Located on the interstice between Media Studies and Literary Theory, my dissertation explores the emerging genre of photo-fiction -- literary works that incorporate photographic images into the manuscripts -- and its impact on the commemoration of traumatic historical events. I argue that the way we represent and remember historical traumas is dependent on the media in which images emanating from these events are produced and circulated; put differently, the context of these images shapes our engagement with them. By examining literary works that incorporate photographs into their printed text, I explore textual and visual representations of historical trauma (such as the two World Wars, the Balkan wars of the Nineties, and 9/11). The authors whose works I analyze (Jonathan Safran Foer, Aleksandar Hemon, W.G. Sebald) grant photography a new status: the inserted images transcend traditional “authentification strategies” and draw attention to the convergence of realism and indexicality featured by these photographs. These authors’ employment of photographs from various media (television, internet, printed press, encyclopedias and archives) questions not only the technical qualities of each medium but the veracity and accuracy of evidence. Photography’s capacity to secure and store information is put radically into question, not only because the new contexts of these images, but because of the manipulations and reconfigurations the movement between media has brought about. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of the literary montage, I suggest that literature provides an apt arena to examine the reception to images. By literary montage I mean the opening up of a new dimension in which visual and verbal elements are juxtaposed, and the disjunctions and gaps between them encourage readers to become active participants in the creation of narrative. Photo-fiction’s interplay between images and texts therefore not only sheds light on the mechanics of representation, but demand from its audience to reflect on the way we interpret and respond to historical traumas in a society saturated with images.

Located on the interstice between Media Studies and Literary Theory, my dissertation explores the emerging genre of photo-fiction -- literary works that incorporate photographic images into the manuscripts -- and its impact on the commemoration of traumatic historical events. I argue that the way we represent and remember historical traumas is dependent on the media in which images emanating from these events are produced and circulated; put differently, the context of these images shapes our engagement with them. By examining literary works that incorporate photographs into their printed text, I explore textual and visual representations of historical trauma (such as the two World Wars, the Balkan wars of the Nineties, and 9/11). The authors whose works I analyze (Jonathan Safran Foer, Aleksandar Hemon, W.G. Sebald) grant photography a new status: the inserted images transcend traditional “authentification strategies” and draw attention to the convergence of realism and indexicality featured by these photographs. These authors’ employment of photographs from various media (television, internet, printed press, encyclopedias and archives) questions not only the technical qualities of each medium but the veracity and accuracy of evidence. Photography’s capacity to secure and store information is put radically into question, not only because the new contexts of these images, but because of the manipulations and reconfigurations the movement between media has brought about. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s concept of the literary montage, I suggest that literature provides an apt arena to examine the reception to images. By literary montage I mean the opening up of a new dimension in which visual and verbal elements are juxtaposed, and the disjunctions and gaps between them encourage readers to become active participants in the creation of narrative. Photo-fiction’s interplay between images and texts therefore not only sheds light on the mechanics of representation, but demand from its audience to reflect on the way we interpret and respond to historical traumas in a society saturated with images.

Disertacijoje nagrinėjamas vizualinės kultūros diskursas kaip konceptualus meninio ugdymo pamatas, aktualus šiuolaikinės kultūros ir ugdymo paradigmų kaitos kontekste. Tyrimo tikslas – atskleisti vizualinės kultūros edukacinį reikšmingumą ir ypatumus meniniame (dailiniame) ugdyme, ištirti vizualinės kultūros studijų poreikį, problemas ir perspektyvas rengiant dailės pedagogus. Tyrimo problema siejama su meninio ugdymo situacija Lietuvoje, kur vizualinės kultūros diskursas yra nauja tyrimų sritis. Disertacijoje teoriškai pagrindžiamos vizualinės kultūros ugdymo prielaidos visuose meninio ugdymo lygiuose ir per jų sąveiką. Realizuojant postmodernų meninio ugdymo turinį ypač aktuali yra dailės pedagogų kompetencijos ir pasirengimo problema. Tyrimu siekta atsakyti į klausimus, kaip vizualinės kultūros fenomenas keičia šiuolaikinio meninio ugdymo pobūdį ir lemia jo turinį, kokios dailės pedagogo kompetencijos turėtų būti plėtojamos vizualinės kultūros ir postmodernios edukacinės paradigmos kontekste, kaip dailės pedagogai yra pasirengę priimti pokyčius ir plėtoti savo kompetencijas, kokios numatomos vizualinės kultūros studijų įprasminimo perspektyvos rengiant dailės pedagogus. Dailės pedagogų ir ekspertų apklausos rezultatai patvirtino, kad meniniame ugdyme vyrauja klasikinės ir modernistinės tendencijos, nepajėgiančios aprėpti vizualinės kultūros gausos, technologijų įvairovės, atskleisti daugiakultūrinės meninės patirties, reaguoti į aktualius socialinius reiškinius... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The present dissertation deals with the discourse of visual culture as a conceptual background of art education, vital in the context of changing paradigms of culture and education. The aim of the research is to reveal the importance of visual culture in art education, to investigate the need for studies of visual culture as well as problems and perspectives of training teachers of art. The research problem is linked with the situation of art education in Lithuania, where the discourse of visual culture is a new research field. The dissertation provides a theoretical grounding of assumptions for developing visual culture on all levels of art education. In implementing visual culture in the postmodern curriculum, the problem of art teachers’ competence and preparation is of utmost importance. The research questions were as follows: what curriculum changes does visual culture bring in art education? What art teachers’ competences should be developed in the postmodern educational paradigm? How are art teachers prepared to accept visual culture in art education and what competences do they need to develop? What are the prospects of art teacher training with the developing of the concept of visual culture education? The survey of art teachers and experts in art education revealed that classical and modernist tendencies predominate in art education, unable to cover a wide field of visual culture, the variety of new technologies, the multicultural diversity of art experience, and... [to full text]

The present dissertation deals with the discourse of visual culture as a conceptual background of art education, vital in the context of changing paradigms of culture and education. The aim of the research is to reveal the importance of visual culture in art education, to investigate the need for studies of visual culture as well as problems and perspectives of training teachers of art. The research problem is linked with the situation of art education in Lithuania, where the discourse of visual culture is a new research field. The dissertation provides a theoretical grounding of assumptions for developing visual culture on all levels of art education. In implementing visual culture in the postmodern curriculum, the problem of art teachers’ competence and preparation is of utmost importance. The research questions were as follows: what curriculum changes does visual culture bring in art education? What art teachers’ competences should be developed in the postmodern educational paradigm? How are art teachers prepared to accept visual culture in art education and what competences do they need to develop? What are the prospects of art teacher training with the developing of the concept of visual culture education? The survey of art teachers and experts in art education revealed that classical and modernist tendencies predominate in art education, unable to cover a wide field of visual culture, the variety of new technologies, the multicultural diversity of art experience, and... [to full text] / Disertacijoje nagrinėjamas vizualinės kultūros diskursas kaip konceptualus meninio ugdymo pamatas, aktualus šiuolaikinės kultūros ir ugdymo paradigmų kaitos kontekste. Tyrimo tikslas – atskleisti vizualinės kultūros edukacinį reikšmingumą ir ypatumus meniniame (dailiniame) ugdyme, ištirti vizualinės kultūros studijų poreikį, problemas ir perspektyvas rengiant dailės pedagogus. Tyrimo problema siejama su meninio ugdymo situacija Lietuvoje, kur vizualinės kultūros diskursas yra nauja tyrimų sritis. Disertacijoje teoriškai pagrindžiamos vizualinės kultūros ugdymo prielaidos visuose meninio ugdymo lygiuose ir per jų sąveiką. Realizuojant postmodernų meninio ugdymo turinį ypač aktuali yra dailės pedagogų kompetencijos ir pasirengimo problema. Tyrimu siekta atsakyti į klausimus, kaip vizualinės kultūros fenomenas keičia šiuolaikinio meninio ugdymo pobūdį ir lemia jo turinį, kokios dailės pedagogo kompetencijos turėtų būti plėtojamos vizualinės kultūros ir postmodernios edukacinės paradigmos kontekste, kaip dailės pedagogai yra pasirengę priimti pokyčius ir plėtoti savo kompetencijas, kokios numatomos vizualinės kultūros studijų įprasminimo perspektyvos rengiant dailės pedagogus. Dailės pedagogų ir ekspertų apklausos rezultatai patvirtino, kad meniniame ugdyme vyrauja klasikinės ir modernistinės tendencijos, nepajėgiančios aprėpti vizualinės kultūros gausos, technologijų įvairovės, atskleisti daugiakultūrinės meninės patirties, reaguoti į aktualius socialinius reiškinius... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Seeing Subjects plots a literary history of modern Britain that begins with Dorian Gray obsessively inspecting his portrait’s changes and ends in Virginia Woolf’s visit to the cinema where she found audiences to be “savages watching the pictures.” Focusing on how literature in the late-19th and 20th centuries regarded images as possessing a shaping force over how identities are understood and performed, I argue that modernists in Britain felt mediated images were altering, rather than merely representing, British identity. As Britain’s economy expanded to unprecedented imperial reach and global influence, new visual technologies also made it possible to render images culled from across the British world—from its furthest colonies to darkest London—to the small island nation, deeply and irrevocably complicating British identity. In response, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, and others sought to better understand how identity was recognized, particularly visually. By exploring how painting, photography, colonial exhibitions, and cinema sought to manage visual representations of identity, these modernists found that recognition began by acknowledging the familiar but also went further to acknowledge what was strange and new as well. Reading recognition and misrecognition as crucial features of modernist texts, Seeing Subjects argues for a new understanding of how modernism’s formal experimentation came to be and for how it calls for responses from readers today.

Design is reemerging again as an active system of enquiry for cultural production with a wide ranging set of methods - not only to address short-term formal problems and limited functions, but as a discipline that is uniquely placed in its relations to other fields of visual culture, special settings and textual production. A new generation of designers are currently reassessing the positions within graphics, product design and architecture and picking up loose ends of progressive historic developments.

This research investigates the formation of visual as discursive practice. Discourses that celebrate, denigrate and omit visual are examined with a particular focus on discourses of the child and technology in art education. This thesis applies poststructural methodologies of discourse analysis to disrupt traditional accounts of discipline configurations determined in histories of art education. With a particular focus on Michel Foucault???s methods of history, archaeology and genealogy, art education as discipline is mapped through an investigation of visual as concept and practice. This research contends that the emergence of current practices in visual culture, as configured within the constraints of art education amplifies the conditions of visual to define art education as a field. It examines the mobilisation of discourse, verified by discipline formations in art education, and the way in which such formations distribute and categorise knowledge that is sequenced within power structures. Therefore, visual, as a discursive practice is one way through which to trace the conditions of the field, including the structure of discipline as knowledge and subject in art education.

This dissertation analyzes the performance praxis of the Mexican poet Nahui Olin (1893-1978) and the Salvadoran guerrilla leader and author Nidia Díaz (1952-). Through their self-representation in images and texts, these two women subverted the discourse of power characteristic of their respective cultural and historical contexts. Whereas Olin carried out her “corporeal activism” through defiant eroticism; Díaz did so through her stoic stance in the face of incarceration and torture. The dissertation carries out visual analyses enriched by attention to literature, and literary analyses informed by visual culture. In their respective approaches to performance these two figures engage with their sociopolitical contexts as they relate to women’s condition and the quest for spiritual liberation. The first chapter presents the dissertation’s theoretical framework. Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Elaine Scarry’s theories are crucial to understanding the concepts of body, discourse of power, performance, and pain; Gillian Rose’s approach is essential to analyzing images; Lucia Guerra-Cunningham and Rita Felski are fundamental for addressing women’s writing. The second chapter focuses on Olin’s activism, evident in her role as a “flapper,” her transgressive nude photographs and her poems written during the Mexican post-revolutionary period and which were influenced by avant-garde movements. My analysis links the key photograph I call “Nahui Olin Andrógina” with her poetry, centering on the trope of androgyny as a mystic state. The third chapter examines the naïf self-portraits and testimonio found in Díaz’s Nunca estuve sola (in 1988), which she narrates her imprisonment during El Salvador’s civil war of the 1980’s. My analysis centers on the trope of stoicism manifested in her drawing I call “Una ‘mesías’ que deviene en la madre del pueblo” as well as in the prose of her testimonio. Olin’s erotic activism and Díaz’s armed rebellion both represent attempts to achieve human liberation, including their own as oppressed women, and suggested emancipatory paths that may serve as models for others.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação é pensar a relação que se estabelece entre a palavra escrita e a imagem no trabalho da artista visual norte-americana Jenny Holzer. Desde que Holzer espalhou por Manhattan, em 1977, pôsteres anônimos contendo frases polêmicas (truísmos), seu trabalho tornou-se objeto de uma abordagem que tende privilegiar o conteúdo dos escritos em detrimento de sua forma. Esta pesquisa parte do pressuposto de que, embora o texto seja o elemento predominante na trajetória da artista, a forma cuidadosa como ela situa as palavras no espaço, costurando o visual ao discursivo, torna a experiência do espectador diferente da leitura. Na sua obra, as palavras investem-se de materialidade, cor, luz, ritmo e movimento, impondo-se tanto por sua presença quanto por seu conteúdo provocador. Esta estratégia coloca em evidência os intervalos entre palavra e imagem, conteúdo e forma, entendimento e sensibilidade, problematizando a legitimidade destes dualismos e apontando para a produção efeitos estéticos complexos que extrapolam a dimensão dos significados do texto. / [en] The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between word and image in Jenny Holzer s work. Since she has first shown her controversial Truisms on anonymous street posters pasted throughout Manhattan, in 1977, critics have been privileging the content of her writings over its form. The present essay assumes that, although written language plays a central role in her work, the careful way she situates her texts in space, intertwining the textual and the visual, makes for an experience different from reading. The words are invested of materiality, color, light, rhythm and movement, outstanding both for their own presence and for their provocative content. This strategy highlights the gaps between word and image, content and form, knowledge and sensibility, questioning the legitimacy of these dualisms and pointing toward complex aesthetic effects that go beyond the meanings of the text.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Somente poderiam advir novas formas de existência, outros modos de ser e estar no mundo, se diferentes sensibilidades também acompanhassem o desdobrar de um determinado acontecimento. Esta pesquisa tem como objeto privilegiado os acontecimentos de criação da escola na sua relação com as visibilidades de mundo, fazendo-se ela mesma em preparação e ressurgência de um acontecimento de criação. Inicialmente seria fundamental à pesquisa envolver-se nos cotidianos do colégio estudado para melhor pensar a via de preparação do acontecimento. Tal feita somente poderia adquirir sentido se o dispositivo investigativo mantivesse seus investimentos ao nível do contato com estudantes, esforçando-se por garantir a maior participação deles em diferentes aspectos da preparação, acentuando a partir de nossos encontros à potência de criação evenemencial. Ceder aos indícios durante a preparação significaria aprofundar os vínculos que mantive com a comunidade escolar. E, tendo como principal convite a fotografia, os estudantes realizaram um número significativo de imagens do colégio que, ao final de um extenso período, nos conduziu à ocupação imagética do espaço escolar. Num segundo momento a pesquisa se voltou para o modo de apreensão do acontecimento por parte de toda a comunidade em meio à ocupação do espaço escolar a partir de suas imagens. Composta por oitenta e uma fotografias do espaço escolar, a ocupação concentrou parte destas imagens em uma instalação confeccionada por fios vermelhos no centro do primeiro pavimento, distribuindo o restante delas por entre paredes, banheiros e corredores. Esta apreensão se fez compreendida pelo dispositivo sob os termos de um profundo engajamento com o campo problemático do acontecimento, tendo como índice o destino investido pelas imagens, prolongando senão os efeitos evenemenciais em franca atualização dos gestos, superfícies e visibilidades. Procurei pensar a multiplicidade de relações estabelecidas entre a comunidade escolar e as imagens fotográficas em meio à ocupação imagética realizada no colégio, tomando a sua aparição momentânea como acontecimento de criação, assim como a ressurgência de outras visibilidades presididas em seus contextos. Para tanto, pesquisa precisou se tornar esta íntima criação de uma obra de aprendizagem. / New forms of existence and other ways of being in the world could be only arised if different sensibilities also accompanied the unfolding of a specific happening. This research has the privileged object the school creating happenings in their relations with the world visibilities, doing by itself on preparation and resurgence of a creative happening. Initially it would be fundamental to research engage in the school everyday life studied in order to think of the happening preparation way. This made sense if the investigative dispositive kept its investments at the level of contact with students, striving to ensure most participation of them in different aspects of preparation, accentuating from our meetings to happenings creation potency. Yield to the traces during the preparation means deepen the bonds that I had with the school community. And, with the main invitation to photography, the students held a significant number of school pictures that, at the end of a long period, led us to imagetic occupation of the school space. Secondly, the research turned to the apprehension modes of the happening by the whole community through the occupation of school space by their images. Composed of eighty-one photographs of the school environment, the occupation concentrated of these images in a prepared installation by red wires in the center of the first floor, distributing the rest of them through walls, bathrooms and hallways. This apprehension was made understood by the dispositive under the terms of a deep engagement with the problematic field of the happening, tanking the destination invested by the images as a multiplicity of traces, but extending the happening effects in a free update of gestures, surfaces and visibilities. I tried to think the multiplicity of relations between the school community and the images through the imagetic occupation accomplished at the school, taking his momentary appearance as a creation happening, as well as the resurgence of other visibilities presided in their contexts. Therefore, research had to make this intimate creating of a work of learning.