Victorian College of the Arts - Theses

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Painting the Restless Space

Harper, Marion ( 2023-11)

Painting the Restless Space is a material examination of the unstable nature of embodiment. Sitting under the studio work are two ‘shocking’ events of ‘carnage’ that instilled in me a personal concern for the precarious condition of bodies. Instability has become the subject and the method of the work, reinforced in the way that distinct materials behave and relate to one another. Moving from flesh (the referent) to paint and text (the signifiers) the hope for replication fades in the fluidity of paint and the potential of ‘wandering’ words. My attempts can only approximate flesh, as stand-ins, prostheses, and failures. Unpicking the illusory nature of boundaries that demarcate the self, I am asking “What can bodies do?” What are their limits and entanglements? What can we know and feel about our bodies through the ways that we relate to objects? How can a creative practice engage with processes of bodily reconfiguration, recontextualisation, and reinterpretation, exploring subjectivity as porous, entangled, and contingent? As a painter, I seek to find painterly ways to respond to these questions and to enliven the possibilities for knowledges rooted in the uncertainty and messiness of embodiment. Through this research, I articulate how my studio practice draws on a range of personal experiences, theoretical fields, and artistic practices to consider how painting can help us discover new ways of unsettling existing modes of looking and thinking about bodies.
We Carnivora Becoming: Animating a Multinatural Backyard

East, Declan Thomas Langley ( 2023-11)

This research explores the ways experimental animation can enact posthumanist methodologies and situated speculative fictions in an attempt to find more-than-human knowledges and regenerative multinatural ways of being in the face of escalating ecological catastrophes. The project comprises a large-scale video installation, documenting two years of research and experimentation, and an accompanying dissertation. The film aims to reshape dominant narratives that promote the myth of a dualistic separation between nature and culture, and seeks new languages, ways of seeing and intelligence beyond what is defined as human. The outcome of this research project has been the development of a diffractive animation practice — a process and methodology where technology, imagination, and the body collaborate in the production and reinterpretation of sound and images. The dissertation begins with an overview of posthumanism, becoming-with and situated knoweldges. From there, it elaborates on the importance of speculative fictions for redefining the world in ways that are beneficial to all life. These are the stories of ecofeminist science fiction authors, First Nations peoples and more-than-humans. The research focuses particular attention on stories of dogs, coyotes, and dingos for the ways they challenge separations between natural and social-political realms. Chapter Two offers an argument for experimental animation’s ability to enact the posthumanist methodologies and situated speculative fiction practice. I propose that experimental animation reveals processes of thought, material agency (affects and effects), and implicit biases. Through the lens of animacy, it is seen to actively challenge the notion of an inert unconscious world. Chapter Three details the methods and animation practices that have contributed to the final outcome. These are a speculative writing practice, collaboration with nonhuman technology, techniques of re-imaging, and a layering of perspectives within virtual and physical spaces, that is We Carnivora Becoming.
The Big Brother Retrospective: Representing Reality, Truth Claims and The Self

Riess, Gena Lida ( 2023-09)

This practice-led research, informed by my dual roles as a queer filmmaker and reality TV enthusiast, integrates theories and practical approaches from autoethnography, archiveology, approximation, and sample filmmaking to explore notions of truth and representations of reality in documentary filmmaking and reality TV. Through an investigation into various aspects of filmmaking discourse and practice, culminating in the production of a 50-minute documentary film titled Remembering Big Brother Australia Queerly (2023), this research explores how self-representation in documentary filmmaking can unveil embedded ideologies related to gender and sexuality within the reality TV series Big Brother Australia (Diesel 2001–2022). In doing so, this practice-led research aims to evoke an instability of truth in both reality TV and documentary filmmaking. Reality TV stands out as a prominent television genre, continually giving rise to new programmes and dedicated streaming sites. However, critical analysis of its truth claims has often been dismissed due to the perception that it diverges significantly from reality. The seminal reality TV franchise, Big Brother, achieved global phenomenon status, providing valuable insights into the history of reality TV and shaping our contemporary television landscape. This research acknowledges the importance of understanding what captivates viewers, recognising that it extends beyond being solely a reflection of the production process. It also sheds light on something intrinsic to the individual; what they are drawn to in the world of media says something meaningful about them. By incorporating autoethnography into the fabric of reality TV and my personal documentary practice, the exploration of subjectivity brings the discourse on truth claims to the forefront, revealing an inevitable reflection of my own personal truth. Consequently, both this research and the resulting documentary stand as poignant, deeply personal, and vulnerable endeavours. The outcomes of this research have left a profound impact on my filmmaking practice, offering valuable insights into a wide array of documentary filmmaking methods. This thesis contributes to the broader discourse on the fluidity and subjectivity of representation in documentary filmmaking. It highlights the transformative potential that emerges when working with pre-existing footage, particularly from mainstream media, within the rich context of collective and personal memory.
ACCIDENTALLY INTERCULTURAL, INCIDENTALLY FEMINIST: A study in the creation of rehearsal environments

Kalive, Petra Kristin ( 2023-08)

This research explores my experience as a theatre director over the past seven years, exploring the nuances of the rehearsal environment and on the work produced. Focusing primarily on MainStage settings, I have developed directorial frameworks through lived experience that address the complexities and challenges inherent in theatre making, particularly when working with artists and stories from traditionally marginalized backgrounds. Artists from marginalised backgrounds who enter MainStage companies are often met by structural barriers, bias, and unconscious assumptions. Leaders who work inside these institutions and enable the presentation of these works also face challenges as they sit at a squeeze point between the needs of the organisation and the needs of the culturally diverse artist. To critically examine these tensions, my research draws on evolving critical theories of intersectional feminism, interculturalism, directorial practice, and collaborative approaches. Central to my investigation is the exploration of these critical theories and influence on my process, with a particular focus on the impact of the improvisational form of Playback Theatre. Through this analysis, I identify points of convergence between interculturalism, intersectional feminism and directorial discourse, finding the intersection of these perspectives in my directorial approach. Utilizing autoethnographic and ethnographic methodology, I present three historical case studies of my projects - Taxithi, Melbourne Talam, and Hungry Ghosts - to outline the development of my key conceptual frameworks: 'Threshold,' 'Yield,' and 'Bridge.' These frameworks offer a means to examine the interplay of critical theories, perspectives, and processes in the creation of a rehearsal environment. Furthermore, I provide a Practice as Research study, which includes the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Laurinda, where I rigorously test the efficacy of these frameworks to bridge the gap between practitioner and scholar discourses. Throughout the research, personal accounts of my lived experiences and growth as a director significantly contribute to the conclusions drawn. The frameworks help illuminate how I 'hold space' as a director and navigate challenges within a MainStage organizational structure, illuminating emerging questions and insights from the directorial process, specifically addressing limitations of emerging critical theory around Brave/Safe theatre practice. This research endeavours to explore the intricacies of cultivating a rehearsal environment that genuinely fosters inclusion while nurturing the artistic vision of a play within a production house. The investigation questions and considers both structural and individual challenges that arise, especially within the context of our contemporary cultural climate characterized by a pressing need for cultural redress. By shedding light on the multifaceted process of establishing inclusive and empowering rehearsal spaces, this study aims to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and practical implementation, making substantial contributions to the ongoing discourse on better supporting historically overlooked creatives. It also aspires to offer valuable insights to MainStage companies, encouraging them to embrace more inclusive practices while enriching the critical dialogue surrounding directorial and creative approaches in performing arts.
Poverty and the work of art

Thwaites, Vivienne Lesley ( 2023-05)

This research is a speculative investigation through artwork and parallel text into how notions of poverty as virtue play out in art practice. It begins from the premise that there is an age-old affinity between poverty and art that is akin to that between poverty and religion, and poverty and philosophy. The thesis centers on the interpretation of poverty in the Franciscan tradition, from which perspective it considers its treatment in medieval allegories, Giotto’s frescoes, and arte povera. It contemplates the place of poverty in the ancient wheel of fortune, in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, in Stoicism, in the Garden of Eden, in the films of Robert Bresson, in the thinking of Heidegger, trying always to uncover the underlying reason or reasons as to why and how a negative condition can be turned into a positive. It looks into the Christian idea of poverty of spirit and seeks its equivalent in art practice. Drawing on insights from philosophers Jacques Maritain, Giorgio Agamben, the Stoics, Martin Heidegger, Simone Weil, and others, the written research builds up a paradigm for understanding the inner poverty upon which the creative process may depend. The practical component of the research is made up of 37 individual paintings which were exhibited under the title ‘The Wind Blows Where It Will’ (Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne 13 March – 17 April 2021). The centre piece of the exhibition is a series of 14 allegorical and narrative images, sparely painted on raw linen panels, which incorporate traditional and art historical references into original imagery to create a revision of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, the antiquated codex of Christian charity. The variety of possible scenarios enabled within this framework permit a nuanced exploration of the meanings of poverty that extend into paradox and irony. These and the remaining paintings, which include 5 stand-alone works, 3 triptychs and a constellation of 9 fragmented images on hessian, all use sparse and restricted artistic means which correspond with the ideas and arguments discussed in the thesis. In imagery, content, and materiality the artworks give form and substance to the ambiguous metaphors of poverty and poverty of spirit. Each side of the research goes where the other cannot reach to find a new understanding of poverty as a fundamental principle in the work of art. Documentation of the artwork is submitted with the thesis.
An Art-Based Inquiry Into Participants' Experiences of Individually-Tailored Brief Online Art Therapy With Young Adults Who Experienced Challenging Life Events

Song, Jae Eun Jane ( 2023-02)

This thesis presents a research project exploring how 15 young adults made meaning of an individually tailored brief online art therapy program. This project took place in an Australian university during the global pandemic, with participants self-identifying as having challenging life experiences. Universities are considered an environment promoting young adults’ self-exploration and identity and skills development (Gutierrez & Park, 2015). Importantly, the significance of the university environment in influencing student mental health and wellbeing is recognised (Baik et al., 2017, p. 5). Among numerous protective factors that promote student mental health and wellbeing, Baik et al. (2017) identify an integrated sense of self, a sense of belonging, supportive interpersonal relationships, and experiencing self-efficacy as positive psychological resources (Baik et al., 2017). Nevertheless, the university environment remains an under-explored practice and research context for art therapists (Sonnone & Rochford, 2020). Considering young adults are characterised as self-motivated and creative individuals open to exploring novel, stimulating and playful activities (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) and experiencing shifting identity and value formation (Harris et al., 2015), there are exciting possibilities for investigating the potential for integrating art therapy with student and other youth services to offer guided opportunities for their creative self-exploration and personal resource development. This project aimed to respond to this opportunity by exploring young adults’ experiences of the art therapy program that was designed to tailor to their various motivations and needs and promote their self-agentic use of the program (Schwan et al., 2018). This emergent research was designed as an art-based grounded theory study where 14 university students and one young adult participated in up to six art therapy sessions across 6 to 12 weeks and described their experiences in a post-program interview. Making and viewing art was actively integrated with generating data by participants and researcher (McNiff, 2008), while Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) approach to grounded theory was principally applied to the procedural steps in data analysis. A theoretical understanding resulting from this study, conceptualised as co-exploration, elucidated the young adults’ key motivation for and meaning of engaging with art therapy, mapped the actions and interactions of young adults and art therapist and illuminated the conditions conducive to and constraining young adults’ creative self-exploration. In particular, the analysis revealed the compatibility between young adults’ high motivation for self-growth and the features of art therapy that could facilitate the creative, relational and emotional processes promoting self-discoveries, new skills development and self-care. Moreover, participants indicated that their preferred style of engagement was to co-navigate the therapy process to support their expression of self-agency and autonomy within the art therapy program. Additionally, they identified the positive impacts of the art therapy program, which were conceptualised in this study as their enriched self-understanding, self-compassion and self-efficacy. As would be expected with a diverse group of young adults, the significance of these impacts varied among the participants, depending on their pertinence to the participants’ current life situations. This study illuminated young adults’ interest in creative activities and desire for growth and self-care-promoting activities. Specifically, it contextualises their various motivations for participating in brief online individual art therapy within their identity as young adults who are university students and their experiences of challenging life events. The program’s features aligning with the participants’ agentic and creative engagement in self-exploration, leading to self-enrichment, offered key insights. These learnings have important implications for broadening the landscape for youth and student-centred wellbeing and mental health programs. From the participants’ perspectives, practice implications suggest that program design and facilitation should actively involve collaboration with motivated young adults seeking opportunities to nurture their creativity, wellbeing and self-understanding. Offering comprehensive information about therapy modalities and incorporating flexible program designs that can adapt to young adults’ evolving interests and needs are foregrounded for engagement. Furthermore, this study highlights young adults’ preferences for therapy encounters that are characterised as the accessibility of the programs, flexibility in decision-making within the program and diverse methods and modalities for self-expression and interaction with the therapist. These insights hold the potential to enhance young adults’ engagement and the positive impacts of services, promoting their wellbeing and mental health (Watsford & Rickwood, 2015).
Belting in Late-Adolescent Female Voices in Music Theatre: An Investigation of Sustainable Practice

Meredith-Hanson, Freya ( 2023-05)

The vocal ‘singing’ quality known as belting continues to evolve in both range and frequency of use in the music theatre industry, creating a variety of teaching approaches and generating practical and theoretical research in the field of vocal studies. Given its significance in musical theatre singing training, it is striking that little research covers the impact of belting on late-adolescent (16-21 years) pre-professional female vocalists, a period when vulnerable laryngeal mechanisms are potentially at risk, particularly in the absence of sustainable belt practices. This Action Research project pilots an investigation of the current practical and theoretical knowledge of belting from the perspectives of late- adolescent female vocalists and their voice teachers in Australia in order to further understand the notion of sustainable belting, provisionally defined in this research as: vocal efficiency and ease through minimal levels of exertion and effort to optimise the quality and performance of the voice without detriment to vocal health. Driving the investigation are three research questions: 1) What does sustainable belting mean to late-adolescent female singers, and how do they achieve this in their practice?; 2) What does sustainable belting mean to voice teachers, and how do they help their late-adolescent female students achieve this?; and 3) Based on findings from the first two questions, what principles may be considered when optimising sustainable belting for late-adolescent female singers, and how does this contribute to broader discourses on belting? The methods used to answer these questions were practice-led observation and intervention, field notes, questionnaires, and content analysis. As a practice-led study, I explored specific assumptions of, and practical contingencies for, sustainable belt practices. The findings underscore the perceived usefulness of speech quality and register transitioning in sustainable belt practices from the perspectives of both voice teachers and late-adolescent vocalists. Additionally, all participants from the practice-led study unexpectedly encountered anxiety and self-trust issues, thus identifying an area for further research within this specific demographic.
Dancing the Mimetic Faculty: A Peculiar Phenomenology

Robinson, Phoebe ( 2022-12)

This creative research in cine-choreographic practice responds to Walter Benjamin’s (1933) concept the ‘mimetic faculty’ and informs the accompanying creative work, Mimeisthai, a folio of two screendance films. The terms ‘cine-choreographic’ and ‘screendance’ are attributed to scholars Erin Brannigan (2011) and Douglas Rosenberg (2012) respectively, and situate this research within a creative field of dance for screen. The ‘mimetic faculty’ is German philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin’s (b.1892 – d.1940) term for a general ability to reproduce and/or perceive similarity; and therefore, implicitly, includes the ability to perceive difference. This generic skill is possessed by all living things and finds expression on various levels, from the biological to the behavioral; such as in reproduction or camouflage, to the myriad ways that creatures communicate. In humans, specifically, Benjamin suggests the mimetic faculty is responsible for the formation of language (1933/1999b). In the context of this research, the way that bodily gesture can be perceived and transferred from one person to another, in both live and mediated forms, is explored and articulated in relation to Benjamin’s mimetic faculty. This has led to concepts of ‘interpersonal synchrony’ and ‘mirroring’ in neuro-phenomenological studies, ‘performance generating systems’ after Danish Canadian dance theorist Pil Hansen (2014, 2022) and philosopher Brian Massumi’s phenomenological understanding of movement perception and transference as ‘species of movement feeling’ (2011). Benjamin separates similarity into two categories, the ‘sensuous’ and the ‘non-sensuous'. The first being clearly perceivable by the senses, and the second being abstracted from direct perception and often only subconsciously perceived, if at all. This research suggests that the inter-corporeal transfer of movement within choreographic practices can be understood in terms of the mimetic faculty, and that a dancer’s ability to perceive and reproduce ‘species of movement feeling’ indicates an apprehension and embodiment of both ‘sensuous’ and ‘non-sensuous similarity’. There are voluntary and involuntary modes of incorporating the behaviour and gestures of others, both within dance practice and in daily life. Beneath this there is also lived experience of moving that is marked by the materiality of individual anatomy and history, that produces personal signatures of moving which blend and combine with cultural influence. This research argues for a certain creative approach to dance within cine- choreographic filmmaking that engages intentionally with the mimetic faculty, but also acknowledges that the mimetic faculty is always already at play in the performative construction of culture. Dance may be considered pre-verbal expression on one hand, or an expanded form of language/writing on the other, but this research suggests that both language and dance may be seen as interrelated but also entirely separate manifestations of the mimetic faculty and mimetic play.
Walking with Ghosts: The Utility of Independence in Painting

Nichols, Jonathan Francis ( 2022-12)

This research project comprises two creative components and the written dissertation. The creative components are a series of new paintings and their exhibition, titled Walking with Ghosts, held at VCA Artspace in June 2022, and the book titled Walking with Ghosts: Six Conversations about Painting. John Spiteri, Boedi Widjaja and Audrey Koh, Christoph Preussmann, Noor Mahnun Mohamed, Moya McKenna, David Jolly. Talking with Jonathan Nichols, published in 2022. The research responds to a lacuna in contemporary painting: while much has happened in recent decades, in critical debate painting is still perceived as somewhat delinquent and bound-up with subject theory. In response to this dilemma, I deploy the notion of independence as a means to interrogate painting at a structural level (via its framework and exteriority) and at its painted surface (the interior of painting), to re-establish its basis and learning. I argue that the idea of a painter working independently is built into its very fabric and I examine how a painter’s knowledge and experience are crucial to what I refer to here as independence in painting. The research is practice-led. In part a memoir of practice and making new paintings, in part based on fieldwork in the form of conversations undertaken with painters, the project aligns and tests painting concepts and theories against the details of artists’ experience and knowledge. The research is informed by the art and writing of Pierre Klossowski. The dissertation provides a further written investigation of findings. The project identifies that independence in painting is distinguished by its utility and shaped by the specific activities and material traits of painting, as well as the character of an individual painter’s contact with the art world. I link the mimetic character of painting—established in the research as the procedure that animates a painting’s reflexivity and its subjectivity—to the notion of independence. I show that these are interdependent and that mimetic processes are, in fact, implicit in painterly independence. The research also establishes that an individual painter’s independence is key to the formation and activation of the collective shape of painting, where it functions as an institution in itself. Painterly independence infers two kinds of independence operating in parallel: the painter’s/artist’s independence and that of the collective institution of painting (which is itself independent of the artist).
To an end: Death as a queer theory of dance

McIntosh, Hamish William ( 2023-04)

How might death shift our understanding of dance? For artists and scholars, the constitutive question of dance has proven both long-standing and salient. In Western dance studies, certain theorists have dominated debate around what dance is or might be, and privileged vitality as the ontological norm at the expense of alternative views. Looking to this lack of diversity, this project offers a queer perspective on the liveness of dance through the lens of queer death. Drawing on the antisocial thesis in queer theory, which contends that political and symbolic associations between queer people and death might inform understandings of normativity, this project contrasts death with vital normativity to propose a queer theory of dance through queer death. To explore queer death in dance, this project utilises a dialectical practice-based methodology. Scaffolding this inquiry, reparative criticism is employed to identify and explore ideas of queer death in the field of dance and performance. Three works act as exemplars: "Black Flags" (William Forsythe, 2014), "Blind Date" (John Duncan, 1980), and the dancerly death of Freddie Herko in 1964. Concurrently, a creative work was developed across this project that involved a synthesis of experimental dance performance and visual artefact. Titled "They Spent Their Youths Dreaming of Ever New Annihilations," this creative work saw the author perform a ‘genetic suicide’ by undergoing a vasectomy, before exhibiting select artefacts from this procedure in the style of a memorial. In this thesis, the creative work and exegetical writing are presented with equal weighting for the reader’s consideration, with the creative work evidencing and exploring queer death in dance, and the writing contextualising its significance. This project finds that queer death in dance may involve a resistance to vital normativity and the future through a negation of bodies, form, and liveness. This thesis also finds that queer death might disrupt current views of Western theatrical dance as a live, corporeal genre through the counterfactual concept of corpofantasy. Reflecting on the limits of the antisocial thesis, this project also finds that the positionality of the White, male dance artist may remain bound to ideas of transcendence. This thesis also reaffirms that considerations of race and Indigeneity are critical to queer studies, and equally significant to applications of the antisocial thesis per the theory of dance proposed. This project ultimately argues that suicidality may evidence a tension between the plural corporealities of living, queer subjects and the corpofantasy of dying, with this underscoring a ‘wounded future’ for dance, over no future at all. In summary, this thesis provides a rubric for further discussions of dance ontology, and an example for queer theorisations and practices of dance that move away from vitality and towards death. Conscious that queer theory resists definition, this thesis argues for death as ‘a’ queer theory of dance, rather than ‘the’ singular, queer ontology. As such, this thesis yields new understandings of the role that death might play in dance theory and practice, while acknowledging the breadth of potential queer theories of dance as yet unexplored.

Victorian College of the Arts - Theses

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