Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1981. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [395]-438).

'(De)contextualising Buddhist Aesthetics' is a practice-led artistic research project focusing on the interchanging transition between Buddhist and artistic practices. Essentially inspired by the concept of vipassana meditation, I created a series of performances involving repetitive actions centring on the tasks of re-arranging readymade objects into multiple precarious configurations. Many exercises challenge the laws of gravity and other physical limitations of objects, as well as encouraging the learning experience through the process of trial and error. During the course of mindful observation of the performing body and objects, the mental state gradually gains moments of stillness and silence, which approach the meaning of emptiness (suññata) in Buddhism. Repeated failures generate intermittent feelings of exhaustion and disappointment, which naturally become part of the progress, and can be personally used to develop insight into the notions of impermanence and the non-self derived from dhamma (Buddhist teachings). The video and photography documentations were edited and altered to generate a visual experience that echoes my thoughts and feelings developed during the proceedings; these moving images later inspired other series of hand-made artworks, including collages, drawings and paintings on paper and canvas, exhibited as part of the installations. Various techniques were applied so these objective components resonate a comparative experience of uncontrollability and controllability: dynamic and stillness, fast pace and slow rhythm, abstract and representation. Some two-dimensional pieces are transformed to three-dimensional and their displays keep changing from location to location, and from time to time, in conjunction with an unstable state of the mind. All artworks were created in various formats and interrelate and inform each other. They act together as evidence of the endless journey of artistic learning, which also mirrors the concept of self-learning in Buddhist meditation.

Mgr. Barbora Řebíková, Katedra estetiky, FF UK, Praha Art and Knowledge. Research of Relationship between Art and Knowledge and its Contribution to Theory of Contemporary Visual Art Abstract: The dissertation deals with the relationship between art and knowledge and examines which contribution this thematic might have to the theory of contemporary visual art. The choice of the theme is based on the sensitivity to the current events in the world of art, where this relationship is the main object of interest. This work presents and illustrates the turnovers in the contemporary art world and how the role of the audience is emphasized. It deals with the form of contemporary art that has led to these turnovers and represents factors that have influenced this form. In the work there are presented mainly the factors influencing the form of contemporary art, which influenced the demands on the audience. Attention is then devoted to the philosophical origins of the studied relationship and in the essay there are presented the basics of its exploration at Plato and Aristotle. The main theoretical centre of the studied relationship, however, is aesthetic cognitivism, which is thoroughly presented in the work. However, within this theory, which explicitly focuses on the relationship of art and cognition, is not found...

This thesis describes my artistic practice as essentially project-based, site-responsive and hypermediating. Hypermediacy—i.e. the tendency of certain media or objects to keep their various constituents separate from their structure—is to be understood as opaque, juxtaposed and after a recurring contiguity with different kinds of interfaces. Accordingly, and within the context of the various projects that constitute this thesis, it is demonstrated how, in response to the particular places I work and to the various people I collaborate with, different kinds of materials and methodologies are incorporated in broader hybrids that are mediated (interfaced) in miscellaneous ways to this way result in original works of art. Materials and methodologies are shown to be intertwined and interdependent with each other as well as with the different ways in which they are interfaced, which accounts for an explicitly projectbased, rather than artwork-based, approach which, on its turn, de-emphasises the finished artefact in favour of process, performance, research and exploration. Projects are, then, shown to be explicitly site- or situation- responsive, as they are not implementations of preexistent ideas, but rather emerge as my original response to the particular sites, materials, people and the various other constituents that are involved in their very production. Interfaces to such hybrids as well as their very material and methodological elements are also shown to be hyper-mediated. It is finally argued that such an approach essentially accelerates multi-perspectivalism in that a project may spawn a number of diverse, typically medium-specific and/or site-specific, artworks that all exemplify different qualities which are congenital to the particular nature of each project.

Piet Mondrian, one of the most significant representatives of modern abstract art, applied himself, aside from his own art work, to writing of theoretical texts. In his essays, he did not advocate for his own paintings, neither did he manifest any particular art movement. In these texts, one can trace rather general aesthetically-theoretical reflection on art, on the development of our world and on the position of a man in modern society. This thesis introduces Mondrian's comprehensive conception of art in light of aesthetics and the philosophy of art. It touches on the substance and function of art, on artistic means, on the role of an artist and on the meaning of art related to society and its development. The thesis focuses on the bases of Mondrian's theory and its influences. In addition, it presents various ideas of other contemporary avant-garde movements that somehow inspired Mondrian and that, together with his conception of art, create a certain context of the artistic atmosphere of the first half of the 20th century. The thesis draws from Mondrian's original texts that have, in most cases, not been translated into Czech, yet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

The submitted work deals with the topic of the gate. The theoretical part analyses this structural and cultural feature, particularly from its architectural point of view, and focuses on the origin of gateway, its evolution throughout the centuries, and on the description of the best known and most famous gates, both throughout the world and in the Czech Republic. In the thesis, the gate is characterised as a symbol with different meanings in various cultural contexts. The implementation of the author´s photographic project entitled ?The Gates to the Past? is further presented in the practical part of the work. The text also describes a brief essay on the relation of aesthetic education to the environmental artistic works and develops its potential for educational goals emphasizing humanistic objectives.

This thesis introduces the use of technological failure in visual arts, described as glitch art in the Anglo-American literature, and reveals its specific qualities. The author examines creative exploration of glitch both in image compression formats, and in the user interface of web sites, computer games or operating systems. In addition, the research presents arguments that advocate glitch art in a broader artistic discourse. It does so firstly by analogy, when it compares glitch art manifestations to conceptual and visual qualities of the paradigmatic works of art and artistic movements, and secondly by Dickie's institutional classification, when it analyzes glitch art communities and appreciation by the curatorial, critical and academic public. The central argument of this thesis is that glitch art next to a purely aesthetic experience provides an insight into the heart of technology, which exposes its functionality. Thus it contributes to a deeper understanding of its physical, structural and ideological fundamentals, that have become in everyday life almost invisible due to the logic of immediacy. Given the highly relative nature of the term glitch the thesis does not seek a hard definition of its specifics, but rather asks the cause of this naming (designation) that is why we perceive a...

Recently in analytic philosophy, interest in the issue of the epistemic value of art has been revived. Philosophers have sought to establish whether and in what ways art is a source of knowledge, understanding or a means of inquiry. In philosophy this is a longstanding question, addressed both in the Greek and German traditions, but it seems pertinent to ask the question again today in light of significant changes that have taken place in contemporary art practice. In my thesis, I investigate this question from two perspectives: in terms of analytic philosophy of art, and in terms of developments in contemporary art since the 1960s. In Part I, I offer a defence of a philosophical theory of artistic value, critically overview the extant philosophical literature on the question of epistemic value of art, and explain why the inherently experimental character of contemporary art makes it difficult simply to apply the available theories. I argue that a philosophical engagement with contemporary art requires a different, more inductive method. In Part II, I closely consider three recent developments in which the relationship between art and knowledge has been rendered more complex. The Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s privileged concerns with concepts, thought processes and truth over expression, materiality and fidelity to genre. The social turn of the 1990s cast the artist in a position that is almost indistinguishable from that of a teacher, social activist or even of a technology developer. And the artists working within the bio art movement of the 1990s and 2000s have assimilated the activity of the artist to that of the scientist, sometimes blurring the two roles. The goal of the thesis is twofold. On the one hand, I show how cases from recent art history put pressure on some key commitments in recent analytic philosophy. Revisions and challenges are suggested in particular for extant theories of artistic value, conceptions of artistic autonomy and heteronomy, and some popular accounts of the epistemic value of art. On the other hand, concepts from analytic philosophy are used to shed light on some of the more radical developments in recent art practice, and to rethink the ways in which art participates in the broader culture.

Résumé: Limits of work of copyright in visual art This diploma thesis primarily deals with the concept of copyright work in the current Czech law and its relation towards works of contemporary visual art. The main aim of this thesis is to carry out a complex analysis of conceptual features of work of copyright under the Czech Copyright Act No. 121/2000 Coll. (including key and not always properly interpreted terms such as work of art, originality, or creativity) and then to apply these features to examples of the world's major works of visual art from the twentieth and twenty-first century. Author of this thesis tries to find out whether even specific works of visual art "meet legal requirements" imposed on works of copyright and thus may enjoy the copyright protection in the Czech legal system. It is the effort to identify boundaries between works of copyright and objects which are not under the protection of copyright law what is reflected in the title of this diploma thesis. Text of this thesis is divided into two main units. The first unit, which is the core of the thesis, is called "Limits of work of copyright", the second unit is called "Limits of appropriation". In the general part of the first unit the author tries to focus deeply on theoretical inquiry about the concept of work of copyright under...