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"From digital to darkroom"

"I've always known this place, familiar as a room in our house" : engaging with memory, loss and nostalgia through sculpture

  • Authors: Reed, Kesayne
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Memory in art , Loss (Psychology) in art , Nostalgia in art , Sculpture -- Themes, motives , Art therapy , Sculpture -- Exhibitions
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2513 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020022
  • Description: 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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  • Date Issued: 2015

"Museum spaces in post-apartheid South Africa": the Durban Art Gallery as a case study

  • Authors: Brown, Carol
  • Date: 2006
  • Subjects: Durban Art Gallery -- History Museums -- South Africa -- Durban Art museums -- South Africa -- Durban Art -- South Africa -- Durban -- Exhibitions Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Exhibitions Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Exhibitions
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:2446 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006231
  • Description: This dissertation examines the history of the Durban Art Gallery from its founding in 1892 until 2004, a decade after the First Democratic Election. While the emphasis is on significant changes that were introduced in the post-1994 period, the earlier section of the study locates these initiatives within a broad historical framework. The collecting policies of the museum as well as its exhibitions and programmes are considered in the light of the institution 's changing social and political context as well as shifting imperatives within a local, regional and national art world. The Durban Art Gallery was established in order to promote a European, and particularly British, culture, and the acquisition and appreciation of art was considered an important element in the formation of a stable society. By providing a broad overview of the early years of the gallery, I identify reasons for the choice of acquisitions and explore the impact and reception of a selection of exhibitions. I investigate changes during the 1960s and 1970s through an examination of the Art South Africa Today exhibitions: in addition to opening up institutional spaces to a racially mixed community, these exhibitions marked the beginning of an imperative to show protest art. I argue that, during the political climate of the 1980s, there was a tension in the cultural arena between, on the one hand, a motivation to retain a Western ideal of 'high art' and, on the other, a drive to accommodate the new forms of people's art and to challenge the values and ideological standpoints that had been instrumental in shaping collecting and exhibiting policies in the South African art arena. I explore this tension through a discussion of the Cape Town Triennial exhibitions, organised jointly by all the official museums, which ran alongside more inclusive and independently curated exhibitions, such as Tributaries, which were shown mainly outside the country. The post-1994 period marked an opening up of spaces, both literally and conceptually. This openness was manifest in the revised strategies that were introduced to show the Durban Art Gallery 's permanent collection as well as in two key public projects that were started - Red Eye @rt and the AIDS 2000 ribbon. Through an examination of these strategies and initiatives, I argue that the central role of the Durban Art Gallery has shifted from being a repository to providing an interactive public space.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

"The secret rapport between photography and philosophy" considering the South African photographic apparatus through Veleko, Rose, Goldblatt, Ractliffe and Mofokeng

  • Authors: Mountain, Michelle Fiona
  • Date: 2010
  • Subjects: Veleko, Nontsikelelo Rose, Tracy Goldblatt, David Ractliffe, Jo 1961- Mofokeng, Santu, 1956- Photographers -- South Africa Photography -- Philosophy Photography -- Social aspects -- South Africa Apartheid in art Documentary photography -- South Africa Space (Art) -- South Africa South Africa Social conditions
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:2415 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002211
  • Description: This thesis is an attempt at understanding South African photography through the lens of Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko, Tracy Rose, David Goldblatt, Jo Ractliffe and Santu Mofokeng. Through the works discussed this thesis intends to unpack photography as a complex medium similar to that of language and text, as well as attempt to understand how exploring South African experiences and spaces through the lens of photography shapes and mediates them. Furthermore it also attempts to understand how these experiences and spaces conversely affect the discourse of photography or at the very least our perception of it. Through these photographers and their works it is hoped that ultimately the interconnected relationship of exchanging codes that takes place between photography and society will be highlighted. The example of connectivity or dialogue I believe exists between the medium of photography and the physical/social and psychological spaces it photographs will be mediated through Deleuze and Guattari‟s conception of “the wasp and the orchid” where “the wasp becomes the orchid, just as the orchid becomes the wasp...an exchanging or capturing of each other‟s codes”. Other theorists I will be looking at include Vilém Flusser, focusing in particular on his book Towards a Philosophy of Photography, as well as Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and others. The main aims and objectives of this thesis are to understand the veracity of the documentary image and whether or not the image harbours any objective truth, as well as whether truth, if it can truly be said to exist in the world, resides between the camera and the seen world. This dichotomy is further complicated by the matter of subject-hood and technical and philosophical understandings of the camera as an apparatus. At no point do I aim to be conclusive, rather it is hoped that by developing the dynamic tension between the theory and the image world that I will be able to bring fresh insight into the reading of a changing South African condition and the subject position of the photographer in relation to this condition.
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  • Date Issued: 2010

"The word as image": survey with special reference to the twentieth century

  • Authors: Edworthy, S
  • Date: 1991-03
  • Subjects: Uncatalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/191247 , vital:45075
  • Description: This essay is intended, firstly for those who at some time have had the urge to include words into their otherwise conventional representational images, but are deterred by the suspicion that such elements have no place in the picture plane. Secondly, it is hoped, that this dissertation will provide some understanding concerning the motivations and aims of artists, using "verbal symbols" in their visual images. At this point, I offer some explanation of the term "verbal symbols". The alphabet that we are accustomed to today differs vastly from the first writing that was invented. The naming of items nowadays is arbitrarily established and all we are left with is a name that bears no visual resemblance to the object it represents in real life. The word "house", for example, tells us nothing of the physical nature of a house. However, owing to our conditioning, the word evokes in us a mental picture of a house, even if the details of this picture will vary amongst individuals. Words then are symbols which denote, broadly speaking, objects that exist in our daily lives, without being in any way visual representations of these objects. Of course there are also words which are dependent on other words for their meaning, such as prepositions, conjunctions or suffices, but this is irrelevant to this essay. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 1991
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  • Date Issued: 1991-03

'Becoming animal': motifs of hybridity and liminality in fairy tales and selected contemporary artworks

  • Authors: Wasserman, Minke
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Fairy tales -- History and criticism , Liminality in literature , Cultural fusion in literature , Cultural fusion and the arts , Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Themes, motives , Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Exhibitions , Human-animal relationships in art , Human-animal relationships in literature
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2512 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019759
  • Description: ‘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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  • Date Issued: 2015

(Un)stable architecture as deconstructed meaning

  • Authors: Lombard, Lindi
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Art and architecture , Architecture in art , Proportion (Art) , Vertigo in art , Deconstructivism (Architecture)
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5825 , vital:20980
  • Description: How often do we notice the buildings that we work in, play in and live in? The architecture that we construct is specially geared to our human proportions, and shelters and accommodates us. It can be seen as a metaphor for the body, the self, and systems of social control that we have created. When the structure of this architecture is compromised, either literally or metaphorically, we experience instability and vertigo. My practical submission, Vertigo is concerned with architecture, perspective, deconstruction, instability, vertigo, scale and the body. Vertigo consists of paintings, ranging in scale from the size of a brick to the height of a single storey house. Utilizing a highly representational style as well as working with abstract sign systems and technical plan drawings, I destabilize firstly, our sense of certainty in the architecture that surrounds us, and secondly, prompts us to question the assumed fixity of ourselves and our social systems, through the convergence and collision of architecture and painting. This supporting document, (Un)stable Architecture as Deconstructed Meaning, considers the key conceptual concerns informing my practical submission. In chapter one of this mini-thesis: Deconstructivist Architecture, Instability and Impermanence I look at Deconstructivist Architecture which challenges traditional values of order, stability, harmony and unity of architecture. I position my work in relation to architecture projects on the Deconstructivist Architecture show in relation to their intent of undoing, shifting and destabilizing structure and what architecture is traditionally valued for. I also look at the shifting meaning and symbolism of architecture and skyscrapers. In the second chapter: Vertiginous Point of View and Shifted Perspectives I engage with vertigo, perspective, scale and the bodily analogy in architecture. I look at how Julie Mehretu destabilises built space and architecture in a painterly way, depicting multiple perspectives which are subjected to multiple interpretations. In chapter Three: Painting a Building and Building a Painting: Process, Scale and the Body, I discuss and engage with my practical submission, Vertigo, in relation to my process, scale, the body, vertigo, deconstruction, instability and perspective.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

53 stitches : sustainability, ecology and social engagement in contemporary art

  • Authors: Salton, Bronwen Lauren
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: Crocheting Community development -- South Africa Ecology in art
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2390 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001580
  • Description: Through an exploration of both the sculptural and socially-engaged art practices undertaken in creating my Master of Fine Art exhibition, 53 Stitches, I unpack some of the possibilities pertaining to the practice of sustainability, ecology and social engagement in contemporary art. This thesis explores the history and concepts of sustainable development and what the implications are of the far-reaching global consideration of sustainability for contemporary art production. Looking at the writings of Felix Guattari’s (2000 [1989]) and Suzi Gablik’s (1992) on the effects of the economic model of capitalism on our environmental, social and mental ecologies, I discuss the necessary paradigm shift of the artists’ identity from the ‘individual self’ towards the ‘relational self’, affirming our interdependence upon our social and natural environments. With reference to the writings of Maja and Reuben Fowkes (2008), I explore the principles of sustainability in contemporary art and discuss the notion of ‘sustainability of form’ through insight into dematerialisation, recycling and the prospect of artists now becoming knowledge producers/facilitators. This is supportive of my personal exploration and experimentation with recyclable materials as a creative medium, used as a means of knowledge and skills facilitation in socially-engaged arts practice and the process of art-making as research. I refer to the sculptural and ‘painterly’ constructions of Sofi Zezmer and Mbongeni Buthelezi, respectively, as a means to elucidate a practical contextualisation of my practical work, particularly with regard to the use of plastic as a constructive medium. Looking at the works of Linda Weintraub (2006), Marnie Badham (2010) and Miwon Kwon (2002), I expand on the theoretical discourse pertaining to sociallyengaged art practices, and elucidate the reconfiguration of the role of the artist towards now becoming a cultural service administrator, organiser and knowledge facilitator. With reference to Arjen Wals and Johnson et al., I further discuss the role of education in sustainability and explore the necessary reconciliation between university institutions and the social and environmental context in which they are located, in the form of place-based capacity building and service learning. I explore within this thesis the concepts and processbased research of my own sculptures
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  • Date Issued: 2013

A counter-narrative analysis of psychological riot in contemporary painting

  • Authors: Ng’ok, Ivy Chemutai
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Painting -- South Africa , Painting -- Psychological aspects , Distress (Psychology) in art , Imperialism in art , Violence in art , Patriarchy in art Political art
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60458 , vital:27782
  • Description: I am rioting against a system of my own beliefs about the world. In my mind, I struggle to overcome these beliefs, hence, I construct the psychological riot as ‘the disturbance of the mind’. In this mini-thesis, I argue that it exists in the psyche too. This definition of psyche becomes painterly. My psychological riot is difficult to trace, let alone paint. The beliefs that I target are patriarchy within a post-colonial context. I use theories that are simultaneously psychological and corporeal. They address violence colonialist system. The psychological riot is an practical submission.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

A critical analysis of South African underground comics

  • Authors: Breytenbach, Jesse-Ann
  • Date: 1996
  • Subjects: Underground comic books, strips, etc. -- South Africa -- History and criticism
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2396 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002192
  • Description: In a critical analysis of several independantly produced South African comics of the 1980s and early 1990s, close analysis of the comics leads to an assessment of the artists'intentions and purposes. Discussion of the artists' sources focuses on definitions of different types of comics. What is defined as a comic is usually what has been produced under that definition, and these comics are positioned somewhere between the popular and fine art contexts. As the artists are amateurs, the mechanical structure of comics is exposed through their skill in manipulating, and their initial ignorance of, many comic conventions. By comparison to one another, and to the standard format of commercial comics, some explanation of how a comic works can be reached. The element of closure, bridging the gaps between frames, is unique to comics, and is the most important consideration. Comic artists work with the intangible, creating from static elements an illusion of motion. If the artist deals primarily with what is on the page rather than what is not, the comic remains static. Questions of quality are reliant on the skill with which closure is implemented. The art students who produced these comics are of a generation for whom popular culture is the dominant culture, and they create for an audience of peers. Their cultural milieu is more visual than verbal, and often more media oriented than that of their teachers. They must integrate a fine art training and understanding into the preset rules of a commercial medium. Confronted with the problem of a separation of languages, they evolve a new dialect. Through comparative and critical analyses I will show how this dialect differs from the language of conventional comics, attempting in particular to explain how the mechanics of the cornie medium can limit or expand its communicative potential.
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  • Date Issued: 1996

A perspective on the question of the absence or presence of religious beliefs relating to elements of modern artistic endeavour, with special reference to the life and work of Francis Bacon

  • Authors: Mullins, Nigel Lorraine Griffin
  • Date: 1994
  • Subjects: Bacon, Francis, 1909-1992 -- Criticism and interpretation Art and religion
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2460 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007710
  • Description: Preface: An awareness of certain contradictory perceptions and assumptions regarding religious beliefs today and their relevance to art prompted a question which led to the research undertaken in this minithesis. The question was: how significant is the absence or presence of religious beliefs to the modern creative process? The writings of some theologians, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists seem to indicate that religious beliefs are fundamental to the functioning of society and the individuals who are part of it. Furthermore, even a cursory study of the history of art will demonstrate the strong bond between pre-nineteenth century image making and organised religion. Today, however, this relationship appears uncertain or even non-cxistant. This is a result of processes which began to gain strength in the nineteenth century: these include the industrial revolution, scientism and materialism. Peter Fuller, stated that among the most central questions affecting art is, "the severance of the arts from religious tradition and their existence within an increasingly secular culture." (Fuller, 1990, p. 189). This statement appears to bring the issues together very neatly. Firstly there is the assertion that religion has nourished and been a vital force behind art through the ages, and that, modern art has lost this source of vitality. Secondly, there is the contention tbat society, since the nineteenth century, has become increasingly secular, and that this has had (and is having) a radical effect on modern art. That art has been divorced from religion and that religion is disappearing, or will do so, is the logical conclusion, according to theorists who insist on institutional religion as the only true form. Some artists, for whom the absence or presence or loss of religious beliefs are important issues, may in this situation experience a creative crisis. In order to address these issues it was necessary to investigate whether religious beliefs are important to artistic endeavour and, if so, what the consequences of the absence of beliefs might be. For this reason, research into the nature of religion and the modem religious situation was initiated. The purpose of the extensive discussion on the nature of religion was to establish definitions of, or a view of, religion which could provide a sound basis for this investigation of the issues that have been outlined. In order to demonstrate whether religious beliefs are important to the creative process, Francis Bacon was chosen for discussion because he appeared to be a modern artist who had no religious beliefs and was thus an ideal example by which the consequences of this could be gauged.
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  • Date Issued: 1994

A second skin: investigating the role of dress in identity formation

  • Authors: Featherstone, Juanito Romario
  • Date: 2023-10-13
  • Subjects: Identity (Psychology) in art , Clothing and dress in art , Clothing and dress Social aspects , Clothing and dress Psychological aspects , Self South Africa Makhanda
  • Language: English
  • Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425322 , vital:72229
  • Description: This thesis is a secondary component to an artistic practice-led process and as such, is guided by my own artistic practice in that way. In this body of work, I use myself as the main character or protagonist for the artworks that I have created. However, both the thesis and the exhibition also respond to social issues of identity beyond the personal and examines the construction of identity in a South African, and more specifically Makhanda context, as that is the larger context in which I am situated. The work itself is inspired by memories and experiences of feeling uncomfortable in my own (first) skin, and how I found that comfort in my second skin (dress). My professional art practice and my thesis are based on the concept of clothes as a second skin for human beings, specifically observing the ways in which we utilise dress to construct and express our identities. As such, this thesis is an attempt at understanding the relationship between clothes and the body through the lens of identity politics. Through the topics and artworks discussed in visual and textual analysis, this thesis intends to unpack the properties of dress as a complex medium individuals can utilise as a tool to construct their identity. This is partially achieved through the exploration of my own personal experiences of dress and of the spaces that shaped and mediated the construction of identity. Lastly, it is an attempt to understand the experiences of dress in parallel to the experience of the body/self, which consists of the world within and the one outside. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 2023
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  • Date Issued: 2023-10-13

A study of kitsch in South African suburban society

  • Authors: Page, Lindsay Ann
  • Date: 1984
  • Subjects: Kitsch -- South Africa Decorative arts -- South Africa Popular culture -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2458 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007673
  • Description: Consider the possibility of the remnants of our present day society being excavated and studied in centuries to come. Imagine the craftsmanship, the art, artifacts and architecture that will then be compared to those of the past centuries. Our entire culture will be labelled by the endless array of rubbish that has become an integral part of our lives. The increasing prevalence of kitsch in the society goes almost unnoticed where it should be causing concern. Few people are aware of its existence, or the permanent aesthetic scars induced by this prevalence. How has this cult of sheer awfulness come about and why has it become prevalent? It is impossible to pursue all the avenues of kitsch - so vast is it but it is the purpose of this study to try and answer some of the questions, in order to make people more aware of what has crept into our society, to help them become more discriminating, and not merely to level criticism at the perpetrators of kitsch.
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  • Date Issued: 1984

A survey of San paintings from the southern Natal Drakensberg

  • Authors: Steynberg, Peter John
  • Date: 1988
  • Subjects: Art, San Rock paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains Cave paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains Art, Prehistoric -- Drakensberg Mountains Art, Prehistoric -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2437 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004918
  • Description: From Introduction: The study of San rock art has undergone several different phases in approach to the interpretation of art. Two approaches are currently in use. The first emphasises the art as narrative or literal representations of San life and its proponents may be called the "art for art's sake" school. Adherents to the second approach make detailed use of the San ethnography on the belief system of these people and are highly critical of the literalists because they provide no such context. The second approach has rapidly gained ascendancy and replaced the "art for art's sake" school over the last twenty years. The watershed came with the researches of Vinnicombe (1967) in the southern Drakensberg and Maggs (1967) in the Western Cape who both embarked upon programs of research which had quantification and numerical analysis at their core, so that they could present "...some objective observations on a given sample of rock paintings in a particular area..." in order to compare and contrast paintings from geographically different areas. What Vinnicombe's numerical analyses clearly showed was that the eland was the most frequently depicted antelope and that it must have played a fundamental role "...in both the economy and the rellgious beliefs of the painters...", which opened up the search for what those beliefs might be and how they could be related to the rock art itself. In order to understand what the rock art was all about it was recognised that researchers had to meaningfully contextualise the art within the social and religious framework of the artists themselves. Without the provision of such a relevant context, as many different interpretations of the paintings could be made as there were people with imaginations. Such a piecemeal approach provides a meaningless jumble of subjective fancy which tells us something about the interpreters but nothing about the rock art. It is unfortunate that the advent of this explicitly social and anthropological approach marks the end of the amateur as a serious interpreter of San rock art, for the juxtaposition of the ethnography with the rock art requires a proper training in which the intricacies of symbol and metaphor can be recognised.
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  • Date Issued: 1988

Abstract art and the contested ground of African modernisms

  • Authors: Mumba, Patrick
  • Date: 2016
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2515 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021165
  • Description: This submission for a Masters of Fine Art consists of a thesis titled Abstract Art and the Contested Ground of African Modernisms developed as a document to support the exhibition Time in Between. The exhibition addresses the fact that nothing is permanent in life, and uses abstract paintings that reveal in-between time through an engagement with the processes of ageing and decaying. Life is always a temporary situation, an idea which I develop as Time in Between, the beginning and the ending, the young and the aged, the new and the old. In my painting practice I break down these dichotomies, questioning how abstractions engage with the relative notion of time and how this links to the processes of ageing and decaying in life. I relate this ageing process to the aesthetic process of moving from representational art to semi-abstract art, and to complete abstraction, when the object or material reaches a wholly unrecognisable stage. My practice is concerned not only with the aesthetics of these paintings but also, more importantly, with translating each specific theme into the formal qualities of abstraction. In my thesis I analyse abstraction in relation to ‘African Modernisms’ and critique the notion that African abstraction is not ‘African’ but a mere copy of Western Modernism. In response to this notion, I have used a study of abstraction to interrogate notions of so-called ‘African-ness’ or ‘Zambian-ness’, whilst simultaneously challenging the Western stereotypical view of African modern art. I have also related the theoretical and practical analysis of abstraction to scholarly debates on abstraction and ‘African Modernism’, arguing for multiple African Modernisms.
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  • Date Issued: 2016

Adaptive realities : effects of merging physical and virtual entities

  • Authors: Fletcher, Lauren Jean
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Virtual reality in art , Reality in art , Art, Modern -- 21st century , Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Themes, motives , Perception
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2509 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018557
  • Description: 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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  • Date Issued: 2015

African art and myth

After Baines

  • Authors: Walters, John Attwood Vereker
  • Date: 2011
  • Subjects: Baines, Thomas, 1820-1875 Baines, Thomas, 1820-1875 -- Biography Painting, South African -- Exhibitions Painters -- South Africa -- Biography
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:2432 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004368
  • Description: By researching the life and work of Thomas Baines (1820 - 1875) in relation to a broader discourse of painting and the lived experience of being a 'white' male in a post-apartheid South Africa, I explore the ways in which this figure from the past has provoked the three series of artworks I have produced for my Master of Fine Art exhibition. This study has been divided into two parts, represented by the two chapters contained herein. Chapter One includes a critical retelling of Baines' biography and a discussion of the primary ways in which I have engaged with both the life and the working practice of this artist. I also address my own personal complicity in the constructions of 'the figure of Baines' as I have framed him both visually and textually during my work for this degree. Chapter Two describes some of the practicalities of my working process as a visual artist, including how I understand the theoretical and conceptual concerns which I raise in Chapter One to be visually manifest in my work. In this chapter, I also discuss my work in relation to the work of the contemporary South African artists William Kentridge and Johannes Phokela. The artistic practice of one artist imitating another artist's work is also explored as a central conceptual thread which could be seen to weave my verbal and visual production together.
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  • Date Issued: 2011

An analysis of the contribution of four painters to the development of contemporary Zambian painting from 1950-1997

  • Authors: Setti, Godfrey
  • Date: 2001
  • Subjects: Painting -- Zambia , Art, Zambian -- 20th Century , Painting -- 20th century -- Zambia
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:2422 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002218 , Painting -- Zambia , Art, Zambian -- 20th Century , Painting -- 20th century -- Zambia
  • Description: This study presents an analysis of the contribution of four painters to the development of contemporary Zambian painting, from 1950 to 1997. This is preceded by a brief history of Zambian painting, including Bushmen rock painting and early Bantu art, which is followed by an account of the way western influence, introduced by the white man, started changing the style of painting in the country as it began to affect indigenous artists. In the work of artists who began painting from about 1900 to 1950, both western and traditional stylistic influences can be seen. While the painters whose work is analysed in this thesis had some knowledge of Zambian art before 1950, they were mainly influenced by western ideas of painting. From a list of more than ten painters ofthis period from 1950 to 1997, I selected: Gabriel Ellison, Cynthia Zukas, Hemy Tayali and Stephen Kappata because I know them personally and therefore had access to them and their work, which facilitated my analysis of their work and its contribution to Zambian painting. This analysis takes the form of four chapters, one for each artist, in which relevant biographical and educational background is outlined, followed by an analysis of examples of\vork. Finally, ways in which each painter, through exposure to the Zambian public and artistic community, contributed to further development in Zambian painting, are emphasised.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2001

An enquiry into some present-day attitudes in art education and their relationship to the current alienation of artist from society

  • Authors: Rodger, John Neil
  • Date: 1973
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
  • Identifier: vital:21146 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6574
  • Description: From Introduction: "We can't teach these kids anything, man, they are so pure and unspoiled. Anything we show them or any discipline we impose upon them will only corrupt their purity. It's best if they just stay home and do their own thing”. "If your instructor says he knows what art is, watch out.” These two statements, the first by an instructor at a prominent New York art school, the second by one of America's respected critics, are the sort of talk one might expect to hear at any gathering of the avent-garde . To hear them said in and about the art school puts things in a different light. They are indicative -of the sort of thing that is preached and practised by a sufficient proportion of the art- educational force in the Western world to constitute a crisis unparalleled in the entire history of art education. Unopposed, such views must rapidly spell death for the institution. They must also, if they reached the proportions their authors appear to hope for, ensure a universal visual illiteracy unequalled in any other age. Of course statements like this, archly delivered by the very people who would suffer the most immediate loss at their implementation, are not at all true reflections of the whole state of art education in our time, or those people would simply not be in a position to make them. There are a great many people in the profession who would wholeheartedly reject such statements, and this faction is by no means confined to the older members.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 1973
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