This thesis explores the changing identity of Asian North American women in the past thirty years through the analysis of the work of three Asian North American female artists, Liu Hung (b.1948), Jin-me Yoon (b.1960), and Nikki S. Lee (b.1970). It argues that Asian North American female identity has evolved in three stages: firstly, it shows a close connection with a diasporic imagined community bound by ones cultural origin; secondly, it is rooted in a settled diasporic community, meanwhile remains tied to the original homeland as an imaginary political space for unification; lastly, the new transnational Asian female identity rejects classification based on race and gender and embraces an identity rooted in globalization. / History of Art, Design and Visual Culture

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My research investigates the premise that fear, anxiety and uncertainty in reason, impact on the essence of the desire to believe in structures, our categorisation of ideology, myself, my approach to artwork and creativity in this contemporary era. / This thesis is divided into three different chapters based on the motif “Rational Irregularity”. The first chapter is about the “idea” of antinomy in reason in philosophy and psychoanalysis drawing on Kant, Lacan and neuroscience (nerve science). The second chapter considers the position of art and the artist through Derrida and Danto’s discourses. It further explores the mechanism of art and creativity in the contemporary era using my own interpretation of Lacan’s method of psychoanalysis. The third chapter considers my artworks which are based on the psychological symptom of Sleep Paralysis and the fasting experience through the form of video installation. / The reason I focused on the discourses of contemporary philosophy is that I feel the knowledge of theories in any time affects the mechanism of human civilisation in that era. That in turn influences people, the subject and the phenomena of art. This discourse is fluid and the possibility of further discourse emerges from this understanding. Philosophy influenced my way of perceiving phenomena in the world. The understanding of these ideas and the expressions of my artworks became more complex because of those theories and related readings, I entered a problematic realm through this new knowledge. This paper seeks to extrapolate the chaos of these complex thoughts and ideas so I can better understand the mechanism of my art.

As members of extended families and genealogical lines we collect and view photographs to remember. By situating the present investigation within the context of archival family photographic collections, this research seeks to understand the assumptions surrounding the interplay between the practice of viewing photographs and notions of remembering. Historically, photography has been connected to concepts of stability and truth with photographic images acting as a metaphor for ‘real lived experiences’. When a photograph is viewed, whatever was present before the camera is verified. In his seminal text Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980), French theorist Roland Barthes describes this as ‘a truth to presence’ (Barthes 1980: 84). Barthes links this position to Poststructuralist theory, by determining that photographic signifiers, denotative data, are stable where as the signified, the idea or meaning, is contingent on what a viewer brings to that particular ‘text’. Therefore the viewer relies on denotative data to process meaning. This research explores the ways photographers play with photographic processes to disrupt ideas of stability of meaning surrounding this medium. The visual component of this research explores the expectations that socio-cultural groups, specifically extended families, have when viewing photographs. The subsequent work will endeavour to lay bare the interplay between such expectations and the supposed reliability of the photograph in respect to both meaning and perception. Using an archive of my own extended family’s collection of photographs, this thesis seeks to disrupt the story-telling qualities of photographs. This interruption strategy points to poststructuralist discourses surrounding the stability of the photographic image and the context in which photography is grounded. The work will challenge viewers to re-assess what the photograph can or cannot do. The final work will be comprised of 80% practice and 20% exegesis.

Master of Visual Arts / Digital/video games1 have entertained for 40 years and are a medium with the ability to reach a vast audience. In an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Charles Purcell reports that; “Globally, Halo 2 has sold more than 7 million copies. Both in the US and Australia it broke the film box-office record for the most earnings in the first 24 hours of release. The worldwide Halo 2 community on X-box Live has about 400,000 players… at the World Cyber Games in Seoul. Last year, gold medallist Matthew Leto won $US20,000 ($AUS27,0000) after his second consecutive Halo title.” 2. Game consoles have become a part of many lounge rooms just as the television did before them. Games are even commonplace in many coat pockets and carrying bags. This dissertation is concerned with the medium of digital/video games in relation to its effect on Game Art. It is also concerned with the concept of my studio work that deals with “evil” and the “uncanny” which are discussed in chapter four. My research looks at games and how they have developed and the relationship to contemporary art. A history of this development is explored in chapter two. My research will help me in developing an interactive piece. Throughout my current research the thoughts of author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit Sherry Turkle resonate: “…not what will the computer be like in the future, but instead, what will we be like? What kind of people are we becoming?” 3 It is interesting to consider the video/digital games as experiments of who we are or who we would like to be, little fantasies of empowerment. In a game we are able to live out our frustrations or fantasies in a closed and predictable experience.

O presente estudo buscou compreender as relações que as crianças estabelecem com a arte contemporânea quando a mesma é apresentada, discutida e explorada no contexto escolar. Refletindo sobre a desarticulação e lacuna existente entre a arte contemporânea e a concepção de arte escolar, pensada somente como um produto e aquém de um processo, esta pesquisa se propôs a investigar junto às crianças como elas se articulam com a arte contemporânea, a partir de ações propositivas que ampliam suas formas de perceber os materiais e objetos do cotidiano. Neste sentido, a arte contemporânea serviu para pensar a metodologia de pesquisa e as crianças. Sendo utilizadas referências artísticas como: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Nelson Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto e Sandro Ka, investigação ancorou-se teoricamente nos estudos sobre Pesquisas com Crianças (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), nos estudos da Arte Contemporânea (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli e Canton), e nos estudiosos que discutem acerca das Crianças Contemporâneas (Dornelles e Heywood). Tratou-se, portanto, de uma investigação realizada dentro de uma escola pública na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS, com um grupo de nove crianças de um primeiro ano. Para este estudo foram realizadas duas semanas de observação, dezessete encontros, além de uma visita ao MARGS – Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul – ocorridos entre os meses de julho a dezembro de 2012. Como recursos metodológicos, foram utilizados os encontros propositivos – denominados metodologicamente como “Encontros Crianceiros” – os registros audiovisuais, diário de campo da pesquisadora e os materiais explorados e produzidos pelas crianças. As perguntas centrais deste estudo: como as crianças se relacionam com as modalidades que a arte contemporânea suscita? E como as crianças exploram a arte quando ela adentra a escola? Foram respondidas por meio das análises feitas, que se desdobraram ao longo do período da pesquisa com as crianças. As concepções sobre arte, as maneiras como seus processos de criação ocorreram e suas relações com a materialidade, e ainda, a experimentação dos objetos por meio dos afetos estabelecidos foram os eixos principais de análises. O estudo destaca a potência existente no encontro entre as crianças e a arte contemporânea, principalmente no que se refere à proximidade e receptividade dos pequenos com as modalidades da mesma. Além disto, a pesquisa demonstra através dos processos de criação das crianças como estes são encharcados de significados e relações externas ao contexto escolar, que emergem em suas experimentações, assim como os afetos e enfrentamentos que se estabelecem na exploração, ressignificação e apropriação dos materiais e materialidades. Ao aproximar os pequenos da arte contemporânea, este estudo dá suporte para que se pense e discuta as articulações existentes entre arte e crianças nos contextos escolares, e o quanto estas relações podem ser pautadas pelos processos de experimentação e ressignificação, além de serem possibilidades de ampliação de repertórios, tanto para crianças, quanto para os educadores. / This study sought to understand the relationships that children have with contemporary art when it is presented, discussed and explored in the school context. Reflecting on the disarticulation and gap between contemporary art and design art school designed only as a product and a process falling short, this research proposes to investigate with the children how it relates to contemporary art, from purposeful actions that expand their ways of perceiving the materials and everyday objects. In this sense, contemporary art served to think about the research methodology and the children. Being used as artistic references: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto and Sandro Ka. The research anchored itself theoretically in studies on Research with Children (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), Studies of Contemporary Art (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli and Canton), and researchers who discuss about the Contemporary Children (Dornelles and Heywood). It was, therefore, an investigation into a public school in the city of Porto Alegre / RS, with a group of nine children of a first year. For this study were made twice weeks of observation, seventeen meetings, plus a visit to MARGS - Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul - occurred between the months from July to December 2012- As methodological resources were used in propositional meetings - as methodologically called "Encounters Crianceiros" - audiovisual records, the researcher's field journal and materials exploited and produced by children. The central questions of this study: how children relate to the modalities that contemporary art raises. And how children explore art when it enters the school? Were answered through of the analyzes performed, which unfolded over the period of research with children. Conceptions of art, the ways their creative processes occurred and its relationship with materiality, and also experimentation of objects using of affections were established the main axes of analysis. The study highlights the potency existing in the meeting between children and contemporary art, especially in relation to the proximity and responsiveness of children with the same modalities. Apart from this, research demonstrates through the processes of creation of children as they are drenched in meanings and relationships outside the school context, that emerge in their experimentations, as well as affections and confrontations that are established in the exploration, redefinition and appropriation of materials and materiality Approaching the children of contemporary art, this study supports that think and discuss the joints between art and children in school contexts, and also how these relationships can be guided by the processes of experimentation and reframing as well as being possibilities expansion of repertoire, both for children and for educators.

This thesis addresses reenactment and archival practice in the work of Sharon Hayes, a mid-career multi-media artist renowned for her use of archival documents to pose questions about history, politics, and speech. I do this through analyses of two of Hayes’s projects: the series In the Near Future (2005-2009) and a series of projects the artist refers to as “love addresses.” While these projects appropriate and repeat historical documents, Hayes’s work is especially interesting for the way it emphasizes difference over authenticity and explores the ways meaning shifts across temporal, geographic, and social contexts. In contrast to scholars who argue that Hayes’s practice is nostalgic and serves to decontextualize and depoliticize history, my thesis argues that the pedagogical aspects of Hayes’s work and her performative engagements with historical material are deeply political and contextual. My thesis demonstrates that Hayes’s distinctive contribution is to model historical agency and imagine alternative futures.

This thesis examines the digital photo composites of Chinese artist Yang Yongliang (b. 1980, Shanghai) from 2007-2012 by selecting three distinct series that focus on three cities. This thesis approaches Yang’s Shanghai-based digital landscape prints (shuma shanshui), his 2012 series A Bowl of Taipei, and his 2010 series Greece, Greece and investigates how they relate to Asian art history, contemporary art discourse, and urban theories, including Rem Koolhaas’s 1995 essay “The Generic City.” This thesis moves beyond the simple binaries with which Yang’s works are often described – past versus present, nature versus city, tradition versus modernity – dichotomies similar to those used to characterize recent urbanization in most major cities, as observed in Koolhaas’s writing. This thesis argues that Yang’s works inhabit multiple positions simultaneously and offer new potentials for expanding beyond the generic city.

O presente estudo buscou compreender as relações que as crianças estabelecem com a arte contemporânea quando a mesma é apresentada, discutida e explorada no contexto escolar. Refletindo sobre a desarticulação e lacuna existente entre a arte contemporânea e a concepção de arte escolar, pensada somente como um produto e aquém de um processo, esta pesquisa se propôs a investigar junto às crianças como elas se articulam com a arte contemporânea, a partir de ações propositivas que ampliam suas formas de perceber os materiais e objetos do cotidiano. Neste sentido, a arte contemporânea serviu para pensar a metodologia de pesquisa e as crianças. Sendo utilizadas referências artísticas como: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Nelson Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto e Sandro Ka, investigação ancorou-se teoricamente nos estudos sobre Pesquisas com Crianças (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), nos estudos da Arte Contemporânea (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli e Canton), e nos estudiosos que discutem acerca das Crianças Contemporâneas (Dornelles e Heywood). Tratou-se, portanto, de uma investigação realizada dentro de uma escola pública na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS, com um grupo de nove crianças de um primeiro ano. Para este estudo foram realizadas duas semanas de observação, dezessete encontros, além de uma visita ao MARGS – Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul – ocorridos entre os meses de julho a dezembro de 2012. Como recursos metodológicos, foram utilizados os encontros propositivos – denominados metodologicamente como “Encontros Crianceiros” – os registros audiovisuais, diário de campo da pesquisadora e os materiais explorados e produzidos pelas crianças. As perguntas centrais deste estudo: como as crianças se relacionam com as modalidades que a arte contemporânea suscita? E como as crianças exploram a arte quando ela adentra a escola? Foram respondidas por meio das análises feitas, que se desdobraram ao longo do período da pesquisa com as crianças. As concepções sobre arte, as maneiras como seus processos de criação ocorreram e suas relações com a materialidade, e ainda, a experimentação dos objetos por meio dos afetos estabelecidos foram os eixos principais de análises. O estudo destaca a potência existente no encontro entre as crianças e a arte contemporânea, principalmente no que se refere à proximidade e receptividade dos pequenos com as modalidades da mesma. Além disto, a pesquisa demonstra através dos processos de criação das crianças como estes são encharcados de significados e relações externas ao contexto escolar, que emergem em suas experimentações, assim como os afetos e enfrentamentos que se estabelecem na exploração, ressignificação e apropriação dos materiais e materialidades. Ao aproximar os pequenos da arte contemporânea, este estudo dá suporte para que se pense e discuta as articulações existentes entre arte e crianças nos contextos escolares, e o quanto estas relações podem ser pautadas pelos processos de experimentação e ressignificação, além de serem possibilidades de ampliação de repertórios, tanto para crianças, quanto para os educadores. / This study sought to understand the relationships that children have with contemporary art when it is presented, discussed and explored in the school context. Reflecting on the disarticulation and gap between contemporary art and design art school designed only as a product and a process falling short, this research proposes to investigate with the children how it relates to contemporary art, from purposeful actions that expand their ways of perceiving the materials and everyday objects. In this sense, contemporary art served to think about the research methodology and the children. Being used as artistic references: Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, Leirner, Lia Menna Barreto and Sandro Ka. The research anchored itself theoretically in studies on Research with Children (Pereira, Rabello de Castro, Tomás, Sarmento), Studies of Contemporary Art (Archer, Cauquelin, Chiarelli and Canton), and researchers who discuss about the Contemporary Children (Dornelles and Heywood). It was, therefore, an investigation into a public school in the city of Porto Alegre / RS, with a group of nine children of a first year. For this study were made twice weeks of observation, seventeen meetings, plus a visit to MARGS - Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul - occurred between the months from July to December 2012- As methodological resources were used in propositional meetings - as methodologically called "Encounters Crianceiros" - audiovisual records, the researcher's field journal and materials exploited and produced by children. The central questions of this study: how children relate to the modalities that contemporary art raises. And how children explore art when it enters the school? Were answered through of the analyzes performed, which unfolded over the period of research with children. Conceptions of art, the ways their creative processes occurred and its relationship with materiality, and also experimentation of objects using of affections were established the main axes of analysis. The study highlights the potency existing in the meeting between children and contemporary art, especially in relation to the proximity and responsiveness of children with the same modalities. Apart from this, research demonstrates through the processes of creation of children as they are drenched in meanings and relationships outside the school context, that emerge in their experimentations, as well as affections and confrontations that are established in the exploration, redefinition and appropriation of materials and materiality Approaching the children of contemporary art, this study supports that think and discuss the joints between art and children in school contexts, and also how these relationships can be guided by the processes of experimentation and reframing as well as being possibilities expansion of repertoire, both for children and for educators.