In motion pictures there is a certain amount of redundancy between consecutive frames. These redundancies can be exploited by using interframe prediction techniques. To further enhance the efficiency of interframe prediction, motion estimation and compensation, various motion compensation techniques can be used. There are two distinct techniques for motion estimation block matching and pel-recursive block matching has been widely used as it produces a better signal-to-noise ratio or a lower bit rate for transmission than the pel-recursive method. In this thesis, various pel-recursive motion estimation techniques such as steepest descent gradient algorithm have been considered and simulated.

"To publish art – to literally make it public – was a political act, one that challenged the art world and the world at large" (Gwen Allen). This critical appraisal on the published journal Next Level reports the result of my research relating to the body of my work from 2005 to 2016. More specifically, I will survey the creative production of the contemporary photography journal Next Level, currently consisting of seven city editions from a volume of twenty-four editions. This acknowledgement is not intended to emphasise the subjectivity of the journal as a limitation, but rather to provide focus to the lens through which I have been looking at my data with important findings about the outcomes of measurable theoretical, critical and artistic approaches. The journal Next Level periodically publishes a number of editions that present the collection of original data about photography art communities through the exploration of various cities around the world. These editions are developed from data collected through on-the-ground research that is central to this evaluation, which is an examination of and response to a large range of data drawn from seven cities, providing new information. This provides a pivot for the work around which my ideas are put across in a meaningful, comparable and communicable way, creating a mapping of each city, always enabling and never limiting. This methodology of gathering data, consisting of governmental cultural reports, museum archives, catalogues, comment books and newsletters, visual artists’ curriculum vitaes (CVs), interviews and rich contextual material, in turn provides primary research for students, photography professionals, photography enthusiasts and future photography historians. By countering the standard framework of research and production, my work is theoretically, critically and artistically traced, not by making things new, but by comprehensively questioning the characteristics that have shaped things in new ways. This framework manifests itself in the preliminary research and creative practice that provided the foundation for the complete scope of the entire space in the journal, which I present alongside this critical appraisal. Through the dissemination of current photographic discourse, I discuss current traditions and new perceptions through various articles and features. These editorial pieces relating to local communities of contemporary art photography look in particular at their cultural outputs in response to the rise of globalisation. Through the roles of artist-as-editor and curator, the journal is an artefact that I have shaped, utilising print production as part of its aesthetic dimension. I have published and distributed between 8,000 and 20,000 copies per edition to 37 countries. The readership of the journal thus has access to viewpoints that are revealing and politically reflective of specific manifestations of power, representation and the unheard stories that are altering various aspects of the conventions of current photographic discourse.

Afin d’appréhender la construction diachronique de l’image des Indiens dans la cinématographique brésilienne, au fil des années et des courants, il est nécessaire dans un premier temps de revenir à la période des conquêtes, dans le but de sonder les premiers fondements de l’idéologie nationale. Les premières images construisent un amalgame historico-mythique du « bon sauvage » et provoquent peur et fascination face à des pratiques célébrées – tel l’homme en harmonie avec la nature – ou au contraire méconnues et à l’opposé de nos mœurs – tels l’anthropophagie rituelle et le cannibalisme. Ces premières images fondées par le Vieux Continent vont figer les imaginaires et générer les bases d’une image exotique dont il va être difficile de se détacher. Au fil des siècles, le Brésil, pays métissé où subsistent les traditions des européens, auxquelles viennent se greffer les pratiques indigènes et les mœurs africaines, va être en proie à de fortes dissensions entre régionalisme et nationalisme. Cette recherche va tenter de reconstruire le regard porté sur cette communauté et d’en comprendre les mécanismes de rejet et d’identification encore très actuels, à partir des images produites au cours du XVIe siècle et dans les siècles subséquents, avec l’avènement de la photographie, puis de la production cinématographique et audiovisuelle qui relancèrent un soudain et vif intérêt pour (et par) les communautés indigènes. Afin d’aller plus loin dans l’entendement de la métaphysique amérindienne, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro préconise une transposition conceptuelle où la pensée amérindienne se substitue à la pensée dominante. Ce décentrement anthropologique met sur le même pied d’égalité les deux paradigmes, et permet de porter un autre regard sur cette construction historique. A partir de ce nouveau corollaire, nous allons tenter de rétablir l’équilibre entre les différents points de vue et de soulever les avancées ou défaillances de la représentation de l’image des Indiens de nos jours. / In order to comprehend the diachronic construction of the image of Indians in Brazilian cinematography throughout the years and trends, it is necessary, firstly, to return to the period of conquests, in order to survey the early foundations of national ideology. The first images construct a historical-mythical amalgam of the “noble savage” and provoke fear and fascination before celebrated practices – such as man’s harmony with nature – or, to the contrary, obscure pratices as well as those opposed to our customs – such as ritual anthropophagy and cannibalism. These first images founded by the Old Continent fix imaginaries and generate the bases of an exotic image that will become difficult to resist. Over the centuries, Brazil, a mixed country where European traditions subsist on and are grafted by indigenous practices and African customs, has been beset by strong disagreements between regionalism and nationalism. This research attempts to reconstruct the gaze cast upon this community and to understand the mechanisms of rejection and identification that still exist today using images produced during the sixteenth century and subsequent centuries with the advent of photography, and then of cinematographic and audiovisual production, which revived a sudden and keen interest for (and of) indigenous communities. To go further in the comprehension of Amerindian metaphysics, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro advocates a conceptual transposition where Amerindian thought replaces dominant thought. This anthropological off-centering places both paradigms on an equal footing and permits another view of this historical construction. Taking this new corollary as a point of departure, we attempt to restore a balance between the different points of view and to point out the progresses or failures of the representation of the image of Indians today.

Cette thèse a pour but d'apporter un regard complémentaire à l'histoire officielle de la Photo-Sécession au travers des correspondances d'Alfred Stieglitz et de ses collaborateurs. Communément présenté comme un groupe de photographes américains ralliés autour des idéaux d'Alfred Stieglitz, ces documents mettent en lumière une histoire alternative où la nature même de l'organisation se révèle organique, mouvante et continuellement questionnée par ses principaux acteurs. Une première partie est consacrée à l'analyse de la structure et au fonctionnement du groupe. Celle-ci remet en cause l'hypothèse d'un ensemble strictement « américain » pour découvrir un groupe aux aspirations internationales ainsi qu'une organisation fragmentée par des« factions». La Photo-Sécession ne cacherait-elle pas, au regard de ces sources à caractère confidentiel, une avant-garde fondamentalement internationale ? Dans une seconde partie, s'impose alors une réévaluation de l'héritage de ce groupe qui dépasse les limites du cadre esthétique, questionnant le statut même de photographe-artiste et redéfinissant les limites d'une pratique. Le corpus de près de 4000 documents consultés qui constitue le socle de l'étude est principalement composé de fonds issus de la Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale, New Haven), du MoMA (New York), du Metropolitan Museum (New York) et des archives de la George Eastman House (Rochester). / Based on the correspondence between Alfred Stieglitz and his associates, this thesis aims at bringing a complementary view on the official history of the Photo-Secession. Commonly introduced as a group of American photographers united around Alfred Stieglitz's ideals, those written records reveal an alternative history where the nature of this structure reveals itself as being organic, moving and continuously challenged by its main members. The first part of this thesis focuses on analysing the group's structure and operation. The latter unravels the idea of a strictly "American" group where we can discover their international endeavours as well as an organization fragmented by its different 'factions'. In light of those private sources, was the Photo-Secession an international avant-garde? In the second part, we reassess the legacy of this group who worked outside of the limits of aesthetic frameworks, questioning the status of the artist-photographer and redefining the limits of a practice. Based on more than 4000 archival records, the core of this study stems from materials preserved at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale, New Haven), the MoMA (New York), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and archives from the George Eastman Museum (Rochester).

J. Francis Reintjes, Donald R. Knudson, Hsin-Kuo Kan. / Prepared under a ANPA grant.

Within the accepted historiography of photography, the importance of George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company (EKC) has become unassailable. They have been placed as the key, and often sole, agent in “revolutionizing” the amateur photography market in the late nineteenth century. While the photographic landscape and market of 1885-1914 was indeed radically altered, the historiographical dominance of what can be identified as the “Kodak story” has obscured the means through which EKC’s successful re-structuring of the existing manufacturing and distribution networks of photographic materials occurred. I argue that the changes effected by Eastman and the EKC began not with imaging desires, but with their acknowledgment, and profound understanding of the existing and competing interests within the photographic industry. This thesis focuses on the EKC’s re-structuring of the extant and evolving communities involved in the manufacturing and distribution of photographic materials in Canada between 1885-1910. Focusing particularly on the period immediately surrounding the establishment of the Canadian Kodak Co. Limited in 1899, I demonstrate the re-structuring processes at work, including: market and financial diversification; governmental lobbying; purchase and mergers; and other business and marketing-based strategies. I frame my theoretical positions and analysis of network re-structuring through the experiences of Ottawa professional photographer and photographic business owner William James Topley (active 1868-1907), and CKCoLtd manager John Garrison Palmer (active 1886-1921). Topley and Garrison’s professional experiences and interactions with expanded communities of photographic consumers and industry participants provide an opportunity for specific and detailed findings which challenge understandings of the evolution of the practice of photography during this transitional period. In doing so, I provide evidence of the primary role network re-structuring played in the EKC’s ability to shape the wider international photographic industry to their advantage in the early twentieth century.

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