This thesis explores certain ways m which contemporary artists are using methodologies of sound (recording, editing, manipulating and installation) to ask philosophical and material questions about the spatio-temporal physicality of place and our perceptions of it. It focuses primarily on the practice of three artists who have each been interviewed by the author. The artists were selected for the diverse and resonant ways in which their work interrogates the interplay between sound, spatial experience and the visual. While the works are principally sound-based, there are crucial visual components that heighten the physical engagement of the listening body. The concept of the visual has a broad reference here, and is instantiated by both mediated and actual spaces. These examples will range from works where sound and video imagery are spatially composed as installation (Jacob Kirkegaard) to soundwalks where the participant undertakes semi-directed journey around specific city locations in order to listen in on invisible electromagnetic fields (Christina Kubisch). Focusing upon an analysis of the use of sound mirroring and convolution reverberation, the thesis identifies and explores a series of 'tropes' relating to sonic art practices. It also contrasts material and cultural theorisation of sound art practice arising out of a recent, very public debate between artist! theorist Seth Kim-Cohen and philosopher Christoph Cox - attempting a synthesis of what is valuable in each of these positions. Ultimately a diverse range of sonic art practices, their technological paraphernalia, and the materialist ontology that is often used to contextualise these practices are positioned in ritualistic terms, as a secular means of amplifying the significance or sacredness of culturally resonant spaces. This reading of sonic art practice is developed out of reflection upon the themes and tensions between rumour, narrative and materiality that I recognise as conditioning much of my own practice. Partly as a means of supporting this position, original readings of works by Lucier, Kirkegaard and Kubisch are formulated.

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This historiographical thesis charts an aspect of the complex transition from pop to later appropriation art associated with the 1980s by examining forerunners of appropriation in the period from the emergence of pop's logic of serial repetition to the beginnings of 'pictures' in the mid- to late 1970s and their places in the relevant art-historical narratives. In view ofthe fact that the principal genealogies of appropriation have been conceptualist ones, this thesis reappraises the role of pop by considering readyrnade imagery, image.multiplication and the participatory aspects of Andy Warhol's Factory production in particular as enabling conditions for early appropriators Elaine Sturtevant and Richard Pettibone, who applied pop's serial logic to pop imagery itself and who marked out its divergent implications in the process. While I interpret Pettibone's pursuit of pop's simulacral aspects as a form of nostalgic prolonging related to photorealism and liken his small-scale, carefully crafted copies to souvenirs, I conceive of Sturtevant's performative practice of repetition as a way of abbreviating processes of production and of her works as conceptualist catalysts. If carrying forward pop's logic of serial repetition in neither case amounted to a systematic critique of modernist originality, the fictitious artist Hank: Herron, who was the subject of a hoax review in an anthology of conceptual art and who could appear modelled on Sturtevant specifically, entered the stage readily theorized in a way that anticipated the poststructuralist discourse of the copy and thus signalled a point of transition in the narratives. I propose that Sturtevant's practice of repetition still had a critical edge and show how its recent rediscovery was ironically channelled through a European reception context in which the initial closeness of her practice to pop did not compromise its perceived critical import. If the notion of 'appropriation' is commonly associated with the 'pictures generation' and if the deconstructive capacity of 'pictures' has been secured in the literature by way of reference to a conceptualist lineage conceived predominantly in terms of institutional critique, this thesis broadens the narratives by inserting precedents starting from pop.

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The thesis discusses the development of my artistic research in relation to the critique of the ocularcentric Western philosophical tradition developed by twentieth century French thought, as referred to by Martin Jay and Amelia Jones. The work reviews the positions of both authors with respect to the relationship between Lacan's Mirror Stage and Gaze and Merleau-Ponty's Chiasm or Intertwining, within two areas of investigation: the self and strategies for its engagement with the external world. The research was conducted by adopting an evolutionary approach, which allowed me to test hypotheses through artistic experimentation. The structure of the thesis encompasses these two theoretical discussions in relation to my artistic practice, fully presented in the enclosed cd-rom. The first discussion, in Part I and II analyses the Mirror Stage and the emerging of the self, its psychological implications and manifestations in the history of art, with particular emphasis on self-portraiture, the performative self, Body Art and my own production. In Part III, the concept of Chiasm/Intertwining - developed from the notions of visuality and Gaze - is discussed in relation to inter-subjectivity in Body Art. The issue of the interaction between artist/audience and environment is also investigated in my most recent artworks, which question the primacy of vision over the other senses. I believe my original contribution to be both in the content of the artworks and the methodology adopted, rather than at theoretical level. By adopting a set strategy in the creation of my work, I challenged the static artist-audience relationship implicit in the one-way perception of representations based on central-focus perspective. My hypothesis, which encompasses a two-way artist-audience interaction, was first tested in the body of work I produced in 1999. The theoretical argument of chiasmatic intertwining I subsequently developed, allowed me to place my practice within the antiocularcentric discourse and confirmed the direction undertaken in the practice to be satisfactory. The validity of my initial hypothesis was further confirmed by the participation of the audience in aspects of the art making process of the recent videolive installations.

This practice-based research examines the developments in site-specific art since 1960's. Its purpose is to critically explore the influence of patronage and the role of the artist on practices within this field and it has been achieved by adopting a binary strategy, which combines "research into art" with "research through art." (Frayling 1993:5). This has involved the construction of an individually tailored methodological framework consisting of a textual examination of historical case-studies conducted in conjunction with the organisation and running of practical projects (the BT/Cellnet Farnham Library Garden & Picnic projects). Devised both as site-specific ventures and as case-studies, these projects broadly encompass three distinctive historical modes of site-specific art - Formal/Object-based, Community-based and Performative - which have successively emerged to predominance over the past fifty years or therabouts. The aim was to produce empirical comparisons in order to reflexively investigate the ways in which patronage, coupled with the role played by the artist impacted on the form and content of site-specific art.

This dissertation concerns the socio-cultural politics expressed in the performances of Matthew Barney, Steven Cohen, Marina Abramovic, and the ‘Pop’ artist Madonna. The contention is that these artists mirror and dramatize marginalization and seem to reflect a desire to resolve conflicts experienced between social and psychological identities in contemporary society. The premise of this study is that these performers engage in a ‘dialogue’ with viewers as a form of self-preservation and self-healing. The Performance artists’ measure of socio-cultural tensions suggests the merging of mass media entertainment, theatrical devices and other cultural practices such as fetishism and rituals involving altered states of consciousness, props and allusions to shamanism. An ancient modality of healing, such as shamanism, when appropriated by artists, seems to reflect an urgent phenomenological need of the individual within Western society for overcoming feelings of powerlessness as a type of therapeutic practice. The Performance artists’ Othering is acted out as a survival mechanism addressing and questioning the ‘degradation’ imposed on marginalized individuals who challenge the traditional notion of authentic identity and the ‘classic’ body. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

This dissertation concerns the socio-cultural politics expressed in the performances of Matthew Barney, Steven Cohen, Marina Abramovic, and the ‘Pop’ artist Madonna. The contention is that these artists mirror and dramatize marginalization and seem to reflect a desire to resolve conflicts experienced between social and psychological identities in contemporary society. The premise of this study is that these performers engage in a ‘dialogue’ with viewers as a form of self-preservation and self-healing. The Performance artists’ measure of socio-cultural tensions suggests the merging of mass media entertainment, theatrical devices and other cultural practices such as fetishism and rituals involving altered states of consciousness, props and allusions to shamanism. An ancient modality of healing, such as shamanism, when appropriated by artists, seems to reflect an urgent phenomenological need of the individual within Western society for overcoming feelings of powerlessness as a type of therapeutic practice. The Performance artists’ Othering is acted out as a survival mechanism addressing and questioning the ‘degradation’ imposed on marginalized individuals who challenge the traditional notion of authentic identity and the ‘classic’ body. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)