This doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments. Beginning... Show moreThis doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments. Beginning with a consideration for the historical origins of absorbed attention and silence as the dominant mode of performing and hearing classical music, the subsequent chapters of this dissertation investigate alternatives to this mode by exploring artistic creations developed during this research. Informed by my combined experience as a curator and performer in the contemporary music field, these artistic creations use what I call ‘metaxical amplification’: the amplification of environmental sounds that are generally considered noise in the context of classical music performances, and that are therefore rarely considered in relation to the artistic experiences generated by these performances. Metaxical amplification proposes a reconfiguration of the performance environment and the ways in which attention unfolds within it. It also challenges a work-centred performance culture, since the performance mode emerging from this form of amplification is oriented towards the sonic exploration of musical environments through these works. More broadly, it propels the development of a practice in which musical interpretation, improvisation, and curatorial thinking are tightly interwoven. Findings are discussed in close dialogue with literature from various fields including sociology, philosophy, media theory, as well as through related examples from the fields of music, theatre, and the visual arts. Show less
Legibility in the Age of Signs and Machines offers a compelling reflection on what the notion of legibility entails in a machinic world in which any form of cultural expression – from literary... Show moreLegibility in the Age of Signs and Machines offers a compelling reflection on what the notion of legibility entails in a machinic world in which any form of cultural expression – from literary texts, films, artworks and museum exhibits to archives, laws, computer programs and algorithms – necessarily partakes in ever-more complex processes of (mass) mediation. Divided over four clusters focusing on desire, justice, machine and heritage, the chapters in the volume explore what makes something legible or illegible to whom or, indeed, what; the kinds of reading, processing or navigating such il/legibility facilitates or forecloses; and the role critical (media) theory, literary studies and the Humanities in general can play in tackling these and related issues. Contributors: Ernst van Alphen, Anke Bosma, Siebe Bluijs, Sean Cubitt, Colin Davis, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, David Gauthier, Giovanna Fossati, Isabel Capeloa Gil, Pepita Hesselberth, Yasco Horsman, Janna Houwen, Looi van Kessel, Esther Peeren, Seth Rogoff, Roxana Sarion, Frederik Tygstrup, Inge van de Ven, Ruby de Vos, Peter Verstraten, Tessa de Zeeuw Show less
The current orthodoxy maintains courts are not required to compare all language texts of a plurilingual tax treaty but may rely on a single one for cases of 'routine interpretation'. This view is... Show moreThe current orthodoxy maintains courts are not required to compare all language texts of a plurilingual tax treaty but may rely on a single one for cases of 'routine interpretation'. This view is fundamentally flawed, in violation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and the source of treaty misapplication. This study aims to: (1) help diminish treaty misapplication through abandonment of the current orthodoxy; (2) show that sole reliance on prevailing texts is available as a pragmatic alternative in line with the Vienna Convention that reduces global resource costs of tax treaty interpretation and increases its overall consistency by eliminating unintended deviations caused by language idiosyncrasies; (3) provide policy recommendations how residual cases may be eliminated. To support this goals, this study seeks to provide conclusive arguments and useful data to policy makers, treaty negotiators, judges, practitioners, and other scholars. Its analysis of the final clauses in 3,844 tax treaties is intended to help both taxpayers and courts interpreting tax treaties in practice. The general arguments presented in this book are not limited to tax treaties, since similar issues play a role in the interpretation of other treaties, for example, in the field of foreign investment regulation. Show less
LCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability.... Show moreLCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability. Three of these issues relate to a) allocation, b) the representation of the time dimension and c) the interpretation of results in LCA. Uncertainties play a fundamental and underlying role for these issues. It is widely-agreed that correctly dealing with these different uncertainty sources is a vital step towards increasing the usefulness and reliability of LCA results. Practical ways to deal with uncertainty are needed. The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the uncertainty dimension of current LCA. By means of addressing different sources of uncertainty not yet addressed, with new methods, a clearer picture of the implications of different sources of uncertainty in LCA is provided. This thesis departed from broad domains of uncertainty including risk, uncertainty as conventionally described, ignorance and indeterminacies. The selected sources of uncertainty are in the domains of risk and conventional uncertainty i.e. those due to incomplete scientific knowledge and that are to some extent quantifiable. This does not mean that all can be known or quantified as ignorance and indeterminacies exist. Show less
Performances of solo keyboard repertoire can sound more or less polyphonic depending on the performer’s use of divergence in expression. Rather than being a purely cerebral experience, this... Show morePerformances of solo keyboard repertoire can sound more or less polyphonic depending on the performer’s use of divergence in expression. Rather than being a purely cerebral experience, this expressive divergence is situated in an ecological relationship between keyboard and player where the gestural dynamics of technique and musicianship overlap. Specific body schemata relating to expressive divergence are therefore foundational to the interpretive freedom of the performer in creating polyphonic expression, and feature transparently in the musical result. This dissertation theorises expressive divergence by examining the embodiment of single voices through the hierarchical structuring of coarticulation, and by showing how these multi-layered gestures combine in the polyphony of expression. This performative view of polyphony is contextualised not only in musical practice, but also in the wider interdisciplinary use of polyphony as a metaphor. Single-player polyphonic expression is shown to enact or demonstrate an inner experience of the plurality of subjective agency, an experience made possible by its embodied dimension. Besides verbalising and theorising polyphonic expression, this dissertation provides experiments and exercises useful for developing such a practice, as well as examples of its application in concert Show less
Castermans, A.G.; Graaff, R. de; Haentjens, M. 2016
This chapter critically examines the CESL from the viewpoint of its capability to provide legal certainty for commercial actors. This chapter’s analysis focuses on three important stages in the... Show moreThis chapter critically examines the CESL from the viewpoint of its capability to provide legal certainty for commercial actors. This chapter’s analysis focuses on three important stages in the life cycle of a contract, seen from a business perspective: the scope rules that determine whether the CESL applies to a contract (para. 5.2), the interpretation of entire agreement clauses (para. 5.3) and the legal consequences of a breach of contract (para. 5.4). The chapter concludes that, with a few notable exceptions, the CESL rules do not enable contracting parties to predict, with a sufficient degree of certainty, the legal consequences of entering into the contract. From a business perspective, the CESL rules are therefore not crafted well enough to serve as a blueprint for future legislation. Show less
The ECtHR needs to provide effective rights protection, but it also needs to set clear standards while showing deference to decisions made at the national level. Especially when socio-economic... Show moreThe ECtHR needs to provide effective rights protection, but it also needs to set clear standards while showing deference to decisions made at the national level. Especially when socio-economic issues are concerned, meeting these different demands is a challenging task. The thesis explores the possible use and added value of the notion of ‘core rights’ for the reasoning of the ECtHR in socio-economic cases. By means of a comparative study of the German Wesensgehaltsgarantie, the minimum core obligations related to the ICESCR, and the debate on the use of core rights for the protection of socio-economic rights under the South African Constitution, insights are gained on the possibilities and pitfalls inherent in this idea. On the basis thereof, a ‘core rights perspective’ is outlined that is tailored to the protection of socio-economic interests by the ECtHR. It is argued that this perspective allows the ECtHR to develop a principled approach to (positive) socio-economic claims that is characterised by a clear demarcation of the scope of the Convention and a focus on minimum guarantees. In this way the core rights perspective may help the ECtHR in leaving the necessary room for national laws and policies while ensuring robust socio-economic protection. Show less
The purpose of the thesis is to (i) single out and clarify the most common types of issues emerging in the interpretation of multilingual tax treaties (i.e. tax treaties authenticated in two or... Show moreThe purpose of the thesis is to (i) single out and clarify the most common types of issues emerging in the interpretation of multilingual tax treaties (i.e. tax treaties authenticated in two or more languages), and (ii) suggest how the interpreter should tackle and disentangle such issues under public international law, with a particular emphasis on the kinds of arguments he should use and the kinds of elements and items of evidence he should rely upon in order to support his construction of the treaty. In order to address such issues, the author has developed a normative (prescriptive) legal analysis based on modern linguistic and, more specifically, semantic theories. However, since the purpose of the study is to suggest how the interpreter should now tackle and disentangle those issues, the author has also carried out a positive (prescriptive) analysis, which highlights the generally accepted principles and rules of treaty interpretation, in order (i) to carve out from his (non-ideal) normative legal theory the results potentially conflicting with such generally accepted principles and rules and (ii) to show how his normative legal theory might be applied to solve interpretative issues in cases where no common solution has been reached yet. Show less
This thesis is about the special relationship that the spectator enters into with sculpture. ‘Sculpture’ here means: immobile objects or three- dimensional bodies in one or more parts, deliberately... Show moreThis thesis is about the special relationship that the spectator enters into with sculpture. ‘Sculpture’ here means: immobile objects or three- dimensional bodies in one or more parts, deliberately made inside the domain of the visual arts. This thesis argues how sculpture, in the first moment, makes the spectator speechless. When thereafter the spectator opens himself up to the sculpture, he feels invited by the work to fully apply his language skills. He finds meaning by repeatedly and precisely describing all he sees in the sculpture. By researching critically how he came to create his interpretation, the interpretation becomes a reading that transcends the private interpretation of the spectator. Perhaps this way of perceiving is applicable to all sorts of artworks, but in the case of sculpture it is particularised in the relations with the sculpture, due to the continued presence of the sculpture as a body. The meeting with the statue is experienced bodily and the being together in the world stimulates the research in a way that is comparable to the meeting of human beings. Show less
