This book argues that ubiquitous media and user-created content establish a new perception of the world that can be called 'particulate vision', involving a different relation to reality that better represents the atomization of contemporary experience especially apparent in social media. Drawing on extensive original research including detailed ethnographic investigation of camera phone practices in Hong Kong, as well as visual analysis identifying the patterns, regularities and genres of such work, it shows how new distributed forms of creativity and subjectivity now work to shift our perceptions of the everyday. The book analyses the specific features of these new developments - the components of what can be called a 'general aesthesia' - and it focuses on the originality and innovation of amateur practices, developing a model for making sense of the huge proliferation of images in contemporary culture, discovering rhythms and tempo in this work and showing why it matters.

This book argues that ubiquitous media and user-created content establish a new perception of the world that can be called 'particulate vision', involving a different relation to reality that better represents the atomization of contemporary experience especially apparent in social media. Drawing on extensive original research including detailed ethnographic investigation of camera phone practices in Hong Kong, as well as visual analysis identifying the patterns, regularities and genres of such work, it shows how new distributed forms of creativity and subjectivity now work to shift our perceptions of the everyday. The book analyses the specific features of these new developments - the components of what can be called a 'general aesthesia' - and it focuses on the originality and innovation of amateur practices, developing a model for making sense of the huge proliferation of images in contemporary culture, discovering rhythms and tempo in this work and showing why it matters.

Why didn't God answer my prayer? "Prayer is not checking off answers on a wish list," writes Helen Grace Lescheid. "When we focus on 'give me answers' we become manipulative in our praying. We act as though God exists to serve us. But prayer is primarily growing a love relationship with God."In this compelling book on prayer, Lescheid discusses the following: -What is God like? -How does He answer prayer? -Does prayer change God or change me? -What role does faith play? -Is prayer ever wasted? -What is the chief purpose of prayer? As we get to know God, we learn to trust Him. Instead of praying "give me specific answers" we learn to pray "your will be done." In connecting with the universal purposes of God, we reach answers bigger and better than we imagined. Helen Grace Lescheid is the author of five books and hundreds of magazine articles published internationally in magazines such as Reader's Digest, Guideposts, and Lydia (Germany). Her stories have also been published in forty books either in English or in German. She is a regular contributor to Daily Guideposts and TruthMedia. See www.helenlescheid.com.

Christie and Garret had been teenage lovers until Garret ran away from home to escape his domineering father - leaving Christie behind Eight years later and for completely different reasons, Christie an interior designer and Garret an architect have come home to their pretty village of Upper Derrington. Christie has returned to recover from the break-up of her relationship with Dominic. Garret has returned to make peace with his parents and to help run their organic farm. Another reason is to win back Christie's love and trust by fair means or foul Garret has the opportunity to seek Christie's love when the village barn they both frequented in their teenage years goes up for auction. Garret buys the barn. He is approached by Stella Murphy a well-known interior designer with her own tv show. Stella is due to make a new programme called New From Old about turning old properties into new homes and wants to film Garret's barn conversion. Garret agrees to do the programme and act as the project manager, but only on condition that Stella chooses Christie as the interior designer. Garret attempts to turn his old relationship with Christie into something new by persuading her to accept the job as interior designer on the barn conversion. It's a career boost Christie can't afford to let slip by, so she agrees. Christie and Garret's working relationship starts acrimoniously, they are both unable to forget the past. Christie also has an added pressure, she is desperate to keep a secret. A secret that could put an end to a relationship with Garret before it even starts

How should we regard the contemporary proliferation of images? Today, visual information is available as projected, printed and on-screen imagery, in the forms of video games, scientific data, virtual environments and architectural renderings. Fearful and anti-visualist responses to this phenomenon abound. Spread by digital technologies, images are thought to threaten the word and privilege surface value over content. Yet as they multiply, images face unprecedented competition for attention. This book explores the opportunities that can arise from the ubiquity of visual stimuli. It reveals that 'technovisuality' - the fusion of digital technology with the visual - can work 'wonders'; not so much dazzling audiences with special effects as reviving our enchantment with popular culture. Introducing a new term for an entirely new field of academic study, this book reveals the centrality of 'technovisuality' in 21st century life.