- Title
- Being for others : critical reflections on the stranger, the estranged and the self in participatory art
- Title
- Ineffaceable
- Creator
- Munro, Samantha Fawn
- ThesisAdvisor
- Western, Rat
- ThesisAdvisor
- Martin, Tom
- Subject
- Self
- Subject
- Identity (Philosophical concept) in art
- Subject
- Alienation (Philosophy)
- Subject
- Interactive art
- Subject
- Art appreciation
- Subject
- Art exhibition audiences
- Subject
- Interactive art -- Themes, motives
- Subject
- Social interaction
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MFA
- Identifier
- vital:2507
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017771
- Description
- 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.
- Format
- 109 leaves, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Munro, Samantha Fawn
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