My art is made of recycled materials, heavy with history and (lost) meaning even before they go through my process of processing, refining them. The unique qualities and backstories of each material not only create layers visually and aesthetically but also contribute to the ideas and narratives I present.  The central concept in my work is what I call Postfuturism (not related to film history): the phenomena where our collective view of the future has drastically shifted from positive and hopeful to an increasingly dystopian and grim one. While human scientific and technological advancements are fulfilling and surpassing the Sci-Fi dreams of the past, escalating climate disasters, wars and economic draining of the working and middle classes leave us confused. ”The future isn’t happening - but soon you can live for 200 years?”. Psychologists don’t know how to help the inflating amounts of people with future dread, because the source of their emotional suffering isn’t just in their head. The younger generations feel robbed of the opportunities their ancestors had.  Navigating mental illness always involved differentiating between environmental factors and that which comes from within, and because the mental health industry is just that - an industry that profits off its customers, the mentally unwell - now more than ever is the time to question our insanity and express our thoughts and feeling which is where art comes back into the picture. Notoriously one of the most effective forms of therapy, we need genuine, honest and emotional art now more than ever.  My installations celebrates the healing properties of making through repetition and allowing fluctuating degrees of precision, thus performing as an act of disclosing the artist’s own healing journey and becoming an abstracted guide through the socioeconomical, geopolitical and personal causes for the unease that permeates my work.

My art is made of recycled materials, heavy with history and (lost) meaning even before they go through my process of processing, refining them. The unique qualities and backstories of each material not only create layers visually and aesthetically but also contribute to the ideas and narratives I present.  The central concept in my work is what I call Postfuturism (not related to film history): the phenomena where our collective view of the future has drastically shifted from positive and hopeful to an increasingly dystopian and grim one. While human scientific and technological advancements are fulfilling and surpassing the Sci-Fi dreams of the past, escalating climate disasters, wars and economic draining of the working and middle classes leave us confused. ”The future isn’t happening - but soon you can live for 200 years?”. Psychologists don’t know how to help the inflating amounts of people with future dread, because the source of their emotional suffering isn’t just in their head. The younger generations feel robbed of the opportunities their ancestors had.  Navigating mental illness always involved differentiating between environmental factors and that which comes from within, and because the mental health industry is just that - an industry that profits off its customers, the mentally unwell - now more than ever is the time to question our insanity and express our thoughts and feeling which is where art comes back into the picture. Notoriously one of the most effective forms of therapy, we need genuine, honest and emotional art now more than ever.  My installations celebrates the healing properties of making through repetition and allowing fluctuating degrees of precision, thus performing as an act of disclosing the artist’s own healing journey and becoming an abstracted guide through the socioeconomical, geopolitical and personal causes for the unease that permeates my work. / My solo show at Galleri Mejan, "Where The Living Envy The Dead", is a total installation using recycled materials (mainly textiles and paper).  There are two aesthetically contrasting areas separated by a path - a red, detail dense installation reminiscent of torn flesh and a black and white, modern city like installation lit with UV light.  The ceiling is lowered by draping textiles on thin lines above the visitors, crocheted celestial bodies creating a childlike imitation of the sky at night. The walls are unevenly painted, solid black in some places and finger painted buildings in others.

This architectural thesis reimagines the design of prisons, proposing a new typology that helps with a more beneficial transition for prisoners back into society. By drawing insights from documentaries, movies, interviews, and existing prison models, the thesis envisions a utopian prison environment centered on rehabilitation and social reintegration. This approach challenges the conventional punitive model and aims to address the pressing issues of high recidivism rates and the marginalization of ex-offenders. The proposed prison design integrates structured psychological treatments, meaningful social interactions, and opportunities for skill development and personal growth. These elements create a dual reality for prisoners, juxtaposing the harsh physical conditions of confinement with a supportive psychological environment that encourages inner resilience and hope. This thesis explores the architectural symbolism embedded in both dystopian and utopian prison designs, reflecting societal values of control, oppression, freedom, and rehabilitation. By emphasizing the power of hope and imagination, this thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between physical confinement, mental resilience, and societal ideologies. It aims to shed light on the human capacity to maintain agency, identity, and purpose even in oppressive environments, contributing to broader discussions on justice, rehabilitation, and societal change. / Master of Architecture / This architectural thesis challenges traditional perceptions of prisons by proposing a new typology focused on facilitating prisoners' successful reintegration into society. Inspired by diverse sources, including documentaries, films, and interviews. This thesis envisions a utopian prison model that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. This innovative design aims to reduce recidivism and address systemic issues within the current penal system. The proposed approach combines structured psychological treatments, meaningful social interactions, and skill development opportunities to create an environment where inmates can thrive both mentally and physically. By analyzing architectural elements and their symbolic significance, this thesis highlights the contrast between conventional punitive prison designs and a new rehabilitative model. Through this reimagined prison design, this thesis explores the themes of mental resilience, hope and imagination, and architectural symbolism. It underscores the potential for prisoners to maintain a sense of identity and purpose despite physical confinement, offering a transformative vision for the future of incarceration and societal reintegration

Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Dante's the Inferno contain textual and thematic comparisons. While the Inferno creates a world that exhibits the worst fears of the medieval Catholic subconscious of Dante's time, The Road paints a world of the darkest fears of the current American subconscious. Both texts reflect a critical dystopia that speculates on human spirituality and offers a critique of society through a tour of sin and suffering in a desolate setting.

Abstract This study outlines a reading of Saramago’s novels as tracing a reflective itinerary into history, questioning the modalities informing a contemporary consciousness, thus acknowledging and re–configuring the past. Through an interpretation of these narratives as ‘voyages into the idea of identity’ it is shown that they reveal a symmetrical pattern tracing the Portuguese national saga from its foundation myth in The History of the Siege of Lisbon to contemporary images of identity in The Stone Raft. In light of this, the analysis examines the subversive narrative strategies employed with regard to the interrogation of canonized historical facts that led to the construction of Portuguese cultural memory and identity. Although the discussion is particularly located within Portuguese texts, the issues raised are relevant within the broader context of Western civilization. It is argued that, within his fictional discourse, Saramago aims at a reformulation of the notion of identity, highlighting the importance of preserving and actively affirming one’s individuality. Drawing on the postmodern perspective of pluralism in the reconstruction of the past, this analysis explores the relationship between history, fiction, memory and identity as reflected in the narratives under discussion. The focus will be on the textual nature of historiography as well as on the relative character of memory, aspects suggesting the irretrievable nature of the past and the necessity of using various acts of supplementation, construction and invention when representing it. Furthermore, the dialogue between Saramago’s fictional canvass and the theoretical framework, drawing on the thinking of critics such as Hayden White, David Lowenthal, Tzvetan Todorov, Linda Hutcheon, is intended to situate Saramago’s stance viz–à-viz the truthfulness of historiography within the contemporary preoccupation with the representation and construction of the past with an eye to reflecting present needs.

Associant l’analyse du discours esthétique des auteurs comme Müller, Bond et Barker, à l’étude dramaturgique de leurs réécritures respectives de Shakespeare, cette thèse a pour but de s’interroger sur l’émergence d’une nouvelle forme dramatique – la dystopie théâtrale. En faisant appel à l’instrumentalisation de la catastrophe, à la fois shakespearienne et historique, les dramaturges s’empressent à écrire des pièces qui partagent presque la même vision sur l’avenir du monde et de l’homme. L’apocalypse du roi Lear et la vision cauchemardesque qu’Hamlet porte sur le monde sont greffées, par les dramaturges, sur des tissus dramatiques étayés déjà sur les traces des barbaries du XXe et XXIe siècles. En tant qu'écritures résolument catastrophistes, les « dystopies théâtrales » s’opposent, à première vue, à toute fonction utopique. Néanmoins, le ton apocalyptique (au sens derridien du terme) qui les caractérise, cache des fonctions esthétiques qui questionnent à nouveau la catharsis et la nature même du théâtre. En analysant ces fonctions, nous tentons de démontrer que ces formes dramatiques peuvent être vues aussi comme des dramaturgies censées provoquer l’éveil des consciences et ressusciter ainsi la pulsion utopique que l’Humanité semble avoir perdue. En plus d’une épuration émotionnelle (qui elle-même est remise en question), la dystopie théâtrale est aussi caractérisée par une catharsis inversée, dans le sens d’une surcharge intellective et d’une rétention émotionnelle qui touche souvent le paroxysme. Quel lien entre l’Utopie et la « dystopie théâtrale » ? / This thesis emphasizes the emergence of a new dramaturgical form – the theatrical dystopia. The study analyses the aesthetical discourse of authors such as Heiner Müller, Edward Bond and Howard Barker, as well as their contemporary rewritings of some of Shakespeare’s plays. Through their conceptualization of the Catastrophe, both Shakespearian and historical, these authors seem to have the same vision of the future of the world and the humans. King Lear’s apocalypse and the nightmarish “Hamletian” vision of the world are grafted on modern literary “tissues”, which are already imbued with the traces of the catastrophes from twentieth and the twenty-first century. Theatrical dystopias seem opposed to every utopian function. Nevertheless, le ton apocalyptique (Derrida) which characterizes them hides aesthetical functions, which cast new meanings to the catharsis notion and the nature of the theatre. By analyzing these functions by and large, this study shows that these new dramaturgical forms are to be seen as writings that highlight awareness and resuscitate the utopian impulse that the Humanity seems to have lost. Despite a strong emotional discharge (which also acquires new functions), theatrical dystopias are also characterized by inverse catharsis – a cerebral and emotional retention which often touches paroxysm. What is thus the connection between Utopia and theatrical dystopia?

Cette recherche sur deux romans d'Emile Zola et Michel Houellebecq est conduite dans une perspective comparatiste, en raison des préoccupations communes qui animent les deux écrivains. Les deux romans traitent en des termes diamétralement opposés de l'utopie et de la dystopie, mais l’intérêt pour la science constitue un point de convergence. Au XIXe siècle la science et la technologie ont fait d'énormes progrès. La Troisième République a réaffirmé les valeurs de la liberté, de l’égalité et de la fraternité qui a inspiré les idéaux de la Révolution française ; l’État et la religion ont été séparés en 1905. Mais peu après, à la suite des deux guerres mondiales, le rêve d'établir un monde utopique s’est effondré. Par la suite,le concept utopique a été déformé, et on l’a défini en termes libéraux comme un résultat de la croissance économique. Cent ans après,Houellebecq dénonce l'existence de ce monde utopique rêvé. Pour Houellebecq, le libéralisme est devenu synonyme de violence, d'inégalité et de débauche. Emile Zola et Michel Houellebecq examinent différemment le rôle de la science dans le développement social. Zola, déçu par le rôle de la religion, croit en la réalisation d'un monde meilleur fondé sur le progrès scientifique et technologique. En revanche, Houellebecq s’oppose à l'idée de progrès par la science dans laquelle il voit une forme de destruction de l'humanité. En travaillant sur Travail de Zola et La possibilité d'une île de Houellebecq, nous avons choisi une approche originale qui consiste à analyser la notion du roman utopique/dystopique ainsi que la place de l'utopie et dystopie dans la fiction chez les deux auteurs. / This doctoral research on the works of Emile Zola and Michel Houellebecq is constituted in a comparative perspective because they share common concerns. While both novels deal with diagonally opposite terms of utopia and dystopia, science remains the common link. In the nineteenth century science and technology made huge progress. The rise of the Third Republic reaffirmed the values of liberty, equality, fraternity that inspired the ideals of the French Revolution; also State and religion were separated in 1905. But soon after, with two World Wars the dream of establishing utopia fell apart. Thereafter, the utopian concept was distorted per convenience and it came to be defined in liberal terms as an outcome of the rise of market economy. Hundred years after, Houellebecq denounces the existence of utopian world. For Houellebecq, liberalism has become a synonym of violence, inequality and debauch. Emile Zola and Michel Houellebecq look differently at the role of science in social development. On one hand, Zola disillusioned by the role of religion, believed in the achievement of a better world based on scientific and technological progress. In contrast, Houellebecq opposes the idea of progress through science and advocates it as a mean of destruction of the humanity. In quest to work on the novels Travail of Zola and The possibility of an island of Houellebecq, we’ve selected an original approach that will analyze the poetics of the notion of utopian/dystopian novel and the question of utopia and dystopia in the selected works of both authors.

This research presents a deconstructive analysis of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World. As a literary work, it is most commonly considered a dystopian visualisation of the future of modern civilisation. This essay reveals a more ambiguous reading of Brave New World by deconstructing and presenting the aspects of the novel which pertain to the classification of the novel as both dystopian and utopian simultaneously. This conclusion of ambiguity is presented to negate any notion that the novel can be classified as a definitive representation of either a utopian or a dystopian portrayal of the future.

Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-06-01T19:23:00Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-06-01T19:34:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T19:34:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Ânderson Martins Pereira.pdf: 2096376 bytes, checksum: c8d534d84766ab57170b657519498fe1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-23 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul - FAPERGS / Na contemporaneidade, o corpo tem sido largamente discutido e industrializado. As distopias contemporâneas têm tornado mais agudas as problemáticas do corpo em suas narrativas, uma vez que o gênero distopia é extremamente arraigado à sociedade que o concebe, transpondo para a história os temores dessa coletividade de forma pungente e em narrativas que em geral se projetam para o futuro da humanidade. Estabelecida a relação direta entre distopia e sociedade, este trabalho baseia-se na concepção de Eduardo Marks de Marques, na qual existem três vertentes na constituição do gênero. A fase atual ou terceira fase distópica tem sido vigente nos últimos trinta anos e tem por característica elementar a discussão de corpos erigidos a partir de um ideal capitalista de perfeição. Sob esta perspectiva, os romances Divergente (2012), Insurgente (2013) e Convergente (2014), escritos por Veronica Roth, se apropriam de elementos distópicos de obras clássicas. Entre estes elementos pode-se listar o apagamento da história, soros para contenção e identificação social e criação de uma nova sociedade dentro de outra já estabelecida. Neste viés, pretende-se estabelecer uma comparação entre os romances da trilogia Divergente, que se enfocam na transfiguração do corpo, e alguns romances distópicos clássicos que são centradas em uma crítica às políticas sociais. A partir das conexões com estes dois momentos do gênero e também a partir de algumas utopias, este trabalho pretende verificar como elementos sociais são traduzidos na narrativa de Veronica Roth, tendo em vista a troca da problemática política para a do corpo transfigurado. / In the contemporaneity, the body has been widely discussed and industrialized. The contemporary dystopias have made more acute the issues of body in their narratives, since the genre dystopia is extremely ingrained to the society that conceives it by transposing into a story the fears of this collectivity in a pungent way and in narratives that generally project themselves to the future of humankind. Having established the direct relationship between dystopia and society, this work is based on the conception of Eduardo Marks de Marques, in which there are three strands in the constitution of the genre. The present phase or third dystopian turn has been in force for the last thirty years and has, as an elementary characteristic, the discussion of bodies erected from a capitalist ideal of perfection. In this perspective, the novels Divergent (2012), Insurgent (2013) and Convergent (2014), by Veronica Roth, update dystopian elements from classic works. Among the elements there can be enlisted the history erasing, the sera for containment and social identification and the creation of a new society within another already established. In this bias, we seek to establish a comparison between the novels of the Divergent Trilogy, which focuses on the transfiguration of the body, and some classic novels that are centered on a critique of social policies. From the connections with these two moments of the genre and also from another classic utopias, this work aims to verify how social elements are translated in the narrative of Veronica Roth, in view of the exchange of the political problematic for a transfigured body.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the poetics of postmodernism and explore to what extend were the dystopian novels London Fields (1989) by Martin Amis and England, England (1998) by Julian Barnes influenced by this concept. The first part of the work deals with the biographies of the authors, dystopian features of both books and the theory of postmodernism. The second part focuses on practical analyses of both novels. In the second part, the thesis theoretically introduces various concepts of postmodernism and then practically illustrates them on the works.