abstract   iran has many historic cities and villages with economic, historic and cultural values facing with many seismic faults. there have been no comprehensive studies about reducing the vulnerability of the historic villages, and the available documents describe the retrofitting experiments only about the single buildings.  lack of a comprehensive look at the subject leads to the loss of t...

Historical and empirical data have linked artistic creativity to depression and other affective disorders. This study examined how vulnerability to experiencing negative affect, measured with biological products, and intense negative emotions influenced artistic creativity. The authors assessed participants' baseline levels of an adrenal steroid (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, or DHEAS), previ...

Advances in technology have made it possible to create vast, rich, and architecturally intricate virtual worlds. The Mitologies project is an attempt to utilize this technology as a means of artistic expression and for the exploration of historical, political, musical, and visual narratives. Mitologies draws inspiration from a large pool of literary and artistic sources by capturing their inter...

Widespread historicism and rampant empiricism, two of the most common characteristics of today’s culture, acquire a particular relevance in light of the problem of the permanence of values in history. Today’s historicistic mindset does not take the form of a rigorous or precise theory, even though it derives from nineteenthand twentiethcentury historicism, whether in its idealistic, materialist...

islam spread rapidly after its founding, encompassing much of north africa, the middle east, and southeast asia. the art of this vast region draws its distinctive character both from islam itself and from the diverse cultural traditions of the world’s muslims. because islam discouraged the use of figurative images, particularly in religious contexts- unlike christian art- islamic artists develo...

Islam spread rapidly after its founding, encompassing much of North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The art of this vast region draws its distinctive character both from Islam itself and from the diverse cultural traditions of the world’s Muslims. Because Islam discouraged the use of figurative images, particularly in religious contexts- unlike Christian art- Islamic artists develo...