Dissertations / Theses: 'Art – themes, motives – dictionaries'

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Holaday, Troy A. "Transcending inaccessibility : reassessing the Action Painters in the light of rhetorical theory." Virtual Press, 2002. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1237767.

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This interdisciplinary thesis investigates the Action Painting movement using rhetorical theories and models with the intent of producing a higher level of understanding of the paintings and increasing their approachability. A brief history of nonobjective painting, the technique of automatism, and the Action Painting movement is given. Following this, the semiotic character of the visual elements within Action Paintings is discussed and their behavior catalogued through descriptive analysis, using Kenneth Pike's theory of tagmemics. The work culminates in a comparison of painted gestures to conversational implicatures and guidelines are given for establishing meaningful and relevant dialogues with the paintings, presupposing the importance of an intangible context as defined by the reconstruction of authorial intent and anticipated readership.
Department of English

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Vülser, Ingrid. "The theme of death in Italian art : the triumph of death." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=33944.

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This paper focuses on the evolution of the theme the Triumph of Death, the representation of the personification of death and the dead in the late Middle Ages. The first part of this thesis represents different points of view of art historians and historians concerning the death and the afterlife. There follows a short description and analysis of the cultural environment especially regarding literature which closely relates to the visual art and the representation of death. The last part describes three themes of death and the most important representations in frescoes, panels, bas-reliefs of the Triumph of Death evincing the main idea and the underlying structure and composition. Two different ways of representation can be distinguished: the Triumph of Death in the shape of the apocalyptic rider as appearing in the Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist and the Triumph of Death based on Petrarch's poem the Trionfi.

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Dawson, Louisa Art College of Fine Arts UNSW. "Moving house: the renovation of the everyday." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Art, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/43084.

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This paper describes my research project and body of work, which investigates social inequalities through the different language and functions of everyday objects. The research moves on from my previous Honours research project on the dou ble nature of caravan parks in NSW and looked at the changing demographics of these locations. I noted the increase of semi-permanent, residential 'homes' for low income earners and the unemployed, in these holiday locations. This paper examines broader social issues of homelessness and social inequalities within our society. I look at the complexities in the definitions of homelessness and the ways in which people find themselves in the position where they rely on welfare agencies and government support. I also investigate different representations of homelessness by artists and other social commentators, ranging from the hopeless victim to the vagrant. This section locates my social concerns with the context of theoretical debate and artistic representation. I have used everyday and mundane objects in my artworks to discuss these social concerns. Everyday objects posses a language and commonality that is familiar to all members of society. This language is developed from the different historical, cultural and functional qualities that everyday objects possess. I discus this in relation to the development of the everyday object in artistic practices from the early 20th century to today. Of specifically importance to my practice is the influence of contemporary German artists and their manipulation of objects to make works with political and social content. Throughout this paper I have discussed individual art works which illustrate my social concerns and the practicalities of the everyday. Revealing how I juxtapose certain objects to question the uneven nature of travel and home, with regards to possessions and mobility. Additionally I challenge the normal functions of objects to reveal new absurd possibilities of use.

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Hall, Nancy. "Personal drawings as a political statement." Virtual Press, 1988. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/724955.

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This creative project entailed the creation and display of ten drawings. These drawings were to be the result of research into the lives and artistic styles of a number of visual artists who explored political and social themes. The goals of the artist of the creative project were to develop and extend her ability to produce a personal visual language, to communicate by way of her drawings certain feminist and social concerns, and to relate her treatment of the drawn figure to the treatment other artists have traditionally given these concerns.Within the context of the ten drawings submitted for this creative project, it became clear that the artist had begun to develop a personalized visual language. The human figures were indicated by outlines which suggested the three dimensional form in a manner that was distinctive to the artist while fitting into the realm of contemporary feminist and political art. Furthermore, these drawings described the humanist/feminist concerns of the artist.
Department of Art

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Munson, William Donald. "Rites of passage." Virtual Press, 1999. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1124882.

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Portrait painting is an art form that has been used by artists for years. I am using the portrait to convey a story. The story follows a boy's process of becoming a man. The discovery of old family photographs initially inspired the project. The rite of passage theme stems from this inquiry into the process of growing up. Several artists inspired my work in the formal and conceptual aspects of my portraits. Those artists include Paula Rego, Chuck Close, and Robert Henri. "Rites of passage" is a phrase that carries with it many meanings and issues. This creative project is both a consideration of the rites of passage theme and an investigation of the painted portrait.
Department of Art

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Egan, Rachel K. "New perspectives on the quatrefoil in classic Maya iconography the center and the portal." Master's thesis, University of Central Florida, 2011. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/4759.

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The quatrefoil is a pan-Mesoamerican symbol with considerable time-depth. For the Maya, use of the symbol peaked during the Classic Period, reaching its highest frequency and largest geographical spread. Consequently, understanding its meaning has the potential to illuminate information about Precolumbian Maya worldview. While there have been several studies that focus on Preclassic Period quatrefoils, a similar study is lacking for Classic Period. Furthermore, the evaluations of the quatrefoil that do exist for the Classic Period are limited, often focusing on a select few examples. This thesis attempts to rectify the gap in extant research through an examination of the quatrefoil motif utilized by the Classic Period Maya. Specifically, the goal of the thesis was to determine whether the current interpretation of the quatrefoil as a cave is and also to investigate how the symbol communicated broader ideas about worldview and ideology. The approach that was utilized focuses on both archaeological and iconographic contexts. As an iconographic symbol, I attempt to understand the quatrefoil through the use of semiotics with particular emphasis on contextualization and analogy. The results of this study suggest that, while there were some patterns related to spatial distribution, the meaning of the quatrefoil motif was dependent on context and had considerable variations. I conclude that the analysis of the symbol, when based on specific usages and contexts, reveals that there is not enough evidence to support the current interpretation of quatrefoil as cave. Rather, the quatrefoil can be more accurately interpreted as a cosmogram that delineated information about how the Maya conceptualized, ordered, and accessed space that was appropriated by elites to reinforce and even legitimize political authority.
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M.A.
Masters
Anthropology
Sciences
Anthropology

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Bolgun, Oya. "A study of technology and human relations developed in a series of paintings." Virtual Press, 2002. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1230600.

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The ambition of this creative project was to portray the communication between individuals of our time, which is being made shabby by the effect of technological life. As an artist, I am dealing with the issue of our sense of respect for each other and how much we are aware of each other.This study includes the art works of artists Robert Motherwell and Joan Mitchell by whom I have been inspired. I have learned a lot from their art works and from their philosophies. I will describe my art works one by one in terms of the techniques that I have used, and the feelings behind them.
Department of Art

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Taylor, Damian. "Busy working with materials : transposing form, re-exposing Medardo Rosso." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:29b3640a-a68e-45d1-8f42-130702bc9819.

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This thesis examines how making extends artists' thoughts beyond their conceptions. Central to this is consideration of how an artist's statements and their work relate: this thesis argues that the relationship is neither of identity nor contradiction, but of a productive tension from which emerges a richer understanding of thought. A similar approach underscores this doctorate's relationship of studio and written components, both of which desire self-sufficiency. The studio work consists of discrete yet mutually informing series, all engaged with the specificity of a moment of exposure, whether here and now or recording a past moment. The notion of 'documentation' underscores these works, which include large chemical photographs, high-definition video, cyanotypes and extensive exploration of casting to reveal latent images. The written component is a thorough study of the various instances of Medardo Rosso's sculpture Ecce Puer, offering art-historical and theoretical grounding of hands-on making as a way pressing cultural issues inhere in a work at a more fundamental level than understood by its contemporaries or maker. The first chapter locates Rosso in his historical milieu. Chapter 2 assesses the elements constituting Ecce Puer; it argues that no definitions of a 'work' adequately encompass these, and coins the term 'complex work' to designate artworks indivisibly singular and plural, concrete and abstract. Chapter 3 offers phenomenological interpretation of Rosso's confused writings, illuminating them through Maurice Merleau-Ponty's late philosophy but understanding Rosso's thought as inadequate to the complexity of his work. Chapter 4 examines Rosso's photography, specifically his photography of photographs, connecting what this achieves to his phenomenology. Chapter 5 introduces a key notion of 'friendship' to understand how the connections between instances of Ecce Puer became 'meaningful'. Having offered a fundamentally new interpretation of Rosso's project, chapter 6 extends Michael Fried's history of French painting to relocate Rosso within early twentieth-century art.

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Reed, Kesayne. ""I've always known this place, familiar as a room in our house" : engaging with memory, loss and nostalgia through sculpture." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020022.

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My exhibition draws on Andreas Huyssen's notion of memory sculpture to articulate my own sense of loss and trauma, due to the divorce of my parents. Within my work I explore the effects that divorce had on me and how it has disturbed my normative understanding of home and family. I have created scenarios alluding to the family home that I have manipulated in order to convey a sense of nostalgia and loss. By growing salt crystals over found objects and/or cladding them in salt, I attempt to suggest the dual motifs of preservation (a nostalgic clinging to the past) and destruction (due to the salt’s corrosive properties). In this way, the salt-crusted objects serve as a metaphor for a memory that has become stagnant, and is both destructive and regressive. The objects encapsulate the mind’s coping methods to loss. In my mini thesis, I discuss characteristics of memory sculpture as a response to trauma, drawing on Sigmund Freud's differentiation between mourning and melancholia. I also unpack how objects and traces (such as photographs) may act as nostalgic triggers, inducing a state of melancholic attachment to an idealised past. I address these concerns in relation to selected works by Doris Salcedo and Bridget Baker, and also situate them in relation to my own art practice.

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Oberlander, Erin Marissa. "Reaching Arcadia: Rural and Agricultural Themes in Vocal Art Music including Plans to Introduce this Music to a Rural Audience." Diss., North Dakota State University, 2011. https://hdl.handle.net/10365/29768.

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Throughout the history of Western Music, composers have written works on rural and agricultural subjects. The first half of this dissertation examines a number of important works from the Baroque era through the present day and the composers who have chosen this specialized subject matter. Rural communities are underserved where the arts are concerned. Yet, rural audiences have perhaps the best chance at identifying with the subjects of this particular subset of vocal art music. The second half of this dissertation examines reasons why it is important to reach rural communities with vocal art music. Four sample recital programs appropriate for rural audiences are included.

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Fletcher, Lauren Jean. "Adaptive realities : effects of merging physical and virtual entities." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018557.

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In the worlds of virtual reality, whole objects and bodies are created in an immaterial manner from lines, ratios and light pixels. When objects are created in this form they can easily be manipulated, edited, multiplied and deleted. In addition, technological advances in virtual reality development result in an increased merging of physical and virtual elements, creating spaces of mixed reality. This leads to interesting consequences where the physical environment and body, in a similar vein to the virtual, also becomes increasingly easier to manipulate, distort and change. Mixed realities thus enhance possibilities of a world of constantly changing landscapes and adjustable, interchangeable bodies. The notions of virtual and real coincide within this thesis, reflecting on a new version of reality that is overlapped and ever-present in its mixing of virtual and physical. These concepts are explored within my exhibition Immaterial - a creation of simulated nature encompassing a mix of natural and artificial, tangible and intangible. Within the exhibition space, I have created a scene of mixed reality, by merging elements of both a virtual and physical forest. This generates a magical space of new experiences that comes to life through the manipulated, edited, morphed and re-awakened bodies of trees.

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Du, Plessis Carla (Carla Susan). "Reconsidering the conventions employed in comix and comix strips." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/21211.

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Wise, Heather M. "A studio project in woodcarving : the symbolism of the buffalo in art yesterday, today, and tomorrow." Virtual Press, 2001. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1217379.

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This creative project interpreted and applied the buffalo in Native American culture - its symbolism, significance and virtues - to woodcarvings for the lives of people today. The carvings explored a range of styles, media and symbols but all use buffalo imagery and each piece represents how I have applied the buffalo to my life. Some pieces are based on historical events while others explore personal emotions. Wood surfaces differ from natural or bleached to painted. No style unifies the body of work. In each piece realism and abstraction, positive and negative space is handled differently. Buffalo facts and myths were interpreted to convey what white people can learn from the buffalo. It was a spiritual link and messenger from Native Americans to the Great Spirit. The buffalo was revered and respected as a vital in the life cycle. White man destroyed the buffalo during the nineteenth century through the acts of greed, disrespect and ignorance. It seems to have returned with a message for people of all races. This message is one that must be found within each individual.
Department of Art

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Lake, G. Thomas. "The five paintings of the Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli /." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61261.

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The thematic unit formed by the five versions of The Adoration of the Magi painted by Sandro Botticelli provide a special opportunity for studying his artistic development. An investigation of these five paintings shows that Botticelli aimed toward a goal of perfecting compositional techniques. He systematically made alterations to these works in order to create special point of view effects.
This thesis outlines the general trends in art with respect to the Adoration theme and then concentrates on a demonstration of Botticelli's attempts at correlating compositional devices and the unique features developed with respect to spectator involvement. This selected study allows for a careful examination which spans the artistic career of Sandro Botticelli. As a result, it can be shown that it was perhaps Botticelli, rather than Leonardo da Vinci, who was primarily responsible for the development of a compositional format which became a foundation stone of High Renaissance compositions.

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Hoffman, Jeanne. "Drawing near : inscribing urban spaces." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/4078.

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Munro, Samantha Fawn. "Being for others : critical reflections on the stranger, the estranged and the self in participatory art." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017771.

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By referring to established concepts and theories which contemplate our experiences in relation to others and space, this thesis examines the interactions and responses of an audience during various participatory artworks. I draw upon Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Elizabeth Grosz’ Architecture From The Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space in order to understand our interactions with other people, our interactions inside an environment, and the objects and ceremonies we use during these interactions. I align these experiences with the methods which are employed to anticipate and create the interactions between an audience and a participatory artwork. Our daily interactions can be considered a frame that an artist shapes for their represented situation to allow, provide and guide an audience towards their possibilities for movements and actions within a participatory artwork. The interactions that occur in participatory art are done in relation to others and include groups of people interacting with each other rather than an individual disembodied experience. I refer to Claire Bishop in her book, Artificial Hells, and Nicolas Bourriaud in Relational Aesthetics in order to define participatory art. In defining participatory art I focus on the idea that participation is a social activity without which the artwork does not function or exist. I unravel Brett Bailey’s Exhibit A, Anthea Moys Anthea Moys vs The City of Grahamstown and Christian Boltanski’s Personnes in terms of the frame they use to construct participation and interaction. I refer to my own exhibition Ineffaceable as an exploration of these frames which encourage participation. The inside and the outside are a constant theme throughout this thesis and my exhibition. This thematic re-emerges in relation to a number of opposing and fluctuating dynamics: the self and the other; the object and the subject; familiarity and strangeness; the participator and the spectator; the immersive and the disembodied; and the artwork and the audience. Participatory art has not been sufficiently explored particularly in South Africa with South African case studies and particularly from a practical standpoint that includes methodologies for creating participation. This thesis hopes to enrich and contribute to the contemplations on participatory art by focusing on our interactions with others.

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Stiebeling, Detlef. "Traditional iconographic themes in a Victorian context : paintings by Sir John Everett Millais between 1848 and 1860." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=73982.

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Robins, Amanda School of Arts UNSW. "Slow art : meditative process in painting and drawing." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Arts, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/31214.

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This exegesis is an exploration of meditative process in painting and drawing and accompanies an exhibition of paintings and large drawings called What Lies Beneath. The text contains several passages, called "meditations," which accompany the themes approached in the chapters and give insight into the thoughts and practices of the artist. The methodology involves the examination of the evidence of the work produced by selected artists, looking at the words of artists in notebooks, diaries and interviews and surveying a small number of local contemporary artists. The text opens up the possibilities of drapery and garments and of still life as paths to meditative practice in painting and drawing. The qualities that characterize meditative process/practice, derived from my observations, are categorized. Some of the strengths of these processes are revealed through the examination of the work of artists, both contemporary and historical. The work of Vermeer, Sanchez Cotan, Francisco Zurbaran and contemporary artists Anne Judell, Simon Cooper, Jude Rae, Alison Watt and Eva Hesse highlight different aspects of the meditative process in painting and drawing. The art works in the exhibition are documented and bring out the meditative processes that have contributed to their creation, including the use and meaning of the subject (drapery and the garment as a form of still life).

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Hartigan, Patrick Art College of Fine Arts UNSW. "Within words, without words." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Art, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/43083.

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This paper centres in and around words. I have incorporated words into my recent work in a variety of ways including drawing, Letraset, sound and fiction writing. The philosophical questions which arise through any use of language and the various ways of adopting these questions and words within a 'visual art' context is considered in a number of ways. These include The Voyager Interstellar Space Mission which was humankind's first attempt to communicate with other hypothesized populations, conceptual word-incorporating artists, writers of fiction and philosophers within whose work can readily be found an extreme vigilance towards language. Alongside this word exploration I will consider other processes through which I've made and continue to make, works of art. These processes include drawing and film/video. My drawings (which sometimes include words) will be addressed in terms of a crossover between the drawn line and words found in Raymond Carver's story Cathedral. This story made me think about what it means to 'be led' by somebody and how I'm led (by myself or perhaps those mysterious 'populations' the Voyager team of thinkers had in mind) when drawing. It also marks an interesting point in my discussion of a state of being 'without words.' In addition to words an important focus in this paper are the windows through which I've spent a lot of 'my life' looking at 'life pass by' (which are in many ways a physical reality corresponding to the metaphorical 'frame of language'). The time I've spent looking out windows over the past few years has resulted in. several film and video pieces in addition to my latest work (presented as the appendix of this paper) which comprises of a series of short stories. The paper opens with a quote by German philosopher Martin Heidegger: "Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells." The enigmatic broadness of this statement is appropriate to the apprehensive and cautious attitude towards words found throughout the paper (also it mentions 'house' which immediately brings to my mind 'windows')

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Regan, Clarissa. "Transforming tales : fairy stories in a contemporary world." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2009. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21678.

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Dissertation The research undertaken examines the functions and role of narrative in society, looks at examples of narrative in ceramic art and describes the use of narrative in a series of ceramic sculptures created by the author during 2007, 2008 and 2009. Changes in ceramic form historically are also described, with reference to Greek, Chinese and contemporary ceramic artists including Grayson Perry, Betty Woodman, Rudy Autio and Antje Scharfe. Critic Garth Clark’s concept of the ‘pot as drawing’ is also discussed. Two traditional fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel and Bluebeard are discussed and analyzed for their narrative content, as well as from a Jungian psychological perspective. Theorists Julius Heuscher, Bruno Bettelheim, Sheldon Cashdan, Max Luthi, Marina Warner and Clarissa Pinkola Estes are cited for their insights into the structure of these stories. How these two stories can be usefully understood in contemporary society is also discussed; including the issues raised of commodity and consumer culture, childhood play, containment and captivity and secrecy in institutions and medical settings. These concerns are discussed through the ideas of Jean Baudrillard, John Evans and Jon Goss. Studio Work The studio work consists of a series of ceramic sculptures rethinking the narratives of Hansel and Gretel and Bluebeard in a contemporary world. The three-dimensional clay and mixed media objects examine the ideas of containment, cages, materialism, barriers, and secrecy. My intent was to find metaphoric ways of expressing these complex ideas in a physical form. The objects have been created using the ceramic methods of throwing and slab-building. Research was undertaken into using print-making technologies in ceramic work, with IX new applications of screen-printing technologies on glazed surfaces, porcelain slabs, solar-plate technology and digital decals. The work also explored the development of the ceramic form; the interaction between the use of cut-out figures and the underlying form, the idea of a ‘pot as drawing’ and its further extension as installation.

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Behrens, Monika Art College of Fine Arts UNSW. "Silent bang." Publisher:University of New South Wales. Art, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/42557.

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The research project uses still life as a means of exploring current events of violence and oppression. These events are represented through juxtaposing plastic toys with organic objects. The toys include a range of popular generic toys such as army men, cowboys and Indians and toy soldiers. The organic objects were selected for their relationship to the specific event being represented. The toys and organic objects were positioned to create interesting and logical compositions. Themes of the series include opposing objects and ideas pitched against each other such as plastic/organic, perpetrator/victim, violence/peacefulness and destruction/sustenance. Within each work the plastic toys take on the demeanor of the tyrant(s), whereas the organic objects adopt the role of the victim(s). The research project uses these themes to convey the message that violence is both a barbaric way of dealing with conflict and a senseless form of self-expression. I have used symbols and metaphors to build a visual language. For the language to be translated accurately a great deal of research has taken place into the appropriate still life objects for each work. Each work incorporates metaphors and or symbols for both the oppressor and victim within the event being represented. The studio outcome of this research project, Silent Bang, includes a series of highly detailed finished paintings of various scales. Silent Bang as a body of work is colourful and aims to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to conveying a powerful message that incites interpretation.

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Garisch, Margaret Isabel. "Consuming pasts : imaging food as Identity and (post)memory in post-apartheid South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018556.

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This mini-thesis interprets the convergence of food and memory and explores dialectical processes associating food, identity and (post)memory, particularly in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Considering works by prominent South African Artists Berni Searle and Churchill Madikida as well as my own artistic practise and usage of food as conceptual medium, this study considers the converging effects of food, identity and memory, together with the materiality of food, from a fine arts perspective, as particularly rich and developing arena for memory work

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Williams, Court. "Sensitive skin." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2008. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28932.

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The work being considered for examination will be my gallery installation Affliction. Consisting of approximately six hundred digitally printed and hand constructed three dimensional models, it will be installed on the gallery floor as a part of the Postgraduate Degree show at Sydney College of the Arts (Tuesday December 9th through to Wednesday December 17th). My masters project explores the isolation and dislocation experienced in the urban environment and situates un-commissioned street art as a construct that potentially generates modes of plurality through immediate encounter, collaboration and intervention. My work explores the inter-activity of street art. This is done through a reading of Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics - a theory of art that takes as its theoretical horizon the realm of human inter-actions in social spaces. 1 demonstrate the inter-activity of street art through a discussion of my work as well as the work of three other street artists. In doing so, 1 also draw attention to the virtual characteristics of the anonymous urban environment by locating street art as a virtual representation of the art world, the street artist as an avatar and the city surface as an online blog.

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Lecomte, Isabelle. "Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) et ses muses: étude monographique à partir des sources iconographiques et littéraires." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/210115.

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Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) est un artiste américain très connu dans son pays mais peu étudié en Europe. Le catalogue raisonné de son œuvre n'est toujours pas établi à ce jour.

Tout au long de sa vie, ses sources d'inspiration sont intimement liées à la femme. Cette thèse souhaite aller plus loin que les études existantes: d'une part en envisageant la femme dans tous ses rôles (danseuse, diva, écrivaine, amie, starlette,) et d'autre part, en étudiant la série qui lui est consacrée. Ce regard minutieux sur les variations au sein d'une série est l'un des points forts et totalement inédits de cette thèse. Il permet d’observer le renouvellement de l’obsession et le goût pour la collection, au sens où Baudrillard l’entend.

En première partie, l'angle d'approche consiste à observer, les stratégies de l'artiste qui tente de s'approprier la femme par la mise en boîte, en bouteille, en dossier,

En deuxième partie, nous observerons la manière dont il installe une distance qui permet à la muse de rester inaccessible – au sens romantique voire nervalien du terme. La distance peut-être d'ordre surnaturel: la femme prend alors les traits d'une fée ou d'une sylphide ;temporelle (la muse est imaginée enfant) ;spatiale (la muse prend vie sous forme de constellation). Autre stratégie d'évocation: "le portrait sans visage" où le corps de la muse est totalement absent, seul « un objet symbolique) fait référence à la femme désignée. Il peut s’agir d’une chambre ou d’une lampe de mineur pour évoquer Emily Dickinson ou une poupée pour évoquer La Belle au Bois dormant. Vers la fin des années cinquante, Cornell réalise des « boîtes-mémoriaux » en hommage à des jeunes trop tôt disparues.

La troisième partie tente d’étudier comment Cornell « transcende » l’idée de mort.

Enfin, en quatrième partie, nous dresserons un bref inventaire des collages des années soixante ayant comme thème central le nu féminin. Cornell quittant un matériel « nostalgique » afin de « charge d’innocence » des images qu’il considère comme érotiques.

Cette étude s'appuie, entre autres, sur une vingtaine d'œuvres analysées qui n'ont jamais été publiées, une trentaine d'autres qui n'ont jamais été commentées. Plus d'un tiers des œuvres choisies bénéficient d'une recherche de sources totalement inédites, se voyant ainsi placée sous un nouveau regard interprétatif. Et enfin, les œuvres sont mises en rapport avec les sources littéraires qui les ont nourries (Aurélia de Gérard de Nerval, Le Portrait de Jennie, la poésie d’Emily Dickinson, la biographie de Marilyn Monroe ou les écrits de Mary Eddy Baker, …).

Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Lindley, Anne Hollinger. "Relating to relational aesthetics." Pomona College, 2009. http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/u?/stc,74.

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This thesis will examine the practice of relational aesthetics as it involves the viewer, as well as the way in which it plays out within and outside of the institutional setting of the museum. I will focus primarily on two unique projects: that of The Machine Project Field Guide at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 15, 2008, produced by Machine Project, a social project operated out of a storefront gallery in Echo Park; and David Michalek's Slow Dancing at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City, July 12-29 2007.

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White, Claire. "Work and leisure in late nineteenth-century French literature and visual culture." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610774.

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Armstrong, Beth Diane. "Hippocampus: seahorse; brain-structure; spatial map; concept." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002224.

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Through an exploration of both sculptural and thought processes undertaken in making my Masters exhibition, ‘Hippocampus’, I unpack some possibilities, instabilities, and limitations inherent in representation and visual perception. This thesis explores the Hippocampus as image (seahorse) and concept (brain-structure involved in cognitive mapping of space). Looking at Gilles Deleuze’s writings on representation, I will expand on the notion of the map as being that which does not define and fix a structure or meaning, but rather is open, extendable and experimental. I explore the becoming, rather than the being, of image and concept. The emphasis here is on process, non-representation, and fluidity of meaning. This is supportive of my personal affirmation of the practice and process of art-making as research. I will refer to the graphic prints of Maurits Cornelis Escher as a means to elucidate a visual contextualization of my practical work, particularly with regard to the play with two- and three-dimensional space perception. Through precisely calculated ‘experiments’ that show up the partiality of our visual perception of space, Escher alludes to things that either cannot actually exist as spatial objects or do exist, but resist representation. Similarly I will explore how my own sculptures, although existing in space resist a fixed representation and suggest ideas of other spaces, non-spaces; an in-between space that does not pin itself down and become fixed to any particular image, idea, objector representation.

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Hollett, Philip. "Sound towers : evoking the musical dimension of Gaudí." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=29560.

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Antoni Gaudi was the architect of the Sagrada Familia from 1883 to 1926. Over this period of time he prepared the overall design and supervised the construction of the Nativity facade. One of Gaudi's main design objectives was to include tubular bells in the tall slender towers. It has been said that through his sound studies for these bells, Gaudi developed his musical sentiments most fully. Through the sound of bells, accompanied by song, he imagined a festive environment around the temple. These considerations might be seen as reflecting the overall spirit of the time, as Catalonia was in effect experiencing a cultural rebirth known as the Renaixenca . Originating with the call of the poets, this time of exuberant growth for Catalonia was one that was built upon the rebirth of language. As a result, language through poetry continued to be celebrated throughout the century, particularly through annual poetic contests called the Jocs Florals. This paper studies the facade of the Nativity as a expression of this culturally exuberant time by exploring how the Jocs Florals, and poetry in general, may have played a role in shaping its form and sound. The study also acknowledges the fact that Gaudi's inspiration for his design was derived from symbolism associated with the Catholic liturgy. The result is architecture that might be described as a union of religious and cultural symbolism, yet ultimately its festive expression is a poetic one. As such, the Sagrada Familia might be described as a celebration that is a call to gathering.

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Van, Staden Leonora. "Bitterkomix en Stripshow : pornografie en satire in Afrikaanse ondergrondse strippe." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1330.

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Wasserman, Minke. "'Becoming animal': motifs of hybridity and liminality in fairy tales and selected contemporary artworks." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019759.

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‘Becoming Animal’: Motifs of Hybridity and Liminality in Fairy Tales and Selected Contemporary Artworks serves as a theoretical examination of the concept of the hybrid. My research unpacks the liminal aspect of hybridity, locating the hybrid in the imaginative world of popular fairy tales, folk lore and mythology. In my accompanying MFA exhibition, Becoming(s), I explore these motifs through an installation of mixed-media sculptures which are based on the hybrid creatures that populated the fantasy world of my childhood. The written component of my MFA submission will relate directly to my professional art practise, developing it further and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis I will consider the liminal in relation to the ‘animal turn’ in contemporary art, with a particular focus on relevant artists working with the motifs of hybridity, such as Nandipha Mntambo, Jane Alexander and Kiki Smith. The ‘animal turn’ is a term used by Kari Weil (2010: 3) to describe a contemporary interest in issues of the nonhuman, and in the ways that the relationship between humans and nonhumans is marked by “difference, otherness and power”. Of key concern to my research will be Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal’. Rather than describing a transition from one stable state to another, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a radical dissolution of boundaries – not just between species (such as ‘human’ and ‘animal’) but between any essentialising binaries. As such, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a conception of identity as being fluid and mutable, rather than stable and fixed.

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Taylor, Chloë. "The aesthetics of sadism and masochism in Italian renaissance painting /." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79810.

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This thesis analyses selected paintings and aspects of life of the Italian Renaissance in terms of the aesthetic properties of sadistic and masochistic symptomatologies and creative production, as these have been explored by philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Marcel Henaff, and Gilles Deleuze. One question which arises from this analysis, and is considered in this thesis, is of the relation between sexual perversion and history, and in particular between experiences of violence, (dis)pleasure and desire, and historically specific forms of discourse and power, such as legislation on rape; myths and practices concerning marriage alliance; the depiction of such myths and practices in art; religion; and family structures. A second question which this thesis explores is the manners in which sadistic and masochistic artistic production function politically, to bolster pre-existing gender ideologies or to subvert them. Finally, this thesis considers the relation between sadism and masochism and visuality, both by bringing literary models of perversion to an interpretation of paintings, and by exploring the amenability of different genres of visual art to sadism and masochism respectively.

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Mollard, Ingrid. "L’homme volant : l’imaginaire aéronautique dans la culture visuelle européenne de 1903 à 1937." Thesis, Paris 4, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016PA040054.

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Le monde aéronautique a connu un essor significatif durant les premières décennies du XXe siècle. Propulsé par des avancées technologiques sans précédents, l’aéronautique fut rapidement omniprésente dans tous les secteurs de la vie et de la culture européennes. De la figure du pilote d’aéroplane émergea subtilement, puis avec force, l’image d’un homme robuste et valeureux qui personnifiait son pays. Trouvant un réceptacle favorable dans les héros nés de la Grande Guerre, les gouvernements totalitaires qui émergèrent façonnèrent le pilote comme l’avatar d’un homme idéal. L’imaginaire européen du premier tiers du XXe siècle vit alors naitre « l’homme volant », une facette de « l’homme nouveau », incarnant la grandeur de sa nation
Aeronautics underwent a significant development during the first decades of the 20th century. Helped by new technological advancements aeronautics quickly became omnipresent in all sectors of the European life and culture. From the figure of the airplane’s pilot emerged subtly, then with strength, the image of a strong and brave man personifying his country. Finding a favorable receptacle in the Great War’s heroes, the totalitarian governments shaped the pilot as the avatar of an ideal man. The European imagination of the first third of the 20th century gave birth to the "flying man", a facet of the “new man”, embodying the greatness of its nation

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Henrion-Dourcy, Isabelle. "Ache Lhamo : Jeux et enjeux d'une tradition théâtrale tibétaine." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211111.

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L'objet de cette thèse est une monographie du théâtre traditionnel tibétain, ou ache lhamo, souvent appelé lhamo tout court, tel qu'il était joué à l'époque pré-moderne (antérieure à 1950) et tel qu'il est encore joué actuellement en Région Autonome du Tibet (République Populaire de Chine) et dans la diaspora tibétaine établie en Inde et au Népal. Comme la plupart des théâtres d'Asie, il est un genre composite :à la fois drame à thématique religieuse (issue du bouddhisme mahāyāna), satire mimée, et farce paysanne, il comprend de la récitation sur un mode parlé, du chant, des percussions, de la danse et des bouffonneries improvisées, ainsi qu'un usage de masques et de costumes flamboyants, qui tranchent avec la sobriété absolue des décors (la scène est vide) et de la mise en scène. Bien qu’il ait été encouragé et financé par le gouvernement des Dalai Lama, de grands monastères et des familles aristocratiques, c’est un théâtre avant tout populaire, et non pas réservé à une élite lettrée. Cette étude a circonscrit à la fois le contenu, le rôle social, le langage artistique et les implications politiques du théâtre dans la civilisation tibétaine.

La méthodologie a été composée en combinant les apports et réflexions critiques de trois disciplines :l'ethnologie, la tibétologie et les études théâtrales. L'approche est fondamentalement ethnologique, en ce que la production des données repose sur une immersion de plus de deux ans parmi des acteurs de théâtre de la Région Autonome du Tibet (1996-1998) et de près d'un an parmi ceux de la diaspora d'Asie du Sud (1998-2000). Elle l’est aussi en ce que l’intention a été de constituer une intelligibilité englobante pour l'ache lhamo, c'est-à-dire de mettre au jour l'intrication des dimensions culturelle, sociale, politique, économique, rituelle et symbolique de la pratique théâtrale. L’une des contributions principales du travail est d’étoffer l’ethnologie régionale du Tibet central, mais ses conclusions et son esprit critique le placent également dans la liste déjà importante des travaux consacrés à l'invention des traditions. La tibétologie a fourni le cadre interprétatif fondamental des données recueillies. Une importance très grande a été accordée à l'histoire du pays ainsi qu'à la philologie et aux terminologies vernaculaires particulières au théâtre. L’étude s’inscrit dans l’un des courants novateurs de la tibétologie, privilégiant les aspects non plus religieux et politiques de cette civilisation, mais sa partie « populaire » et anthropologique, mettant au premier plan l’analyse des pratiques et non celle des doctrines. Des sources écrites (textes pré-modernes et sources secondaires de folkloristes tibétains et chinois) ont été intégrées aux observations. En ce qui concerne la troisième approche méthodologique, cette étude ne s'inscrit ni dans le courant des « performance studies » de Richard Schechner, ni dans l'anthropologie théâtrale d’Eugenio Barba, ni dans l'ethnoscénologie telle qu'elle est défendue par Jean-Marie Pradier, mais plutôt dans l'anthropologie du théâtre, au sens d'étude interprétative et multidimensionnelle, utilisant les référents établis de l'anthropologie et les savoirs indigènes pour décrire une expression culturelle déterminée et reconnue comme un genre à part entière, le théâtre.

Les résultats sont présentés en trois parties, qui peuvent être résumées de manière lapidaire par trois adjectifs :culturelle, sociologique, artistique. La première partie, intitulée "Le cadre culturel du lhamo avant 1959", est consacrée au contexte (historique, religieux et littéraire) dans lequel le théâtre est inscrit, ainsi qu’aux textes (leur contenu, leurs modalités de composition et de transmission) qui révèlent l'imaginaire propre du théâtre. La deuxième partie est une analyse de "L'ancrage sociologique du lhamo". Les conditions matérielles des représentations y sont examinées :les divers types de troupes, leur organisation interne, le statut social des acteurs, l'inscription de la pratique du théâtre dans le système socio-économique pré-moderne, et les rapports d'obligations tissés entre acteurs et seigneurs, ainsi qu'entre acteurs et commanditaires des représentations. La dernière partie, "Art et savoirs des acteurs", jette un éclairage sur la matière vive du lhamo. Elle rend compte des conceptions, valeurs, plaisirs et difficultés de ceux qui pratiquent cette forme d'art. Les divers registres de leur discipline sont analysés en détail :costumes, masques, gestuelle, chant, accompagnement musical (percussions) et sentiments exprimés. L'appréciation qui en est faite par le public est aussi consignée. Au cœur de cette partie se trouve une réflexion sur la nature rituelle et non rituelle du lhamo, et sur les liens éventuels de ce dernier avec d'autres activités religieuses, telles la possession. Les dernières pages de la thèse constituent un épilogue, qui fait le point sur la situation contemporaine, donc les implications politiques, du théâtre des deux côtés de l'Himalaya.

L'image anthropologique du lhamo qui a pu être dégagée de ces trois volets d'analyse le fait apparaître comme essentiellement ambivalent :le lhamo est un théâtre de paradoxes. À l'image de la civilisation tibétaine, il est composite et cohérent à la fois. Sa cohérence réside dans son ambivalence :il traverse et relie des aspects contrastés de la culture. Il introduit du jeu entre les polarités que Tibétains et tibétologues établissent parfois un peu trop à la hâte entre culture savante et culture populaire, écriture et oralité, éléments exogènes et apports autochtones, bouddhisme et cultes qui ont précédé son implantation, aspiration religieuse et intérêts mondains, spécialistes rituels et bénéficiaires qui les rémunèrent. Combinant fonction pédagogique et fonction rituelle, sacré compassé du texte et irrévérence grivoise des improvisations, le lhamo correspond aussi très bien à la manière dont les théâtrologues appréhendent le théâtre :comme un objet curieux, créé par les hommes et qui pourtant ne cesse de les intriguer, comme s'il était venu d'ailleurs.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Nixon, Karla. "Re- an exploration of transience in the work of selected artists." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10321/2497.

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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters of Technology in Fine Art Degree, Durban University of Technology, 2017.
The aim of this research is to investigate the exploration of transience in the work of selected artists. This study used qualitative, practice-led research methodology. This research is practice-led as my art making plays an integral part in guiding my research. Process philosophy provides the theoretical underpinning and contextual framework for this dissertation. I focus on both contemporary artists and philosophers who explore the notion of transience. As my selected artists and I use paper as a predominant medium, I look at how paper is an ideal choice of material through which to explore themes of transience. The selected artists that I investigate include Peter Callesen (1967-), Mia Pearlman (1974-), Jodi Carey (1981-) and myself. Through this research I have found that artists expressed similar sentiments to that of process philosophers centuries before these theories existed, and continue to do so today. This validates transience as a relevant form of visual enquiry. Through the exploration of transience by contemporary thinkers and the selected artists, I briefly examine the scope of interpretations and possible meanings of transience. The investigation into paper as an art medium supports its appropriateness as a means to explore themes of transience. The exploration of the selected artists’ work highlights the various aspects of transience as a concept based on both subject matter and medium. This research resulted in a body of work, exhibited in partial fulfilment of the Master of Technology Degree in Fine Art.
M

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Farman, Nola, University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, and Writing and Society Research Group. "The humours of the artists' book." 2007. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/25097.

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Artists’ books extend the limits of the conventional book. They take liberties with its form, content and configuration; they include subjects that might be considered insignificant, risqué, abstract or obscure. Their print run is too limited for ordinary publishing and marketing procedures. This thesis engages with the artists’ book in terms of its various moods as suggested by the bodily humours of Hippocrates and Galen. It argues that humour (in its embodied sense) takes many forms in the artists’ book: from the angry, the despairing or the melancholic to the comic or the joyful. In building a foundation for this approach to the artists’ book the thesis also connects with crucial moments in the evolution of twentieth century conceptual thought about art. Chapter One introduces the idea of humour as a strategy used by book artists to negotiate an art world in which the aesthetic canon is under scrutiny. Up to this point a characteristic feature of this negotiation has been a search for a consistent definition of artists’ book. My concerns are not so much with a fetishization of the book in a digitally challenging age, but, rather with the focus on the artists’ book’s ironic techniques that are employed to oversee the nature of the form relative to changes in its context, both technological and cultural. In the second chapter, I connect the artists’ book to some of its experimental origins within the literature of humour. I discuss a number of artists’ books that exemplify the sharpness of wit, the use of irony, the depth of melancholy and the place of nonsense among other forms within the spectrum of humorous possibility. The “anatomy” of humour is dissected in the third chapter, according to the way in which it embodies the creative process. The concepts of appropriation and détournement are basic tools, for the collection of subject matter. Every one of the books discussed use “wit” to carve a direct channel to the core of the idea it expresses. The diverse manifestations of irony enable the artists’ book in its various guises to mislead, riddle, surprise and seduce its reader. “Nonsense” keeps rationality honest by arguing a case for a productive form of “uselessness” that reflects upon an art world burdened by the weight of “usefulness” and overproduction. The fourth chapter examines a number of artists’ books and writers who, in various ways tap the rich field of the mundane: here is a source that like a compost heap, nurtures and produces those species of humorous surprise that also rejuvenate. The fifth chapter looks at larger aspects of the world, which shape our consciousness through spectacular images and the media. How these pressures permeate and influence the creative activities of the book artist is mapped in Chapter Six, which examines the shared internal space of the reader and the creator of the artwork. This internal space is the workshop of the book artist. Here the tactics are honed and the dynamics of the exterior world are in effect moulded and shaped into the subject matter and forms of artists’ books. In a culture in which “success” is commensurate with the accumulation of wealth, to be unsuccessful is to belong to an under-class, to be invisible. Chapter Seven makes use of an ironic sense of failure as a strategy to support the main objective of the thesis, which is to test the limits for the possibility of an art practice that continues to thrive as it ducks and weaves its way through and under the radar of contemporary cultural conditions. It argues a case for a fugitive practice that even as it is on the move is congruent, and in its selfreflexivity, accountable for its political and aesthetic stance. There has been a considerable resurgence of interest in the artists’ book since the late twentieth century with an increase in small press publications, the development of significant public and private collections of artists’ books and a growing body of critical commentary on them. Digital technology and desk top publishing have enabled many artists to produce books rapidly, cheaply and with qualities ranging in quality from the photocopy through to slick high-end productions. From the 1970s until the present, however, the commentary on artists’ books has been preoccupied with a search for a definition of the genre. Underpinning this endeavour has been a yearning for “consecration” (in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense) where acceptance would elevate the artists’ book to the same level as the “legitimate” art forms – painting, sculpture, photography and the finely crafted art object. By contrast, this thesis considers the artists’ book as an alternative art form and explores its ability to evade the constraints of consecration, to remain fresh and mischievous in creative and subversive ways
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Brooke, Julie Helen. "Thinking spaces : a practice-led enquiry into representations of memory and thought." Phd thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/156021.

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This practice-led thesis investigates parallels between research in science and in the visual arts, and explores how thought can be represented in visual form. The project developed from a fascination with logic diagrams and the memory palace, an ancient technique for extending the capacity of the mind to store information. The aim is to develop images of 'impossible objects' that are analogous to scientific hypotheses, and to explore how the apparently cool logic of an experimental system can lead to a compulsive reworking of ideas that may be anything but rational. This exploration takes the form of multiple extended series of small pencil and gouache works, in which the paper ground becomes a space in which to model and reflect on the processes of thought.

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Frederick, Ursula K. "On and off the road : creative intersections between cars and art." Phd thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/156072.

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Thesis: Over the past decade there has emerged a growing body of scholarship concerned with the impacts and influences of automobility. Its purpose has been to understand the dominance of the car not simply as a technology of transport but as a system of actors, materials, objects, ideas and infrastructure. While much of this research recognises the pervasive presence of the car in our lives in terms of different representational formats, relatively little consideration has been given to what creative artists might contribute to this research. Adopting an interdisciplinary framework incorporating contemporary art, visual anthropology and the archaeology of the contemporary past, this study explores the intersection of car cultures and creative practice to consider how cars can operate as a form of art. In doing so the author proposes that artistic engagements with the car provide unique insight into the experiences of contemporary life. This argument follows from the understanding that art is not simply a mirror of or response to the socio-cultural and political context in which it is manifest. Art is also a conceptual tool for thinking about the very substance and conditions of contemporary existence. Incorporating research undertaken across numerous car culture sites and communities along with a detailed analysis of six case studies, the project makes extensive use of photography as a mode of research. Within the accompanying exegesis the author discusses how her own artwork engages with the influence of automobility in our daily lives. She identifies her working practice as one that is strongly inspired by objects, images and materials that already exist in the world. This enduring interest in the way people make their worlds is informed by her training and sensibility as an archaeologist. The artist explores this idea as a general influence on her practice and more specifically through her investigation of car cultures. The signature of the automobile is all around us, but through its very ubiquity it often goes unnoticed. It is this affect of the everyday - the power to hide in the light - that has especially influenced the artist's approach to the subject. How might this presence in our lives be envisaged without representing the car itself? By abstracting the auto from automobility the artist aims to reflect on the contradictory ideas and emotions that underlie our relationships to the motor vehicle. The story of the car is also allegorical. From the point of purchase to the aftermath of its obsolescence, the automobile is a site for the projection of our desires. The artist's photographs and video work are an expression of this sweet melancholy; the beauty of hope and the spectre of unfulfilled promise. In discussing how she came to develop her practice in response to this topic, the artist concludes that many different modes of being and making - from driving, to talking, to photography - may constitute art as practice-based research. Exegesis: This exegesis discusses how I came to develop a body of work that engages with the influence of automobility in our daily lives. I identify my working practice as one that is strongly inspired by objects, images and materials that already exist in the world. This enduring interest in the way people make their worlds in informed by my training and sensibility as an archaeologist. I explore this idea as a general influence on my art practice and more specifically through my very ubiquity it often goes unnoticed. It is this effect of the everyday - the power to hide in the light - that has especially influenced my approach to the subject. How might this presence in our lives be envisaged without representing the car itself? By abstracting the auto from automobility I aim to reflect upon the contradictory ideas and emotions that underlie our relationships to the motor vehicle. The story of the car is also allegorical. From the point of purchase to the aftermath of its obsolescence, the automobile is a site for the projection of our desires. My photographs and video work are an expression of this sweet melancholy; the beauty of hope and the spectre of unfulfilled promise. In discussing how I came to develop my practice in response to this topic, I conclude that many different modes of being and making - from driving, to talking, to photography - may constitute art as practice-based research.

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Yektaparast, Mahmoud R. "Rhythms of anger : Daoism and Chinese untrammelled painting, toward a counter-theorisation of avant-garde." Thesis, 2010. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/496589.

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Philosophy, arts and politics share a passion for dissent. Avant-garde art, as that which mines the territories of the conventions and undermines the what is, has always existed as a social and highly political phenomenon. 'Rhythms of Anger' is, theoretically, an anti-colonial research that highlights the existence of Daoist texts, aesthetic theories and artistic styles in the Chinese paintings that antedate the European Modernist and Avant-garde impulses by at least a millennium. Thus, it opens ways for a counter-theorisation and re-theorisation of the predominantly Eurocentric, already existing theories of the avant-garde. Practically, and through the two short films, it exemplifies how Daoist philosophy could inspire the creation of contemporary avant-garde work. In the meantime, class, gender and racial injustices have governed human beings' lives since their very first attempt at getting together. Rhythms of Anger is an attempt at theorising the coordinates of an un-humanist thought that challenges modernism as an extension of the project of European Enlightenment, a project of hope, and therefore prone to be incorporated, established, and become politically reactionary. The present thesis involved the production of two short experimental films. The first titled Slogun was produced in Sydney in 2006/2007 and the second one titled 'All That is Solid Melts into Air' was shot in Beijing in 2008. As creative work component, they account for 50% of the thesis.

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Trapani, Alex. "Bruce Nauman : the true artist is an absurd fountain." Diss., 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/23276.

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Link to dataset: https://doi.org/10.25399/UnisaData.14152106.v1
The work of Bruce Nauman can be understood as an enquiry into the absurd. His work is a critique of art, the artist and society, and is in part viewed as a mediation of stereotypical ‘truth’. The absurd is defined and analysed to elucidate the nature of art and human behaviour by means of literary comparison, in particular of Camus, Sartre and Wittgenstein. This research focusses on Nauman’s subversive performance- based work and analyses how he simulates a particular work of Duchamp. I propose that Nauman espouses human activity into the functionality of objects, such as fountains. My artworks expand on Nauman’s interrogation of the concept of a ‘true artist’ by embodying an absurd fountain as a Sisyphean construct. In contextualising my work in relation to incessant duty, insecurity and double negatives, I offer a regenerative vigour against idolisation of success through contemplation of the artist’s doubt and the absurd.
Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology
M.A. (Visual Arts)

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Leeb-du, Toit Juliette Cecile. "Contextualizing the use of biblically derived and metaphysical imagery in the work of Black artists from KwaZulu-Natal : c1930-2002." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/601.

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As art historians uncover the many sources and catalysts that have contributed to the emergence of black contemporary art in South Africa, one of the principal influences is that derived from the Christian mission churches and breakaway separatist groups - the African Independent Churches (AICs). Histories of African art have failed adequately to consider the art that emerged from these contexts, regarding it perhaps as too coerced and distinctive – merely religious art subject to the rigours of liturgical or proselytizing function. The purpose of this dissertation is to foreground this art and its position in the development of both pioneer and contemporary South African art and to identify the many features, both stylistic and thematic, which distinguish this work.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

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Wolmarans, Kristien. "Beauty and the eye of the beholder : female adornment in the wedding scenes on attic vases." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8151.

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M.A.
During the second half of the fifth-century B.C. there was a sudden proliferation of Attic vases depicting adornment scenes. These scenes showed groups of women making themselves desirable and for the first time women were eroticised within the context of marriage. Some scholars have argued that this sudden abundance reflected a change in the Attic attitude towards women, reflecting their increased social standing. These scholars proposed various hypotheses. It is conjectured that Perikles' Citizenship Law of 451/450 increased the social standing of Athenian daughters. The Peloponnesian War that raged from 431 to 404 BCE might also have forced women to take on more public responsibilities; to fill the gaps left by the military men's absence. This would explain why private activities of women became the subject matter of vase paintings at that time. According to this viewpoint women became the new customers of the potters. There are even scholars who maintain that these scenes contain hints of sexual liaisons between women. A competing hypothesis is that these scenes were used to impose a patriarchal ideal of femininity onto girls preparing themselves for marriage. Both these approaches imply that women were the primary viewers of these scenes. The aim of this study is to evaluate these hypotheses and to explore whether there may be other explanations. In order to investigate these issues a visual semiotic analysis was performed of thirteen painted vases representative of a variety of painters and vase shapes. This analysis was done in two parts: a structural analysis and a pragmatic analysis. The structural analysis consisted of a syntactic and semantic analysis, and helped to identify the pertinent signs and what they refer to. Artistic principles and the theory of Gestalt played an important role in identifying key signs. The pragmatic analysis delved deeper and was used to establish what message Athenian men and women might have read into these painted vases. This brought to light the master narrative prescribed by the patriarchy as well as women's acceptance thereof and how women used it to condition their daughters. A new hypothesis is proposed to explain the increase in this type of subject matter on painted vases. It is concluded that the buyers of the vases were mostly men but that the consumers of these artistic scenes were both male and female. It is also probable that after the Peloponnesian War these vases depicted a return to basic patriarchal values that may have degenerated during the war. It was also found that Perikles' Citizenship Law would have contributed more to the social standing of the male guardian, than to that of a girl of marriageable age. The eroticisation of women within the confines of marriage would thus have propagated the message of procreation within the patriarchal family structure, rather than referring to erotic encounters between women. These scenes, instead of showing the increased social standing of women, reflect a reinforcement of patriarchal values.

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Chaitow, Tanya School of Arts UNSW. "Nothing personal." 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/44254.

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The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

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De, Jager Thea Laurette. "The poesis of decay : a painter's response to the dystopian aesthetic." Diss., 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/26241.

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This study focuses on the investigation and deconstruction of the phenomena of the South African dystopian society, as reflected in the novels of Lauren Beukes and films by Neill Blomkamp. The characteristics and signifiers of a uniquely South African dystopian society are established and investigated through a posthuman lens. The theoretical framework of this study is principally concerned with the critical posthuman writings of Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway and, to a lesser extent, Cary Wolfe. Feminism and post-colonialism, and their influences on posthuman theory, are applied as the secondary theoretical framework, in this study. The study is practice led, with the study of the literature serving as mutually informative to the execution of a body of work centred on the dystopian theme. The paintings are intended to be metonyms for the wide range of manifestations of social decline evident in contemporary South African narratives.
Arts and Music
M.A. (Visual Arts)

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Erasmus, Megan. "Transgenic art and science in Eduardo Kac’s work: ethical issues acknowledged." Diss., 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/19025.

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Text in English
The rise of the biotechnical and genomic revolution has motivated contemporary artists to explore the use of scientific methods as a medium for art-making. The application of these ground-breaking methods within the realm of contemporary art allows for the distortion that exists between life sciences and the imagination to become a reality. This practice is known as transgenic art. With biotechnology as the new playing-field for art comes a myriad of dangerous implications, ethical issues, questions of authorship and responsibilities. The transgenic artworks of Eduardo Kac entitled GFP Bunny (2000) and Genesis (1999) form the basis of the research. The main question posed in this research explores the purpose of transgenic art and the unavoidable impact thereof on society. Social awareness of ethical issues surrounding this type of art-making is addressed. The poignancy of the study lies in debates deliberately introduced by the artist, but also unintended controversial issues that surface from the creation of living artworks.
Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology
M.A. (Visual Arts)

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Shaw, Rayford Wesley. "A Structural analysis and visual abstraction of the pictorial in the Aeneid, I-VI." Thesis, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/16021.

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The pictorial elements of the first six books of the Aeneid can be evidenced through an examination of its structural components. With commentaries on such literary devices as parallels and antipodes, interwoven themes, cyclic patterns, and strategic placement of words in the text, three genres of painting are treated individually in Chapter 1 to illustrate the poet's consistency of design and to prove him a craftsman of the visual arts. In the first division, "Cinematic progression," attention is directed to the language which conveys movement and frequentative action, with special emphasis placed on specific passages whose verbal components possess sculptural or third-dimensional traits and contribute to the "spiral" and "circle" motifs, the appropriate visual agents for animation. Depiction of mythological subjects comprises the second division entitled "Cameos and snapshots." Three selections, dubbed monstra, are explicated with such cross references as to illustrate the poet's use of epithets which he distributes passim to elicit verbal echoes of other passages. The final division, "The Vergilian landscape," addresses two major themes, antithetical in nature, the martial and the pastoral. Their sequential juxtaposition in the text renders a marked contrast in mood which is manifested pictorially in the transition from darkness to light. A panoramic chiaroscuro emerges which is the tapestry against which Aeneas makes his sojourn through the Underworld. It is the perfect backdrop to accompany the overriding theme of "things hidden," res latentes, which encompasses a greater part of the epic and becomes the culminant motif of the paintings which comprise the visual presentation. Chapter 2 functions as a catalogue raisonne for art inspired by the Aeneid from early antiquity up to the present day. Such examples of artistic expression provide a continuum with which to appropriate Horace's maxim, ut pictura poesis, in their evaluation. The verbal exegeses in Chapter 1 have been programmed to comport with the thematic content of the visual presentation in Chapter 3, a critique exemplifying the transposition of the verbal to the pictorial. With these canvases I have attempted to render a new perspective of Vergil's epic in the genre of abstract expressionism.
Art
D. Litt. et Phil.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Art – themes, motives – dictionaries'

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