An Honourable Practice is a cohesive study of the operative and ethical framework around the role of the artist and printmaker. The research project uses the artist’s prints as a strategy for social engagement, drawing on the dynamic between a personal vision and the collective, which seems to arise in printmaking as a practice of multiples. The exploration is a practice based PhD. A dialogic and collaborative process is key to contributing to a socially engaged and efficacious method weaving an individual creative praxis with theory. A methodology emerges supported by intentions to engage with causes broader than the artist’s individual experiences. Concepts such as paradigmatic particularity, politi-kitsch, alienation, empathetic connection, relational aesthetics and ethno-mimesis inform the practice, cross-referenced throughout the text in a Glossary of Terms. Primary research instigates a series of project-based case studies, each building on preceding understandings and findings. Case studies span the representation of slavery, human rights, freedom, racial hatred, and identity and property ownership. These frame the practice, while a personal narrative runs parallel to the experimentation. The practice of artist and activist Iris de Leeuw, with whom I worked closely, and the ideas of LUUKS contribute to the assessment and development of a model of socially engaged practice. Secondary research draws on the history of print and an evaluation of a range of pictorial strategies. Contextually relevant images and my own work are presented as Plates in the accompanying Volume II and cross-referenced as Figures throughout the text. This thesis interrogates the concept of An Honourable Practice and aims to contribute to the current debate on the efficacy of art beyond its commodity value. It seeks its social value and a way for the individual practitioner to ethically position them self in relation to their own creativity and to a wider, collaborative audience. The case studies build to a model of practice that finds form in the project The Longest Print. A Five Step Strategy is then identified to be of value to other practitioners in the field who want to disseminate a socially engaged method to academics, artists and decision makers. This consists of: identifying objectives, instigating preparatory activities, organising public engagement, conducting reflection and cross-disciplinary dissemination, and embedding the knowledge in personal practice by making artists prints. The strategy offers a pragmatic and inclusive approach to the complexity of a fine art social practice.

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Crossed disparity causes objects to appear in ‘close-up double vision’, due to their close proximity to an observer. Close-up double vision occurs because the viewers’ eyes cannot converge on an object that is too close to them without strain, causing disparate images of the object to be projected onto each retina which cannot be fused into a single image in depth by the brain. Close-up double vision is an often unnoticed aspect of seeing for anyone who has two eyes, and a familiar example is the observers’ nose appearing either side of their visual field. However, there are very few explicit examples of the effects of close-up double vision recorded in artworks. This research aims to address the overlooked phenomenon of close-up double vision in artworks, and my original contribution to knowledge is the development of a method of perspective for depicting this subjective visual experience.

Public art has undergone somewhat of a renaissance over the last 20 years, with now over 70% of urban planning authorities including policies for artwork. With this renaissance, public art has moved into the realm of urban design and regeneration, with advocates claiming public art helps in developing a sense of place, identity and community. Public art is also attributed to functioning as a landmark for improving legibility and navigating. Yet popular press would have us believe that people are somewhat disgruntled with their public art. As the voices of the public are fundamentally absent from critical literature, this study seeks to address this gap through two main questions firstly, the extent to which the advocacies for public art relate to the attitudes held by the public and, secondly, the degree to which public art functions as a landmark by residents. In addressing these questions, research was undertaken in Harlow, a new town that has integrated public art in its planning. Resident attitudes were collected through questionnaires followed by two focus groups. This study shows a clear appreciation of local artist Henry Moore, whose sculptures were felt to give something unique to Harlow. Yet the proliferation of 'parachute' art was believed to limit public art's ability to create a sense of place. Residents found it hard to relate to more abstract public artwork, placing value in sculptures that reflected the town's history in order to develop a sense of identity. The study also shows the value placed by residents in participation in the creative process of their public artwork in developing a sense of community. Finally, the study reveals that public art in general is poorly used as a landmark in navigating. Yet certain sculptures did contribute to Harlow's legibility, mainly those with strong associations, form and a contrasting, prominent spatial location.

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The virtual performance is a form of art that simultaneously develops with information technology, as IT provides the flexibility to develop sophisticated design Systems for the artist. Moreover, the intrinsic relationship between art and technology is apparent from the concluding research results. This research aimed to investigate the aesthetical value of VEs performances. The purpose of the study was to confront the location of aesthe tics in VEs. The qualitative method was employed due to the attempt to control the investigated objective. Literature review was employed due to the necessity to understand the VEs aesthetic phenomena in their entirely for developing a complete picture of the research field. Case studies and observation were mainly used because of the type of research conducted. The resulting findings were taken into consideration or rejected through interviews with creators of virtual performances. The research took place in three stages. The first step was to determine the research aims and objectives. The second, was to design the research plan which was divided along three basic axes. The first refers to the historical review and development of visual arts in order to determine the characteristics of the investigated art form. The second axis was the comprehension of the aesthetics that are produced via the determined characteristics. More specifically, these are interactivity, the interrupted flow of information and the audience participation. The third stage was the attempt to identify the elements that characterise a virtual performance. How the artist can handle the interactive element and- create conditions of immersion for his audience. The manifesto of virtual performances was created through the course of research and the analysis of the findings that belong to the third stage, which also includes the data analysis. Another element that also emerged was of the audience's interaction with the performance's development. This element, is in itself a product of aesthetics that has a great influence on the progression pf the thought processes of the audiences that interact with a virtual performance. The creator requires a spectator that is an active participant in order to develop the performance's plot. This does not indicate that the creator can manipulate the audience as a tool because each spectator has his own thoughts and critical evaluations. The spectator simply handles and combines according to his choices the elements that the artist offers so that he can project and co-create the performance's plot. The more the spectator experiences virtual performances through his interaction, the more lie will gain knowledge and freedom which will result in virtual performances to offer a larger selection and more powerful experiences. Besides, this art form is still in its embryonic stage and its maturity promises even greater developments.

The purpose of my research is to investigate the relationship between crisis of meaning and crisis of form in art production, fruition and critique. This investigation is grounded on notions present in historic and contemporary nihilism, materialism and existentialism that state that a crisis inevitably occurs, through enlightenment, in the relationship between self-image and realist and scientific principles. I want to extract the word crisis from vagueness and pathology, and argue that it can serve to describe a hidden trinity at the centre of art – there is a crisis of meaning, a crisis of form, and a crisis in the relation between meaning and form, each time a new work is set forth. My understanding of nihilism attempts an extraction from ethics, and puts nihilism against previous roles given to it. The philosophical approach present in nihilism has been used either as a byword for the enemy of reason, or as a dark background against which affirmation (Nietzsche), creative evolution (Bergson), or existentialism (Sartre) can shine. It is my purpose to explore the notion of crisis of meaning as the essence of nihilism (Ray Brassier), and overview its active ramifications in art. The field of form can be seen as immanently enacting a split between project and world (Bataille) – a split that runs parallel to crisis of meaning in philosophy. It is central to my research to investigate the locus of this crisis, in its relation to contextual crises, be it personal (psychosis), political (revolution), social, and crisis in the very set of criteria brought about in each instance of art. The written element will consist of twelve short chapters with as many incursions into particular instances where the notion of crisis of meaning is set to bring new clarity to pre-existing fields, from critical terrains to specific media and art history. The practical element will deal with notions of crisis of meaning and form, as well as with personal crisis, and will take the form of narratives about extreme states of being and the ends of narrative (comic books).

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The representation of the female body at the centre of a number of art practices of the 1990s reveals a radical problematisation of sex. What constitutes the body as sexed? What is the sex of the female body? Is the female body the body of 'woman'? This thesis argues that these are some of the questions raised by the work of a loose group of artists who came to prominence in the 1990s, such as Rist, McCarty, Yuskavage and Beecroft, and whose work was largely excluded from the field of feminist art. Our claim is that the work of these artists requires that it be critically understood as a specific intervention within the field of feminist art and criticism. The fundamental question at the root of the thesis concerns the precise nature of the female body and its relation to sex and sexual difference. Our discussion is positioned outside both biology - where sexual difference is determined by the function in reproduction - and sociology, where the highlighting of the inequality of the social manifestations of sexual difference leaves the principle of the binary organisation of sex unexamined. Our argument is located within the field of feminist art criticism, and more specifically, the feminist critique of representation, and so, it is in terms of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, which provided the conceptual tools for this critique, that the specific problematic as regards the nature of the female body, which the practices discussed pinpoint, is addressed. The thesis investigates Lacan's conceptualisation of sexuatian as neither a biological nor a sociological category and argues that it provides an articulation of sex, based on the fundamental principle that 'there is no sexual relation', which leads not to a theory of sexual differentiation, but to an articulation of two possibilities of 'jouissance', the latter being that in terms of which the sexed body is produced. In engaging with the representation of the female body in the relevant art practices from the 1990s in terms of this conception of the body produced by sexuation, this thesis argues that these practices present a radical problematisation of sex. It is in terms of this fundamental feminist exercise of critically engaging with the meaning and nature of sex that their intervention within the field of feminist art and criticism must be understood.

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