Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAcross the lineaments of figuration: posthuman subjectivities and boundary work with art( 2023-09)Abstract The twenty-first century heralds significant transformations in matters of collective, existential concern for human and nonhuman subjects. These include the processes of accelerating technological mediation, the climate crisis, social and ecological disparity, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Posthumanism, in discourse with these conditions, emerges as a heterogeneous field of transdisciplinary inquiry that includes an intersection with artistic research and practice, with a corresponding diversity in how the confluence is studied, practiced, and ultimately understood. Conducted between 2016 and 2023, this thesis-only PhD project responds to this critical and creative juncture. Its primary aim is to investigate the performative process of how art works across boundaries of knowledge and across multiple modalities of practice. As part of this investigation, I seek to contribute new accounts, concepts, processes, and creations that challenge paradigms of human-centred subjectivity. To achieve this aim, I propose and then apply an overarching methodology of boundary work with art for my transdisciplinary and multimodal research. In Part I, I provide a scholarly and artistic context for this undertaking, establishing key discourses that lead the research through the field of posthumanism, the worlding work of art, posthuman subjectivity, and the thesis’s methodological framework. Two contextual chapters cover my readings of these literatures in order to arrive at the project’s aims. In Chapter 1, I address Rosi Braidotti's call to account for the specificity of art practices at a posthuman interface. I consider this through Barbara Bolt’s framework for a material performativity of art, which proposes to open creative practice to knowledges, processes and worldings beyond representationalism and the art world. I then propose my methodology in Chapter 2. This methodology of boundary work with art contextualises and defines three ethical accountabilities for performing the research and practice: first, the situating of working boundaries within transdisciplinary and partial perspectives; second, attending to posthuman subject-matters; and third, the contribution of affirmative responses. In Part II, I present the outcomes, discussion, and findings generated by applying this methodology in three key studies. Study 1: Boundary work in a posthuman virtuality explores critical concepts of virtuality, and reveals the processes by which contemporary conditions of technological mediation shape boundary work with art, which are reiterated in the following two studies. This discussion includes my analysis of the networked assembly of co-production, the enduring cyborg figure in my contributing paper "The Cyborg Endures: Towards Posthuman Figuration of Virtual Subjectivities", and a rising algorithmic subjectivity as conceptualised in my speculative fiction "Apocope in the Suture Zone.” Study 2: Artwork with avians and a multispecies invitation builds my case for an ethics of multispecies invitation; it is accompanied by the published account of multispecies artwork "Unseeing Elegy of the Tetrachromats" and attendant art-science collaborations. Study 2 reveals how the research methodology may challenge human-centred subjectivity without necessarily seeking consensus between disciplinary perspectives. Study 3: Virtual nature and posthuman wellbeing(s) consolidates my arguments for the significance of virtuality in the work of art’s world, demonstrated by propositions for biophilic design beyond human-centred understandings of both wellbeing and nature, which are mobilised in the speculative fiction "No Longer (..) Not Yet" and my art-health collaboration as documented in the paper "Virtual Nature, Inner Forest: Prospects for Immersive Virtual Nature Art and Well-Being". The figurations (outcomes) that emerge from each study expand, challenge, and enrich both scholarly knowledges and practices at an intersection of posthumanism and art. The thesis thus advances understandings on the performative process of how art works as a worlding practice, with my boundary-led methodology revealing and attending to the present epoch of collective, transformative and imperative significances of ‘the human’ in a planetary ecology of relational becoming.
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ItemPainting the Restless Space( 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.
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ItemThe function of music in narrative cinema(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemAnton Webern : variationen fur klavier, OP.27 : an analysis(University of Melbourne, 2002)
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ItemSibell Mary, Countess Grosvenor by Jules Dalou and its forgotten history(University of Melbourne, 1999)
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ItemThe semper eadem : salting flesh shoreline project(University of Melbourne, 2007)
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ItemIncarna : investigating spatial realisation in choreography(University of Melbourne, 2006)
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ItemWe Carnivora Becoming: Animating a Multinatural Backyard( 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.
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ItemThe Big Brother Retrospective: Representing Reality, Truth Claims and The Self( 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.
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ItemACCIDENTALLY INTERCULTURAL, INCIDENTALLY FEMINIST: A study in the creation of rehearsal environments( 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.