The Right Way uses the methods of design history material culture studies and the social construction of technology to analyse the domestic spaces and objects in the homes of the middle class in India. The book describes how people make meaning of the objects they buy own and gift.

This is a book about the biography of projects and objects. The projects in the book serve as book ends to a detailed and affectionate account of the biographies of objects within the homes of the not so rich.



The aim of the author has been to silence the voice of the designer to allow the accounts of objects to emerge as periodic irruptions that reveal a hidden maelstrom of passion ideas and failed projects. The book opens with the biography of a project dealing with waste leading the reader to a very particular kind of object the bads. This object is illicit handled by criminals and in the writing by the author serves to invert the dominant discourse of objects as commodities. This book makes the case that the program of design is better seen as a democratic community where the householders the zietgiest technology and all manner of hidden agents collide to allow unforseen periodic objects to emerge.

Varadarajam argues against a simplistic universal account off the way we think about how objects are designed. As an enterprise the book was a journey to assemble the evidence - of places and objects - and observe the enactment of practices with the objects. It was also a project of speculation upon the possible ways in which objects come to be as local collaborations of action.

This edited collection will draw attention to how the mainstreamification of queer identities has crafted a dynamic field in which a wide variety of queer identities can be put on display and consumed by audiences.



Queer critics and queer theory as a whole tend to frame queer identities as marginal (Sedgwick 1990; Halberstam 2011) and these landmark scholars have cemented a foundational understanding of queerness that is now at odds with current shifts in media production. The chapters here will present a broad variety of queer identities from across a range of televisual genres and shows in an effort to reconsider the marginalisation of queerness in the twenty-first century. Doing so challenges pre-existing notions that such mainstreamification necessitates being subsumed by the cisheteropatriarchy. Therefore the project argues the converse: that heteronormative assumptions are outdated and new queer representations lay the groundwork for filling gaps that queer criticism has left open.

Focusing on the incidence of the ‘Westerns’ film genre in the 120-odd years of Australian cinema history exploring how the American genre has been adapted to the changing Australian social political and cultural contexts of their production including the shifting emphases in the representation of the Indigenous population.



The idea for the book came to the author while he was writing two recent articles. One was an essay for Screen Education on the western in Australian cinema of the 21st century; the other piece was the review of a book entitled Film and the Historian for the online journal Inside Story . Between the two he saw the interesting prospect of a book-length study of the role of the western genre in Australia’s changing political and cultural history over the last century – and the ways in which film can without didacticism provide evidence of such change. Key matters include the changing attitudes to and representation of Indigenous peoples and of women's roles in Australian Westerns.



When one considers that the longest narrative film then seen in Australia and quite possibly the world was Charles Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) it is clear that Australia has some serious history in the genre and Kelly has ridden again in Justin Kurzel’s 2020 adaptation of Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang.

Dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies from 1968 to 2021 usually conclude with optimism with a window into what is possible in the face of social dysfunction - and worse. The infrastructure that peeks through at the edges of the frame surfaces some of the concrete ways in which dystopian and post-apocalyptic survivors have made do with their damaged and destroyed worlds.



If the happy endings so common to mass-audience films do not provide an all-encompassing vision of a better world the presence of infrastructure whether old or retrofitted or new offers a starting point for the continued work of building toward the future.



Film imaginings energy transportation water waste and their combination in the food system reveal what might be essential infrastructure on which to build the new post-dystopian and post-apocalyptic communities. We can look to dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies for a sense of where we might begin.

This collection explores the dynamic place of Muslim visual and expressive culture in processes of decolonization across the African continent. Presenting new methodologies for accentuating African agency and expression in the stories we tell about Islamic art it likewise contributes to recent widespread efforts to “decolonize” the art historical canon.

The contributors to this volume explore the dynamic place of Islamic art architecture and creative expression in processes of decolonization across the African continent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Bringing together new work by leading specialists in the fields of African Islamic and modern arts and visual cultures the book directs unprecedented attention to the agency and contributions of African and Muslim artists in articulating modernities in local and international arenas. Interdisciplinary and transregional in scope it enriches the under-told story of Muslim experiences and expression on the African continent home to nearly half a million Muslims or a third of the global Muslim population.



Furthermore it elucidates the role of Islam and its expressive cultures in post-colonial articulations of modern identities and heritage as expressed by a diverse range of actors and communities based in Africa and its diaspora; as such the book counters notions of Islam as a retrograde or static societal phenomenon in Africa or elsewhere. Contributors propose new methodologies for accentuating human agency and experience over superficial disciplinary boundaries in the stories we tell about art-making and visual expression thus contributing to widespread efforts to decolonize scholarship on histories of modern expression.

The work of queer Muslim visual artist Sa'dia Rehman (she/they) animates a queer call for no borders. These queer cartographic logics are clear in projects like Mihrab (2019) and The Land of Promise (2020). Through queer aesthetic strategies such as conviviality and opacity Rehman gathers traces as a brown visual commons that cultivates unforeseen affiliations. Their works of art are portals into queer theory committed to dismantling borders to prompting social re-ordering and to ungovernability. As a result she frustrates regulatory logics undergirding visuality announcing the possibility of another kind of visuality altogether.

Presents new perspectives on queer visual culture in the Southwest Asia North Africa region from queer artists as well as scholars who work on queer themes. With contributions from both scholars and artists this volume demonstrates that queer visual culture in the SWANA region is not only extant but is also entering an era of exciting growth in terms of its versatility and consciousness. The volume focuses on artworks produced in the contemporary era while recognizing historical and contextual connections to Islamic art and culture within

localities and regions from the pre-modern and modern eras.



By framing this volume as unambiguously located within queer studies the editors challenge existing literature that merely includes some examples of queer studies or queer representation but does not necessarily use queer studies as a lens through which to engage with visual culture and/or with the SWANA region. Through four interrelated sections - Gender and Normativity Trans* Articulations Intersectional Sexuality and Queer SWANA - this volume probes several previously unexplored academic areas namely the intersections of queer studies with other fields.



Part of the Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East series.

Over the past decades trans has been mobilized to emphasize the unsettling borders and boundaries in that which is across or beyond. Akin to the instability and multi-directionality of queer trans in this sense provides a method of reading for non-normative subtleties and a resistance to categorizations fixed within hegemonic matrices of domination. In this chapter we take up the framework of trans for its potential in reading works from Aïcha Snoussi and Khaled Jarrar that we suggest benefit from an approach that unsettles the fixed and the singular. We do not consider these works within the context of the artists' gender identities but investigate transing as a method of critical inquiry into the works' substance. This chapter takes as a starting point the myriad of suffixes including and beyond - gender that could be attached to the prefix trans- to think expansively about how trans- can be queer.

“Futurist Androgynes Persian Ironies; an interview with Rah Eleh” explores intersectionality of gender politics embedded in postcolonial queries the aesthetics of video art and the question of posthuman around queer performing body. Rah (aka Raheleh Saneie) a Canadian-Iranian artist in her works creates a space where gender fluidity clashes with assumed cultural norms of Persian identity in Diaspora.

In this chapter I analyze how Lebanese queer artists endow visual representations of the figure of the belly dancer with new potent meanings. The artists I discuss here use archive-based video art radical queer aesthetics and camp sensibilities to produce a revision of the region's history challenge its strict gender norms and create feminist visions for the present and future. I argue that the awakening of the dancer and her creative energy and power to captivate audiences echoes a feminist and queer revolution striving to transform a patriarchal social and political order in Lebanon and beyond.

This book provides semiotically-focused analyses and interpretations of video game music focusing specifically on musical representation of three demographic diversity traits. Adopting a narratologist orientation to supplement existing ludological scholarship these analyses apply music semiotics to crucial modern-day issues such as representation of gender race and religion in video games.



An original and welcome contribution to the field it considers musical meaning in relation to the aspects of gender race and religion. This book will help readers to develop language and context in which to consider video game music in terms of society and representation and will encourage future research in these critical areas.



Yee analyses music's contributions to video games' narrative and thematic meanings specifically concerning three master categories of identity – gender race and religion. Containing twenty-five detailed analytical case studies of musical representation in video game music it sets out theoretical and conceptual frameworks beneficial for interpreting musical meaning from video game soundtracks. Though players and commentators may be tempted to view a game's soundtrack as mere 'background music' this research demonstrates video game music's social relevance as a major factor impacting players' cultural attitudes values and beliefs.



Part I explores immersion interactivity and interpretation in video game music proposing a theory of 'interpretative interactivity' to account for players' semiotic agency in dialogue with their ludic agency. Part II explores gender representation in a trajectory from conventional gender construction alternative femininities/masculinities and potential for non-binary representational possibilities. Part III explores musical representation of nationality culture and race proposing the concept of 'racialised fantasy' and applying frameworks from race scholarship to connect media representations of race to real world racial justice movements. Part IV examines religion introducing the concept of 'sonic iconography' to connect theological

meanings to the use of sacred music in video game music.

The platform economy continues to draw scholarly attention. However the human impacts and social elements of platform work remain under-researched and poorly understood. Framed by Lashley’s domains of hospitality this article investigates where and how platform-based food delivery workers – predominantly migrants – interact with others. This involved a multi-sited ethnography including face-to-face and digital participant observation (predominantly bicycle shadowing) and semi-structured interviews with food delivery workers and key stakeholders. The findings illustrate where interactions occur within the commercial private and social domains of hospitality. The article then documents digital interactions that transpire beyond existing domains – demonstrating the need for a new virtual domain – which accounts for exchanges at the threshold of material and virtual contexts. The article then discusses how digital physical and embodied artefacts are used to mediate hospitality. Finally this article introduces the concept of algorithmic hostility to demonstrate how platforms restaurant staff customers and others utilize digital technologies and existing social divisions to exploit contingent workers – furthering our understanding of how people interact at the human-digital frontier.

Review of: Fashion-ology: Fashion Studies in the Postmodern Digital Era Yuniya Kawamura (2023)

London: Bloomsbury Publishing 182 pp.

ISBN 978-1-35033-186-0 p/bk $29.95

Media and societal values play a significant role in influencing social physique anxiety among female university students. This in turn affects the multifaceted roles that attire assumes including concealing enhancing and expressing. A recent study conducted in Taiwan examined 503 female college students utilizing the Social Physique Anxiety Scale and Clothing Functions Scale. The research aimed to uncover how anxiety about body image influences the selection of clothing. Cluster analysis identified three distinct groups: those with a ‘Confident’ ‘Comfortable’ and ‘Anxious’ body image. Further analysis through ANOVA revealed variations in clothing preferences across these clusters. Regression analysis then delved into the impact of public physical and competitive and non-public evaluative and comfort on clothing choices within each group. The findings indicated that clothing preferences were strongly influenced by the level of anxiety. While individuality and fashion preferences remained stable high anxiety levels led to more practical and concealing clothing choices. In contrast lower anxiety levels were associated with more individualistic and fashionable selections. The study emphasized the significant roles of ‘PPC’ and ‘NPEC’ in shaping clothing functions within the identified clusters highlighting the complex relationship between self-perception attire and self-expression in the pursuit of confidence. Overall the research emphasized the strong correlation between social physique anxiety and the decisions made in clothing selection.

Review of: Fashion: Seductive Play Stefano Marino and Giovanni Matteucci (eds) (2023)

London: Bloomsbury Publishing 131 pp.

ISBN 978-1-35020-038-8 h/bk $115.00

This article explores the evolution and diverse interpretations of ‘design’ throughout history emphasizing its broader implications beyond mere aesthetics. Initially a verb in the English language during the 1500s design encompasses a range of activities from thought and planning to the creation and execution of artefacts. The work challenges narrow perceptions highlighting design’s role across various domains as identified by Terence Love who views it as a set of instructions for realization. The discourse extends to the discipline of design asserting that all human activity inherently involves design thus blurring the distinctions between design and daily life. The article also delves into fashion design tracing its historical significance and the transition from individual craftsmanship to mass production and the subsequent rise of different fashion genres. Additionally the relationship between design and style is scrutinized noting the influence of societal and cultural factors on fashion. The article concludes with an examination of aesthetics in design underscoring the essential balance between functionality and visual appeal in successful design outcomes.

‘Aesthetics’ is the new ‘it’ word among Gen-Zs. They stand for stylized visual trends shared on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The suffix -core is frequently used on these social media platforms to describe the various aesthetics. These micro-cores have emerged as mediums of self-expression and catalysts for social change amongst Gen-Zs. This study aims to understand the concept of trending micro-cores and the impact they have on framing identities of today’s youth who have grown up amid warnings of impending doom brought on by climate change pandemic lockdowns and economic collapse. The study discusses four micro-cores – Barbiecore Y2K quiet luxury and e-girl/e-boy – to understand their meaning origin and relevance in current cultural contexts. It follows a qualitative approach with an interpretivist paradigm to develop themes from literature by analysing website blogs and social media content. The study then triangulates the data by surveying Gen-Z participants to understand their perspectives on the influences that urge people to adapt to these micro-cores.

This article examines a Mexican and Mexican American style of dress referenced to as paisa style. This style of dress is often associated with corrido norteño and Banda culture. In fact after the Quebradita movement during the 1990s Mexican American youth adopted this style to create what is referred to as Chalinillo paisa subculture which was heavily inspired by corrido singer Chalino Sanchez. Following Dick Hebdige’s definition of subculture as ‘the expressive forms and rituals of those subordinate groups’ in this article I study how paisa style was worn to signify cultural pride in a moment of heavy anti-immigrant sentiment. In an effort to study the contemporary examples of paisa style I analyse the work of four artists: queer photographer Fabian Guerrero queer model Jose Hernandez beauty influencer Jennifer Ruiz and brand designers Paisaboys. Using a performative discursive analysis I show how contemporary queer artists and influencers most of whom are not in the music world have reappropriated the paisa aesthetic to centre feminine and queer embodiments. These queer artists are not only demanding the recognition of queer sexualities in this subculture but they are also asking us to think about paisa dress as archives that hold memories migration stories and their potential to change past narratives. The artists studied in this article add new signification to paisa subculture that centres a Brown queer lens.

This article considers the key differences between the weird (as exemplified in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and the absurd (with the art of Salvador Dalí as its clearest mascot). Object-Oriented Ontology's concept of “ontography” is introduced in order to show how it accounts for the weird. Dalí is discussed by way of recent scholarly work by Roger Rothman Simon Weird and Anthony Dibbs. The unsettling result of this discussion is that the absurd as found especially in surrealism bears an unsettling resemblance to knowledge itself.

Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape is an hour long two-screen animated film by artist Andy Holden made between 2011 and 2016. It explores the idea that the world has become or is best understood as a cartoon and therefore to understand the world we must examine how physics and logic are understood within the history of animation. The film features an animated version of the artist elaborating on the laws of physics as they appear in the history of cartoons using multiple examples to prove his thesis. The lecture delivered by a cartoon version of the artist could be seen as a cartoon lecture on the history of cartoons. The text produced for Contemporary Absurdities Existential Crisis and Visual Art is a reduced transcript of the films central argument and various digressions.

Kent argues that the absurd is not an apolitical refusal to engage with the issues of the contemporary moment in “The Absurd and an Agonistic Opportunity.” Drawing on Chantal Mouffe's notion of agonism as enabling democratic discourse and Claire Woodford's proposal that the absurd has political potential Kent explains how the absurd's refusal to commit is the moment of challenge for audiences and spectators to develop their own critical criteria.

In her essay Jennifer Lyn Morone reflects on the philosophical concept of the Absurd as presented by Albert Camus in “The Myth of Sisyphus”. While Camus' concept of Absurdism is primarily an internal process of “permanent revolution” and contemplation by an individual Morone argues that the Absurd can also be used externally as a means of expression to disrupt the status quo and challenge oppressive power structures. To illustrate this point she draws on her own artistic and activist project in which she transformed herself into a corporation in order to explore the implications of data collection and surveillance in an increasingly digitized world and to highlight the power inequalities within corporate capitalism.

This essay delves into the intricate phenomenon of human hallucination exploring the absurd nature of our perceptions. Through a series of analyses it examines how the mind conjures vivid illusions blurring the lines between the tangible and the fantastical. Notably every word within the essay itself is a product of genuine human creativity uninfluenced by artificial intelligence. However the abstract you are reading now stands as an exception potentially crafted with the aid of AI adding a meta-layer of contemplation on the intersection of human and artificial thought processes.

Wielding a kind of “sublime madness” or deploying the absurd as an agentic method to tackle the conditions in which we find ourselves the following paper focuses on the potentials of landscape fictions in challenging existing anthropocentric models that exploit the Other (human and non-human). Specifically the paper features a speculative design prototype Posthuman Habitats which challenges extractivist environmental paradigms by dismantling the idea of human exceptionalism and demonstrating the complex webs of life upon which humans depend. This speculation and methodology described in the paper aim to offer a method of coexistence of both living on and sharing this broken planet with the more-than-human world.

This chapter lays out a typology of absurd operations identifiable within works of (post)conceptual art. Dispensing with the intellectual and artistic baggage that clings to existential and literary absurdity it proceeds instead through a notion of “tactical absurdity”: a mode of operation understood as part of the toolkit of the contemporary visual artist. Proposed as distinct “variants” of absurdity the works discussed are divided into eight categories characterized through their use of tactics such as fallacious reasoning breaching norms of social behavior and violating generic expectations. Exemplified through the works of artists such as Fischli & Weiss Pilvi Takala and William Pope.L the typological exactitude is knowingly overperformed in a spirit of experimentation that aims to establish provisional coordinates for the longer game.

Review of: Gastrofashion: From Haute Cuisine to Haute Couture Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas (2022)

New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts 248 pp.

ISBN 978-1-35014-750-8 p/bk $36.95

Review of: The Hidden Life of Clothing: Historical Perspectives on Fashion and Sustainability Rachel Worth (2023)

London: Bloomsbury 216 pp.

ISBN 978-1-35018-097-0 p/bk $29.95

Visual communication today is often characterized as more complex and multi-dimensional than in the past and it is often argued that we are separated from our past by a greater range of visual concepts imaginings and technologies that have never before been dreamed of. But such a conceit does not withstand a critical interrogation; moreover if it were unchallenged then it would lead to an underestimation of the enduring human capacity for nuance and comprehension for both understanding and misunderstanding one another. The thoughtful exhibition of Micaela de Vivero’s art underscores the hazards of stipulating a conceptual and material gap between the cultural and visual landscape of then and now and by extension the autonomy and richness of past cultures obscured or annihilated as a part of the colonial endeavour. These ideas are beautifully drawn out and elegantly captured in a large deeply researched exhibition by Micaela de Vivero an Andean artist who makes sculpture using often non-traditional sculptural materials such as hand-dyed sisal cord and wool hand-made paper pig intestines and gold and silver leaf. Her work draws on decolonial theory and in this exhibition specifically the work of a remarkable letter written around 1600 by Guaman Poma an Andean scholar to reveal unprecedented and still unattainable complexities in (visual) communication.

Review of: The Fundamentals of Fashion Filmmaking Nilgin Yusuf (2023)

London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing 176 pp.

ISBN 978-1-47424-237-0 p/bk $39.95

Review of: Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo Fall/Winter 2024 Tokyo 11–16 March 2024

Simple restaurant menu choices speak to more complex practices and processes. This study uses fast-food chicken sandwiches to understand the way in which capitalism reconciles apparent contradictions profitably. Capitalism has been conceptualized as a system riddled with contradictions but it is also characterized by synthesis. There can be harmony – and capital accumulation – in juxtaposition. A qualitative analysis of trade journal articles is undertaken. Scholarly sources and journalistic exposés that examine industrial-scale chicken production are also examined. These publications feature information about specific products restaurant chains and the fast-food industry overall. Thematic analysis and a contrapuntal reading of texts are used to identify patterns across the data. Fast-food chicken sandwiches it is argued are the outcome of a series of profitable reconciliations. These reconciliations encompass a series of seemingly contradictory tendencies that exist in tandem and in a manner conducive to making money. The disconnect that many North Americans experience with respect to the production of their food can be counterbalanced with the various connections addressed in this article. There is connection in the context of disconnection. Knowledge of the reconcilable qualities of capitalism enhances understanding of the crucial connections that structure the production distribution and marketing of chicken sandwiches. Fluency with respect to capitalism and its complexities are helpful to those seeking to create economic value as well as promote more profound societal change. A single fast-food restaurant item can be emblematic of a series of connections. Through products of the commercial hospitality industry one can achieve a deeper understanding of the functioning of capitalism. Comprehending hospitality contributes to efforts to comprehend the wider world.

Contemporary female consumers manage their appearance through current fashion trends and styles. The desire to be unique drives consumers to develop appearances that are perceived to differentiate them from others. In a world where fast fashion delivers multiple copies of one fashion item it is difficult to imagine if fast fashion could deliver a unique appearance. Little research has considered the possibility of achieving fast fashion uniqueness. The behaviour of South African female consumers and their desire for fast fashion uniqueness as proposed in the theory of the need for uniqueness has also not been researched. The purpose of this study was to determine the meaning of fast fashion uniqueness and the behaviour related to the dimensions of uniqueness. An exploratory descriptive qualitative study was used to determine the fast fashion unique experiences of female fashion shoppers in South Africa. Thematic analysis of electronic individual interviews revealed the meaning of uniqueness manifested through mechanisms of self-expression and design creativity. Contribution to uniqueness theory is expressed through a socially acceptable appearance typified by creative choice counter-conformity behaviour. Unpopular choice counter-conformity behaviour was expressed through precautionary and guarding behaviour. Avoidance of similarity behaviour resulted in similarity acceptance behaviour characterized by helplessness and acceptance of fast fashion duplication due to the inability to avoid similarity experienced during fast-fashion retail purchases. Coping strategies and avoidance behaviour tactics were applied to avoid fashion similarities. Fashion creativity serves as the mechanism through which contemporary fast fashion consumers achieve fast fashion appearance uniqueness. Fast fashion retailers in South Africa may need to improvise fashion offerings and give consumers alternative appearances to accommodate the creative uniqueness that female consumers are compelled to apply to achieve fast fashion uniqueness.

In the globalized fashion market a growing number of fashion brands and designers are utilizing Chinese cultural elements as a branding strategy to create competitive differentiation and attract Chinese consumers. Nevertheless Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards different styles of clothing that incorporate Chinese cultural elements remain uncertain. Therefore the present study aimed to investigate Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards clothing that incorporate Chinese cultural elements. The study also explored the factors that influence their attitudes. A mixed method approach was employed to survey 189 Chinese consumers aged 18–30. The survey encompassed attitude scales and open-ended questions. Paired samples t-tests and inductive coding were used in the data analysis. The study’s findings indicated that Chinese consumers illustrated a significantly positive attitude towards Chinese-style clothing incorporating Chinese cultural elements compared to global-style clothing incorporating Chinese cultural elements. Moreover five factors influence Chinese consumers’ attitudes namely cultural experience with Chinese cultural elements symbolism of Chinese cultural elements nationalist sentiments cultural aesthetics and innovation of clothing and the harmony between the clothing style and Chinese cultural elements. Practical implications to fashion brands and fashion designers are discussed.