of the twentieth century. The expanded cinema mediums of fulldome cinema, immersive video and film installation, virtual reality, and extended reality, when approached as four-dimensional cinema space, allow for a spatialized, non-linear juxtaposition of the cinematic elements. Somatic montage is presented here as an extended, supra-dimensional notion of what Sergei Eisenstein called the ‘disjunctive method of narration’.
Regina Schoenfeld-Tacher, Lori R. Kogan, Patrick C. Carney
While animal shelters have made significant progress in reducing the number of euthanized dogs and cats, millions of unclaimed pets are still euthanized every year. Cats, in particular, face bleak prospects, with ~70% of those that enter animal shelters euthanized. Many factors influence potential cat adopters' decisions, including a cat's physical appearance and perceived personality. To explore elements related to the perception of cat personality, this study examined whether videos and pictures highlight different characteristics felt to potentially affect perceived cat adoptability. An online survey was used to assess perceptions regarding videos and pictures of cats. The survey consisted of three adult cats viewed in a short video and as a still picture. Participants were asked to view the media and rate how well these images depicted 12 separate characteristics (from extremely well to not well at all). Respondents were then asked how likely they would be to adopt this cat if they “were in the market to adopt a cat.” A total of 555 surveys were analyzed to answer two questions. The first question was whether cats were perceived as more adoptable when viewed in a still photo or in an action video. A statistically significant difference was found between median photo and video adoption scores for all three cats, with video scores consistently higher than photo scores. The next question was how video footage might alter perception of cats when compared to still photos. For all three cats, the traits “Playful,” “Aggressive,” “Active,” and “Curious” received higher scores when the cats were viewed in videos vs. photos. All of these traits can be associated with active behaviors, best demonstrated via motion. The cats, however, were seen as more “Loving,” “Shy,” “Quiet,” and “Likes to be held” in photos compared to videos. The results suggest that there is an advantage of videos over pictures in perceived adoptability, as determined by response to the question “how likely would you be to adopt this cat,” but this difference is small and likely does not justify additional resources. Exceptions might be for active, outgoing cats in order to highlight these attributes.
A vivid sense of motion can be inferred from static pictures of objects in motion. Like perception of real motion (RM), viewing photographs with implied motion (IM) can also activate the motion-sensitive visual cortex, including the middle temporal complex (hMT+) of the human extrastriate cortex. Moreover, extrastriate cortical activity also increases with motion coherence. Based on these previous findings, this study examined whether similar coherence level-dependent activity in motion-sensitive human extrastriate cortex is seen with IM stimuli of varying coherence. Photographic stimuli showing a human moving in four directions (left, right, toward, or away from the viewer) were presented to 15 participants. The coherence of the stimuli was manipulated by changing the percentage of pictures implying movement in one direction. Electroencephalographic data were collected while participants viewed IM or counterpart non-IM stimuli. The P2 response of extrastriate visual cortex (source located at hMT+) increased bilaterally with coherence level in the IM conditions but not in the non-IM conditions. This finding demonstrates that extrastriate visual cortical responses are progressively activated as motion coherence increases, even when motion is inferred, providing new support for the view that the activity of human motion-sensitive extrastriate visual cortex can be modulated by top-down perceptual influences in addition to its well-established role in processing bottom-up sensory signals.
Abstract Background For the last two decades, there has been a surge of major motion pictures dealing with the topic of dementia. This trend reflects and at the same time informs and shapes an increasing public awareness of dementia as an individual ethical and sociopolitical issue. Main body This contribution examines from an ethical perspective how contemporary motion pictures deal with the topic of dementia and thus contribute to forming our moral awareness of the phenomenon as such and our ways of dealing with those affected. It focuses on an analysis of the conceptual premises and aesthetic imagery relevant in the cinematographic representation of dementia. As the analysis will show, viewing a film as a film about dementia may presume a medicalizing perspective. Furthermore, cinematographic images and metaphors are powerful devices for articulating thoughts and feelings about the elusive and ultimately ineffable experience of dementia. At the same time, however, they can also have problematic implications. Conclusions Given the lack of knowledge and widespread fear, stigmatization and exclusion, health policy can and should use cinematographic approaches in order to enhance public understanding of dementia and empathy with those affected. At the same time, however, public health agencies and educational institutions making use of the persuasive power of film need to pay closer attention to the images and messages constructed, their aesthetic functioning and their ethical implications and social consequences.
This article approaches cinema through a transdisciplinary perspective joining philosophy with moving-image practice to think time, subjectivity, objectivity – and relationality. Working from the example of Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera film, it explores the idea of the perception-camera as a relational point of view through which the film, as an event, evolves. It understands the film as an autonomous entity evolving through this relational point of view. In so doing, it fosters a complex approach beyond the subjective-objective perspective, and discusses what Gilles Deleuze calls the “free indirect image.” This is the point of view of an unfolding subjective form that does not pertain to human perspective, but to the event perceiving itself as it evolves into its own accomplishment.
<p>Cantinflas es uno de los hitos fundamentales en el cine mexicano, como demuestra su presenciaa lo largo de buena parte del siglo XX y la perdurabilidad de su mito. El estudio de su estelarización va de la cultura prerrevolucionaria —de la que surge el personaje del pelado que encarnará—, al momento en el que se incluye como Cantinflas en la producción industrial de cine de la época de los cuarenta. En este artículo, este proceso se concretará con el estudio de su incorporación a las dos películas en las que participó como personaje en el universo ranchero, género clave para el primer periodo de consolidación de esa industria y, por tanto, emblema de su época clásica: <em>¡Así es mi tierra!</em> (Arcady Boytler, 1937) y <em>El siete machos</em> (Miguel M. Delgado, 1950). Su presencia en este locus absolutamente ajeno explica la funcionalidad de su estrella y la forma de trabajo de la industria mexicana. Dado que ambas películas pertenecen a dos etapas diferentes de su carrera, el análisis de las mismas permite entender también el trabajo de construcción y la evolución de su estrella.</p><p><strong>Palabras clave:</strong> Cantinflas, cine mexicano, cultura popular, teatro popular, starsystem, comedia ranchera, modernización, <em>¡Así es mi tierra!</em>, <em>El siete machos</em>.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong></p><p>If we take Cantinflas presence throughout the 20th Century into consideration and the fact that his myth has lasted so long, he is a milestone in Mexican Cinema. The study of the process of his becoming a star began in the pre-revolutionary culture, when his ‘pelado’ character emerged, to the moment in which he enters as Cantinflas in the film industry, during the forties. In this article, this process will be analysed in the two films in which he participated in the ranch universe films; a genre that was crucial in the beginning of the industrial consolidation and, therefore, a symbol of this classic period: <em>¡Así es mi tierra!</em> (Such is my Country, Arcady Boytler, 1937) and <em>El siete machos</em> (Miguel M. Delgado, 1950). His participation in this locus, which was completely alien to his character, explains his functionality as a star as well as the ways the Mexican industry worked. Since both films belong to two different periods in his filmography, the analysis will show the construction and the evolution of Cantinflas as a star.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Cantinflas, Mexican cinema, popular culture, popular theatre, star-system, ranch comedy, modernization, <em>¡Así es mi tierra!</em> (Such is my Country), <em>El siete machos</em>.</p>
<p>Complex phenomena are hardly understood from one single viewpoint. Cinema has a polyhedral approach that discloses the hidden faces of reality. There are many aspects to be shown in gender?based violence (GBV), such as its genesis and the causes of its durability; emotional abuse in the form of controlling behaviors, isolation and submission; and the consequences of all this. The range of operation for GBV is very wide (within the couple, in the family and the workplace, institutional and community?based, among others), as much as it is universal, cutting across social class, race, economic status, religion or nationality. Movies may prove useful in revealing violent male?chauvinist behaviors, some of them so deeply rooted in societies that they tend to become normalized and to go unnoticed. In spite of the efforts towards visibility, and understanding and stopping violence against women, the phenomenon remains largely unknown. The movie industry is now beginning to reflect it in motion pictures, sometimes in a more explicit or argumentative manner, at other times more covertly or obliquely. We have made a selection of ten Spanish movies depicting some of these multiple facets: violence against women in the domestic domain, sexual violence, and violence related to economic and sociocultural aspects.</p>