Composition and Rhetoric

ICE XII, Mena House, Cairo, 6 November 2019.

The Theban tomb of Rekhmire is of vital importance not only due to its owner, vizier in the time of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, but due to its unique architecture and innumerable motifs, some newly defined for the first time. The monumental character of the chapel challenged the artists and the standard layout of 18th dynasty noble tombs. The concept and composition are in immediate response to this specific architectural setting. Thus, for approaching the way patron and painters elaborated the paintings a consideration of iconic references, semantic interactions, and an interpretation of the overall concept, as well as specific placing and compositions of motifs, is of importance.
The paper discusses the ‘pictorial language’ of decoration in TT 100. Analysis will focus on the overall concept of the decorative programme, the layout of picture planes, the composition of themes and motifs, as well as the situation of the beholder. Visual communication and the aesthetics of reception played a decisive role in the layout of the paintings even while the wall decoration was conceptualized. The artists responsible used different techniques including formal elements of art such as space, motifs, colour, or image’s value in order to highlight the paintings, and increase their visibility and notion as an eye catcher. By using certain compositional elements and specific references some subjects could be accentuated and the artistic work was able to strengthen the tomb’s role as an important place of elite self-representation and its crucial function for the afterlife. For further investigations, attention is paid to the architectural environment of the chapel with a specific focus on its acoustic setting. Taking into account the fact that the acoustic setting of TT 100 stands out from the other tomb-chapels of its time and rather relates to temple architecture, one can suggest that it also influenced the construction of ancient visitors' overall perceptions and impressions of the monument, especially in the context of cultic oral performances like recitations, chants, spoken rituals, etc.
Audio extract from TT 100's soundscape is accessible online:

https://youtu.be/HUzV4xDn_VI

This article applies the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to a particular disciplinary context: first-year writing (FYW). Students enrolled in online FYW courses across three institutions (n = 272) completed a version of the CoI survey that was slightly modified to fit the disciplinary context of writing studies. A factor analysis was conducted to determine how well the CoI in Writing Studies data aligned with typical CoI survey research; teaching presence and cognitive presence loaded onto single factors, but the social presence items divided into multiple factors. The authors put their findings in conversation with other scholarship about social presence, especially Carlon et al. (2012) and Kreijns et al. (2014), and advocate for differentiating between survey items that relate to "social presence," "social comfort," "attitude," and "social learning." They also recommend that future disciplinary uses of the CoI Survey include survey items that ask students to report on the extent to which they engaged in the types of social learning that the discipline values.

شهر آکنده از دلالت‌های معنایی است که هم به‌واسطه‌ طراحان آن و هم شهروندان رمزگذاری و توسط شهروندان، رمزگشایی می‌شود. بنابراین شهر را می‌توان به‌عنوان یک «متن» خواند. ازاین‌رو نشانه‌شناسی شهری روشی است برای بررسی زبان‌شناسانه‌ فضای شهری که به واکاوی معنای فضای شهر می‌پردازد. این پژوهش در پی یافتن فنون و روش‌هایی است که می‌تواند منجر به فضاهای شاعرانه در شهر شود. ازاین‌رو با روش نشانه‌شناسی به واکاوی یک نمونه فضای شهری که دارای این ویژگی بوده پرداخته‌شده است. درنهایت پژوهش به بررسی مفاهیم نشانه‌شناختی مانند برجسته‌سازی ادبی، هنجار‌گریزی، خودکارشدگی و قاعده افزایی در یک نمونه موردی فضای شهری، باغ بلند شیراز، اثر مهرداد ایروانیان پرداخته است. در پایان پژوهش به روش‌هایی که وی برای ایجاد فضای شاعرانه به کار بسته است مانند
آشنایی‌زدایی به‌واسطه‌ انحراف از زبان معیار، ایجاد تعلیق و ایهام از طریق تصرف در محور هم‌نشینی دست‌یافته است.
According to Aristotle, poetics and art, were considered an imitation of reality but according to Bachelard, they were phenomenology of the imagination. Bachelard showed how houses are receptive to human characteristics and complexities, a house and its occupants usually match the architectural space, and residential space gives excellence to geometric space. House, in his opinion is a sheltered nest of dreams and imagination. Poetic imagination is always "text" and thus be interpreted and in reading the meaning of architecture and the city, both are studied as text. Thus poetics of urban space and architecture can be investigated from phenomenological, ethnographic and semiotics (Semio-logical) methods. Urban spaces in a semiotics approach, usually emphasize on the aspects of semantic systems. The city is filled with semantic significations which is encoded by both designers and citizens and then is decoded by the citizens. The city can be understood as a text by considering varying semiotics natures of the urban space. The question is, How to create a poetic urban space.
The aim of this research is to find techniques that can lead to poetical features in urban spaces. The urban semiology is a method to linguistic analysis meaning of urban space. The article analysed a case study of urban space that has this features by semiology approach. The case study is Bagh-e Boland (Chamran Park) in Shiraz city, designed by Mehrdad Iravanian (b. 1957). Bagh-e Boland is an urban space which allows its audience to interpret and explore the meanings. After an introduction to urban and architectural semiotics, a sociosemiotic analysis is carried out to uncover the meaning system of this built environment. In this case, the park is viewed as structured by poetical characteristics and as a text. The park has been investigated by syntagmatic and paradigmatic, synchronic analysis.
At the level of the design strategy, Iravanian has used three strategies to create a poetic space: intertextuality, defamiliarization, and metaphor. For intertextuality he linked his text with non-architectural texts such as sculptures or history of site. He has deviated from the standard language, has changed automatized meaning of the space and thereby has defamiliarized space. He has done this by increasing the scale forms, creating synchronicity spatial elements, and change in composition of the constructions. In addition, multiple meanings have been added to the space by using the architectural metaphor, amphiboly and metonymy. He suspended architectural elements and applied familiar construction and building materials in another way. He has provided metaphor by naming spaces, captured in the axis of the syntagmatic of spaces and usage of dual oppositions. Urban spaces are highlighted by exaggerating the textures used in floor, walls and furniture. It should be noted at the end that this spaces can be analyzed with other approaches, however looking at the language of this article is merely an urban space. Also intertextuality vision to text can disclose techniques of createing new meaning in space. Thus, an urban space, can help in motivation of thought, the audience, and the pleasure of discovery.

This paper discusses the events that led rhetoric, an essential device to the structuring of musical language, no more being used and studied inside the musical practice. The discussion aims to identify the reasons for this decline occurred primarily through changes in philosophical thought, which is reflected in the conception of music at all. After that, we will look for traces of rhetoric in music later.

We surveyed 803 undergraduates at a large public university about their online writing practices. We find that despite wide platform access, students typically write in a narrow range of spaces for limited purposes and audiences, with a majority expressing rhetorical concerns about writing in digital spaces. These findings suggest rich opportunities for writing instructors to better help students negotiate the terrain of online public discourse.

La question que nous souhaitons aborder, avec ce dossier, est de nature pratique : si nous voulions renforcer la concorde par le discours épidictique, comment faire ? Dans cette perspective, le dossier que nous proposons s’organise autour de trois axes. Dans un premier temps, l’épidictique sera resitué dans l’histoire des techniques et des idées. L’épidictique sera ensuite abordé du point de vue de ses mécanismes, cognitifs et linguistiques. Enfin, l’épidictique sera étudié du point de vue de ses usages, à travers les genres et les époques.

La questione che intendiamo affrontare è, piuttosto, di natura pratica: se vogliamo rafforzare la concordia attraverso il discorso epidittico, come fare? In questa prospettiva, questo volume si organizza attorno a tre assi. Anzitutto l’epidittico verrà risituato nella storia delle tecniche e delle idee; quindi, verrà affrontato dal punto di vista dei suoi meccanismi, cognitivi e linguistici; infine, verrà analizzato dal punto di vista dei suoi usi, attraverso i generi e le epoche.