From humour to fine arts and vice versa: Atlántida in the twenties

From its foundation in 1918 by the Uruguayan writer Constancio C. Vigil, Atlántida magazine kept a well-defined interest in images. The covers, a clear example in that sense, displayed colourful works on full pages while the content itself reflected that through cartoons, graphic sections, vignettes, illustrations and photographs. Conceived as a mass-market project, Atlántida worked with images and texts resorting to the popular and the cultured within the magazine’s layout. Thus, they implemented innovative strategies in the promotion of art, combining a humorous register with texts and images within institutional circuits. This essay is aimed at analysing that peculiar device articulating professional art reviews and reproductions of academic paintings linked also to the art market, with humorous illustrations and textual interventions which spoofed the artistic system. In this vein, the role played by cartoons will be studied, together with the criteria for choosing cover images and the introduction of professional criticism, to eventually focus on an emblematic case in Argentinean art history: Emilio Pettoruti’s exhibition of 1924 and its counterpart, the Salón Ultrafuturista [Ultrafuturistic Salon], a satire of avant-garde proposals and, in short, a questioning of the progress of modern art through humorous means. Our intention is then to reflect upon the artistic promotion strategies which had an impact on the development of consumption, and among which humour turned out to be a critical component. The magazine will be thus conceived as a device for the circulation of imaginaries moulding the sensitivity of the time and the readers’ artistic understanding.     

Jacqueline Kahanoff and the demise of the Levantine

More than anything else, Jacqueline Kahanoff is associated with the term Levantinism and, more specifically, with transforming the term – which for many years had a derogatory meaning – into a positive source of identity. However, this reading of Kahanoff – namely, a carrier of the message of Levantinism as a bridge between Orient and Occident – seems to tell us more about Kahanoff’s readers than about Kahanoff herself. An attentive reading of her work reveals a different Kahanoff, a person who, more than being the originator and proponent of a new kind of identity, while moving swiftly across cultures and feeling at home nowhere because her home was everywhere, was actually well entrenched in the West, in Zionism and in Israel.     

Shape Reproducibility and architectural symmetry during the Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant

Architecture reflects social aspects of past communities. Structure attributes such as shape, size, building material and decoration, provide valuable information beyond their immediate structural function. However, while attributes such as size can be measured and therefore objectively compared between structures, the comparison of shape between structures is based on subjective observations. In the current study we use two quantification methods for analyzing prehistoric shape-based architectural data: (1) we developed a new method, Shape Reproducibility (SR), based on objective computerized procedure for analyzing the similarity and difference between shapes of ancient buildings; and (2) we use Continuous Symmetry Measure (CSM), a method which was originally developed for analyzing flint artifacts and ceramic vessels to objectively compare between shape symmetry. Applying these methods to settlement data of the Chalcolithic period enables quantification of the level of architectural similarity within and between different sites and their comparison to architectural data of later periods, such as the Early Bronze Age II urban center at Arad. Our CSM results suggest that the symmetry of architecture does not increase through time. Our SR findings demonstrate that in the main cultural Chalcolithic entity, the Ghassulian, the architecture of different sites could not be distinguished from one site to the other. In addition, we demonstrate that the architecture of the Chalcolithic sites in the Golan Heights is homogeneous and significantly differs from other Chalcolithic sites, while Ghassulian intra-site variability is higher. In comparison with Arad, however, this variability is relatively low and limited. These results suggest that status differentiation or hierarchical social organization cannot be indicated from Ghassulian architecture.     

Computer-based,automatic recording and illustration of complex archaeological artifacts

We report on the development of a computerized automatic system to illustrate complex archaeological objects. The illustrations are based on 3D scans of the artifacts. The 3D models can be automatically translated, by new algorithms specifically designed for this purpose, into 3D or 2D line drawings; into colored images that emphasize the salient shape attributes of the artifacts and of the 3D designs on them; and to images that enhance faint/eroded designs that are otherwise difficult to discern. These illustrations are intended to replace traditional, manual drawings, which are very expensive to produce and not accurate enough. Our illustrations also provide a better visualization tool than the 3D models themselves. Though 3D scanning already improves the visibility of objects and their features, it does not suffice for rapid visual recognition. Our system generates efficient, objective, accurate and simplified representations of complex objects and the designs on them from any number of required views.     

WHOSE KNOWLEDGE,WHOSE POWER? ETHICS IN URBAN REGENERATION PROJECTS WITH COMMUNITIES

This paper examines “moments of residents' awareness” and their ethics in three planning processes, each representing different relations between local and professional knowledge in the course of the three‐year regeneration project in Meonot Yam neighborhood, Bat Yam, Israel. This new terminology emphasizes how nuanced relations between various types of knowledge better explain the challenges faced by planners and residents in regeneration projects. These moments reflect residents' empowerment, challenging the binary view of professional/powerful versus local/ powerless knowledge that characterizes modernist thinking. The paper proposes that in such complicated processes it helps to analyze moments of power/knowledge transformation, from which one can learn that conflict and disagreement, and not only consensus, can lead to residents' empowerment.     

Crusader Diet in Times of War and Peace: Arsur (Israel) as a Case Study

This paper puts forward an archaeozoological analysis of two sizeable animal bone assemblages from the thirteenth‐century Crusader town of Arsur (Israel). Each represents a distinct behavioural practice, one of meat eaten in peaceful times and the other of meat consumed under stressful conditions while preparing for and undergoing a siege, when consideration was given to factors of benefits and space. Our results show that the faunal remains from before and during the Mamluk siege enunciate differences of subsistence and identity at the site at two different times and under diverse conditions.