Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Installations (Art) Australia Exhibitions'

The project aims to produce an immersive video installation titled 'The Glittering City???. This project investigates contemporary cultural issues within the context of critical/specific geographical sites. These locations are the Australian coastal border, and a refugee camp near the Kenyan/Sudanese border, known as Kakuma. 'The Glittering City'is an installation that incorporates elements of video, sculpture, sound and electronics in a kinetic 2 channel immersive video and (multi-channel) audio installation. The key aims for the project are to raise awareness of the issues facing refugees and asylum seekers in relation to their sense of home. In order to accomplish this aim the research will extend upon prior research into embedded video sculptures. A subset of the key aim is to seek funding for the project. The installation is the third and final work from a trilogy of works that explores the themes journey, arrival and departure, respectively. The Glittering City is contextualised within four key areas inherent within the research practice. These key elements are 1. hybrid documentary art, 2. expanded cinema, 3. Technology and art, 4. culture and identity. Key outcomes of the research are the production and installation of The Glittering City at Campbelltown Arts Centre, May 2007. An educational program also took place at the Centre to raise awareness of the themes the installation poses. The production of a catalogue for The Glittering City is an important device for disseminating the core concepts. For the costs of making the multi-channel production, the project successfully sought grant funding from Arts NSW. This resulted in a grant through their Western Sydney I Artists' Fellowship program. The Glittering City used further funding from the Campbelltown Arts Centre to cover catalogue production, invitation design, mail out and installation costs.

Mémoire (M.A.)-- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1991.
Ce travail de recherche a été réalisé à l'UQAC dans le cadre du programme en arts plastiques extensionné de l'UQAM à l'UQAC. CaQCU Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

This dissertation traces the presence of installation-based practices among artists of Aboriginal ancestry via selected exhibitions across Canada. It begins with a methodological perspective on Canadian art history, federal law, and human science, as a means of establishing a contextual backdrop for the art under consideration. The rise of an Indian empowerment movement during the twentieth century is then shown to take on an international voice which had cultural ramifications at the 1967 Canadian International and Universal Exhibition. Nascent signs of a multi-mediatic aesthetic are distinguished in selected works in Canadian Indian Art '74, as well as through Native-run visual arts programs. First Nations art history is charted via new Canadian art narratives starting in the early 1970s, followed by the development of spatial productions and hybrid discourses in New Work By a New Generation in 1982, and Stardusters in 1986. The final chapter opens with a history of installation art since the Second World War, as related to the pronounced presence of multi-mediactic works in Beyond History in 1989. Post-colonial and postmodern theories are deployed to conclusively situate both the artistic and political concerns featured throughout this study, and lead into the analysis of selected installations at Indigena: Contemporary Native Perspectives and Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada. These 1992 shows in the national capital region ultimately confirm the maturation of a particular socio-political aesthetic that tested issues of Canadian identity, while signifying Aboriginal sites of difference.

This paper is about the subjectivity of the body, and what this means in terms of my artistic practice. Composed in two sections, the first section addresses issues of personal history as content, the use of language in relationship to visual art, and experimental language as a tool to communicate visceral knowledge. I discuss the feminist critique of cultural, artistic and academic hierarchies, and explore how these themes inform my work. The second section examines the body of work I have developed within the MFA program. I explain the artists who have influenced my development, and give specific examples, whenever possible, of formal and conceptual influences. I use images of my own paintings, studio, and exhibitions to illustrate the progression of my practice. In conclusion, I contemplate the upcoming thesis exhibition, and explain my intentions regarding its completion.
vi, 56 leaves : col. ill. ; 29 cm

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.

Scenario House, a gallery based installation, is comprised of a room constructed as a ???family room??? within a domestic space, a television with a looped video work and a sound componant played through a 5.1 sound system. The paper is intended to give my work context in relation to the processes leading up to its completion. This is achieved through clarification of the basis for the installation including previous socio-political discourses within my art practice. It then focuses on ways that the installation Scenario House is based on gun practice facilities such as the Valhalla Shooting Club. Further it gives an explanation of the actual production, in context with other art practices. It was found that distinctions between ???war as a game??? and the actual event are being lost within ???simulation revenge scenarios??? where the borders distinguishing gaming violence, television violence and revenge scenarios are increasingly indefinable. War can then be viewed a spectacle where the actual event is lost in a simplified simulation. Scenario House as installation allows audience immersion through sound spatialisation and physical devices. Sound is achieved by design of a 5.1 system played through a domestic home theatre system. The physical design incorporates the dual aspect of a gun shooting club and a lounge room. Further a film loop is shown on the television monitor as part of the domestic space ??? it is non-narrative and semi-documentary in style. The film loop represents the mediation of the representation of fear where there is an exclusion of ???the other??? from the social body. When considering this installation it is important to note that politics and art need not be considered as representing two separate and permanent realities. Conversely there is a need to distance politicised art production from any direct political campaign work in so far as the notion of a campaign constitutes a fixed and inflexible space for intellectual and cultural production. Finally this paper expresses the need to maintain a critical openness to media cultures that dominate political discourse. Art practices such as those of Martha Rosler, Haacke and Paul McCarthy are presented as effective strategies for this form of production.

This exegesis frames my studio thesis, which explores whether visual art can be a site for reconciliation, a tool for healing, an educational experience and a political act. It details how my art work evolved as a series of cycles and stages, as a systematic engagement with people, involving them in a process of investigating 'their' own realities - both the stories of their inner worlds and the community story framework of their outer conditions. It reveals how for my ongoing work as an indigenous artist, I became the learner and the teacher, the subject and the object. Of central importance for my exploration was the concept and methodology of bothways. As a social process, bothways action-learning methodology was found to incorporate the needs, motivations and cultural values of the learner through negotiated learning. Discussion of bothways methodology and disciplinary context demonstrated the relationships, connections and disjunctions shared by both Aboriginal and Western domains and informed the processes and techniques to position visual art as an educational experience and a tool for healing. From this emerged a range of ARTsongs - installations which reveal possible new alternatives sites for reconciliation, spaces and frames of reference to 'open our minds, heart and spirit so we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions, transgressions - a movement against and beyond boundaries' (hooks, 1994 p.12). Central to studio production was bricolage as an artistic strategy and my commitment to praxis - to weaving together my art practice with hands-on political action and direct involvement with my communities. I refer to this as the trial and feedback process or SIDEtracks. These were documented acts of personal empowerment, which led to a more activist role in the political struggle of reconciliation. I conclude that, as aboriginal people, we can provide a leadership role, and in so doing, we can demonstrate to the wider community how to move beyond a state of apathy.

The momentous signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 marked the turning point to end Japan’s long seclusion from the West. Its subsequent ‘opening’ unveiled the refreshingly different aesthetic canon of Japanese art which was enthusiastically hailed by nineteenth century Western artists and designers. As a much sought after commodity, Japanese art was collected in unprecedented quantities throughout Europe, the British Empire and the United States. The mania for things Japanese also reached the far-flung colonies in Australia and New Zealand. This phenomenon, referred to in the English-speaking world as ‘Mikado Mania’ or the ‘Cult of Japan’, coincided with the establishment of public museums, the proliferation of international exhibitions and ease of global travel. These innovations fostered and facilitated the formation of Japanese art collections internationally. A survey of Australian and New Zealand collections and a particular examination of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection formed between the years 1904-1940 reveal the circumstances and personalities that shaped the nature and content of the collections. It is argued in this thesis that while nascent colonial public museums and private collectors such as those in South Australia were guided by British tastes, the genesis of which predated the nineteenth century ‘opening’ of Japan, the collecting of Japanese art in nineteenth-century Australia and New Zealand served as a signifier of international discourse and modernity. For Japan, its art became a tool to fend off foreign hegemony. Driven by the slogan bunmei kaika ‘civilisation and enlightenment’, Japan throughout the Meiji era (1868-1912) exploited the mania for its art in order to achieve status and recognition as a world power. It will be further argued that the spirit of bunmei kaika also encapsulated the cultural aspirations of the fledgling colonies in Australia and New Zealand which, by the late nineteenth century, were endeavouring to articulate their own ‘civilisation and enlightenment’ within the British Empire. Through their efforts to advance onto the world stage, the Australian colonies played a significant, though unrecognised role in Japan’s experimentation and investment in its self-promotion as a civilised country. The cause and effect of measures undertaken by the Japanese government to achieve bunmei kaika through the applied arts of ceramics, metalware, ivories and lacquer can be directly demonstrated through the very objects collected in South Australia and the other colonies. A study of their intrinsic qualities and provenance provides tangible evidence of Japan’s strategic efforts to advance its national identity through art. It also serves to shed light on the curatorial expertise and connoisseurship being exercised at the time by colonial museums and collectors. Japanese objects acquired during the formative period of Australian and New Zealand museums have long been ignored or dismissed as hybridised and inauthentic. Recently their technological ingenuity and cross-cultural aesthetic have been more generously acknowledged. They are the beacons of Japan’s quest for ‘civilisation and enlightenment’.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History & Politics, 2012

This paper explores the relationship between place in installation art and its relevance to the practice of placemaking in a hospital setting. The discussion draws on phenomenology, psychodynamic theory and contemporary art, in particular the author's art experience of places, their formal qualities and potential meanings, along with, an examination of what creates an embodied sense of being contained at home ( emotionally and physically). Some of the questions posed for discussion include; what is it about places that becomes inherent to memory and shapes its form? How do places impact on what we do there and who we are? Is place more significant in memory for a young child or someone in a vulnerable state of being (as in the hospital setting)? Process issues, along with physical outcomes, in installations and in the hospital projects are discussed.
Master of Arts (Hons)

Orientação: Maria Cristina Oliveira Bruno
A presente tese centra-se na relação entre o visitante/participante e as instalações museológicas. Parte-se do princípio que o objetivo principal das instalações museológicas é o de potenciar a criação de conhecimento. Neste sentido, explora-se uma série de recursos expositivos, em particular a Realidade Aumentada – RA, que possibilita diferentes leituras de um mesmo elemento/objeto e, desta forma, amplia o conjunto de interações possíveis. Para a produção e desenvolvimento das instalações museológicas, teve-se em consideração um processo de design iterativo e participativo combinado com a avaliação in the wild, no sentido de desenvolver as instalações de acordo com o feedback dos visitantes/participantes em diferentes fases do seu desenvolvimento e verificar se os objetivos propostos estavam a ser atingidos. No Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology desenvolveu-se uma instalação que tinha por base o reconhecimento gestual e centrou-se a investigação no processo de design iterativo; por outro lado, na exposição Baixa em Tempo Real, apesar de ter-se executado também alterações com base no feedback dos visitantes/participantes, centrou-se na avaliação in the wild, para identificar diferentes padrões de interação, tanto com as instalações em particular, como com a exposição num todo. Neste sentido, entende-se que as instalações museológicas podem ser desenvolvidas de forma colaborativa, onde é tido em consideração os diferentes intervenientes neste processo, tal como os visitantes/participantes, os stakeholders, os técnicos, os designers ou os museológos durante as diferentes fases de desenvolvimento das instalações museológicas. Através do desenvolvimento de instalações museológicas de forma dinâmica, participativa e em constante atualização entende-se estar mais próximo de produzir instalações que respondam ao seu objetivo principal.
This thesis focuses on the relationship between the visitor/participant and the museological installations. It is assumed that the main objective of a museological installation is to promote the creation of knowledge. In this sense, we explore a number of different exhibition resources, in particular Augmented Reality that enables different readings of the same element/object, and, in this way, it extends the set of possible interactions. For the production and development of museological installations, we have in consideration an iterative design process, combined with an evaluation in the wild, in order to develop the installations in accordance with the visitor’s feedback and verifying if the proposed objectives are being achieved. At the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology we have developed an installation based on gesture tracking, and focused research in an iterative process; on the other hand at the exhibition Baixa in Real Time, although we have implemented a few changes based on the visitor’s feedback we have focused on identifying different patterns of interaction while interacting with specific installations. In this sense, it is understood that the museological installations can be developed collaboratively, where it is taken into account the different actors in this process, as the visitors/participants, the stakeholders, the technicians, the designers or the museologists. Through the development of museological installations in a dynamic way, participative and in constant update, means to be closest to produce installations that respond to their main objective.

Curiosity, it can be said, alerts us to the interface between art and science, with the ‘object’ being suspended somewhere between the two. Curiosity interfaced with photography and collections are the main components of this thesis. This thesis is organized around two principle outcomes: a written component and an artistic component. The written component investigates how the use of photography as a method of inquiry into the secondary manipulation of ready-made material results in objects that become sites of new meaning and encourage new interpretations. The artistic component was comprised of a photographic installation titled ‘herbarium imaginaire’ (imaginary herbarium), which featured hand-built pinhole cameras and auxiliary photography equipment used in the production of a photographs, as well as featuring an open-house and presentation of botanical specimens and plant collecting processes that was held in the University of Victoria Herbarium.

There is a keen interest in spirituality today - a new search for meaning. As Tacey (2003, p.2) comments; “We are caught in a difficult moment in history, stuck between a secular system we have out-grown, and a religious system we cannot fully embrace. “Clearly, a spirituality exists in Australia that is no longer associated with religion.” I believe the starting point for this spirituality is in the everyday. Evidence of spirituality exists in families, a microcosm of society, and in family homes. This is where life’s ultimate questions seem to be answered – Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? As a visual artist doing a Creative PhD, my thesis follows my own journey as an immigrant finding place and space, which I call ‘splace’, in Australia. Being a mother, I have attempted to locate my children in a community and religious landscape foreign to me. The resulting fine art exhibition at Span Galleries, Melbourne, uses the familiar geography of the church building as a framework to explore aspects of spirituality in four galleries named: VIRTUAL NARTHEX - The spiritual self’s recognition of self CHAPEL – the spiritual self’s space/place within the family NAVE – the spiritual self’s relationship to community SANCTUARY – the spiritual self’s life journey ‘from here to eternity’ The concurrent community art exhibition, ‘CHISHOLM’S HOMES: Shaking Down the Miracle’, at the Migration Museum, Adelaide, augments the chosen themes and their creative processes. My art as visual theology, places spirituality within the grasp of the everyday, a holy pilgrimage through the ever changing, ever challenging passage called ‘family’. Using installation, it incorporates fabric, found objects, wood, styrofoam, tapestry, text, movement, digital composition and soundscape, to deconstruct fixed, preconceived family and spiritual references. September 11th has increased a fear of other cultures. There has never been a better time to globally effect much more than tolerance but to reflect common values and visions; discovering a universal search for meaning as transferred through families and community. Beyond imagery and words, I explore the expression of spirituality in building a harmonious multicultural society. To me, all this is the art of seeking the immortal now.

My Masters research engages with the ways as a painter, I increasingly struggle to give form to my relationship with the Blue Mountains. Although it is a familiar natural environment, this struggle has articulated my research question: Can problems associated with representing vast natural environments like the Blue Mountains be overcome through an analysis of personal embodied experience? This thesis examines the complexities of translating the perceptual and corporeal experience of the Blue Mountains. This site is rich in social history, from Indigenous occupation through to the listing of its status as a World Heritage Area in 2000. It is also a place of early childhood memories and has been my home for the last 20 years. My research has investigated these histories and the physical landscape in an organically responsive practice of both charcoal drawing and watercolour on paper. The written exegesis of 20,000 words, describes the outcome of the research in four bodies of work on paper: Nests, Vertigo, Absence and Presence and Keepsake. The Nests works explore the symbolism of the nature of nests, while also providing the opportunity to more ambiguously trace the labyrinthine form of the mountains. Vertigo considers the implications of edges, and of distance and intimacy. In Absence and Presence, I advocate for what is hidden in the landscape, including the competing and forgotten stories about place. The final works identify how I have brought the horizon and vastness into intimate images that can also become objects to be held in the palm of the hand. I have argued in the exegesis from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory and phenomenology, how the development of a personal symbolism originating in an embryonic nest has enabled me to approach some of the more problematic concepts of vastness that this natural environment holds. This trope evolved through my studio research, and was developed through a series of constructed and productive binaries, such as intimacy and distance, past and present, and loss and attachment. I argue through the studio practice and writing that the development of these approaches have contributed to the renewed accessibility, for my audience, and myself, of a distinctly over-represented and culturally determined site.

Canvassing the emotions examines the role and meaning of artmaking in the lives of women who have experienced mental ill-health and/or psychological trauma in Australia between the 1950s and the present. Hovering at the nexus of a number of contested domains, the thesis bypasses the perennial question of what is art to explore the neglected and perhaps more interesting query – what does art do for the artmaker? – and associated questions of why does art matter; what is the function of artmaking in relation to wellbeing; and what are the implications of a thwarted life of making? The thesis presents the findings of three studies: The Exhibition – a touring exhibition of art produced by women with an experience of mental ill-health; The Interviews – with thirty-two women who make art and who have experienced mental ill-health; and The Collage – a collation of women’s accounts of – what does art do?