The aim of this research project is to investigate the practical application of some ideas regarding how dancers can create certain types of mental images that are formed through their kinesthetic perception, which we shall define as ‘kinesthetic images’, and to study the spatial or geometric structures that are often utilized in choreographic and pedagogical dance praxis. The term kinesthetic image is a label for a certain types of mental imagery that are generated through the sensation of moving body, as well as dynamic qualities that are kinesthetically perceived from movement. Dancers can create mental images from these type of kinesthetic experiences by enhancing their sensory awareness and sensorimotor knowledge, which are both innate and acquired through training. My dance practice also concerns a development of an improvisation method in which dancers explore an interaction between these kinesthetic images and a visualization of morphodynamic volume (hereafter MDV), which is a three-dimensional volume in a constant state of flux. The term intensive space will be introduced to give a definition to this related type of spatial categorization, one which involves continuous and dynamic transformations of both danced space and the images associated with it, such as stretching, folding and connectivity. This spatial paradigm will be contrasted with its opposite, namely extensive spaces or geometries, which involve the division and subdivision of danced space in terms of metric properties like points, lines, and planes. The first chapter is a review of how choreographically structured movement has been historically conceived and created using spatial concepts and imagery which involve the spatial structures of these types of extensive geometries. This historical analysis commences during the Enlightenment, at a time when the aesthetics and basic movement vocabulary of classical ballet were in a state of genesis. The discussion of geometric paradigms in dance practice continues through this chapter chronologically through to modernity, looking at the characteristics of the choreographic practices of George Balanchine, Rudolf Laban, Merce Cunningham, and William Forsythe. The second chapter discusses the Improvisation Technologies conceived by Forsythe as a paradigmatic example of the utilization of kinesthetic images and extensive geometry for the purposes of movement creation during dancers’ improvisation. This analysis of Forsythe’s methodology brings forth with it questions as to how choreographic praxis can utilize intensive space as an alternative geometric paradigm with which dancers can interact for the generation of movement. This discussion is rooted in some theoretical elements, such as phenomenology, the philosophy of perception, cognitive science, and mathematical topology, which creates a theoretical foundation for an improvisational practice that suggests intensive spatial structure as an alternative ideational mechanism for movement generation. The third chapter is a documentation of the chronological development of a pedagogical improvisation method, based on these concepts of kinesthetic imagery and intensive spatial structuring. For the purposes of investigating both choreographic and pedagogical aspects, an extensive period of practice-based research resulted in the production of two improvisatory performances entitled Mix:01 and Mix:02. These performances are discussed and are coupled with the critical observation of the preceding series of studio sessions. Both the performances and the creative processes that led to them are subsequently analysed for the purposes of isolating effective practice.

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In 1946, Monroe C. Beardsley and W. K. Wimsatt published an article, “The Intentional Fallacy,” which objected to the critical practice of treating claims about an artist as claims about her work. Thus was inaugurated what today is known as the intentionalism debate. I begin by offering a certain conception of the debate—not quite a novel conception, for it corresponds more or less to what Beardsley and Wimsatt took themselves to be doing, but one which, in recent decades, has increasingly been supplanted by something very different. I argue for the priority of this original conception, which is concerned primarily with the language and norms of criticism, over the more recent conceptions which focus on analyses of meaning. I then propose a view which defends the artist’s relevance against the objections of Beardsley and Wimsatt, so understood. The interest of my view lies in its circumvention of what many have (incorrectly) thought essential to the position to which Beardsley and Wimsatt were objecting.

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This PhD by practice comprises a body of work accompanied by written critical commentary. A six part collage composition produced over a period of three years is the core of this project, dimensions 4900 x 1524 mm. The research project interrogates creative studio practice with the specific intention of articulating the artistic thinking of collagegrids and to present this to a wider audience. Identified as mutually exclusive or conflicting discourses in the history of art, grids and collage exist in parallel, each having its own discourse, strategy and associations. This PhD project investigates the interplay between collage and grids in collagegrids practice, interrogating the through of thinking through art, where the insights lie in how they function together, in the how rather than the what of art practice. The project methodology is hybrid, employing Active Documentation of the PhD iteration of collagegrids to record the processes, theoretical, personal and practical involved in a ‘complexity of overlap’ of practice. It utilises contextual study with which to elucidate the mode of constructive composition at the crux of collagegrids and to situate the practice and its conceptual framework in the wider field of knowledge. The project, collagegrids: thinking it through argues for a materially anchored thinking process, a non-linear logic of association, where meaning lies in the links and connections made in resolving tensions that arise in the juxtaposition of difference. This argument is made by testing theories of cognition through the new domain of collagegrids. By correlating existing research methods the project forms a new paradigm for artistic research, which recognises both empirical and embodied philosophies, and uses a connective model in the presentation of the exegesis. Finally it articulates a fundamentally constructive way of world-making, introducing to the linguistically based theory of metaphor, a materially anchored cognitive processing of artwork, which is a new contribution to thinking and telling the cognition of creative practice.

In this study I aim to see if writing can enhance visual arts practice. Much UK Quality Assurance Agency and Higher Education visual arts documentation recommends risk, as do many practitioners. I hypothesise that very short, tightly-structured essays will foster risk by combining radical format, content demand and writing’s esteem. I experimented with essays by Foundation visual arts students at Coventry University in 2011. Half the group was assigned a short essay as above, the other half a 1,000-word, conventional essay. Both groups had the same essay topic choices; both were taught in the same way as far as possible; both assignments were individual. Practice-based presentations took place shortly after the essays, and students were advised of potential connections between the tasks. Quantitative data was taken from all essay and presentation grades; qualitative data from essay drafts, questionnaires and interviews with selected 128-word essay students. The grades show the 128-word essay students slightly outperforming the others. Four themes emerged from the qualitative data: provisional meaning, risk, practice parallels and project process. Drafts and questionnaires showed improvisation and keen engagement; interviews (loosely following Bryman’s ‘unstructured’ model) considered content, form, convention, risk and transferability of writing to practice. The main problems students faced when writing the short essays were how to say enough and how to mix tradition with innovation. There was evidence that some students connected the short essay with their practice – but to connect is not necessarily to enhance. The short essays were very diverse, some radically inventive, others less so – yet the study recommends caution when rethinking traditional writing assignments because some students respect traditional writing, and may find the extreme form of the very short essay patronising unless it can promise more. The study’s contribution to knowledge is to promise more by making writing a metaphor for practice and evaluated as such, taking writing beyond mimicking or analysing practice. The study also induced a supporting theory that absolutes and variables need careful balance, extending the bisociative notion of mixing tradition with innovation. The study showed that these short essays could enhance practice by fostering risk, but also that risk is very variable. This questions how such risks are evaluated, and even whether an enforced risk is a risk at all, and not just ingenuity. The thesis has six chapters: Introduction; Literature review; The short story in visual arts practice; The short essay in action; Student responses; Conclusion. Appendices contain three associated papers and all drafts with comments, questionnaires with responses, and full interview transcripts annotated to demonstrate emerging themes and connections to research questions. The study draws on reader-response as a theoretical framework, and is informed by the study of visual arts academic writing, risk-taking in visual arts practice, Koestler’s bisociative understanding of creativity, provisional meaning and the short story.

The following portfolio of sonic artworks and accompanying commentary comprises creative and theoretical research undertaken between 2008 and 2012. Alongside a portfolio and commentary of sonic artworks, it will also feature an exposition of the theoretical concepts that have propelled and informed their creation. At the centre of the research is the development of an integrated theoretical and creative practice in sonic art. I will discuss the context that has led me, as a creative practitioner, to question the nature of the dynamic relationships that potentially operate between both sonic and physical media and the perceptive occupant that inhabits the artwork. The concept of a tri-polar dynamic forms the theoretical crux of this project. It outlines the potential for the perceptive occupant to play a completing role within the portfolio of sonic artworks: a kinetic activation of dormant syncretic potential held within the artistic materials. Influenced by the philosophical models of Nattiez, Kramer, Merleau-Ponty, Delueze and Guattari, the works also explore satellite topics of temporality, the internal monologue and phenomenology. The commentary outlines the creative processes involved in the development of the artworks focussing in particular on how they embody and activate aspects of the tri-polar dynamic. The overarching aim of the research is the development of an integrated approach of both a theoretical and creative exploration of a selfreferential theme: the dynamic relationships between myself as the sonic artist, the creative media with which I work and the perceptive occupant.

書名據書背. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學. / Shu ming ju shu bei. / Manuscript. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 384-404). / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue. / Chapter 一 --- 古詩 --- p.1 / Chapter 二 --- 古詩 --- p.9 / Chapter 三 --- 古詩 --- p.34 / Chapter 四 --- 古詩 --- p.62 / Chapter 五 --- 古詩 / Chapter 六 --- 古詩 / Chapter 七 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 八 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 九 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十一 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十二 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十三 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十四 --- 近體詩 / Chapter 十五 --- 外編 / Chapter 十六 --- 附錄: 主要參考書目

This thesis takes as its point of departure Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s conceptualization of art. Art for them is the expression of A Life in the living. A Life is the ontological and genetic condition of that which we are and ordinarily experience, it is the vital and material transcendental plane of immanence which characterizes Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology. Their conceptualization of art, however, sits uncomfortably with contemporary art in rejecting conceptual and photographic practices, and in its radical rejection of human experience. The aim of this thesis is to expand their conceptualization of art whilst remaining close to what is argued to be its core or essence: a commitment to A Life. This thesis explores three paradigms of commitment to A Life that move beyond the paradigm of A Life in the living. These paradigms are developed through the application of concepts developed by Deleuze and Guattari to contemporary mediums and artworks, with the aim of broadening the relevance of their philosophy for contemporary artistic practices. Deleuze and Guattari’s aesthetics is analyzed and expanded through an engagement with works by Francis Bacon, Thomas Struth, Pierre Huyghe, Francis Alÿs and Peter Doig. By finding a commonality between these artists in their commitment to A Life, this thesis hopes to develop a conceptualization of art which allows us to understand how contemporary art practices engage with A Life, the infinite inside which we live and which lives inside us.

The human voice is significant to culture and communication and its agency differs across the heterogeneous discourses within which it is listened to and produced. This thesis assesses what the voice does in Fine Art practice where it is under-theorised but often used by artists. The research questions are: how does a voice register as a material and an object (physical material presence), rather than equating only to the subject who produces it? And how can an artist produce a direct address with their voice? The thesis examines the nature of direct vocal address in Fine Art practice with the installation Trialogue (2013) and with the discussion of case studies that privilege the voice. Trialogue uses three screens to emphasise the action of voices and vocal genres. Four single screen video works are played over three screens during which the audience hears a jazz singer, children and my voice. We are familiar with our voices presenting our selves, but in Fine Art practice the voice is reproduced, and behaves as a material and object. Artworks and theories divide around the reduction and parameters of voice as production of a human subject and as an object in the material world. Therefore the voice is described with a combination of phenomenological, psychoanalytical and cultural theories. The thesis critically examines theories of Dolar (2006), Ihde (2007), Sperber and Wilson (1995), and Bakhtin (1986) in relation to the phenomenon of the voice in Fine Art practice. The thesis describes how the genre, physical space, consequences of reproduction, and action of listening are emphasised by critical Fine Art practice. Bakhtin describes all utterance as having a genre, and phenomenological theories relate voice to perceptual hierarchy and its relationship with the visual realm. The voice is described as a partial object in psychoanalytical theory. The idea of palimpsest is used as a partial space to situate the object voice. The chapters theorise the voice in Fine Art practice as: object and reproduction; the relationship voices have with images in moving image art practice; and the voice and self.