Centre for Ideas - Theses
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ItemArt & meaning in videogames( 2018)This practice led interdisciplinary research explores intersections between videogame design and technology, the creative arts and philosophy. Through the development of a new interactive art work the project brings together practitioners in the visual arts, experimental music and gaming technology to develop new modes of virtual representation. Framed by specific philosophical concepts the research project opens up possibilities for the re-imagining of videogames as durational and interactive processes of self-actualisation and reflection. My research and creative practice concerned the collaborative development of a work that is ‘something like a videogame’. My intent was for the work (hereafter ‘Materials’) to uniquely and constructively explore interconnections between philosophy and art while remaining foremost a work of interactive entertainment. Materials sits notionally within the emerging genre of ‘art games’, but seeks to differentiate itself by virtue of a considered philosophical agenda and an entirely novel and multidisciplinary approach to the process of game development: an approach that has seen the work of ‘fine artists’ curated into end product. It was exhibited at the inaugural National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Triennial, and its presence in a major institution as part of a large public show renders it further distinct, and offers up additional research and analytical potentialities. The work and research explored in this thesis shows that it is possible to blend talent and concepts from the seemingly disparate fields of videogame development, philosophy and art, to produce an experience that resonates with a broad audience.
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ItemThe People’s Museum for Prince: inverting the curatorial lens from artist to audience( 2018)This practice-based research explores an alternative model for an artist’s museum focusing on the impact of the artist on their audience. It takes form as a dissertation, and an exhibition which was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2018 as the first iteration of the museum. This research asks how the mourning for an artist and the aftermath of their death can inform an alternative model for an artist’s museum that inverts the curatorial lens from artist to audience in order to honour the deep impact of the artist on the lives of many. Taking Prince, who died in 2016, as a case study, it analyses curatorial, institutional and public practices relating to the musician and his audience, focusing on the public mourning for Prince and the rapid transformation of Paisley Park, Prince’s home and studio complex, into a new museum. The alternative artist’s museum model proposed is a curatorial response to the discrepancy between how Prince was mourned by the public and how he was officially memorialised by an institution. The research is situated within the frame of institutional critique, new institutionalism, and critical exhibition practices, and also within the context of recent contemporary museum exhibitions that take the musician as their subject. The research finds that an artist’s audience provides an alternative source of expertise and rich content for a museum. This new museum model works to transform the essence of the public testimonials and the other creative expressions enacted in the wake of the artist’s death into the generative centre of the museum. By drawing on the diverse, subjective perspectives of the artist’s audience, and through collecting and presenting their stories, creative works and biographical objects, a multidimensional portrait of the artist can emerge. This new model for an artist’s museum that places the audience’s experience at the centre has application beyond Prince to any artist who was deeply beloved by many.
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ItemNaked awareness: the private performance of inscribing skin( 2018)This practice-led research reflects upon the testimonies and engagement of participants and audience in my art practice, The Letting Go, which is performed both privately and in galleries and is informed by the intersections of visual art, psychotherapy, somatic practices, Buddhism and ritual tattooing. Drawing on my experiences, private sessions and participatory performances the thesis asks the question: Can this practice inform a new social practice for artists - a “private practice” model that collaboratively addresses shared vulnerability and self-awareness?
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ItemBeing occupier: a white Australian visual art practice that engages with the nature of belonging to settler culture( 2018)This interdisciplinary, art-practice led research explores the relationship between art and questions of awareness, guilt and racism towards Indigenous people in this country. It asks how an art practice can help facilitate acknowledgement of Indigenous sovereignty and the continuing harm done by contemporary settler society. Through engaging with questions of identity and Heidegger's account of dwelling authentically, the research acts as a sensory provocation to destabilising settler subjectivity in Australia.
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ItemThe remains of decay: composing auditory afterimages( 2018)This autoethnographic critical exploration reflects on an accompanying folio of music compositions created between early 2013 and late 2016: Suite from The Bloody Chamber for three harps, Rung for electric guitar, contrabass recorder, violin, double bass and sensor-triggered bells, extracts from The Experiment: a musical monodrama; bound south for string quartet and Harp Guitar Double Concerto for two soloists and chamber orchestra. A post-structuralist reading reveals an emergent philosophical and practice preoccupation with the sonic phenomenon of the auditory afterimage.