Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 7 of 7
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableFinding space: expanded scores as compositional tools for interdisciplinary practice( 2022)This research considers the expanded musical score as a framework through which to develop a compositional practice as a form of post conceptual art. Drawing on extramusical ideas such as cultural dislocation and spatial experience, this project seeks to represent non-musical objects as score, instrument and musical vehicle. Through a series of studio-based experiments, this development of compositional practice also produces a secondary framework through which to better understand the artist’s parallel practices as composer and interdisciplinary artist.
-
ItemLightning in the middle( 2021)Lightning In The Middle (LIM) Methods of Creative Practice Bon Mott acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the ancient land named Australia by Matthew Flinders from 1804 and the peoples of the Kulin Nation where Bon Mott lives and works. Bon Mott acknowledges that the land, sea, and sky were never ceded and pays deep respect to First Nations people past, present, and emerging. Lightning in the Middle (LIM) draws from transdisciplinary transformative mixed method (TTMM) research methods from a neurodiverse perspective. The creative outputs of LIM are driven by transdisciplinary processes that focus on installation activated by performance (IAP) informed by sculpture, choreography, industrial design, and performance art. Emphasis is placed on this as marginalised or misunderstood experts are integral to this research. LIM’s process driven IAP is achieved through developing and utilising transdisciplinary, transformative mixed methods (TTMM) research to produce creative outcomes. Lightning in the Middle (LIM) IAP examines gender identity by bringing together concepts from Indigenous Knowledge, astrophysics, and feminist philosophies to consider the beneficial impact of nonbinary identity on contemporary society. AC/DC songwriter Bon Scott was aware the band’s name also meant ‘bisexual’, and when a journalist asked Bon if they were the AC or the DC, Bon replied, “Neither, I’m the lightning flash in the middle.” Bon Scott embodied the role of the trickster, an archetype common in First Nations traditions of the world. To the Lakota (Lakhota Lakhota), Teton Sioux (Thithunwan) people of the northern Turtle Island (North America), the trickster is called Heyokha, a person in the community who connects with the science of lightning that engages in unconventional and contrarian behaviour. Artist Bon Mott embodies this concept through their artistic practice by departing from the normative binary approach to gender by identifying as neither man nor woman, but as lightning. The name Intergalactic Plasma comes from emerging scientific research that shows the plasma/energy we call lightning is powered by cosmic rays. Originating from supernovae (dying stars) explosions in intergalactic space, cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere and produce a runaway breakdown of quantum particles that create a pathway for lightning. As feminist philosopher and physicist Karen Barad and writer and performance artist Amrou Al-Kadhi argue, the quantum world is one filled with contradictions and non-binary states of being. LIM concluded with Intergalactic Plasma: a way back to go forward: a photographic collaboration of artists who are immersed in the performance and creation of lightning to challenge exclusive gender norms and promote inclusive social and artistic practices. Bon Mott’s collaborative portraits of these artists are featured on high-quality silk, which performs like plasma when activated by choreography and movement. By looking back to the ancient knowledge systems of Indigenous people, collaborating with queer and Indigenous communities, and researching modern astrophysics, we may consider expansive and inclusive states of being to find our own quantum pathway forward.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableA gentle labour, in splitting place( 2021)This practice-led research attempts to understand how a significant home-place of the past can be contained within a displaced, site-sourced material, to reveal the shifting emotional burdens encountered within a protracted, careful carrying of place. An auto-ethnographic, haptic studio methodology is used to contextualise the sole viewpoint of a non-indigenous woman, living in contemporary post-colonial Australia. The ‘gentle labours’ of slow, repetitive bodily interactions with raw material, are used to examine how the intimacy of touch facilitates a gradual, emotional understanding of place attachment, separation and loss, through the re-visiting and re-filtering of memory fragments. Site-responsive installations and text-based artworks, are used to test and expand these intuitive studio processes, to reveal the shifting facets of ‘splitting place’, across vast distances and broad spans of time.
-
ItemYou, Me and Everybody Else: Explorations of self through filmmaking in the domestic setting( 2020)The self plays a central role in artistic practice, as artists have long used their work to explore conceptions of the broader human condition. In film, the temporally reflexive nature of the medium has allowed filmmakers to create a positioning of characters, sharing emotional experiences with an audience. However, to position oneself in film is perhaps less clear and more complex than that of a protagonist. This dissertation draws upon the practices of filmmakers Jonas Mekas, Max Draper, Chantal Akerman, Michelangelo Antonioni and Moyra Davey, to discuss how key elements of film, including diarism, duration and place, can inform an exploration of the subjective condition. As an accompaniment to my own moving-image artwork, You, Me and Everyone Else., the dissertation draws parallels between each artist’s use of visual techniques and my experimentations in practice, to initiate an intimate unravelling of self. I find the acceptance of the banal and the everyday through diarism and durational techniques clarify a process for examining self. Likewise, the embeddedness of these filmic techniques within the deeply personal context of my own home, emphasises the importance of place in affirming; and reinforcing, undulating and shifting notions of self. I additionally note, however, that the forces of context and place uncover deep insecurities and strong negative internal emotions greatly impacting artistic voice. Here, the subjective self emerges through elements of my personal artistic condition, that appears to exist beyond the influence of conscious structure, technique and the influence of others. While the making of a singular artwork may demonstrate hints of the self to both audience and maker, the recurrent, self-reflexive making of artworks clarifies the unseen self only to the artist. Thus, I conclude that there is no firm understanding of self navigable through techniques alone.The artwork is merely the by-product of a process that recognises that the self is as whimsical and subject to change as the forces which surround it.
-
ItemSpace is occurring( 2019)SPACE IS OCCURRING is a research project comprised of twelve public exhibitions spanning 2016-2019, including an examination exhibition presentation at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery from 5-16 December 2019, and a written dissertation. In this MFA, assessment is divided as: 75% creative practice and 25% written dissertation. The four-year research project has investigated attentiveness, and negotiations of attentiveness, within contexts that situate, exhibit, display, frame or present contemporary art. Professional opportunities to actualise exhibition works have been taken as resources for doing/thinking research. This set of exhibition works is understood as concurrent research and outcome: artistic decision-making systems, conceptual working questions and professional or ethical mitigations converge and overlap during this doing/thinking. The vocational context of exhibiting within existing visual arts institutions has been the main resource to apply and test research concerns. In addressing this methodology of doing/thinking in the dynamic in situ realm, the written dissertation proposes the concept of ‘infield’. The term ‘infield’, borrowed from its sporting context, is repurposed as means for understanding each specific exhibition context as a dynamic location that is always in an active state of play. The research draws from an engagement with Bulgarian/French philosopher Julia Kristeva’s theories of ‘semiotic chora’ and ‘in-progress time’. These concepts support an engagement with the time-space of exhibitions as happening in motion, continuously beginning anew. The relation and interrelation of temporal and spatial experience within systems for making and experiencing art is the focus for an investigation into the writings of theorists including Andre Lepecki, as well as the practices of contemporary artists who work across at least two of the following: sculpture, sound, choreography and/or film. Specific works from artists John Cage, Simone Forti, Marco Fusinato, Douglas Gordon, Robert Morris, Ute Muller, Steve Paxton, Geoff Robinson and Daniel von Sturmer are included in this investigation into artistic strategies within this field. Exhibition works are developed and refined as projects that operate as systems for the spatial and temporal conditions and materials of each exhibition context. Within works, sculptural and filmic means are orchestrated as fields of interactions, and interferences, scored within the spatial and temporal conditions of exhibition context. Fixity and stasis – taken as a lingering museological construct of gallery spaces – are approached as problems to be disrupted, made evident, or a combination thereof. Often specific spatiotemporal overlay procedures develop, which may then be transferred upon (and reinformed by) subsequent professional exhibition opportunities, for different institutions. The application and potential reapplication of exhibition work systems – for different exhibition outcomes at different times – has allowed for a comparative analysis of the manner in which these operate with and within the contingencies of each specific exhibition context.
-
ItemThe Presence of Space: Embodiment, Vision, and Art( 2019)The dominant Western conception of space remains the Cartesian paradigm - despite many possible alternatives. This is further reinforced by ubiquity of perspectival space, and the dominance of photography, which reifies this paradigm. This project investigates the self’s relation to space by examining personal, artistic and social frameworks of experiential observation, in doing so, it seeks to evoke these broader conceptualizations of space. The research firstly establishes a framework of references related to the cosmos, the earth and the solar system, with concepts around locating the body in space, and notions of alignment, movement, distance, scale and pattern. The body of creative works which include site-specific installation, wall painting, drawing, photography and animation, are collectively titled the Gnomon Experiments, and explore various uses of the term ‘gnomon’ which refers to locating ones’ self in space, point-of-view, and alignment. The research also examines the reflexive nature of systems of representation of space such as linear perspective, photography, screen and optics in influencing the expression and experience of space, through the theories of Erwin Panofsky and Vilem Flusser who respectively examine these ‘learnt perceptions’ as ideologies encoded with complex symbols and metacodes. This research investigates the possible applications, implications and readings these ideologies might have in spatial arts practice and other works that engage the embodied experience of the viewer. Using various techniques of merging the appearance of two and three-dimensional space the artist endeavours to understand how photography influences spatial practice even in the absence of lens or print. Many of the works incorporate visual illusions and anamorphic distortions where movement and the embodied experience of the participant activates the work. The work questions how we come to feel located in space, and how we construct a sense of space not just around us, but from within us. The project culminates in a minimalist room scaled installation that embodies spatial experience. The percentage split of this research is 75% creative practice, and 25% written dissertation.
-
ItemStrategies: an artist mother's maintenance manifesto( 2019)Becoming a mother is life-changing: it is well documented that it challenges the sense of self and identity. Maintaining an art practice while mothering could be defined as work. There is substantial literature to support the idea that mothering is a discipline just like art is. This involves ‘maternal thinking,’ a multiple-variable thought process used when caring for children. To support this notion, feminist theorists have developed the term matricentric or mother-centered feminism. This positions mothering more as a practice than an identity. This research paper is informed by matricentric feminist ideologies. Given these contributions to the current narrative surrounding motherhood, the idealised image of the ‘good’ mother still prevails in Western society. It appears that to be a ‘good mother’ a woman needs to put her children first. This is at the expense of her desires, passions, and interests. Based on personal first-hand experience as a mother, the widely accepted idea of the ‘good mother’ seems to stem from a patriarchal notion of motherhood that is disempowering and unrealistic. It is perceived that childrearing is gendered: men tend to generally be less involved in it while women are expected to be totally involved. How does one navigate these prevailing stereotypes and expectations surrounding the idea of the mother who is also an artist? Information on how to manage this conundrum remains an emergent field. Can matricentric feminism be present in an art practice in a seemingly patriarchal society? With practice-led research, informed by matricentric feminism, Strategies: An Artist Mother’s Maintenance Manifesto aims to investigate what kind of processes or strategies emerge from the labour expended when mothering and art making simultaneously. It seeks to validate the seemingly private nature of a mother’s work commonly associated with motherhood by devising four artistic strategies to connect the private to a public exhibition space. An autoethnographic methodology will be applied for this enquiry. Day-to-day personal experience as a mother and artist will be used as a reference, vis-a-vis the current discourse surrounding motherhood. This investigation seeks to contribute new narratives on the topic of motherhood and art. This will be achieved in part by applying the concept of trans/performance. The latter consists in connecting the work entailed in everyday mothering with the work involved in making artworks for an exhibition. In other words, trans/performance takes the work of a mother which has been commonly associated with the private and the domestic across into the public sphere where the art exhibition is held. The resulting creative outcomes or “strategies” emulate the works of the American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Her art practice exposed through performance the invisible labour associated with motherhood in conjunction with other tasks associated with the maintenance of a city. It is suggested that an image of the ideal mother follows gendered conservative values. Framed around a matricentric feminist lens, the research reveals the complexity behind the responsibilities entailed in being both a mother and an artist, beyond societal expectations. An artist mother’s creative process is documented through personal diary entries, through descriptions of the major artworks and creative endeavors conducted for this research. To document this development are four installation works that investigate being a mother and an artist. These works manifest through sculpture, photography portraiture and video. The final outcome of this research is an installation in a gallery space. Over 200 sand-filled calico bags, with the word ‘MOTHER’ stenciled on them, are arranged in the space. Also secured on the gallery floor, walls and ceiling are a series of white wax and acrylic sculptures of the artist’s arm. A large, black and white photographic print is mounted on a wall. This work features a portrait of the artist holding both her children in her arms. Another work in the space is a video installation where the artist is seen in a series of clips cleaning sandbags and using sandbags to control water flooding into an outdoor landscape. The audio recording contains a combination of background noise and the artist’s voice in conversation.