Devastation and restoration: the use of Namibian dense salt blocks and the Cape Cross Salt Pans as visual metaphors
- Authors: Greyling, Wil-Merie
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Sculpture , Destruction , Restoration and conservation , Salt pans in art , Grief in art , Loss (Psychology) in art , Visual metaphor , Salt mines and mining Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437203 , vital:73352
- Description: This mini-thesis explores personal experiences during seasons of loss and grief using physical landscapes, specifically Namibian dense salt mining activities at the Cape Cross Salt Pans, as metaphors for devastation and restoration. Furthermore, the thesis investigates the connection between spiritual and physical landscapes through song and dreams to interpret personal experiences of loss and grief. The thesis explores how believers may find physical places of value outside the constraints of formal religious activities and how these experiences could evoke spiritual landscapes. The qualitative auto-ethnographical approach followed in this study proved an appropriate research methodology, explicitly involving observation and documentation of the physical landscape and reflection on personal experiences, such as dreams. In coming to terms with personal experiences of grief and loss, the individual results of the process were generated using methods such as retrospective reflection and observation. In my findings, I unpack how I found personal meaning from my creative and academic explorations. The metaphoric characteristics of dense salt blocks figuratively express ‘metamorphosis’, ‘weeping’, and ‘growth’. My findings include that one can represent healing and restorative elements with artistic value. The Namibian salt mining industry is typically removed from artistic activities and expression, but I succeeded in forging an atypical relationship with the industry players in an area of the salt block mining industry. In my practice, I explored the character of mined resources, in this case, dense salt blocks, by changing their inherent properties from low-value commercial minerals into unique art objects. In the process, I examined the metaphoric associations that organically mined material, in this case, salt blocks, may hold. Therefore, I link personal creative storytelling to a site with spiritual and sacred values and thus become a place to come to terms with loss and grief. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 2023
- Full Text:
- Authors: Greyling, Wil-Merie
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Sculpture , Destruction , Restoration and conservation , Salt pans in art , Grief in art , Loss (Psychology) in art , Visual metaphor , Salt mines and mining Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437203 , vital:73352
- Description: This mini-thesis explores personal experiences during seasons of loss and grief using physical landscapes, specifically Namibian dense salt mining activities at the Cape Cross Salt Pans, as metaphors for devastation and restoration. Furthermore, the thesis investigates the connection between spiritual and physical landscapes through song and dreams to interpret personal experiences of loss and grief. The thesis explores how believers may find physical places of value outside the constraints of formal religious activities and how these experiences could evoke spiritual landscapes. The qualitative auto-ethnographical approach followed in this study proved an appropriate research methodology, explicitly involving observation and documentation of the physical landscape and reflection on personal experiences, such as dreams. In coming to terms with personal experiences of grief and loss, the individual results of the process were generated using methods such as retrospective reflection and observation. In my findings, I unpack how I found personal meaning from my creative and academic explorations. The metaphoric characteristics of dense salt blocks figuratively express ‘metamorphosis’, ‘weeping’, and ‘growth’. My findings include that one can represent healing and restorative elements with artistic value. The Namibian salt mining industry is typically removed from artistic activities and expression, but I succeeded in forging an atypical relationship with the industry players in an area of the salt block mining industry. In my practice, I explored the character of mined resources, in this case, dense salt blocks, by changing their inherent properties from low-value commercial minerals into unique art objects. In the process, I examined the metaphoric associations that organically mined material, in this case, salt blocks, may hold. Therefore, I link personal creative storytelling to a site with spiritual and sacred values and thus become a place to come to terms with loss and grief. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 2023
- Full Text:
The mental health effects of social media on young adult South Africans in the COVID-19 pandemic: a thematic analysis of social media posts by Rhodes University students
- Authors: Jubase, Hlumelo
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , Social media and college students South Africa Makhanda , College students Mental health South Africa Makhanda , Social media Influence , Action theory
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425122 , vital:72212
- Description: The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has been mainly discussed in terms of its socioeconomic effects and loss of life. While these are important, its mental health effects are given attention in this dissertation. In particular, this is explored through social media platforms, which saw increased usage as a result of regulations on movement to slow the Virus’ spread. This is explored during the hard lockdown (or ‘Alert Level 5’) and further, focuses on young adults, key users of social media platforms. Max Weber’s ‘social action theory’ and Michel de Certeau’s ‘theory of everyday life’ are drawn on, which help to analyse social relations from an individual level; and are used to explore the kinds of expressions made on a social media platform, and what can be said in mental health terms. These theoretical frameworks are applied to a university “Confessions” page, used mostly by young adults, where submissions were made anonymously. Findings indicate a great deal of trauma associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also evidence of the emergence of collective responsibility. They show the immense sacrifices made by participants for the opportunity of an education, and provide a window into the kinds of subjectivities experienced by South African young adults. Further, they show the importance of having more substantive mental health discussions in South Africa, a country familiar with traumatic experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2023
- Full Text:
- Authors: Jubase, Hlumelo
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , Social media and college students South Africa Makhanda , College students Mental health South Africa Makhanda , Social media Influence , Action theory
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425122 , vital:72212
- Description: The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has been mainly discussed in terms of its socioeconomic effects and loss of life. While these are important, its mental health effects are given attention in this dissertation. In particular, this is explored through social media platforms, which saw increased usage as a result of regulations on movement to slow the Virus’ spread. This is explored during the hard lockdown (or ‘Alert Level 5’) and further, focuses on young adults, key users of social media platforms. Max Weber’s ‘social action theory’ and Michel de Certeau’s ‘theory of everyday life’ are drawn on, which help to analyse social relations from an individual level; and are used to explore the kinds of expressions made on a social media platform, and what can be said in mental health terms. These theoretical frameworks are applied to a university “Confessions” page, used mostly by young adults, where submissions were made anonymously. Findings indicate a great deal of trauma associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also evidence of the emergence of collective responsibility. They show the immense sacrifices made by participants for the opportunity of an education, and provide a window into the kinds of subjectivities experienced by South African young adults. Further, they show the importance of having more substantive mental health discussions in South Africa, a country familiar with traumatic experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2023
- Full Text:
Semantic segmentation of astronomical radio images: a computer vision approach
- Authors: Kupa, Ramadimetse Sydil
- Date: 2023-03-29
- Subjects: Semantic segmentation , Radio astronomy , Radio telescopes , Deep learning (Machine learning) , Image segmentation
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422378 , vital:71937
- Description: The new generation of radio telescopes, such as the MeerKAT, ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) and the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA), are expected to produce vast amounts of data and images in the petabyte region. Therefore, the amount of incoming data at a specific point in time will overwhelm any current traditional data analysis method being deployed. Deep learning architectures have been applied in many fields, such as, in computer vision, machine vision, natural language processing, social network filtering, speech recognition, machine translation, bioinformatics, medical image analysis, and board game programs. They have produced results which are comparable to human expert performance. Hence, it is appealing to apply it to radio astronomy data. Image segmentation is one such area where deep learning techniques are prominent. The images from the new generation of telescopes have a high density of radio sources, making it difficult to classify the sources in the image. Identifying and segmenting sources from radio images is a pre-processing step that occurs before sources are put into different classes. There is thus a need for automatic segmentation of the sources from the images before they can be classified. This work uses the Unet architecture (originally developed for biomedical image segmentation) to segment radio sources from radio astronomical images with 99.8% accuracy. After segmenting the sources we use OpenCV tools to detect the sources on the mask images, then the detection is translated to the original image where borders are drawn around each detected source. This process automates and simplifies the pre-processing of images for classification tools and any other post-processing tool that requires a specific source as an input. , Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science, Physics and Electronics, 2023
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kupa, Ramadimetse Sydil
- Date: 2023-03-29
- Subjects: Semantic segmentation , Radio astronomy , Radio telescopes , Deep learning (Machine learning) , Image segmentation
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422378 , vital:71937
- Description: The new generation of radio telescopes, such as the MeerKAT, ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) and the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA), are expected to produce vast amounts of data and images in the petabyte region. Therefore, the amount of incoming data at a specific point in time will overwhelm any current traditional data analysis method being deployed. Deep learning architectures have been applied in many fields, such as, in computer vision, machine vision, natural language processing, social network filtering, speech recognition, machine translation, bioinformatics, medical image analysis, and board game programs. They have produced results which are comparable to human expert performance. Hence, it is appealing to apply it to radio astronomy data. Image segmentation is one such area where deep learning techniques are prominent. The images from the new generation of telescopes have a high density of radio sources, making it difficult to classify the sources in the image. Identifying and segmenting sources from radio images is a pre-processing step that occurs before sources are put into different classes. There is thus a need for automatic segmentation of the sources from the images before they can be classified. This work uses the Unet architecture (originally developed for biomedical image segmentation) to segment radio sources from radio astronomical images with 99.8% accuracy. After segmenting the sources we use OpenCV tools to detect the sources on the mask images, then the detection is translated to the original image where borders are drawn around each detected source. This process automates and simplifies the pre-processing of images for classification tools and any other post-processing tool that requires a specific source as an input. , Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science, Physics and Electronics, 2023
- Full Text:
A nasty chamber
- Authors: Jwara, Fortunate
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African fiction (English) 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406262 , vital:70253
- Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
- Authors: Jwara, Fortunate
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African fiction (English) 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406262 , vital:70253
- Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
- Full Text:
Lived bodies: women’s experience of sex and gender
- Authors: Lothian, Julie-Anne
- Date: 2014-04-11
- Subjects: Lived body , Human body Sociological aspects , Women Sociological aspects , Sex role , Gender
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69445 , vital:29538
- Description: This thesis will discuss the category of women, as a social group, through a phenomenological understanding of women’s subjective experiences. In arguing for the phenomenological perspective of the lived body, I show the ways in which other conceptions of women’s embodied subjectivity ultimately fail to provide comprehensive accounts of the lived experience of being a woman. I begin with an investigation into how biological determinists hypothesise women’s bodies as sexed. I then move to respond to Judith Butler’s poststructuralist feminist account of the gendered body. Finally, I argue that the embodied experience of being a woman is best explained as an ambiguous relationship between socially constructed expectations of femininity and biological materiality. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Political and International Studies, 2014
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lothian, Julie-Anne
- Date: 2014-04-11
- Subjects: Lived body , Human body Sociological aspects , Women Sociological aspects , Sex role , Gender
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69445 , vital:29538
- Description: This thesis will discuss the category of women, as a social group, through a phenomenological understanding of women’s subjective experiences. In arguing for the phenomenological perspective of the lived body, I show the ways in which other conceptions of women’s embodied subjectivity ultimately fail to provide comprehensive accounts of the lived experience of being a woman. I begin with an investigation into how biological determinists hypothesise women’s bodies as sexed. I then move to respond to Judith Butler’s poststructuralist feminist account of the gendered body. Finally, I argue that the embodied experience of being a woman is best explained as an ambiguous relationship between socially constructed expectations of femininity and biological materiality. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Political and International Studies, 2014
- Full Text:
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »