Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemOh the humanity! Humour and performance in a contemporary art practice( 2013)This Masters project discusses humour and performance through the use and presentation of a number of video and photographic artworks. Humour can be derived from the ability to imaginatively juxtapose imagery and ideas to create unexpected relationships and outcomes. Art and creativity can function in a similar manner. This MFA seeks to examine and develop a contemporary art practice, through contrasting imagery and ideas in a performative and humourous way. The project draws parallels between the strategies and functions of humour and art, exploring the possible relationships between the two. The thesis explores questions arising from the artworks produced resulting from an investigation of specific historical and contemporary artworks and a discourse around performance. Through consideration of art historical examples, some linages and links to ways of conceiving, thinking and discussing performance and humour are made. The research acknowledges the problems of taste and subjectivity as it applies to humour, in concert with art. The project reflects upon the role of the artist, his motivations and takes excursions into formal and material concerns of photography and performance to clarify their relevance and significance to contemporary art practice and this project. Themes and ideas brought to the surface are used as foils, something to defend or push against and experiment with. They sometimes act as shadowy motivations that assist in the production of artwork. These themes include mans’ relationship to the landscape, personal histories, digital and analogue photography in the age of technological convergence, the image, self and representation, notions of personhood, contemporary performance and art. Through discussion and uncovering the toil of artwork and ideas engaged with, the humanity of the project is revealed.
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ItemBeing scripted( 2012)This thesis examines the role of materiality and site-specificity in generating performancebased film work. In focus, is how the body can be scripted, prompted, or instructed by thephysical characteristics of objects and spaces that it encounters. Historical and contemporaryvideo art and filmmaking practices are surveyed bringing into question the parameters of“object” and “performance” shaped through the medium of film. This paper and the creativework that has subsequently developed, considers the potential of film, to facilitate performancethrough its embodied sense of time and durational framing.This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of myproject with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understandingof the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with myrelationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse withreference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around“repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts areexamined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final sectionof this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminalrole in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and themoving image. This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of my project with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understanding of the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with my relationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse with reference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around “repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts are examined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final section of this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminal role in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and the moving image.
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ItemPebbles, shattered glass, plastic, metal & dried grass: a research project on ritual action, experience & the everyday( 2012)This masters thesis is a reflection on two years of making, playing, walking, talking, looking and reading. I address the question: “How can I develop a project that encompasses daily activities and rituals, recognises minor phenomena, brings me into an encounter with people, objects and animals and that frames lived experience?” In addressing this question I define the artistic process as both a method of framing and as the creation of the new, a force which effects my experience of the everyday. This is influenced by the writings of Elizabeth Grosz. In my project, I employ daily rituals as a means of encountering subjects for my work. Walking is a primary strategy I use in collecting objects, images and events. I describe my methods of framing as a shifting, searching process. I describe activities and works where I have incorporated conversation into my methodology - using formal meetings as a way to create potential accidents and alliances with others. I discuss the text Profanations by Giorgio Agamben and weave it in to many aspects of my argument. In particular I relate his notion of play to my process of sculpture and performance making. I draw links from the works of Alexander Calder, Richard Serra and Gabriel Orozco to the strategies of my own project. In particular, I respond to Calder’s lightness of forms and Orozco’s engagement with transitory moments in urban/suburban environments. This document augments the presentation of my creative work. This work is an installation of materials combined from the broad-ranging activities I engaged in during the project. It includes a configuration of videos of actions and encounters, and sculptures made from steel, glass, wood and generated from material collections. It also combines elements of a more arbitrary nature, like text, photographic works and other residue from the project.
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ItemNoumenal secrecy: transference of dislocated acts of possession( 2012)In this paper, associations with philosophical arguments, critical design theories, meta-fictional discourses, and experimental publishing houses are drawn into a platform where suspension of disbelief is required to systematise the recording of data, speculations, and psychical transference. So as to actively engage with discourses of Otherness and transmutate the boundaries between objective chance and chaos; validity and hoax are no longer in the equation, tricksters are for hire. Both, the conceptual and material research is focused on the shift from interference and noise dialectics onto transference of fictional speculations that create the corpus and the annunciation of noumenal performance presence. It originates within the invocation of the exogenic agencies and its consummation is offered through ensembles that involve electronics, sound, digital media and design elements. Does this methodological platform of exchange and praxis, solely work as fiction for believers, or does an act or event offer potentialities for further engagement?