This extended essay explores a historical investigation into the connections between women and machines, particularly focusing on the traditionally gendered processes of sewing, weaving and other processes deemed ‘handicrafts’ and how they parallel techniques in the evolution of the technologies we recognise today. Within this relationship, the nature of these acts to provide comfort is investigated and related to the practice of art making. This historical lineage is examined in the present day where digital and electronic technologies impact everyday life and cause new a brand of anxieties that require a fresh approach to healing and soothing. Through the analysis of this research my practical input and output are informed and result in the development of an installation of objects that examine the electronic object and how it can be imbued with or reflect these realities.

This exegesis tells the story of my Master of Design project, Embarrassment of Riches. During this project I have gleaned obsolete furniture pieces and operated on them to present new possibilities. This text discusses the body of work I have created in the context of three main ideas: the use of gleaning, intervention and the role played by memory in rekindling desire. I have focussed on making in a heuristic, research-through-design practice, testing ideas through making/reflecting and then developing my ideas further in new pieces. Combining this actionresearch method with bricolage has enabled me to critically self-reflect on my practice. Through this I have discovered that I can continue to design and create objects in an age of overproduction and consumption. With ecological considerations in mind I can make obsolete objects desirable (again) by encouraging people to feel intimate with them. I intervene in the objects’ interstices to suggest histories that kindle engagement and attachment. The interstice has been a rich source of inspiration, not only as site of intervention, but as site where experimentation occurs, a process by which objects are found and a space where new genres develop.

This thesis explores the epistemological shift in my photographic practice from an ethnographic position to that of surrealist documentary. In charting this shift I have consider the use of documentary photography by the historical Surrealist movement ,and, the synthesis of surrealism and ethnography found in the English group Mass- Observation. The photograph’s oscillation between indexical record and mystical emanation forms a key position in understanding these two groups belief in the found images ability to describe a repressed reality located in the mass unconscious. Drawing on the Lacanian model of the Real used by Slavoj Zizek as a tool of cultural critique I suggest a new framework for a surrealist documentary practice. In bringing the methodology of the early Surrealists into a contemporary context I consider the position of suburbia as a new terrain vague in relationship to the fantasy of the Real.

Temporal Landscapes is a research project concerned with culture-nature relations in the context of contemporary industrial land use in New Zealand; explored visually through the photographic representation and presentation of gold mining sites – former, current and prospective – in the Hauraki region. In the current period of industrial capitalism, featuring the mass exploitation of natural resources, nature is commonly thought of as subservient to humankind. This stance, with its origin in scientific ideology of the 17th Century, is interesting to consider in relation to contemporary notions of landscape, and the ‘ideal’ in nature. In New Zealand, a balance is being sought between interests of sustainability and conservation, and of industry and economy. This is not to say that industry opposes environmental safeguards; in contrast, sustainable management including the rehabilitation of land post-industrialisation is integral to modern mining practice in New Zealand. With this emphasis on controlled industrial progress, two key factors emerge. Firstly, this level of control implicates itself as a utopian vision, and secondly, industrialisation is advocated as a temporary situation, with industrial land as transitory, on the path to rehabilitation. The research question of Temporal Landscapes asks; in considering contemporary industrial land use in New Zealand within a utopian framework – focussing specifically on gold mining in the Hauraki Region – has our ideal in nature become that of a controlled, even post-industrial, landscape? The photographic representation of these sites offers a means to explore and express their visual temporality. With the expectation of industrial sites as fleeting and rehabilitated sites as static utopias, it would seem that this industrial process is a kind of contemporary ideal. Presented as a flickering projection piece, 23 Views. (Prospective gold mining site, Golden Valley, Hauraki, 2008 / Martha gold mine and Favona gold mine, Waihi, Hauraki, 2008), and a set of selectively lit prints, Untitled I. (Garden, pit rim walkway, Martha gold mine, Waihi, Hauraki, 2008), Untitled II. (View of pit, former Golden Cross gold mine, Waitekauri Valley, Hauraki, 2008), and Untitled III. (View of water treatment pond, former Golden Cross gold mine, Waitekauri Valley, Hauraki, 2008), they act as landscapes of partial comprehension.

In memory of cats: The camera and the ordinary moment looks at the way in which families use photographs to remember the past. Photography’s offer of memory is limited to a visual trace, so strategies of oral telling are examined to interrogate the way in which memories can be recovered from photographs. Martha Langford’s study of the similarities between structures in oral culture and the photograph album and Annette Kuhn’s strategies for reading family photographs in a broader historical context, are used to examine and recover memories from my own photographic archive. Using moving image to record those memories and then tell how that photographic evidence has shaped my present, is a process suggested by Linda Williams in her writing about how postmodern documentary can use the past to intervene in the present. Other documentary styles, performative documentary and the essay film, offer a structure for personal memories to be revisited and re-presented to public viewers. Offering a space for personal or specific memories to be understood or related to by a viewer is discussed by Lisa Saltzman, who looks at indexical forms other than the photograph, like casting and tracing. These ideas culminated in my video work, A Clowder of Cats, which explores the losses that have been a part of my history, through photographs of the cats my family has owned. The camera gives us a strategy to remember moments that may otherwise have been forgotten, and moving image provides a space for those ordinary moments to be bought back to the present.

This study sets out to explore and test the application of narrative and personification to the interface design and user experience of a search engine. The motivational and collaborative aspects of a search agent narrative will be examined and tested as a technique for increasing the volume and quality of data submitted to an open-content search engine by its users.

Researching through design, this thesis explores the implementation of an online kit as a means through which the postmodern individual can participate in the creative processes of home sewing. Through the development of a knowledge network that is built on co-creation, a new approach to the traditional producer/consumer relationship is investigated. This network is used to encourage the fulfilment of self through the process of re-creation, while targeting the contemporary consumer by combining electronic resources and social networking with the hands-on nature of creative process.

Being Local; a sense of place - details a journey during which I explore the notion that one aspect of art is seen best as a local activity, with the artist exploring his/her sense of place. Reading of relevant texts, and research of the conceptual basis of the notion, resulted in written and visual works. The writing records selected aspects of my thinking, detailing arrivals and discoveries, the development of art objects. Ultimately the research suggests that a sense of place is unfinished business; an ongoing process, a constant part of any vernacular or local activity. ‘Place’ is a story to be told and retold, a relationship constantly being renewed. Specifically, the story told here is from my own past to arrival in the settlement of Gladstone where I live on a three acre farmlet. That farmlet is the particular site in which I have carried out work exploring my thesis during 2007. The idea that art works are intrinsically local, inherently determined by my relationship with the place where I work, is an important part of the story. The acting of creating, is one of many relationships entwined in stories without which there can be no place to have a sense of. Another is the sharing of food. I have combined both the making of objects, and the sharing of food, as relational activities expressing ‘know how’, an art project.

The familiar computer graphic user interface (GUI) makes extensive use of visually representative devices such as folders and files. These symbols help the user deal with computer data and operations that otherwise have little or no physical form. The computer’s underlying complexity is symbolised for the user, who is then able to manipulate the computer by interacting directly with the interface. The early development of computer interface design was largely the domain of software and hardware developers. Many sound principles of user interaction and testing were established and provided essential guidance for new generations of interface designers. As computer technology and its tools became more widely available, a broader range of designers began contributing, including those from product design and visual communication. This study is written from the point of view of a “visual designer” – a designer who began his career in graphic design and who has moved towards interface design out of curiosity and a desire to proffer a different attitude and approach to interface issues. The study therefore will demonstrate a design process that many visual designers will be able to identify with. The process includes research, analysis, methodical progression and artistic inspiration. The artistic inspiration in this case comes from the Constructivist artist El Lissitzky, and will illustrate the significant contribution that art can make to interface design. This art-influenced design process was presented at the 2005 Ed-Media World Conference on Educational Multimedia, (Montreal, 2005). The enthusiastic response and discussion provided encouragement to continue in this direction. In the following year another presentation, which included the working prototype, was presented as part of a keynote speaker presentation at the 2006 Siggraph Taipei Conference, National Chiao Tung University, Taipei. The specific task chosen to work with in this study is that of Web browser history. As a user browses the Web the computer records a list of visited websites. The first few generations of browsers presented this information as a simple list, but this approach incorporated many flaws and caused problems for users. More recent browsers provide more options, but significant issues remain. This study offers solutions to several of these problems. The resulting design prototype is named “isoBrowser”. It is the result of the alternative design process outlined above and offers alternative methods of visualising, organising and manipulating data. The prototype is not intended to be fully functional nor “live”. However, it is sufficiently operable so as to test interface interaction and user response. A fully functional version, operably and aesthetically complete, would be the subject of further development.

Since the first gold-seekers arrived in New Zealand in the 1860s, Chinese have been regarded as outsiders to discussions of national identity. Colonial representations of otherness have left Chinese longing to be recognised as established settlers. Fresh interpretations are much needed to align myth with the longstanding realities of settlement. The absence of a recognisable Chinatown in New Zealand has meant that many of the Chinese customs inherited from the first settlers are observed in private within the family home. This condition coupled with emerging research and exposure on the topic offers a chance to define Chinese spaces and author Chinese stories from within a local community. This research project interrogates the transformation of Cantonese settlers into Chinese New Zealanders through illustration design. By claiming the book as a space, unsung moments of settlement are made visible to challenge stereotypes and forge a new space for Chinese New Zealand stories. The process of collage is used to illustrate the complexities of constructing identity. Home Made is an alternative cultural history told through visual metaphor. Gold was responsible for first transforming the sojourner into the settler, the bowl is used to mediate tradition between home and enterprise in settlement, while the lantern illuminates and celebrates local Chinese spaces. Brought out from home kitchens and backrooms of family businesses, these artefacts represent a longstanding Chinese presence. Home Made activates these metaphors to structure an argument for the longevity and contemporary significance of Chinese settlement in New Zealand.