Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
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ItemWitnessing Virtual Realities: Mediating perspectives through Novel Technology( 2019)The historical techniques of journalism were orientated around an ideology of disinterest where the educated democratic subject would be informed and “hear both sides” – but today with new algorithmic techniques of affect management (virtual reality, VR) and discovery (social media), any such disinterest is clearly not central to how journalistic knowledge is transmitted, if it ever was. Therefore, what are the techniques of visual mediation that are appropriate to these new conditions? By locating my research with this question, I aim to use it as a conceptual basis for making artwork that positions the viewer outside the sphere of contemporary journalism looking in. Works that heighten and reveal the fallacy and contradiction of contemporary journalism practices through novel technologies to spark a critical dialogue of it
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ItemAn approach to using digital technology in scenic design for low budget performance( 2019)This practice-based research is an exploration of current, accessible, digital technology and the impact it is having on visual-based scenic design for live performance. This is examined through my freelance art and design practice, which includes areas such as, props, sculpture, set design/construction and model making. This project considers visual-based digital technology in the process of creating scenic design solutions for low budget performance productions of less than $20,000.00 in total production costs (excluding personnel costs), taking typical profit share productions as the template. It focuses on accessible projection hardware and interactive visual software. Drawing from a range of digital based theorists and performance practitioners, I review the current use of digital technology in providing visual scenic design solutions for performance. This includes examples of recent productions that use visual based digital solutions in performance. Cost effective, accessible options inspired by these examples are then investigated through my practice and discussed here. The staging of an exemplar low budget performance ‘Absolute Uncertainty’ (less than $12000 allocated costs, including in kind support and donations) is documented in the accompanying video files. This includes unedited video of a dress rehearsal (titled: Absolute Uncertainty 480p.m4v), and video samples of three rehearsals, two at the start of the rehearsal process (May 2017) and one toward the end of the rehearsal process (August 2017). These followed three months of preproduction and experimentation. The final outcome of this project is the development of an adaptable, lightweight, easily configurable projection system that may be used as the core element in scenic design for low budget performance productions. The processes involved in this are discussed and evaluated through the staging and presentation of Absolute Uncertainty, and two other performances I worked on prior to ‘Absolute Uncertainty’, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Latecomers, where I developed and experimented with concepts. The focus of this discussion is on the usefulness of digital projection in different environments, digital projection and other visual technologies ability to effectively create a performance environment and the quick adaptability of these technologies in the development and staging, including blocking for low budget production.
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ItemNew Prayers For Old Feelings: Weaving the world back together( 2019)This studio-based project asks: how might embodied textile processes offer a spiritual counterpoint to a fragmented, anxious and inattentive state of being? How can a textile-based studio practice develop an ethos of care and attention towards the self, others, and the environment? My research responds to the experience of living in a digital ‘attention economy’, in which we are largely disconnected from spiritual frameworks and from the natural world. In seeking to rekindle an ethos of care, attention and interconnectedness, I investigate the material and spiritual possibilities of ancient hand-processes such as weaving, fibre and dye. Through these repetitive and labour-intensive practices, I examine the way that attention can be redirected and reconstituted as a form of prayer and devotion. I draw on the writing of eminent Bauhaus weaver Anni Albers, which advocates for a return to materiality, as well as Indigenous epistemologies of interconnection articulated by botanist and Potawatomi writer Robin Wall Kimmerer. The studio project encompasses several related bodies of work: an installation of knotted, braided and beaded fibres, a small-scale embroidery, two series of small tapestry weavings, and a site-specific installation produced in Kansas City, Missouri. Through these artworks I explore ways of acknowledging both anxiety and the sacred through textile practices that enact forms of wordless prayer, acknowledge history, record time and labour, are portable and thus present everywhere, and focus attention and care on the natural world. In creating and writing about these works, I seek to answer my research questions, and promote nurturing and healing new ways of being and making in the world. My research engages with a number of artists whose work intersects with repetition, craft, ecology and prayer. These include Chilean-born Cecilia Vicuna, whose thread-based installations intertwine prayer, language and the notion of the precarious; Polish-born, Chicago-based artist kg (Karolina Gnatowski), whose small-scale formal tapestries hold memory, identity and narrative; Perth-based Teelah George, who works with a laborious and prayer-like process of embroidery; American artist Liza Lou’s meticulous and transcendent bead-weavings; and the practice of Yindjibarndi Australian artist Katie West, whose work with plant-dyeing functions as a form of meditation, and a means of re-connecting, de-colonising, and Indigenising place. Woven through the thesis, these works articulate a range of approaches to materiality and process in response to uncertainties and the sacred.
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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.
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ItemSomething's gotta give: Subjectivity and the everyday encounter, through the moving image( 2019)The break-up of my long-term relationship unintentionally guided my MFA project. Over the past two years I found myself in the position where I needed to respond to unexpected personal circumstances that caused trauma in my life. Without warning the intimate parameters that I had coexisted within became inaccessible to me. The state of dysfunction that ensued through this breakdown caused me to reconfigure my values as an artist and to find new ways of being productive. With the presence of immanent deadlines it was necessary for me to adapt the activities of my practice to align with my emotional circumstances. Through this reappraisal, I found that my artistic activities function in partnership with my personal life, and that to attempt to disentangle the two is essentially missing the point. The brokenness and dysfunction that began as setbacks, have intimately sewn together my work and life, and through this I inadvertently located the political concerns that orient my practice. The necessity of this bind has invested a new urgency in my work and raised the questions that form the pathway of this thesis. My research project stakes a claim for the value of subjectivity, through the vulnerability of the personal, and the artistic vitality of the historically repressed everyday environment. My video practice resonates through a feminist disposition, the subjective politics that underpins my work. Harnessing an evolving catalogue of lived experience I have gathered disparate sources, bringing them together in this thesis. My own personal experiences are used as primary figures in my work and it is through these subjects that my research has been shaped. I take a journey of questioning and reflection, with the company of artists and researchers who inspire my practice. I record fragments of my surroundings, daily minutiae, fleeting observations and temporal moments. Through structural filmic devices - the long take, fixed view and close-up magnifications - I hold these ephemeral encounters, repeatedly rewinding, pausing, and zooming in. I am interested in the subjective qualities that can be drawn out through filmic excavation. The outcome of my research project is a series of video recordings, projected at varying scales in the gallery. The images are pieces of my daily life and objects that were the focus of bored and empty stares while I lay in bed. Housed in the space of the gallery, these intimacies are brought into a field of public and private subjectivities, where they resonate through the embodiment of the viewer.
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ItemEthics, Agency and Disruption: Toward a rights-based practice of working with children in contemporary performance( 2019)This thesis, comprising 50% written dissertation and 50% creative work, argues for a new ethical model of working with children and young people in contemporary performance. Through analysis of Youth Arts pedagogies, inclusive theatre practice, models of participation, the symbolic potential of the child in performance and the work of contemporary Australian practitioners making work with children for adult audiences, this thesis explores an innovative ‘rights-based’ model of contemporary performance practice relevant to working with children and young people. This model, framed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), challenges the idea of children as vulnerable and in need of protection and argues for the recognition of the child’s voice and champions the creativity of children in performance. The combined practical and written outcomes of this thesis offer a new, nuanced understanding of children as cultural agents, raising the prospect of a creative process that foregrounds deeper considerations of the strengths and capacities of children.
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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.
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ItemIdentifying and Developing the Personal Voice in Improvised Music Performance( 2017)This study documents a phenomenological and philosophical enquiry into the nature and dimension of the personal voice (McMillan 1996) in improvised music performance. Utilising heuristic research (Moustakas 1990), a practice-based research methodology adapted for the purpose of this enquiry, this study examines my artistic practice as a musician, composer and soprano saxophonist. This practice is observed through the differentiated stages of the development of musical syntax within improvisation. Works by J. S. Bach and John Coltrane are examined as potential sources of new material for improvised works. Arguably, music history appears to be an additive process whereby each new generation of composers, performers and improvisers add new layers to an existing core of practice. However, when contrasting a relatively new performance practice, such as John Coltrane’s improvisations in the ‘Hard Bop’ genre, against the performance practice from the Baroque era by Bach, the performer may discover that the two music practices, chosen for the purposes of the source materials, share elements and processes. This could contribute to informing new musical language through the process of generative or improvised music performance. This study is significant because, observably, within elite music training institutions and the concert activity of major metropolitan cities there appears to be a rigid demarcation of performance practice. A music practitioner may prioritise interpretive music performance over improvised music or vice versa. While the notion of composer/performer is well understood in contemporary music practice, what possibilities exist for the notion of generative interpretation and the development of the personal voice (McMillan 1996) and individual expression in improvisation? This thesis examines source materials from diverse styles by J. S. Bach and John Coltrane to consider the process and context of the creative process in improvised music and the development of the personal voice (McMillan 1996). This practice-based research project (Barrett and Bolt 2012) is examined via musical practice, assimilation and interpretation, where the elements of music and musical language derived from the source materials are examined, practised, recorded and considered as containing the potential for informing spontaneously improvised outcomes. Musical syntax arising through the process of improvisation is demonstrated via transcription and analysis to understand personal idiosyncratic qualities in the form of musical gestures within spontaneously improvised music. The development and identification of creative and musical influences are examined through the cultivation of an in-depth understanding and assimilation of the source materials. To ascertain the extent of musical influences on spontaneous improvisation, more broadly in terms of implicit style and interpretation, or explicitly in terms of how specific and measurable musical elements such melodic, harmonic and rhythmic material are examined via transcription and analysis (Mulholland and Hojnacki 2013) informing the creative outcomes and the extent and nature of influence that can be measured, within the spontaneous solo improvisations in the context of this study.
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ItemSatisfaction and Doubt: Working in and on the Grid( 2019)This studio-based research project illustrates an investigation into personal motivation and doubt through the practice of expanded drawing. Using shading, scratching and cutting, I intervene with the surface of space in response to the architectural propositions at hand. During this process, I have found myself trying to make sense of these actions, particularly with regards to the influence that drives them, and account for whether they align with a non-hierarchical, fluid theory of gender. At the centre of this research is the perception that geometry, as it is commonly spoken of and received in art discourse, is binary in its correspondence with gender. Research into this discourse has largely been led by a community of artists and art critics who collect around the grid. I am concerned with the social and material politics that surround the grid and frequently return to this structure as a resource for clarity, whilst also approaching it with a certain degree of scepticism. In the written dissertation that follows, I attempt to unpack this drawing practice, understand why it looks to the grid as an anchor and why this, in turn, generates doubt about my actions in the studio.
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ItemDis/ease: Neoliberal pressure, vaccinated with a touch of Spiritualism. Built in Self-discovery( 2019)This research project Dis/ease- Neoliberal pressure, vaccinated with a touch of Spiritualism. Built in Self-discovery, explores the complexities of late capitalism under the guidance of neoliberalism. Here, products are positioned within the consumer sphere as an antidote to ongoing pressures of the workplace, increased individualism and result in an increase in anxiety and di/ease. This exegesis takes an interdisciplinary research methodology using sociology to position current issues within a broader critical discourse. This project is practice driven research resulting in a 75% - 25% practical vs written component. The three-dimensional installations accompany this exegesis use various media, including 3D printing, 3D rendering, casting, found objects, video, audio and edibles products, among others. The works presented are in part parody, part critique and are art works framed as products. Each works acts as an entry point to a broader discourse around the body, mind and soul as they are constructed within late-capitalism and in relation to the prominent Self-care and Well-being industry.